Art of Travel: An Insider's Perspective

Since I arrived in Paris my ultimate quest has been to find French friends. For me, the idea of spending time with real, live Parisians seems like the most authentic thing that I could possibly do during my study abroad experience. I have this idea that if I hang out with young Parisians, this will be my key to all the other “back regions” of Paris, as MacCannell would put it.

It is also a very qualifying feeling to hang out with Parisians; a way to feel that you are assimilating into the culture rather than simply being a tourist, an outsider.

Being new to any city is always a hard feat to overcome. You never know right away where all the best things are: where to eat, where to party, where to shop? As a newcomer, especially in a foreign country, we are limited to travel guides and the recommendations our friends and family that have traveled to the same place before us. However, none of these recommendations ever seem good enough. We want to find the places where the locals go so that we can better disguise ourselves within the culture. I find myself constantly judging places by what the ratio of tourists to Parisians is inside. If there are a lot of tourists I don’t want to be associated with it and the more Parisians, the cooler I feel.

I feel that if I am able to find French friends, I will no longer have to rely on this ratio. They will take me out and show me all the things that I need to know, the secrets of their city. Those “back regions” which are only accessible to people in the know (or those who lack the dead give away: an American accent.) Perhaps an unassuming brasserie that just so happens to be better than all the rest, a bar that makes the most delicious mojitos you have ever tasted, or an unmarked restaurant tucked away behind closed doors? At least this is what I envision…

So far my quest for French friends has been somewhat of a success. I have managed to meet people through my classes and my nights out, who are usually enthralled with the fact that I come from NYC/ that I am American (so much for the French hating Americans… well at least the younger generation) and who are always happy to lend a reccomendation or two. Parfait!! However, I am still lacking the integration into an actual group and I am starting to think that this is possibly setting my sights a bit too high. Maybe I will settle for one French friend who I can crab a café with because no matter what I still feel that seeing the city from an insider’s perspective is what gives your experience the ultimate stamp of authenticity.

Cirque Plume

Tonight I took advantage of yet another "free" cultural event that NYU offers us. This event was to go see a show called Le Cirque Plume.

As usual, I was hesitant because I hadn't seen a lot of information about the show so I wasn't exactly sure what it was going to be like but the word "cirque" led me to believe that it would be somewhere along the lines of Cirque de Soleil.

Come to find out, not only is the show like Cirque du Soleil but it is actually the original in the whole "nouveau cirque" movement, which I like to refer to as the adult circus.

The show was really wonderful! It was held in a

big tent on the very edge of the

19th arrondisement (quite the trek from my apt. but definitel worth it!) Although it is not quite as grand as Cirque Du Soleil, some of the acts are very similar. And one thing that I liked about this show over Cirque du Soleil was that there was a sort of plot line and story that carried on over the different acts; it was slightly more theatrical rather than just the acrobatics. This specific version was all about art so the theme of artists and painting was carried on throughout the whole show.

After the show there is a front room of the tent, where you can get brochures about the show, but memorabilia (bien sur!) and there is a sort of concession stand, but it has legit food and there is a whole area filled with tables where you can sit. Since it was raining, my friends and I decided to stay, enjoy and a crepe, and chat for a while. It was a very warm and inviting atmosphere and even decorated to the point where you didn't feel like you were sitting in a circus tent.

Another great success in expanding my cultural horizons...

Art of Travel: Giverny: Biking and Being Artsy

This past weekend I went to Giverny with a couple of my friends for the day. Giverny is a little town about 45 minutes outside of Paris and it is famous for being the site of Claude Monet’s house and gardens. I heard from many friends who went earlier in the semester that it was completely worth it and absolutely beautiful so we decided that we would go before it is too cold to enjoy being outside.

We left on Saturday in the early afternoon from the Gare St. Lazare train station and arrived shortly after 1:00 PM in Vernon, which is the town closest to Giverny. From there you can take a taxi, bus, or bike to complete the journey. We decide that the Bike option sounded like the most fun, so we rented bikes and grabbed a map.

