gracetatter-blog

[gracetatter-blog]

The Long Good-bye

"One's an ass to leave Paris."

- Lady Brett Ashley, The Sun Also Rises

"You know what's the trouble with you? You're an expatriate. One of the worst type. Haven't you heard that?...You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you...you spend all your time talking, not working. You are an expatriate, you see? You hang around cafés."

"It sounds like a swell life to me."

- Bill and Jake, The Sun Also Rises

I remember a lot of things by what book I was reading at the time. This week is Raymond Chandler's The Long Good-bye (The Sun Also Rises was actually while I was in Spain). At least the title is fitting.

This week has been relentless good-byes since Phoebe got on the RER B after a night of Love Actually at Ciara's for sunny Spain. Fortunately most of my goodbyes with people thus far have been initially disguised as sharing meals...a lovely dinner of moules frites with Amy and her dad on Monday; tapas with Austin at L'Avant Comptoir; a final bistrot meal with Mari, Madi, and Katherina at Racines. Ester, the woman I live with, gave me a book about the history of France, told through the development of the Métro. Judith and I have continued being tourists together, with trips to Pére LaChaise cemetery, the Louvre, and to Rose Bakery (duh). I guess we'll do our final goodbye tonight at the pub, but I secretly hope that it will just feel so normal we'll forget. Goodbyes are hard! At least we'll always have Paris?

But it's time to come home — to start running normally again, to eat fewer baguettes, drink less wine, take classes in a language I speak fluently. I'll be back to Paris, and these new friends are stuck with me for life whether they like it or not.

And I am SO EXCITED to see my friends and family at home. One thing I've realized this semester is the food we eat, the things we do, the scenery we take in, are equally as deserving of a blog as what I did in Paris . After all, Winston-Salem is the Paris of the Piedmont-Triad. (I think Chapel Hill would be the Berlin of the Research Triangle, but I'm open to other interpretations.)

I am just the luckiest.

[gracetatter-blog]

The opening lines of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris:

Gil: This is unbelievable! Look at this! There's no city like this in the world. There never was.  Inez: You act like you've never been here before.  Gil: I don't get here often enough, that's the problem. Can you picture how drop dead gorgeous this city is in the rain? Imagine this town in the '20s. Paris in the '20s, in the rain. The artists and writers!  Inez:: Why does every city have to be in the rain? What's wonderful about getting wet? 

Inez is certainly the film's antagonist, but she has a point.

However, I loved wandering with Phoebe from Monoprix (for Christmas decorations, because Phoebe is HOSTING Christmas this year. By herself. We are SO OLD) and Zara in St. Germain-de-Pres, to the Hotel Carnavalet and then througt the Marais to Zara again (we were on a mission, ok?), before ending up at Les Philosophes, a brasserie I ate at with my parents and recommend to anyone looking for a nice meal that doesn't require reservations. Getting a little soggy was well worth visiting the Hotel Carnavalet with Phoebe, a veritable French Revolution expert, the amazing shops we went into (our favorites were a quirky housing ware shop and Picard, where we scrutinized the frozen desserts with the intensity we had given to historical artifacts just minutes before), and the company!

By the time we emerged from dinner with Judith, full from the best chocolate fondant ever, The sky had cleared, and so the three of us set off to wander some more, ending up in front of the Notre Dame after a nearly 2-hour detour. It was one of my favorite evenings in Paris so far.

Today was a North Carolina winter day, where I wore a scarf because it felt seasonably appropriate, not because I actually needed it. After Angelina's in the lesser-known Luxembourg Gardens location with Phoebe, Judith, and Amy, Amy and I wandered (sensing a theme?) to Le Bon Marché to finish up Christmas shopping and take advantage of the free samples. I continued to wander solo down Amy's (and Ina Gartner's) street, Rue de Cherche-Midi, one of the oldest streets in Paris. I found some used Comptoir de Cotonniers and Isabel Marant jumpers being sold at Zara prices. Happy Christmas to me!

[gracetatter-blog]

Yesterday:

Lunch at my Paris favorite, Rose Bakery, with Amy and Austin

Le Palais Garnier — Paris' most opulent opera house

Christmas decorations at Galeries Lafayette

Today

Lunch and learning with Amy and her lovely friend Tori at Musée D'Orsay

Free cake and pressed fruit juice at Shakespeare and Co.

A delicious dinner, the kindest service, and the best chat with Phoebe and Judith at yet another David Lebovitz fave, La Bricola Pizza

Life can't get much better, and yet I'm still beyond excited to go home in a little over a week. I'm so fortunate to have my Paris friends/family AND my friends and family in the States. 

(Picture credits go to Austin and Amy!)

[gracetatter-blog]

Krakow by the numbers

4: Krakow Kuties (Ciara, Phoebe, Judith and myself)

7: The number of awesome puns we came up with (You're KRAKing me up! Krak-ow-ow! Let's KrakOUT of here. That's some good Krak. Krakouch. If we go dancing in Poland, are we Pole dancers? How cold is it? As cold as the North POLE? )

-16: the number of degrees it was in Krakow when we landed (in Celsius, thank goodness!)

2: the number of pants (actual pants, none of this tights crap) I was wearing at all times

5: the number of layers I managed to fit under my coat (thus my svelte figure in all the pictures)

4: the number of times we ate pierogis in 3 days (I regret nothing)

2: The number of times we tried to do Shisha

1: The number of times that the Shisha bar was actually a drug front

2: the number of times we hung out in the Cupcake Corner 

2: The number of days we ate lunch at Marchewal, the coziest, warmest restaurant I have ever eaten at

50: the number of flavors of Pierogis at one restaurant we ate at

1: The number of museums we went to: Schindler's Factory (central to the movie Schindler's List). Hands down one of the best museums I have ever been to.

1: The number of castles we visited.

6: The number of Christmas presents I purchased at the Christmas market. Get excited, friends and family...one of them is a Gangam style lolly pop.

2: The number of times we heard the trumpet sound the hour from one of my favorite churches in the world...and heard the song abruptly stop mid-note, to signify the time a trumpeter was assassinated as he carried out his duty...700 years ago. 

[gracetatter-blog]

Ouch?

The conversation at the table next to Ana, