On Hold

Hello all!
So still apartment hunting, which basically means that my life is on hold till I find something. Until then, I can't: open a bank account (therefore get paid or do a myriad of other things which require a French bank account), receive the box with my winter coat (which apparently I may need sooner than I thought), go to Paris to visit mes amis, post pics, use a normal keyboard...the list goes on and on. I can't really breath till then, pour résumer (to sum up).

I have a couple of possibilities which I'm waiting on with baited breath, as I'm sure you all will soon be as well. First, a co-worker of the sister of the teacher I'm staying with has a big, beautiful maison bourgoise (as my teacher called it), which basically just means that it's a big house, and as their older son is now out on his own, working in Lyon, they have an empty room, possibly for me. I went over to this maison bourgeoise Saturday afternoon to meet him and his wife and see what they had to offer. Their house is located up on one side of the Fourviere hill in Lyon's 5th arrondissement and a quick bus ride takes you down into the center of town, so it's definitely in an awesome location with a an awesome view. They were really nice and I told them that I would happily accept the offer, only I have to wait until Friday to find out if it's definitely ok (for a few reasons, don't really feel like explaining them). So that's a "definitely, maybe." In the meantime, however, I have to keep looking, especially since I can't mooch off of M and Mme Kawak forever.

With fewer and fewer ads put up everyday, and even fewer responses to my inquiries, it's not easy. The couple of places I have seen have been extremely OK (emphasis on the ok), with, nonetheless, an endless queue (line) behind me, 20 people fighting for 1 room. Student housing is expensive and requires French guarantors and other complicated paperwork (but desperation could drive me to it), and getting together a group of other assistants or even a group of French people, to look for our own apartment sounds complicated (and most likely unfurnished) as well (though again, desperate times).

A second possibility just popped up a few hours ago--the assistant liason at my school called today to let me know that a girlfriend of her son's (or her son's girlfriend, not sure which as the word "copine" could potentially mean both), has an apartment right in the center of Lyon--seriously awesome location--and she's looking for a coloc (roomie). I'm going to see it tomorrow, but apparently the downside is that it's pretty small and really only for one person--the second "bedroom" is the living room, so I guess I'll see tomorrow what exactly that means. I also don't know anything about the furnishings (or if she smokes, dun dun dun), but at least it's a great location, probably not to cher (expensive), and could be at the very least, a temporary solution to my soon-to-be dire situation.

Other than my apartment troubles, and the quite sudden change from summer to cold and rainy fall, I have been enjoying many Lyon treats, promenades and have started meeting up with some of the other assistants. I met up with one last night to prendre un verre (have a drink) and tomorrow I have plans with one, possibly two others (one of which is also a Lindsay, but -ay, and she is also teaching in St. Priest, but at the elementary school!). So, wish me luck for my big Monday--two apartment viewings and nouveaux amis (new friends)!

mille bises

Bienvenue à Lyon!

Bonjour tout le monde!
So I arrived in Lyon Tuesday night, after nearly 24 hours of traveling, plus a 9 hour time difference. While waiting for my two American-sized suitcases, i met one of the other assistants, Emily. Nqturally, we had recognized each from Facebook, thank you once again Mark Zuckerberg. Thankfully one of the English teachers at my school had offered to house me while i look for an apartment; and even better, she even came to pick me up at the airport, so no lugging heavy suitcases through pubic transportation, hallelujah!

We arrived at her house around 8:30 at which point she homemade some zucchini soup for dinner, and as usual got the "you don't eat very much do you?" from her husband because although i seem to eat plenty by American standards (no one ever says that to me in the US), paradoxically, i can't seem to keep up with the French (though i still can't figure out where they put it all). Trust me, I eat PLENTY.

Anyway, she and her husband are super nice and welcoming, the only slight annoyance is that they live about 20 minutes outside the city, so once i go into the city, i have to stay until i'm ready to come home for the night, and even that is really only a problem because i'm apartment hunting and so far my rendez-vous have been scheduled at 8pm. Oh, and we can't get the wireless to work so i have to use their computer and it's evil French keyboard--so blame the typos on that!