I had seen pictures from friends who opted to take the bikes as well so I was imagining a leisurely, scenic, and flowery ride of about 30 minutes. Of course, even though it was beautiful all morning and there was no sign of rain when I checked weather.com in the morning, it started to rain as soon as we got on our bikes. It didn’t rain very hard but it was enough to be obnoxious and make the bike ride slightly less pleasant than what I had anticipated.

Once we got there, the rain stopped and the sun came out. The rest of the afternoon was beautiful as we walked around the gardens and toured Monet’s home. We also brought some chalk pastels (borrowed from my sweet art teacher) along for our journey so that we could experience the gardens in a truly “Monet manner.” This was really fun but also really funny. I certainly do not claim to be an artist but I like to think that I can create some semblance of a nice picture if I put my mind to it, but pastels are a particularly difficult medium to work with and the final outcome wasn’t exactly what I would describe as beautiful. All the other people walking around the gardens kept stopping to look at what we were doing and it was funny to see their reactions when they realized that we were not actually very talented artists. Nonetheless I am really glad that we did this because it was a different experience from just walking around and forced me to really pay attention to the details of the place.

After several hours in the garden we started to get a little bit chilly so we headed to a quaint little inn to have some lunch and warm up. The inn was absolutely adorable and very quite so we enjoyed a nice, relaxing lunch before grabbing our bikes and heading back to the train station, when of course it started to rain again.

Despite the rain during our bike rides, Giverny was an absolutely wonderful place and I would recommend going to anyone who has the chance. It really gives you a new appreciation and perspective of all Monet’s paintings that you see in museums after seeing his original inspiration.

Velib

So I discovered something great in Paris this weekend... Velib!

Ok, so actually I have known about Velib since I arrived, but this past weekend was the first time that I tried it out for myself.

The best way I can think to describe Velib is a bike share program. There are these little stations all over the city, where bikes are parked and held in place by electronic machines. You go to the machine and pay (it's free for the first 30 minutes and then 1 euro after that-- much cheaper than taking a cab home after the metro closes) Anyways, then you take a bike and ride it to your desired destination and then when you get there you park your bike in another Velib station and it is considered returned.

It's honestly a great concept. My friend Cassie decided to try the Velib out together after we went to the Parisian nightclub, Social Club (of which we weren't exactly fans). Although we got a little lost, it probably would have been better to plan out our route before we started going, we made it home in not very much time at all and avoided a 15€ cab ride! (those add up quickly) We also had more fun riding the bikes around Paris than we had at the nightclub!

Paris is extremely bike friendly and there are bike lanes on most of the main streets so that you can stay out of the way of the cars and since I have a good amount of biking experience from my summer days on Fire Island, I felt like a pro! I will definitely start taking the Velib more often now that I know how to work them, especially since there is a station right outside my apartment building.

Art of Travel: Intrinsic Art

I cannot think of a better place than Paris to see some of the most beautiful works of art in the entire world. The city itself seems to be a work of art.

I think that New York City is a beautiful city, but it is completely different than the beauty that one can find in Paris. The beauty of NYC is almost calculated. The streets are easy to predict and the architecture is much more modern. One can appreciate the skill and technology that we went into planning these enormous buildings. Also, as much as others may disagree with me, I find a huge amount of beauty in the commercialism of the city. My favorite winter past time is going on a tour of all the major department store’s window displays and nothing beats walking down Fifth, Park, and 57^th marveling at the designer boutiques.

In Paris, the streets are sporadic, changing names at every turn and zigzagging across the city. Weaving you along through the intricate and ornate architecture that seems to adorn every single building. You don’t even have to step foot inside one of the many world famous museums to get a sense of the art and culture that the city contains.

Certainly Paris is a much older city than New York and these buildings were constructed during one of the most important and influential periods in the history of art. It makes sense that the city would be home to so many famous pieces.

I think the setting of Paris truly enhances the meaning behind these works. It is so moving to walk into the Louvre or the Pompidou, however different the two may be, and not only be overcome by the vast amount art that is available in one place but to also note the care and thought that went into creating these museums.

Some museums that I have been to in America are so plain as not to take away from the art that people come to see, but I find it so much more interesting to be able to see that place you are standing in as a work in and of itself.

