Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everyone!!! I hope you all had a wonderful wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mine consisted of dealing with the French bureaucracy (going to the Police Prefecture to try and sort out my residency permit -- got nowhere), working all day on term papers while watching the Macy's Parade on the internet, then eating a feast of vegetable stirfry while I watched the Thanksgiving episode of Modern Family. At least it was a little festive! Missed home a lot though. Last night I actually celebrated Thanksgiving itself with friends though, we had a big Thanksgiving meal. It was with mostly Americans then a few Australians and Brits.

I had an Amazing day yesterday, I went to the American grocery store to buy some cranberries and whatnot then I came home and I listened to Christmas music while I prepared and cooked for the dinner. I asked Mom-mom the recipe for her stuffing which is among my Thanksgiving favorites and something I'll definitely never be getting around here. Although it didn't quite turn out exactly the same, I could certainly taste at least the similarity and everyone was amazed how delicious it was! I would have to say that it was the tastiest thing there :P Here is a photo of the finished product!

So needless to say, I was very proud :-) Other than that with dinner, we had duck (how French) and chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, asparagus, salad, different appetizers like artichoke dip, uhhh....then for dessert, apple cobbler and pumpkin pie. So all in all we pulled together a pretty good meal. Not as delicious as home, BUT by far the heartiest meal I've had in well...maybe the semester haha, and great fun with friends :D

Now is the last week of classes and I've got several term papers and presentations due so I am crazy busy. Hope all's going well and it's so great to now be in the holiday season! Paris is SO BEAUTIFUL with all the lights out now. Honestly I think it's significantly prettier and more charming. So a great time for my family to come visit :) I will try and take pictures maybe next weekend if I can have the time to walk around and enjoy them! Take care!

Dana

vacances de l'automne

Salut tout le monde !

I'm very sorry that I have not written in so long! I have been very busy blahblahblah and we had the internet changed in my flat and the internet in my room has simply been not working for a week so yeah it's been tough. And now I am going away for fall break for a couple weeks so I will still not post. But for just a quick peep of contact and to let you know how it's going here, I just wanted to tell you my itinerary! It's for this organization I am in called AEGEE, European Students' Forum, and it is having its Europe-wide forum next week in Macedonia so that's where I will go and Dane and I are making a nice trip out of it. Sorry I am not being so detailed but yes very quickly!

I am in Delft right now with Dane, I just arrived by bus last night so tomorrow morning bright and early we will begin our adventure!

We will take the train south to Brussels and hang out and see the city as a nice little half day trip. Then our flight leaves Brussels Charleroi at 6pm. So voilà....

10/22 Flight from Brussels to Belgrade, Serbia.
We have booked a little apartment in Serbia for two nights and we will have about two days to discover the city a bit our selves and to go shopping (I'm in dire need of real shoes and we figured Eastern Europe's shopping would be a bit cheaper...)

10/24-10/27 "Pre-Event"
We are spending a few days in Belgrade with AEGEE-Belgrade who is hosting an event for three days before the Agora so there will be about 40 or so other AEGEE members from across Europe who will also be there for it. We'll stay in a hostel and we have a JAM PACKED schedule of sightseeing and even a lot of really nice authentic things like we will have a kolo dancing workshop ;) Apparently Belgrade is the European capital of nightlife so that will be interesting as well. They have already sent us a handful of songs that we have to study and learn as homework before we arrive.

10/27 Departure for Agora on the "Crazy Bus"
So basically dozens more Europeans will fly into Belgrade and come along with us for the Crazy bus to the agora so a nice party on the whole bus ride there and we will stop in a town called Laskovic which is apparently the barbecue capital of the world. Should be really nice if I can keep my eyes open ;)

Then we'll arrive in Struga, Macedonia for the AGORA!
10/27-10/31 AGORA
More details to come later I don't really know...:P

10/31 Crazy bus back to Belgrade (hopefully stopping in Skopje on the way)
10/31 Night train from Belgrade to Budapest

11/1 - 11/3 Budapest!!
Dane and I will spend a couple days in Budapest :D Unbelievably excited for this one! Uncle Alex especially if you have any suggestions, please send me an email and let me know!

11/3 Flight home from Budapest to Eindhoven, NL.