Yesterday i wandered around Lyon for a few hours, mostly just hanging out until I had to head over the the 8th arrondissement (Lyon is split into 9 arrondissements or administrative districts like Paris is split into 20) to see my first apartment. So what did i do the pass the time? Well luckily it wa a nice sunny, Indian summer sort of day, so I just meandered along the river, down a few Vieux Lyon backstreets, and of course passed through Place Bellecour, Lyon's huge central square. I took care of a few necessities, buying phone credit, stumbling upon a Gilbert Jaune (French bookstore chain) where I was able to find a little Lyon map-book like its Parisian counterpart that i never leave home without when I'm there. I was hoping to find something like this so I don't have to whip out my giant "hello i'm a tourist" map everytime i need directions. More importantly though, i stopped at a boulangerie for some sustenance à la lyonnaise: an orangina and a tarte aux pralines roses. When I can use my own computer again, i'll be sure to post a picture of this pink delight. Last time I was in Lyon I became obsesse with their speciality, the pink prailine; which they crush up and add to an array of pastries, most commonly in a brioche or tarte. The delectable tarte has a shortbread crust and a beautiful, crunchy pink praline mixture on top. If you ever come to Lyon, make sure to try it, especially for those with an incurable sweet-tooth like me!

After wandering around some more to walk this off, i sat down in some random little park determined to make a few phone calls and set up some appointments to see apartments. Speaking on the phone in French is not one of my strong points and it definitely still freaks me out. I used to do it fairly regularly at the Chamber of Commerce, but that feels like forever ago, and besides, they always spoke English just in case. But since emails dont seem to get many responses here, i knew this was my best shot at finding something, so I finally just made myself dial and push the call button. Well it seems my fears were justified because I was a total idiot during the first call, but somehow i did manage to make an appointment for tonight, so hopefully she'll realize i'm not really as retarded as i seemed on the phone. Here's to hoping I get better at this, as i'm sure there are many more French phone calls in the near future.

At about 8:15 I showed up at the apartment I had scheduled to see that night. Located in the 8th arrondissement, it's not exactly in the center of town, but it's a quiet neighborhood that seems pretty safe and a 10 minute walk from the tram i'll take to my school in St. Priest (Pre-est, not Priest). My roommates would be a 25-year old couple from Madagascar (French-speaking). They were really friendly, and the apartmen really nice and pretty new, but the room is unfurnished, so not ideal. Plus I would prefer to be more centrally located if possible, though I know beggars can't be choosers, and yes, as the song goes, "it's hard out there for a pimp," so we'll see. I'm supposed to let them know on Friday. Hopefully I'll have a couple more options by then.

That's all for now! Wish me luck on my hunt and hopefully in a few days i'll have some good news to share! (and eventually pics as well!)

Presque Lyonnaise

Tomorrow I am once again off to France--no surprise there. But this time, it's for 7.5 months. Straight. Now we all know how I feel about France and les Francais, but after 7.5 months in the Hexagon, we'll see how many Eiffel towers still decorate my room. Just kidding...sort of ;)

I'm super excited, but beyond nervous, especially about finding an apartment. The hunt is on starting Wednesday, but for now, I just have to sit tight and pray to the Lyon apartment gods that something awesome is just waiting for me to knock on the door.

Apartment nonsense (and other bureacracy) aside, I am looking forward to really getting to know another city in France, and am interested in making all sorts of comparisions with my golden standard: Paris (don't worry, when I say golden, I say it in a tongue-in-cheek manner, I know it's far from perfect). I'm already well aware that Paris is NOT France and once outside it, it's a whole different world. I'm also looking forward to frequent 2hr tgv trips up there :)

Anywho, more packing to do before embarking on my 20 hour voyage and my next life adventure! Wish me luck, keep in touch and stay tuned!