This same concept applies not only to still art but also to performance art. The Paris Opéra, Palais Garnier, is by far the most stunningly opulent building I have ever been to in my life. I was lucky enough to see the Ballet, Giselle, last night and the experience was nothing short of magical. Not only because I adore the ballet but I can’t think of anything more fairy-tale like than walking up an enormous marble staircase and sitting beneath a crystal chandelier hung from a ceiling decorated with a mural by Chagall.

I am taking a class where we will be lucky enough to visit various museums, big and small, all over the city but during my journeys to these places, I hope that I will be able to take in all of the inherent “art” of the city.

Art of Travel: 128 Steps

The majority of my days here in Paris I wake up when I feel like it. My earliest class is at 12:30 PM, so I indulge in leisurely mornings, where I can wake up slowly check my email, enjoy breakfast and get ready without having to rush.

When I am in NYC, I wake up in the morning and hurriedly get ready for whatever my first activity is. Some days I am off to my work-study job with America reads and then I head to class while other days it’s the other way around. Two days of the week I spend a full (nine hour) day at my internship. I grab breakfast (a piece of toast, possibly a granola bar?) on my way out the door if I manage to think about it.

Once out the door. Paris seems to be moving at the same leisurely pace. No one is in a hurry and everyone seems to be enjoying their afternoon, while they take up the entire sidewalk. In NYC everyone is in also in a hurry, grabbing a coffee and the morning paper from the nearest stand, scurrying into the subway or waiting (impatiently) for the bus.

In both places, my commute to school is not far. Five minutes door-to-door in Paris and about ten in NYC. I really prefer walking to taking the bus or subway, especially if the weather is pleasant and I don’t have too far to go; however if I am going to work in NYC I usually need to take some form of public transportation as it is further away. In Paris, I have come to learn that if I am going anywhere outside of my own arrondisement I must take the metro and leave 30 minutes of travel time.

I try to find time to do my grocery shopping in NYC about once a week or every other week. I know exactly what I want and which brands I buy. There is always a list involved and it is almost always completed in its entirety. In Paris food shopping is a little more complicated. I try to use a list, but usually can’t manage to find everything on the list in one place. I have no idea what brands are the best here, so I buy whatever is the cheapest. (this is actually a rather nice naivety!) For some reason I find myself in the grocery store much more frequently here: almost everyday, buying one thing or another. Most things here are about the same price as in NYC but because of the awful exchange rate it ends up being a lot more. I really need to stop constantly doing conversions in my head…

Laundry is something I would prefer not to discuss. Let’s leave it at the fact that I did my laundry for the first time today (don’t judge… I still had clean underwear!!) and it was not a pleasant or economical situation. Laundry is always something that I avoid until it’s absolutely necessary, but here it was particularly dreadful.

When I return home at the end of the day, I have completely different experiences. In NYC, I walk up the stairs to my dorm room on the third floor. I have my friends and roommates waiting for me. Sometimes even a special treat in the form of baked goods from the master baker, Whitney. I enjoy my evening and relax for a little while doing whatever homework I have. In Paris I walk up the stairs to my studio apartment on the eighth floor (see post, “Why French Women Don’t Get Fat”) where I live alone; however, there is a great view of the Eiffel Tower from the top of my stairs and always the possibility that it will be sparkling, which inevitably makes even the worst day absolutely perfect.

Paris Fashion Week

Ladies and gentlemen, that time of the year is upon us. The time of year when fashionistas flock all over the world to take part in various fashion weeks...

For the past few seasons, I have been lucky enough to have had internships which granted me access to at least one show during NYC's fashion week and I have somehow managed to weasel my way into various other events.

