Paris Week 5 (10/7 - 10/13)

Monday - 10/7 

Recently I've grown quite fond of studying in the St. Denis library. My favorite are the seats next to the huge floor to ceiling windows at the back of the multi-level library.I am proud to say that I have made a St. Denis library lover out of Aly as well.

DInner was tomates farcies, which are savory stuffed tomatoes. keeping in mind that I don't eat that much meat, Frédéric made some rice-stuffed ones as well, but he admitted to not knowing how it would taste because he had never made them before. He rightfully recommended that I try the traditional meat ones because they were beyond delicious.

Also, I received a letter from my bf back in the States! Definitely makes a great start to the week :)

Tuesday - 10/8

Pink trout pre-cooking

Escargot appetizer

Dinner was a doubly-whammy of seafood - escargot and pan fried trout with a toasted almond topping and salt potatoes. During the meal, Frédéric brought up some concerns about the weekly meal situation. He said: according to CUPA, I was entitled to only 5 dinners at the house a week. If I wanted to eat more meals, I would have to pay more. I was kind of taken aback by this statement and suddenly felt very uncomfortable  like I wasn't welcomed. He did add, thought, that I could buy my own things to make dinner if I would like and that he would try to make room in the fridge so I could have some shelf space. 

Roasted trout with toasted almonds

I guess my host family situation was going a little too well to be true. However, I understand where he is coming from. Even though we had to pay to stay here, each host family situation is a little different. I have other CUPA friends who are staying in large families with a lot of children. Because they already make a lot of food, another mouth to feed isn't much and they are able to eat all their meals in the house. In my case, I make up one-third of the whole family. That is to say, I've just added 50% to their weekly groceries, which is quite a lot. I guess I'll just have to start familiarizing myself with the kitchen and finding some cheap restaurants nearby for when I want a quick bite to eat. 

Wednesday - 10/9 

I thought I was going to be late to thermodynamics today, but apparently it was cancelled. No one seemed to be notified in advanced and there were a few confused looking students loitering around an otherwise empty classroom. I was relieved, confused, and slightly frustrated all at the same time. However, the mood was lightened when I met a Portuguese student and his Chinese friend. In the end, I decided that the situation was a blessing in disguise: no class and I met finally met some other kids in the class. 

In the afternoon, I studied for a little bit at the library called Bibliothèque publique d'information inside the Centre Pompidou. it is one of the few libraries the only library I've found that is open past 7pm. Even though it is 3 stories tall and spans the area of a block, the BPI was filled to the brim. At college, I usually study in my room or in my residential college library because I could focus more with less people around. However, being surrounded by all the productivity in the BPI has really rubbed off on me. I think this will be my study space of choice from now on. 

At 7:30 pm, I headed off to another concert at the Louvre featuring Marie-Elisabeth Hecker on the cello and Martin Helmchen on the Piano playing an entire concert of Beethoven sonatas. It was spectacular as usual and we finished the night off with a picture in the pyramid. 

Thursday - 10/10

After art class, I had my first thermodynamics lab. Lab courses in France are quite different from the ones I've had at Yale, which reflects the differences in methodologies. In the States, you are given the experiment beforehand with the procedure clearly outlined. You are expected to know exactly what to do and know how to maximize efficiency while in lab. While this is okay for a class, it doesn't really reflect the real process for research, which I think the French methodology tackles much better. For thermo lab, we received a packet that described the background and scenario of the problem we were trying to tackle. (In this case, heat exchange). Then we were simply given a list of materials and prompts/questions that we were trying to explore. We were expected to come up with the procedure and method of data analysis on our own and write up the lab report in class with a clear introduction, methods, data analysis, answering the questions, a conclusion. 

The other major difference was in we were expected to collaborate in lab, not only with our partner, but also the other groups in the class. To me, this is much more similar to what research is like in the real world compared to US lab classes. Although I was quite intimidating, I'm glad I had this experience. Only two more labs to go!

For dinner we had artichokes in a beefy stock with lardons. Eating the leaves with you hands is a fun but messy process.

Friday - 10/11

Carrots, tomatoes, fennel, potatoes,
squash, turnips, romanesco, onions

I went back to the BPI after class today. On the way home, I stopped by Géant des Beaux Arts to get some art supplies and also passed by a little outdoor market where I sampled some interesting cheeses. 

