of bookstores and artistic communities

I should start this by saying that at this very moment I am sitting very comfortably on the couch in our living room, looking out the window at our dog, Curly Joe, run around the hard like an idiot. So I will: I am home. However, since the time that I last wrote a blog entry about Versailles, I've done quite a lot and I still think that regardless of being once again in the United States, I ought to write it down. So what will follow are a series of entries written about the last week leading up to my parent's arrival in France, their arrival in France, our time in Dijon together, our cycling tour of Beaujolais and our three days in Paris.

La Rue da la Liberté in Dijon full of all sorts of unfurled flags. I never
understood the significance of them.

I, somewhat unfortunately, spent my last week or so in Dijon largely alone because all of the other exchange students had gone home. Amy left at the very end of May. Sean, Nick and Kayla left a few days into June. Michelle's sister came around the same time and the two of them set off traveling around France, and Kendra set off to England to visit a friend and is currently doing research in New Orleans.

So from the 5th to the 9th I was alone and also in a different room than the one I'd spent my entire semester in. My host parents had new students coming and so I was relocated to a small room above. Ironically enough I had a fridge and a microwave for the last week despite not really having one for the preceding four months. Not much went on in this period of days aside from an accident in the new shower (new room - new bathroom) where I sliced the top of my foot open.

The Sorbonne Square, the historical home to the University of Paris, one
of Europe's oldest Universities.

The shower itself was basically within a closet and the doors to the small shower swung inwards and when I was getting out of it my foot cut caught on the door swinging to close. To cut the entire ordeal short: I was very glad to have a first aid kit and only now - after my return to the US - am I able to walk around in sandals although my foot is still healing.

On the 9th I left for Paris where I stayed once again with Becky and her family. My parents didn't fly in until the 11th but I wanted a full day to see some things I hadn't had the chance to see previously and might not get to see with my parents.

I was particularly excited about visiting the bookstore Shapespeare & Company mostly because I'd seen some very lovely pictures of it and I very much love bookstores. Before going to Becky's house, I was shown where it was so that I could come back the following day, and on the 10th I took a bus that stopped several times in the Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter) and found it.

Unfortunately while it was full of things I loved - books - I found the selection to be disappointing and honestly below average as far as bookstores go. Perhaps I have the extreme luck to work in a bookstore with not only an incredible selection but also the friendliest booksellers. Upon buying a British edition of A. S. Byatt's The Children's Book I was handed back my book with the receipt tucked in with not a word from the person behind the counter. No smiles, no eye-contact and no "Have a good day" in English or French. I found the entire experience to be very bizarre and was even more astounded when I told the story to Becky and she said "That's the French".

Perhaps that's the Parisian French - in all the small shopping I've done throughout Dijon and in my visiting I've always been greeted with a smile - but to have little to no customer service in a bookstore? It felt very wrong. For all the history Shakespeare & Company has with great writers frequenting it to read and talk together, I left it nonplussed. I suppose the only good thing I've gotten out of it was the book which I'd long heard great things about and am only now enjoying.

After the bookstore I made my way towards food. The Quartier Latin is mostly known for its student life and is home to the Sorbonne and also has a large number of multi-cultural restaurants. I had a craving for falafels to which I blame Amsterdam for fostering a love of and luckily found a good place where I could grab some pita bread filled with hummus, falafel and all other sorts of delicious stuff.

Food eaten I decided to go to the opposite end of Paris (naturally) and go up to Montmartre. I'd been one before when I was 16 and visiting with a group and school but on the first trip to Paris this year hadn't made it with the others. If you recall there were some problems with meeting up and communication. I was very glad when this trip to Paris and the subsequent one with my parents went much more smoothly.

In Montmartre I mostly just walked around while avoiding people attempting to sell me crap. I didn't have anything specific to see, aside from Sacre Coeur. The Basilisque in question sits on top of the hill which is Montmartre and overlooks Paris. Construction of it began in 1875 and was finished in 1914 making it incredibly recent. I later found that it is actually a double monument: a national penance to the excess of the Second Empire and the Paris Commune of 1871 and an embodiment of conservative moral order. The irony that Montmartre is the home of the Moulin Rouge and has for a long time been a community of artists which once hosted Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Dali and others does not escape me.

Apart from Sacre Coeur, I mostly just wandered, looking at shops and people watching. When it got to be later in the afternoon I headed back towards Becky's house.

The next morning I woke up very early - 4:45 to be precise - and began making my way via bus and RER towards Charles de Gaulle airport and my parents.