Just to give a little background for those of you who may not be familiar with the experience of fashion week, it's an event that happens essentially twice a year, once in September and once in February (and for other designers maybe even two more times in December-pre-fall and June-resort) where all the designers present their collections. Spring is shown in September and Fall in February, because of course everything in fashion is done six months ahead, so that magazines and stylists have time to request and photograph items for their respective issues. Anyways in NYC, the epicenter of fashion week has been Bryant Park for the past several years. There is a giant tent and everyday swarms of editors, photographers, buyers, fashionistas, and celebrities flock to the tents to see the collections that will be shown. Sometimes, even the

lucky college student who spends her days pouring over the pages of Vogue can manage to sneak her way in... ;) The city is alive with a certain buzz of excitement and nerves during the week and of course all the models are in town so you can't even walk down the street with out finding yourself face to face with some 6 foot something glamazon. As Carrie Bradshaw put it best, "models who in most cities are safely confined to billboards and magazines, but in Manhattan, actually run wild on the streets."

How many hours will Marc Jacobs keep the audience waiting? Who will Cathy Horyn tear apart the next day? wait and see!

but I digress... My original point was that this year, I was not in my beloved NYC to enjoy fashion week. EVEN BETTER! I am in Paris. And did this aspiring fashionista sit on the sidelines? No she did not.

My Gallatin Advisor is a freelance fashion writer and she gets invited to all sorts of events for fashion week and she even wound up with an invite to a party for Camper and Bernhard Willhelm's recent collaboration here in Paris. Since she is in NY, she passed the invitation along to me! The event was really fun, and I was able to bring my friend Tribbie along with me. We mingled, saw the shoes (which were not my taste, but interesting to see) sipped champagne, and noshed hors d'oeuvres. In our mingling we met a photographer, who took our picture and then proceeded to start a conversation with us. He ended up offering to give us the tickets he had to shows that he could not attend. SCORE!

The first show was today. The designer was John Ribbe, and I have to be honest I had never heard of him before but his clothes were pretty cool and it was a great experience. He also gave us a ticket to Paul and Joe, which I absolutely love but unfortunately cannot attend because I have class at the exact same time! merde! But I told Tibbie to go and report back to me in full detail!

I really didn't think that I was going to be able to do anything for fashion week here in Paris, since I know from previous experience in NYC how hard it can be to get into shows and I had no connections to help me out. Considering, I think I fared pretty well and now that I have an international fashion week under my belt, who knows what's next...

Vaux-Le-Vicompte

Today was Vaux-Le-Vicompte Day!

Vaux-Le-Vicompte is a Chateau about an hour

and a half outside of Paris and also the site of

Eva Longoria and Tony Parker's recent nuptials. NYU Paris, offered a cultural excursion to all the people in the program this semester. The offer: "Free" (I say it in quotes because my tuition is $40,000/ yr so I'm am pretty sure they can throw in a lunch somewhere in there, but that's

just me being cynical...) trip to the castle for the day and a promised gourmet lunch. I signed up for the trip right away and I have been excited for it all week, despite my hesitations as to how gourmet, this "gourmet" lunch would be.

This day did not disappoint. We met around 9:30 AM to take the buses out of the city. When we got to the castle a little after 11:00AM, we went on a walking tour around the castle. Seeing the interior and everything was really neat, although I was a little let down by the upkeep of the castle. I didn't feel like it had been preserved all that well but it was beautiful none the less!

After the tour. The whole group met back up in a private room to have our grand lunch. I have to say it was nothing short of fabulous! A true three course meal which started with a delicious quiche and salad (obviously I didn't eat the salad, but everyone else liked it) then moved to the main course of duck, potatoes, and carrots and finally the scrumptious chocolate moelleux (molten chocolate) cake. They also served us coffee after the whole meal! Can you say food coma??

After the lunch we had a couple hours to explore the grounds of the castle so my friends and I rented a golf cart to drive around. This was hysterical and so much fun! Several other NYU students had rented the carts as well so we were all whipping around and just generally having a great time. It was a gorgeous fall day and it felt so good to be outside and enjoy the gardens and amazing scenery!

I am always a little apprehensive for school sponsored events because I feel like they never live up to expectations, but this whole trip has probably been one of my favorite days I have had thus far in Paris.