Give me a break

I'll be hanging out around here for the next month, so French posts will be on hiatus until I move to Lyon at the end of September. Till then, enjoy some Lake Tahoe pics, and if they make you feel so inclined, come visit me :)

Space and the Cultural Divide

Everything is relative. Even something which could seem as universal as the difference between the public and private spheres. There are some things that we all have been socialized to keep in the private sphere, knowing that not all things are meant to be shared in public.

This socialization however, entirely depends, like everything else, on the culture you in which are raised. Confrontation with the practices and mores of another culture can be anywhere from funny, to unsettling to shocking. France, naturally, has its own codes of conduct, and an especially strict line separating the public from the private sphere, a line that is much less permeable than in the US. As I mentioned in my entry on Rue des Rosiers, eating, for example, is absolutely considered part of the private sphere. We do not share our crumbs with our neighbors on the sidewalk. Besides that, as eating forms a very important and essential part of the French culture, it is an activity to enjoy, to spend hours over multiple courses and endless wine. Shoving a sandwich in your face as you run to catch the metro to work may be an acceptable sight in NYC, but in Paris, it elicites disapproving glances and sarcastic "bon appetits."

This line affects much more than eating habits. It is even in great part responsible for the fact that women didn't get the vote until 1944, and only recently began entering politics in large(r) numbers. Women were traditionally and strictly considered part of the private, domestic sphere, thus excluding them from politics, considered strictly part of the public sphere. The idea of women entering the sphere reserved for men--the public/political--was nothing short of revolutionary.

Their more reserved behavior--which can sometimes be mistaken for coldness--is also related to this public/private division. Just because they aren't yelling to each other across the metro car or smiling at every passerby doesn't mean that "the French" are any more unfriendly than anyone else, and I personally have had many more positive experiences with les Francais than negative. As the authors of 60 Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong observed: "Oddly, Anglo-Americans can see that the Japanese, Chinese, and the Indians are different, and that these fundamental differences shape the way things are done in those societies. Why can't we do this with the French?" A little cultural relativity never hurt anyone.


After being immersed in all things French for the past year and spending two months straight in this country, three days in the Netherlands presented a number of striking contrasts (besides of course the pot-filled coffee shops and scantily clad prostitutes decorating the windows of the red light district), one of which stood out, something seemingly small that in fact represents fundamental cultural differences. I began noticing the large, often un-curtained windows that make up much of the Hollandaise architecture. The fact that I could often quite easily peek into someone's private apartment started to surprise me and I realized that was because I had gotten so used to the French public-private mentality. It was when, on our way to the Anne Frank house, Ahjin and I passed by an apartment, windows wide open, into which we could have easily climbed and sat down next to the Dutch girl reading on her bed, that I really became conscious of this contrast. In doing so, I recalled a story our Colonial Algeria professor told us earlier this summer on this exact subject. She had spent some time living in Belgium, and this kind of public living--large windows allowed just as much looking in as looking out--both unsettled and shocked her French sensibilities. Coming from a society constructed around a very strict dichotemy of public-private space, she couldn't understand this Northern European mentality. As pictured above, the apartments tend to have large, shutter-less windows that seem to welcome outside world in. In France, the apartments are often higher off street level, with skinny shuttered or curtained windows. In Paris especially, they are often set back and even will have a little balcony gate in front of them. Next time you're in France, see how many windows you can see through. My guess would be not many.

To get back to those prostitutes--in the 19th century, France decided to get prostitution out of the public view by enclosing it in houses that looked bourgeois on the outside with only a little red light indicating what went on inside. One quick walk through Amsterdam's "Red Light district" will show how this culture chose a very different approach, putting prostitutes on display and giving "window shopping" a whole new meaning.