DInner was pot au feu again. There were 8 different vegetables this time along with beef with all the bones stewed down to make a rich broth. I mopped up every last bit of the flavorful soup with a bit of toasted baguette. Yum!

Saturday - 10/12

I love science museums!

Equestrian skit?

Saturday was a very packed day. First, I went to Cite des Sciences in NE Paris for their weekend of free admissions and special events. I was meeting Aly and Gracie there and of course, we were all late to the RDV. It was pretty funny when we texted each other the exact same apology at the same time. I think being late all the time is a bad habit we picked up from the french!

Tables of the future!

Blimp flying

The science museum was a multi-level mammoth, so we decided to work our way from bottom to top starting with the aquarium on the -2 floor. Although it was quite small, everyone can appreciate a good aquarium. Some other things we saw along the way were men dressed up as equestrians and cart-wheeling across the floor, tables that seem to be able to float on water, and people flying with the aid of a blimp. I really wanted to do the last one, but the line was too long to be worth the wait.

Camouflaging fish

Eel

Flat fish

Real life optical illusions!

We spent quite a bit if time in the optical illusions section. There was one interactive exhibit that played around with perspective. In the picture, Gracie looks like a giant, while Aly looks super tiny. Can you guess how this picture was made? The room was built such that Aly is standing 2x farther away than Gracie, but the floor and walls were painted so that the back wall looks like it is on one plane. Thus, when you look through the peep hole on the other end of the room, it looks like the people are different sizes, rather than different distances away.

Another cool illusion were the picture reflections. Each of the pictures were distorted in such a way so that they were unrecognizable. However, when reflected in a cylindrical mirror, the mirrored image made sense. Below you'll find some pictures of other random things we saw at the museum. 

Redefining the water wheel

I thought this was a
children's museum...

Just why?

Circa 1995-96

2013

After we had our fill of the exhibits, we went outside to take a look a the Geode. For those of you who don't know, I lived in France for a year when I was around 2-3 years old. My dad was working at CERN (the world's largest particle physics laboratory) in Geneva, Switzerland, so we lived in a little town just over the French border called St. Genis-Pouilly. At some point, we took a little family vacation to Paris and visited the Cité des Sciences. One of main reasons for wanting to study abroad in France is because of all the stories I heard of France when I was little, but none of which I remember. Now, 17 years later, I'm back again, creating new memories that will hopefully last me a lifetime!

Walking off into the sunset

When we grew tired of the science museum, we went to the hostel to pick up Cerise's other US friend before going to the fête des vendages. The sun was setting behind the hills just as we were crossing the train tracks so I had to snag a picture. The hostel that Cerise's friends were staying at was really high end and modern. It had solar panels on the roof, a sleek bar, a gym, and lots of places to relax and hang out. They even had free macarons and pastries at the front counter, which the girls took full advantage of. (Gracie was suave and sneaked a second, haha.)

Candy land

Say cheese!

By the time we made it to the Fête in the 18e arrondissment near the Sacre Coeur, it was already dark. The festival celebrates the first wine of the season, but there was much more than just wine and grapes. We were surrounded by tents filled with music, food, wines, beers, the works. For those of you that have a sweet tooth, there was a huge candy shop that was selling every type of candy imaginable. Pay by the kilo. All of the sounds and smells were pretty overwhelming, and there were far too many people. We had planned to have some asian food for dinner in the Belleville area so we finished off a couple of streets and high tailed it out of there.

Too many people!

Blazing chicken

We had dinner at a pan-asian restaurant and I ordered a stir-fried rice noodle dish. It took a really long time for them to get our food out to us, but all of the food was absolutely delicious. The flavors and aromas, while not completely authentic, really reminded me of home. Plus, after a month and a half, I finally got to eat a meal with chopsticks again! 

Sunday - 10/13

Another day of relaxation, studying, and catching up. In the afternoon, I went out to buy some groceries for dinner and passed by the Ménilmontant flea market. Although I didn't buy anything, I got to look through some old books, records, and trinkets. One of these days I plan on going to the Puces de Montreuil, which is a huge flea market based in the city of Montreuil just to the east of Paris. However, I'll have to wake up around 8 am on a Sunday, which is quite a feat in itself!