Art of Travel: A Shopaholic's Quest

Everyone, or at least everyone in the fashion world, knows Suzy Gershman as the “born to shop lady.” Just to clarify, if you ever want to know where the best places to shop in any local are, go to her. She has written book after book about shopping abroad. I had done ample research in Born to Shop: Paris before I even signed up for this class and when I saw that her personal travel narrative, C’est La Vie, was on the list of suggested readings, I knew that it would definitely be one of the books I chose to read.

Being the shopping maven that she is, I knew before beginning the book that we would share things in common in our experiences moving to Paris. I have actually already had some of the exact same experiences that she did when she decided to move to Paris for a year.

Part of Gershman’s career is to know where one can find the best deals in Paris, or really any city for that matter, and since I have been here, I have been on a constant quest to discover where the best and most efficient places to do my shopping are.

Like Gershman, I noted immediately that certain basics that can be purchased for next to nothing are impossible to find in France for a reasonable price. Say, if I wanted to buy my own bath towels or pillows and sheets for my bed. Luckily for Suzy, she had the luxury of being able to bring things back from the states, but since I do not, I will suffer through and try to pretend that some complete stranger hasn’t previously used all the linens that were provided for me.

Next comes shopping for food. Gershman, seems to be in a constant state of infatuation with the store “Monoprix” whose name would lead you to believe that it is like a dollar store in but really, it is more like a Target. Anyways, like Suzy, I have come to the conclusion that Monoprix is truly the best place to do the majority of my shopping; I can get basics like hand soap, and notebooks, and pick up some bread and butter all in one place! For special treats and the freshest food Gershman is extremely fond of the open-air markets that are held almost every weekend and are in nearly every arrondisement of Paris. I have yet to frequent one of these markets but her descriptions of the delicious and fresh food that she was able to find have made me decide that from now on I will try to go to the one in my neighborhood every weekend.

Lastly, when she starts furnishing her apartment, Gershman journeys to the outskirts of Paris, where all the best flea markets can be found. I have only visited one so far, but the world famous Sait Ouen flea market just north of the city, was a gem. There are several mini markets in this one large area, and each is known for a different specialty. As I walked through several weekends ago with one of my friends I pointed out all the things that I would like to have one day in my apartment if I could figure out a way to get these items back to the states… or who knows, maybe even to my own Parisian apartment like Suzy. However, for now I will settle for vintage jewelry and clothes that I can manage to fit in my suitcase.

Le Queen

So this past Monday marked the start of the first official week of classes here at NYU in Paris... Now I know what you are all thinking, "School has already been going on for a month (if not more)" Well yes, I am aware. I don't think I have ever actually looked forward to the first week of school, since I love the lazy days of summer but for the first time in my life, I was so ready to get back to school!

It was a good week. I have back to back classes on Monday and Wednesday. First, "Text and Image" and then "Advanced Conversation," both of which are taught completely in French! This is going to great as far as improving my fluency and comprehension. On Tuesdays I have a two hour long "Atelier" for the advanced conversation course. In this part of the class we partner with a French school and do little language exchange of sorts, basically we are working in smaller groups with groups of french students to make a movie over the course of the semester. One hour is in French and the other in English. I am really looking forward to this because I am hoping that it will be a good chance to meet some french people who I can become friends with! So fun :) Then Thursdays I am taking a visual arts workshop in the evening. It's only a 2 credit class but we get to make actual works of art for the play that the "Acting French" class is putting on at the end of the semester. The class is really meant for student in Program I (lower level language) but it sounded fun, so I wanted to take it anyways, but the teacher is actually French and her English is not good at all... It was pretty comical actually because it would probably be easier to understand her if she just went ahead and spoke French to all of us!

Aside from classes starting, this week was fairly uneventful. Although, last night I tried out another "ladies night" at the club Le Queen! I must say, I love ladies night... free entrance and free champagne for the girls until 1 a.m.! It was a great success! This was also really funny because I ran into my pastry maker friend, who I met out on night in NYC. (See old posts) (Queen is actually a gay club, but on ladies night... anything goes. I felt like there were probably more straight guys than gays)

Tomorrow I am going to the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicompt, where Eva Longoria and Tony Parker were married. It is a trip that the school is sponsoring along with a free gourmet lunch! Will let everyone know how it goes..

à bientot!

Hill