Then I'll just spend a few days in Delft then take the bus back to Paris on November 6th! Then well I will have to post some albums and whatnot! I hope everything is going well! I'm over half way done the first semester...:(

x Dana

Vélib!!!

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. But here is the post I've been super excited to write for quite a while now: The Vélib!

Now the Vélib is the public bike system here. There are 2,000 some odd stations across the city and you can pick up a bike and ride it for 30 minutes (well 45 for me since I'm a student) without charge and just park it in another station. Well obviously it's not completely free, but I think 1,70eur for one day of full access etc and 29, eur for the year! So it's just not wise to not buy it, even if you don't plan on biking too often, it's just too convenient! So since I haven't got my metro pass yet (being France it's extremely complicated to obtain and the last thing I needed was the code of my bank account which I just got last Thursday and so now I can send in all my info and wait another few weeks to get the card) I use the bike as much as I possibly can. I ride to and from school everyday so since the weather has been SO beautiful this past week, I took some pictures for you to see a bit of what my commute to school looks like ... it's not too bad.

So there are several Vélib stations around me, four within a two block radius and of course beyond that a lot more. The one I typically use is right across the street and a block down, right on the river.

That's how they look and what a regular station looks. And lucky for me, this one is always pretty chock full of bikes for me to choose in the morning. Then I pull out and ride straight to the river and go left. I ride parallel to the river the whole way to school. Here are a few pics I took on the way down the river.

Well...that would be the Notre Dame pretty much as soon as I turn left on the river. No big deal or anything...It's just as beautiful every time I see it! I always make sure to admire it as I go by, not just let it fade to just...there, what I see every day etc. Absolutely Beautiful! Except I can't look at it too much because early in the morning on such beautiful days, there are heaps and heaps of tourists also looking at in awe and not understanding the traffic/paying attention. Sidenote: Yes I already bitch and whine about tourists here and there. :P

Just waiting at an intersection. So luckily on this road on the river, there is a bike lane almost the entire ride. That is very rare in Paris and EXTREMELY nice! Typically the bike shares a lane of traffic with the buses, emergency vehicles, and taxis. So it's rather aggressive and you really need to be careful and stay very close to the curb. It's much scarier sounding than it really is though. You get used to it quickly and I've found comfort deciding that the busdrivers, taxis, and other drivers want to hit me just as much as I want them to hit me. I've seen many close calls with other bikers typically when they keep going straight at a green light and a car in the right lane turns right without looking. But yeah you just have to be smart like anything else. It's really not too scary! I hope that everyone that will make it out to Paris can try it ;)

 This is Place St. Michel. I'm not really sure what it is but a beautiful fountain on the end of a building but it's definitely quite famous and always crowded.

I'm also not sure what this is but it looks very pretty and like a big deal. It's one of my favorite landmarks on my way to school...plus it means I'm almost there :P

So then a couple blocks past that last building I turn left onto Rue des Saints-Peres. There are a couple Sciences Po buildings on it and the first Vélib stop near ScPo is there. One of my favorite parts is straight ahead in the distance is the Tour Montparnasse over the horizon of the buildings. You can see it practically everywhere. I hear the view from the top of the Tour is the most beautiful in all of Paris. I can't wait to actually get on top of it! But for now I've just frequented a club at the bottom of it as well as many of the shops on this very long shopping road that leads up to it.

Then finally, I cross the Boulevard St. Germain again and here I am, at my usual Vélib stop! (If I get to class early enough and all the spots aren't taken). Very nice ride right?!

I meant to take some pictures on my way home. I pass some more beautiful things on the Boulevard St. Germain like the church of St. Germain de Pres which is from the 6th century as well as the museum Cluny which has an ancient Roman dig right there and behind that a medieval castle preserved where the medieval museum is. I will make a Vélib article part deux! Because I also have a lot more to say about it. So...to be continued....

Je m'appelle Dana

"Hey bonjour tu t'appelles comment toi?" 

"Salut! Je m'appelle Dana"

"Deena?"

"Dana"

"Diana, enchanté!"

"non non non c'est Day-na"

That is every single first conversation with everyone I meet. Well not always French I'm just acting exotic because yes I believed the French may find it difficult but even all the international students I meet -- no one understands or can say my name! It's very difficult for them. Except when I'm with Dane since then they can connect the two and realize it's just an "uh" at the end of his name. 

