For the peepers ; )

Finally I have internet at my place and I can do this: äöäöäöäö!

Well, I'll also share couple of pics since it so much easier now. The one at the top is me and the Eiffel tower, thought I should mention it, since you probably wouldn't recognise it with it's dazzling night topping. ;)

This one is from Montmartre, we had an excursion in the quarter with couple of art history students showing us around.

This is me and Anne in Montmartre, La Butte.

Tracking the eccentricities

It's been a while since the last entry, I'm sorry for neglecting my blog. It's just time passes so fast here, I've been here for a month now and it seems like it went by in a second.

I've been out a lot lately, yeah, just as the studies really started. ;) It's just I've met a lot of people lately and they all keep inviting you somewhere. It's like a vicious circle, you get to know one person who invites you to a party where you get to know a lot more who will invite you once again somewhere. Well, I'm not complaining, it's better to be inside than outside the circle. ;)

So, once we went to this hospital party, it was someone's birthday, I never really talked to this someone. The party was in one of the hospital buildings of hopital Saint-Louis, there was nothing special about the building itself but the interiors were quite particular. The walls were covered with something what one might describe as reproductions of famous French painters or more likely as Paolo Pasolini's films in form of frescoes. All in all, you would feel as being in the centre of some Greek orgy in full motion illustrated in a detailed manner of a medical man. According to one guy who actually works in that very hospital it's their canteen and it's a tradition of all hospitals in Paris. Well, I won't believe till I've seen them!

Apart from the hospital party I've been to all sorts of bars and clubs from jazz to electro, and especially the latter one was interesting experience. Me and Anne, my ally in exploration of Paris, we went to this cast off electro club in the middle of nowhere. It ended up being lots of fun, we saw three show, each more bizarre than the previous one. During the second show some group of queer/metro sexual/a-bit-of-everything jumped up on the stage to manifest against fascism, then someone stepped on something and we spent half an hour in black out wondering what had happened. Of course the performing band wasn't too thrilled but everything got fixed up and the show went on. The same notorious group of people was asked to the stage for the last song, so in the end, they got to swing their hips for world peace and everyone was happy.

The third group was as I said even weirder, in short it contained sausages and toiled brushes and really flashy costumes of red, green and purple. In the centre of everything there was this guy dressed in panties wearing some sort of a chicken mask with big puppy ears. I was so astonished I just kept on staring at them with my mouth open wondering what they're going to next.

So that was a weird one but we'll definitely go there again to have a look. One day we, me and Anne again, were passing through the 7th arrondissement craving for food. We bumped into a some sort of fête, Parisians seem to love and use every occasion to celebrate and praise their beloved quartier's. But it was great, we spent half and hour listening really good jazz music, eating Italian aperitifs and drinking wine, and everything for free for you to discover. Paris really has it all.

Bonjour from the gourgles

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate that. I’m going to post some more photos as soon as I take some but they surely wont be as good as Owen’s, but then he is a professional photographer, so.

Actually my landlady is a photographer, too. The corridor of the flat I’m living in is covered with pictures, really good ones. And at her place where I’m babysitting you’d have framed photos on the walls. It’s great, I like photography a lot and would like to learn to do it properly too. I was thinking of buying a camera here or something.
As I said, I’m babysitting for my landlady. She has about 1,5 year-old daughter, so it’s easy for me because most of the time the girl just sleeps. The girl is adorable, très jolie as they would say here.

The French is getting better and better. Now that the courses have started I should pick up the language faster, not that I’m not talking French all the time. I actually know more French students than Erasmus students, so I’m communicating mostly in French.
Besides, getting to know people around here is really not that difficult as one would imagine. Do as I do, be really stupid Erasmus student who has no clue about anything and tell that to everyone, and just like that you’ll have plenty of people helping you out. And of course you have to be a bit intruding; in order to meet people you have to start the conversation yourself since there’s so many students and exchange students around here that you aren’t an exotic exception and few would come and talk to you.
On Monday I met some French guys at the university in salle informatique (the only classroom with 9 computers with internet connection for the whole Sorbonne, unbelievable!). I started chatting with them and we ended up into some student bar in Quartier Latin talking about French politics. After six hours I was quite enlightened. ;)

