As the end draws near

Sunday, 3 Jun 2007

Today the sun is shining on the Parisian streets for the second day after a week of rain.
Today I'm going to salsa class and I’m going to wander this lovely city.
Today is June 3.
Today I leave in 5 days.

Friday, I lost my housing. My host mom is taking a student for the summer, and I had to leave. It's the beginning of my leaving for the year. I'm going to have to get used to it. But unlike the sans-abri (without shelters aka homeless) of the streets of this city, I decided not to hole up in a tent along canal St. Martin. I have too much luggage for that, darn it. Rather, I've holed up at my cousin's for the week.

Many, in fact, the majority of les enfants from my program left Friday. I wouldn't have been ready to leave. I'm glad I'm still here trapeze-ing around museums and frolicking through public jardins. If I wouldn't have been ready to leave yesterday, that begs the question: will I... Will I be ready to leave next Friday?

Leaving. Leaving is a thought to get you down. And I don't mean "get down get down get down tonight" dancing kind of down. I don't quite remember what its like to walk along streets that aren't lined with old, beautiful buildings of beige stone wearing hats of fluted metal and belts of elegant, wrought-iron balconies. Streets where every street corner has some little historical anecdote. Streets where you walk ten paces only to run smack dab into a pastry shop and get covered in sugary goodness. I'll adjust to the US of A. One always adjusts, but I still like it here. Will I return to Paris soon? I don't know. I have American friends here saying they’re coming back soon. Me? Me, a year is a long ways away and I'm thinking about today and just a bit of tomorrow.

What's been going on here...
Two Saturdays ago I went with my group to Giverny. You may know that better as Monet's home and gardens - a flower filled mass of land blooming more than a pubescent girl on growth hormones. Fragrant roses hung suspended from gnarled branches, and irises in every color imaginable pushed up gently from the soft dirt. (And yes there were waterlillies too.) Post Giverny, we noshed a rather large three-hour lunch complete with cheese course, wine, dessert and Marceau-Marceau act done by George Bush.

That evening was free museum night. Well I set out to "profite bien", but lines were longer than Rapunzel's hair so I made it to only two destinations. One, the Petit Palais, an interesting art museum in a building created for the World's Fair, and two, les Invalides were you may find the tomb of Napoleon (or Nap, as his is affectionately abbreviated in my art history notes) in a huge domed monument. A small orchestra was set up at les Invalides, spitting out classical tunes blessed by great building acoustics. Different colored lights dimmed and shone in time with the music. Psychadelic. Napoleon was probably conducting along with the orchestra in his comfortable marble lodgings.

Yesterday my pal Selene and I put on our exploring shoes and set out for Vax-le-Vicomte, ancienne chateau of Nicolas Foucquet, ministre de finance of Louis XIV. Story has it that Foucquet threw a glamorous gala at his big and beautiful chateau, which was so impressionant that ole King Louis got jealous. In response Louis built Versailles. “Fouc you Foucquet!”

Selene and I slid off the RER at the end of the line and went to wait for the shuttle bus to the chateau... which never showed up. Distraught and irritated we felt like little kids given apples during trick-or-treating, but we decided not to give up. At this same location, busses left for Fontainbleu, so we hopped on and went. Lovely of France to provide so many chateaux. Thanks to our metro passes which are de-zoned on the weekend, the bus was free, and thanks to our art history student cards, getting into Fontainbleu cost a meager 600 Euro. Juuuust kidding. It cost NOTHING! No rien de rien, as Edith Piaf would say. We even 'accidentally' found our way onto a tour of the Chinese-inspired rooms of the chateau before being noticed as tour-crashers and subsequently, along with Wedding crashers Ben and Owen, evicted from the tour group. Thereafter, we wandered the posh chateau, we admired rooms where generations of kings and queens lodged, and we jumped on Napoleon’s bed with monkeys until there were no more monkeys jumping on the bed. All in all, the day cost a whopping 1.10 Euro for the custardy, chocolate-chip sweet roll I had as afternoon snack.

Lately, I've had even more visitors, the lucky kid I am: Lisa Seltzer of Elmira who's teaching English in Prague and Shulie Eisen from school who just finished a semester in Ghana came to get a gander of Paris.

I miiight write one last email before... before.... that event which must not be named.

Until la prochain time, my dear family and friends take care.
Hannah