But I regret to inform you all that I am now Dana as in...Dah-nah, or maybe more accurately when speaking French, D'nah. The beautiful name my mother has given me has been butchered here haha. It really just makes a lot of confusion for everyone! So now I say Dahnah and everyone gets it right away. I don't get what is so difficult about Day-nah but these people don't get it.

Also there is another American named Dena (who studies at Penn! but is from Kentucky) and people mix us up all the time. "Oh yeah yeah Dena we just met the other night I remember you!" No obviously you don't because you met Dena obviously not Dana you just can't pronounce my name. Ayayaye.

La haute cuisine

So as you can imagine on my glamorous student budget, I am really getting a taste of the food that makes Paris so famous. Or I mean getting a taste of the discounted discount brand of the cheapest supermarket in the city! I've been making out pretty well so far, been here three weeks and have spent just about 100 euros so far on groceries (and that includes all my toiletries and cleaning stuff when I first arrived). I've fallen victim to these hamburger packs -- 8 hamburgers for 4,50 euros and typically potatoes and vegetables. Every night I like to calculate my dinner in my head and it's usually under two euros, sometimes even under one ;) I'm doing pretty well. And I figured from the beginning I am only trying all the Carrefour Discount products to see if they're nice because if they're nice enough then I'm not paying three times the price for the name brand stuff. Well let's just hope that what I'm eating just has nutrition to it but according to the nutrition facts they seem to! Pretty unbelievable! Here's a photo of a typical dinner of mine ...

Oh whoa! Adding pictures is so easy! Okay well I'll make sure to do that from now on! And okay the cookies and chips and chocolate in the background have nothing to do with my classy meal, but a salad, hamburger, mashed potatoes, asparagus...and wine! So okay add the wine this meal was probably 3euros. So it CAN be done!

And other than dinners I also eat very cheaply. I usually have cereal or oatmeal and a fruit in the morning. sometimes toast and eggs if I have the time and need the energy. And for lunch I usually eat salami and cheese sandwiches and an apple. So everything I buy is 1) the Carrefour Discount brand and 2) lasts at least a week or so. Now as I know it's possible to eat well pretty cheaply I just need to branch out hopefully in the same price range because I don't want to be sick of all the great cheap food within a month...




PS. On the subject of eating here, I just wanted to confirm that the stereotypes of the French and their baguettes, wine, and cheese are 100% true. I am really becoming French I hardly never leave the house in the evenings to meet up with friends without a bottle of wine and a demi-baguette in my purse (perfect sized purse for everything). You see people ALL the time walking down the street with fresh baguettes and a lot of the time just people sitting eating plain baguette. I think I'm learning what heaven is like.

In France, a Bastion of Privilege No More - NYTimes.com

In case no one's read this yet:

In France, a Bastion of Privilege No More - NYTimes.com:

Fantastic right? I like how Descoing was criticized in the beginning for Americanizing Sciences Po, forcing 'politically correct' 'failed' diversification methods and encouraging students to participate in the arts. Well it seems to be working out! I guess it's yesterday now that Sciences Po released the official 10 year report to show the effects of the new policies and whatnot but I haven't looked into them yet. Just thought it would be an interesting read for anyone and show you more about my school! Ah =)

La rentrée

Hi everybody!

So the past week has seen the end of the Welcome Programme, more parties, more sightseeing, a visit from Dane, and the beginning of the school year! Here is my schedule:

lundi
10h00 - 12h00  Globalisation, etats, et marches financiers (basically globalization and finance)

mardi
10h00 - 12h00 Tennis
12h30 - 14h30 Sociology of Immigration, Race and Ethnicity (very interesting!)
14h45 - 16h45 La construction europeenne (the construction of the EU/EU law)

mercredi
8h00 - 10h00 European Integration/Economics of the EU (like the economic integration of nations into the EU)
12h30 - 14h30 Globalisation, etats, et marches financiers - the recitation I guess