A Taste of the Orient in Paris

The #1 most-popular dish in France is not escargot, crêpes, steak tartare or duck a l'orange. No, en fait, it is the humble, and completely un-French couscous.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, part of France's colonial empire included a huge chunk of North Africa--Morocco (protecterate 1912-1956), Tunisia (occupied 1881-1956) and most importantly, Algeria (French colony and officially part of France 1830-1962). Because of this, as well as its proximity to these three nations, there is a large Maghreban presence in France. (The "Maghreb" is an Arab word meaning "west," but from their point of view, used by the Occident to designate this clump of North Africa, thus rendering it senseless, and the "maghrebans" only refer to themselves as such in an official capacity)

Part of this presence is, naturally, a large number of North African restaurants especially in Paris (and Marseille as well--the first city they reach across the Mediterranean). Over the past few weeks, I have gone to 3 different "Maghreban" restaurants, and have now had enough couscous to last me for the next few months.

The two main types of dishes you find at these restaurants are couscous of course, and tajines. The couscous is served on a communal dish, with another dish full of sauce/vegetables, and then individual plates piled with whatever meat you ordered. A tajine is a kind of stew that gets its name from the dish it is cooked in--a tajine--which keeps the food really hot and infuses it with amazing flavor. The lid is kind of like a party hat or an upside-down funnel (without the actual funnel) which they remove upon serving you, revealing a mass of steam and delicious odors--cinnamon, apples, roasted duck (in my case).

If the couscous hasn't yet fully expanded in your stomach, it's time for dessert! Besides some typical French desserts that sometimes sneak their way into the menu, oriental pastries (often filled with marzipan and flavored with orange flower), orange and cinnamon salad, fresh fruits, "crème parfumée à l'eau de rose," and of course, "thé à la menthe" (mint tea) await you.
The mint tea is a must--it is an experience in itself. They pour your tea in front of you from a silver pot way up high into skinny class cups from which you can enjoy this sweet and refreshing drink.

If you're on a budget, short on time or need a little break from France, a little trip to North Africa via one of the following restaurants (or the hundreds of other options all over the city), is the best (and tastiest) way to experience a new culture:

Chez Berbert ($$)

71 blvd du Montparnasse (15e metro: Montparnasse-Bienvenue)

(2 other locations: chezberbert.com)

Le Tajine ($) (pictured above)

10 rue Sophie Germain (14e, metro: Mouton Duvernet)

Le 404 ($$$)

69 rue des Gravilliers (3e, metro: Arts et Metiers)

Also recommended--A tour of the beautiful Grande Mosquée de Paris followed by some mint tea and a pastry or even a whole meal (still on my to-do list) at the courtyard restaurant.

A Jewish Crossroads

For my urban anthropology of Paris class, we were supposed to choose a place for an enquete de terrain, a mini investigation in which we could combine history, observation and interviews. The first place that popped into my head was Place des Vosges, my favorite lieu in Paris. However, I finally settled on a different place, not too far away--the street known as la rue des Juifs, or the street of the Jews, Rue des Rosiers.

Despite the fact that the non-formal celebration of Passover and Chanukah is about the extent of my Judaism, I have nonetheless always had soft spot for Jewish history, and my friends and family are well aware of my morbid fascination with the Holocaust. In college, my roommate Julie would get excited for me when I took a class on "my peeps" and she really enjoyed taking a surreptitious shot of me with some Orthodox Jews in the old Venetian ghetto--the first in the world--that I forced her to find with me (no easy feat in Venice). I haven't yet had an opportunity in my masters program to write a paper on Jews in France, so I figured it was now or never.

This street has been the heart of Paris' most famous Jewish quarter since the middle ages. Despite expulsions from the city, they always come back--and some accounts even attest to a continuous presence. Thus this street tells the history of Parisian Jews as one of longue duree, or "long term," which refers to the continuous presence of certain basic structures despite larger changes in history.

One aspect that becomes immediately clear, at least to a student of Paris, is that this street, and in fact much of the Marais, escaped the face-lift given to the city in the mid-19th century by Baron Haussmann under Napoleon III. He was the one who created the wide boulevards and the stereotypical grayish-white, blue-roofed buildings found throughout the city. Here, the streets are still short and narrow and a mish-mash of architectural styles.