I did hook up with an Erasmus student as well, her name is Anne and she’s from Germany and studies marketing but not in Sorbonne (I can never remember the name of the place). We share the same interests so we have fun together, both prefer bars and pubs instead of clubs so there’s no contradictions in picking up a place to out to.
She’s also interested in photography and joined one photo club at her university. The photo club is actually very famous around here and they’ve won many competitions in photography. They’re also doing trips around Paris and Ile-de-France and to Bretagne for instance. And I’ll be able to come along which sounds great!
On Tuesday we went with Anne to a jazz club and it was so good! The club was in Montemartre, near the legendary Moulin Rouge, it was a small club and the band played downstairs in a cave which means a wine cellar. The atmosphere was really warm and relaxed and the band was excellent.
I’m definitely going to have another round of that jazz club sometime. Not that there wouldn’t be loads to browse through, jazz is one of the essential music phenomena in Paris, there’s lots jazz clubs that have bands playing through the week. It’s great, I love jazz and it doesn’t even cost that much here, there’s free entrance to many bars and the music is good.

Well, I’m going to close up for now, still want to pop into the Musée d’Orsay today. I bought a year ticket to both Musée d’Orsay and Louvre so I have possibility to have proper look at both of them. Happy. :)

Un p'tit verre du rouge

Here's couple of pics one American photographer Owen Franken took in a bar. That was actually a social meeting of AEGEE-Paris which I visited on my first week here. I've been there twice already and it's been fun, people from A-paris are really nice.

Yesterday I watched a film, twice actual, not the same film of course. ;) I bought a year ticket which means I can watch as many films I like whenever I want. It costs me about 20e per month but it's definitely worth it: Paris is one the places for a film freak, dozens of new films coming out every week, replay of old classics, anything you'd ever wish for. Well, I'm just very excited. :)

On my third week

This is the blog where I’m writing about my exchange year in Paris, I’m doing it in English since so many of my friends don’t speak Finnish.

This is the third week now and I’ve managed to survive so far. ;) It’s not very difficult if you speak French, I’ve managed well and everyone has been patient enough to explain me things over and over again when I don’t understand something. I find people really helpful here, I would be quite lost without all the thorough instructions I’ve been getting about how to change bills into coins and how to get a metro ticket.

The thing is here you don’t just go and get a library card or a metro ticket. You honestly need about half a dozen of different kinds of certificates about your logging, your identity, your student status etc. Then you fill out a form and then you post it to some excluded office where they might give you what you are asking in a month or so.

I suppose it is quite difficult to manage a city like this, Paris is actually divided into 20 areas, arrondissements and each of them has its own administration. This means for instance that I cannot borrow book from any other library than the one that is in my own arrondissement. So every arrondissement exists on its own and obviously they have no cooperation what so ever.

Well, so much for the red tape, the only thing that would really get excellent scores here is the metro and public transportation all in all. The metro covers the whole city, plus there’re so called RER trains which are really fast and go all the way to the suburbia of Paris.

By the way, the French seem to love abbreviations, it’s all about RER, RATP, TF, Tlj, Vac scol, RDV and RIB around here. It really is not easy thing to handle for an exchange student who has just arrived. Now I’m getting hang of it and honestly I’m not surprised people prefer speaking about DAB than distributeurs automatiques de billets or about RIB than Relevé d’Identité Bancaire. It takes you so much time to say all the names of things that you’d grow old before you’d finish a sentence.

It’s not been just fighting with bureaucracy for me, I’ve had my walks around the city. I still haven’t seen even the 5 per cent of it all and I’ve been in the city every day. I’ve been to churches and cathedrals, there’s plenty of them to look at. My favourite so far is a small Gothic church L’Eglise de Saint-Séverin in the very heart of Quartier Latin, the Latin Quarter where students dwell.

I’ve also been doing a bit shopping and going out, of course. Possibilities for partying and dining out are inextinguishable, there are so many restaurants and bars around that it would honestly take you a lifetime to visit them all. Tonight I’m going to jazz club, there are plenty of them to look around.

Got to go now, have a RDV, that would be a rendez-vous translated in understandable language. That’s another characteristic phenomenon here, everywhere you go you have to have an appointment, in a bank, at the university etc. So, still have loads to learn, I’ll keep this blog updated. Oh, and please, do add some comments, otherwise I’ll feel a bit lonely.. :(