jeudi
12h30 - 14h30 Clivages socio-politiques en Europe

So it's nice! Thus far I've really enjoyed my classes. The ones in French are quite difficult - I can understand it's just the biggest headache to really follow the whole time. And all of them are borderline over my head but oh well, it just means I will learn a lot this semester. As I mentioned with the Welcome Program, we have these main things called "exposes" which are just oral presentations but in this specific format and typically from 10-30 minutes and besides that the other things are papers, 'fiches techniques' which are basically essays and 'fiches de la lecture' which is probably the easiest I imagine, a 3-page document outlining and developing a reading. It's all a lot different from assignments at home and so far at each intro lecture, it is when we schedule who presents which expose when (or which day my paper is due etc) depending on the subject. So I've been intentionally making them all as early in the semester as possible while still being spread and balanced so that I can get them out of the way so I have more freedom in the rest of the semester and don't have any stress come exams! Well...it's a great idea to me now but I will kicking myself in a matter of days since my first oral presentation will be next Thursday and it's in a French class so...well...I will learn fast.

Other than that has been nothing but fun! Dane came for the last weekend and we did lots. Went shopping for some room stuff (like big pillows for my futon that you can't sit up straight on), picnicking in the Jardin du Luxembourg and all over town really, climbing up and strolling around Montmartre and visiting the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur, and more. The highlight was the picnic in the Jardin du Luxembourg...I've spent a lot of time there already, meeting up with friends, picnic with the Welcome Program, and even laid there with other students in my group discussing French immigration policy and its conflict with the National Identity of France to prepare our expose (another surreal French experience). But the day we went it was just SO nice out it was unbelievable and we had great food and it was just packed and 'gezellig.' Sacre Coeur was also spectacular. The view from atop the hill is more beautiful than one could imagine (I could even see the Notre Dame and Pantheon so tried to pick out which house was mine in between), but inside the church is what really took my breath away. It really must be one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen and I just found it really unsettling and kind of scary with all the imagery and the style of the design so I really liked it. The dome in it is also amazing with its windows and the way the sun shines through them onto these stone angels. I never knew what the inside of the Sacre-Coeur looked like but wow it was amazing. I will make sure to upload photos when I get them from Dane!

There have also been several "Integration" events the past few days. On Sunday was the Journee d'integration with the Buddy Program. It was in the Bois de Vincennes for all the exchange students. It was amazingly fun though in typical French fashion was completely unorganized and didn't begin till an hour later than scheduled. We were basically assigned to groups (Dane just went along with me which was luckily perfectly fine) and in those groups we went around to different activities and yeah met a bunch of other international students and French students. Dane and I both had fun with the games and meeting people, we were particularly champions with this "Bike Binouze" organization that had a station with things like monocycle races and other strange bike contraption races. Bike Binouze is a student organization at ScPo that I guess once a week or so they are told a bar somewhere in Paris but are only given the name of the bar and the arrondissement, then they hop on their bikes and race to find it. He who gets there first gets free drinks all night and other than that just really cheap beer for everyone (2,50 euro pint which is ridiculously cheap here as it's typically 5,50 6,50). What a great student organization right?! By winning our little races too we kept winning free beer. Great great. Then we did different icebreaker style games at other stations and played soccer at one but more like human foosball so holding hands in lines and having to stay in that straight line etc. Fun. I ended up meeting quite a few nice people though, one girl from Philly too! After the Journee was a bar crawl through the Bastille area which was even nicer. Just more meeting people etc. Since Dane's obsessed with meeting new people especially international students we really had a blast! So no worries, my boyfriend visiting doesn't cramp my social life ;)
Then Monday night was the Soiree d'Integration for the whole school hosted by the Bureau des Eleves (main student board, basically student government). Unfortunately Dane was gone early early in the morning but I got tickets with friends for this party at this cabaret. I went to my friend's little studio apt in Montparnasse with friends for some drinks beforehand then headed out to the party. The venue was absolutely beautiful, all wood with dark red curtains and everything yeah I guess like an old-fashioned cabaret. The DJ was absolutely fantastic so we really had a nice time. It was just too bad it was on the outskirts of town so getting home after the metro closed (at 1230 on weeknights, crazy) was a nightmare. I didn't look up where it was and I figured I'd bike home but noooo nevermind, took a cab with others.