As for the Jewish presence itself, though it is not what it once was, with many of the spaces now filled with clothing stores and boutiques, it is still the defining characteristic of this street. Any day of the week (besides Saturday), you'll see any number of yamakas making their way through the crowd, as well as a whole range of other traditional Jewish headgear and clothing, often being immortalized on some tourist's digital camera, for the slide show back home.

Every other shop is still firmly Jewish. Besides the falafel places, there are at least 5 bakery/cafes selling Central and Eastern European gastronomie--latkas, parogies, knish, strudel and more. There are bookstores, an imprimerie (paper/printing store), art galleries, jewelry stores, judaica shops--even an alterations place. On the side streets (rue des Ecouffes, rue Pavee, rue F. Duval, rue des Hospitalieres St. Gervais), the trend continues, with a number of delis, butchers and other miscellaneous shops and restaurants.

If you take a closer look, you'll notice plaques all along the street and on some of the side streets as well. Each one is in memory of Jews deported during WWII, several of them children (165 from the primary school just of Rue des Rosiers on Rue des Hospitalieres St. Gervais). The memory of the Holocaust is never very far from any Jewish community, and this is certainly no exception. Important to note on the different plaques is whether or not they admit the collaboration of the Vichy government (the official French government during Occupation). It took France decades to finally begin to accept that the majority of the French were not in fact part of the Resistance, a myth inspired by Charles De Gaulle and clung to until the overwhelming evidence proved otherwise (namely through the Robert Paxton's Vichy France). Once again, Jews came back to this quartier after the war. Millions of years of persecution has taught them great resilience and persistence.

Here's a slideshow of some pics I snapped during my enquete.
I took most of them on a Saturday (the sabbath), so it looks a little dead. Normally it is much more lively, especially on Sundays. Click on it for a better look and to read my captions!





Rue des Rosiers is the place to be on Sundays. When the rest of Paris closes its doors for a day off--according to Christian tradition--the Jewish establishments lining this street welcome you with open arms. Apparently, this is no secret, as my Sunday experience was not unlike a day at Disneyland or a New York street fair. What it certainly was not, was another dead Sunday in Paris.

The second you get to the intersection of Rue des Rosiers and Rue des Ecouffes, you are plunged into the ceaseless falafel war between the famous L'As du Falafel and its unfortunate neighbor just across the narrow street, Mi-Va-Mi. The desperate employees of the latter establishment fling a basket of their fresh falafel in your face, begging you to choose them instead this time. On either side of the street, employees reach farther out into the intersection attempting to grab customers before the other can pounce. As both offer a bottomless basket of warm samples to tempt the confused and fumbling tourist into their line, the best strategy is to take a bite before choosing sides. Everyone has their opinion. While Lenny Kravitz, any number of websites, and salivating customers in the mile-long line swear by L'As, Mi-Va-Mi has its cheerleaders as well. Personally, I found their falafel has too much cilantro for my taste. The round, older man of L'As, who has turned customer-grabbing into an art form, won my heart along with their delicious falafel. Between puffs on his cigar, he calls out to passersby, whom he assumes MUST be on their way to L'As, "Falafel? Falafel? Vous voulez du falafel? A emporter ou sur place! To take away or eat here!" Yet somehow, he still found time to smilingly bring me a chair and a fork, without me even asking.

This magical street, a street that seems to be hors de Paris (outside of Paris) is, I have decided, a sort of crossroads, where everything comes together and shakes hands before heading off in another direction. Historically, this neighborhood was often a stopping point for new Jewish immigrants, just arrived from Eastern Europe, before they became established enough to move on up (toooo the east side...oh wrong city). Today it is where history meets memory, the past meets the present, tourist meets the local, religious meets the profane, private meets public, East meets West (Europe that is), and even where meet Jews of all different backgrounds. My North African falafel sandwich and Eastern European linzer torte can attest to that.