Another example of my dependence on technology: the Wi-Fi at my house hasn't been working. Thus, I've been forced to come to Reid Hall to check my email, upload photos, etc. Not to mention, I have a presentation to give today, for which I hadn't been able to do any research until this morning... yikes.
Also yikes -- I got my phone bill for June today: $72.50 (!). Good heavens. The worst part is that it's not entirely my fault! I looked in my call log and my phone has been making a bunch of calls on its own to random, non-existent numbers when it gets tousled around in my backpack. Still, I should probably cut down on texts unless absolutely necessary. Not exactly how I wanted to be spending my grant money, but I've learned my lesson.
Anyways, mundane problems aside, Paris has been good to me lately. It hasn't rained in the past couple of days (cue knocking furiously on every piece of wood available) and it's starting to hit me how soon I'll be going home (11 days - crazy!) so I'm trying to soak up little aspects of my daily routine, as well as hitting up things I haven't done yet.
Yesterday was the perfect example of how my French has proven useful for me. I decided to walk to l'Orangerie, the relatively small museum in the Jardin Tuilleries along the Seine, featured in Midnight in Paris and famous for housing huge canvases of Monet. I would have taken pictures had it not been so heavily monitored.
First of all, going through security at the entrance (as is normal here in a city with so many museums full of foreigners), the man inspecting my bag thought I was French. I said a few phrases about my backpack being heavy, and he asked me, "D'où en France êtes-vous?" (where in France are you from). It was so flattering, even if false flattery. Yes! I don't sound (as much) like such a foreigner anymore!
I then spent a long time looking at art. In addition to the famous waterlilies (called, Les Nymphéas - so much prettier), there was a slew of Cézanne, Renoir and artwork by a dozen other artists downstairs. I'm not a huge fan of Renoir, actually, but Cézanne is my vice. I was so immersed in his work, trying to figure out which colors he put down first and how he got the shadows so perfectly, that I didn't realize I was standing about three inches away from the painting I was looking at. The security guard came over to me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Attention, il ne faut pas être aussi proche à l'oeuvre" (excuse me, you can't be so close to the work). I was a bit startled and so quickly moved backwards, unintentionally bumping into the man behind me (who was surely trying futilely to get a glimpse over my shoulder) and subsequently stepping on his toe. Oops. I guess that's what you get for being such an art fanatic. Also, the plaques next to each painting had no English translations, so I wouldn't have been able to understand the titles had I not known French. Not life-changing, but personally useful.
Then I walked around Paris for a long time (I don't have class until 5pm on Mondays), traversing the Jardin du Luxembourg (see above). While strolling along the Seine for the thousandth time, I stopped to buy some artsy-and-cheap postcards (the best kind) from a vender at one of the bouquinistes: a beautiful name for the people selling books, posters, and touristy trinkets out of these green, metal pop-up treasure chests that line the sidewalks by the river. The vender was a bit grumpy at first. Perhaps she'd had one-too-many finicky foreigners already that morning. Regardless, she softened up once I started speaking French with her. I even got her to smile by the end of the transaction.
The little pleasures of learning a language. And I guess the view's not a bad perk, either.
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