So anyway. Now I'm just doing classes and getting excited for this weekend and the next weekend! There's too much fun to be had here. But right now is business. Today I was productive, I finally got fully registered with Sciences Po by giving them all the documents needed and getting my student ID card and bought my social security. I also got all the needed documents to the bank so now I'm just waiting on an email confirmation with my RIB and I'm set to get my phone and everything. Of course it wasn't a fraction as easy as it sounds, especially with the bank. They kept sending me to different branches and whatnot and oh just awful I really hate the French I really do everything is SO overcomplicated. Now I will organize my schedule and do work because Friday I am meeting with this girl to prepare our expose for next week and I want to have the time to devote my entire Saturday day and night to this Inox Park Festival with some of the biggest and my favorite DJs in the world.

Wahoooooou Paris Paris Paris. Pictures and all coming soon. Love x

Introduction to Sciences Po

The fact I'm a student at Sciences Po is not something that I really walk around bragging to everyone here in Paris. I've learned that there are generally two reactions to it: 1, worst case scenario the person takes you for being arrogant, rich, snooty etc or 2, the person just looks at you in absolute awe. In France there are the universities which are public like La Sorbonne (Paris I), the rest of the Universities of Paris, University Aix-Marseille, etc etc. I'm not an expert so I hope I'm not telling you BS, but these are open to the public like anyone can go to university. Then above that is les grandes ecoles, of which Sciences Po Paris is one. It's extremely competitive to get into and it's where all like the political geniuses study at, it's like a factory for presidents and ministers and leaders.

On the first day of Orientation there was a welcome speech in the main ampitheatre of Sciences Po and apparently the last three Presidents of France studied at Sciences Po...except Sarkozy, the current president, he flunked out. That point scared me very much in two ways: the French Republic is led by a man who flunked college (well idk where he went from there so I won't judge too much but still) or that the President of the Republic failed out of Sciences Po -- is it really so hard?! The second thing I found out later in my methodology course that I found fascinating was that apparently Dominique Strauss-Kahn was a professor at Sciences Po and his lectures were SO brilliant and popular that he would speak in the largest ampitheatre on campus and it would be filmed and streamed live so students in other ampitheatres would watch it live like they were in lecture too. Wow.

So yeah, Sciences Po! It's a pretty big deal! So yeah I think there's almost 10,000 students maybe? And it's 40% international students so that's pretty amazing. For the French students, the third year is mandatory abroad at one of ScPo's 300 and some odd partner universities (like Pitt!) and that would be the main factor into such an international population. There is this system called the Buddy Program to help integrate the international students. So far they have been hosting this event called "A Bar A Day" where yeah they list a bar every day with reasonably priced drinks (eh pretty expensive but I guess with good Happy Hours and whatnot) that are good places to hang out in different areas all around the city. So it's really nice exposure and of course an amazing way to meet so many people. I've made a LOT of friends through it, they're all very fun. The only problem is is that Paris bars are all very small and then the Buddy Program is hosting these events so 100+ students show up and it's just packed, everyone's always just hanging out out front of the bars socializing. On the first night, last Monday the 22nd of August, I met up with girls for dinner (just someone posted on FB "hey anyone wanna meet up to eat before the bar?" great how that works nowadays;)) and it ended up being such a fantastic group of people, three Americans and two Australians -- not so exotic, but really nice girls I've hung out with all of them several times since then! And the first night at the bar was really nice, I met many many people. I've been quite the regular with the Bar a Day events and I really don't even go in the bars but it's good to learn the locations for later, but it's always a great place to meet up with people/meet new people and do whatever you want from there! Like the one night was our one friend's birthday, we left the bar, got some bottles of wine at a grocery store, and went down to the Seine right across from the Notre Dame cathedral and celebrated! Permission granted to be very jealous. It's just unbelievable the beauty all around -- I don't take it for granted! It's absolutely surreal.

