Summer in Paris

Oh how naive I was to think that without classes I would be swimming in free time... granted, I love being busy, and I would much rather be planning an outing with the summer students than sitting in a classroom myself (group picnic in the Jardin du Luxembourg, anyone? It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.) Between working with NYU, babysitting, and spending time with the friends I still have left in Paris, I feel like I've struck a pretty good balance between work and play, something I often have trouble with. Mondays are generally completely open for me to run errands and take some me time; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are with les petites, and Wednesdays I work at NYU in the reception office. Sprinkled in there is one cultural activity a week (meaning I accompany a group of students to a museum visit, opera, or play sponsored by NYU) and one RA planned activity that we get to choose each week. This week I saw a play about the life of Salvador Dali and on Sunday I'm taking a group to go up in the dome of Sacrè Coeur and get ice cream!

Speaking of friends...Shai came back for a few days after her month of travel in Italy! :)

Babysitting has been great lately--the weather has been superb so we've been going to the park almost every day. When we're at home, they like to do my hair and have me draw them princesses for them to color. As I said, it's been great...mostly. There was, however, the yogurt incident. On Thursday I stayed at Susan's house until midnight because her dad had a gallery opening--I'm still in awe of his cool artist lifestyle. She was great; we played cache-cache (hide and seek), after that was pretend school where of course she was the teacher, and then I made her some pasta for dinner. I was feeling pretty good about my babysitting abilities until dessert came. She had some chocolate, I had some chocolate, and I even got her to speak some English! But then she headed toward the fridge again and I had to put my foot down. She reached for a vanilla yogurt, and when I told her she wasn't allowed to have two desserts, she gave me the meanest stare I have ever received from a 5-year-old. I gave my best, strictest stare back, and after a few moments of our face-off, she threw the yogurt on the ground where it exploded all over the kitchen. I'm not so good at asserting authority, but her little temper tantrum made me pretty frustrated so I sent her to her room where the alligator tears began flowing immediately. I cleaned up the mess and sat calmly in the kitchen reading a magazine until little by little I heard the sobs beginning to fade. I waited for her to sidle repentantly back into the kitchen, but when she hadn't appeared after 10 minutes I decided to be the bigger person (she's 5 after all) and go check on her. Here is where I started to feel a little bad...the poor thing was sprawled face down on her bed, shoes still on, fast asleep. I guess the yogurt outburst can be blamed on extreme fatigue. I took off her shoes, pulled the blanket over her, and left her in peace. The next day when I picked her up at school, she ran over and gave me a giant hug, so I guess I'm forgiven :)

One of many concerts I get to enjoy.

On Saturday I went on a day trip with NYU to Auvers sur Oise where Vincent Van Gogh spent the last months of his life living and painting. It was a gorgeous day to spend in the countryside--Paris can get a bit stuffy when it's hot--and it was also a great opportunity to get to know a couple of my fellow RA's better. We took a walking tour of the village, had lunch at the museum cafe then visited the museum itself, and after that we had several hours of free time to wander as we pleased. We promptly found a sunny patch of grass and spent a lovely afternoon soaking up some sun.

Where Van Gogh spent his last days

Not hard to see why he would want to paint here!

Because what's a French town without a chateau?

Saturday evening I was invited to go watch rugby at the Eiffel Tower. When I read the text message my friend had sent me, I assumed he meant he had friends who would be playing a pick up game on the Champs de Mars and we would just hang out and watch them. That is evidence of how much I follow rugby...meaning I don't follow rugby. Saturday was the final match of the national championship in France, and Paris was playing against Clermont, a team from the north of France. There were two giant screens set up with a big stage in the middle, and the entire plaza was PACKED with people shoulder to shoulder sporting their team's colors. After a quick overview of the rules of the game, I actually started to get pretty into it. After every play there was an outcry of cheers and boos, and I quickly started adding my own (on the side of Paris Stade Francais of course) Paris ended up winning the match, and as the majority of the people there were fans--duh, we're in Paris!--the Champs de Mars erupted into jumping and dancing and hollering. A band suddenly appeared on the previously-empty stage, and the celebration began. It was a far cry from the amateur rugby experience I had been expecting, but definitely one of the best memories I will take home with me from this summer!

Sunday was another beautiful day, and I took a group of students to Montmarte to go up in the dome of Sacre Coeur. I've been inside Sacre Coeur several times this year, but I didn't even know it was possible to go up to the top until about a month ago when a friend took his visiting mother there, The view was awesome--a 360 panorama over all of Paris! We climbed 300 steps to get there, but that just means we really earned the ice cream we treated ourselves to afterwards. The other RA who accompanied me happens to give walking tours of Montmarte in his free time, so he walked us around the village and shared some little anecdotes I had never heard before. I love discovering all the quirky histories of Paris. I don't want to bore you, but he told us one I found particularly interesting about a restaurant called La Mere Catherine. Apparently in the 1800's there was a group of Russian soldiers dining there, and they were not supposed to drink alcohol as they were on duty. However, being Russian, they had to have a bit of vodka with their dinner, so they ordered discreetly and as not to get caught, they frantically asked the wait staff to bring it "bistra! bistra!" which is the Russian word for quickly. Thus, the etymology of the French bistro. It may or may not be completely true, but either way it's pretty cool, huh?

View from the dome

Monday I woke up bright and early to head to the airport to find my mama!!! I'm loving having her here with me, and I think it's safe to say she's enjoying her time here as well. I'll save our adventures for another post, because she's here until June 24th so I'm sure there is much more to come with her. In the meantime, I'm having a blast showing her what I've been up to these last several months and catching up on some much needed mother-daughter time :) A bientot!