And okay yes I have gone out every single night for an entire week but I am working hard too I swear. The Welcome Programme began last Wednesday and goes until this Friday. The first day was kind of just a welcome and all the basics and since then I have class every morning 9-11 on methodology. Sciences Po has its whole own unique methodology and it's really horrifying and demanding. So my enseignant, teacher is fantastic, at least when he's not speaking French too fast, but he explains it all so well. In comparing and contrasting the American methodology for an essay to the French, the American is like "here this is what I'm going to prove - Argument/proof - there, look, I proved it." whereas the French is more like...hmm...I can't remember how he explained it but here's what it's all about: introducing les problematiques, the paradoxes. So the mega-parts of ScPo grading are essays and oral presentations and we will need to do an oral presentation in class. Mine will be on "pouvons-nous choisir nos immigres ?" (can we choose our immigrants?) and on Thursday. And see it's not exactly just like talking about the subject or establishing a thesis and proving it...it's just like...about asking questions. I don't know it's really very difficult for me but this approach I think will be AMAZING for me at home university/through future studies and just life I guess. And it's not even like I introduce a question, answer it through several arguments, then voila, but it's like ask a question, of course try and answer it (I think? I can't even tell) then ask another question and conclude with another question. I don't know sounds unsettling. They're also very strict in having perfectly balanced sub-arguments, like the same size paragraphs haha.

But yeah there's fun too in the Welcome Programme! We have a Sciences Po student as our little group leader (we're divided into small groups of class size, maybe 20 people?) and she took us on a tour of the neighborhood ScPo is in -- St. Germain des Pres. On the first day we had a massive picnic in the Jardin de Luxembourg. Yesterday there was a scavenger hunt through the city that lasted five hours my goodness -- I came in second place, won a nice little French book. There's also other lectures like politics in France and the History of Paris. There'll be a soiree cinema, a wine and cheese tomorrow night, an evening on the Champ de Mars, a ride on the Bateaux Mouches (the boats along the seine), library visit, and more. So it's really full of nice fun things to get to know people :) 

Dane will come visit Paris for the first time on Wednesday and in the evening is the first big party of the year, hosted by the Association Sportive, the student athletic board, on a boat on the Seine. I'm very well looking forward to it! But well...I have an oral presentation at 9am on Thursday so I'm working hard to prepare for it now and the coming days and no worries I have my priorities 100% in order! There's just way too much fun to be had here, all the experiences, all the beauty my god. Did I mention I'm like 3 blocks away from Notre Dame? Like 5 minutes walking. Then 3 minutes the other way, I'm at the Pantheon. Isn't that AMAZING?! It's really unbelievable here. So now that you have a novel of my experience so far, I will wrap this up and continue researching immigration and trying to formulate some problematiques. Thank you for reading ! x

Les premiers jours

It's 6pm on August 28 here in Paris. I have officially been here for one week now and I swear it may have been the busiest, most exhausting, most unique, and funnest week of my life. Last Sunday I left my boyfriend, Dane in Holland and arrived at Paris Gare du Nord at 18h30 sharp by the Thalys (which will be my lifeline for the year as it's only a 3 hr ride between Paris and Rotterdam/Amsterdam and 60 euros r/t).

It was scorching hot in Paris and sunny. I immediately took the taxi straight to my place and I kid you not, it was the scariest the drive of my life. That cab driver was weaving in and out all over the place crossing between traffic and the bus lane and constantly flooring it and slamming the brakes. My mother would have been sobbing. It really scared me at first but when I realized after a few minutes we weren't dead yet and how inexpensive the drive was going to be at that pace, I relaxed and just enjoyed the thrill ;) Only a 10 euro fare too!

So my place...it's beautiful. Jocelyne, the woman that owns the apartment welcomed me and she even made dinner for the two of us in the evening since it was Sunday and no where's open in France on Sunday and I obviously had no food. I wasn't even hungry or worried but yes very nice of her. Then the next morning she took me with her to run errands to show me the neighborhood and particularly the marketplaces and best places for grocery shopping. Really entirely too sweet I lucked out beyond belief! Psh just now I ran outside to one of the few markets open on Sunday to get some stuff to cook for dinner tonight and as I entered the door she came shuffling out of her room with a box of classy chocolates saying "tiens, tiens!" and a huge smile. My landlady welcomes me home with chocolate it's fantastic.

That's how it all began and since then well...I have learned a lot, met so many people, and drank way too much. I don't want to make this entry 10 years long so I will end here and talk about my school and the Welcome Programme in the next post. But anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this and it keeps me close to home ;) I will also be posting pictures into a Picasa album! So voila! Going to prepare dinner now and relax before another long week begins. Bisous a tous!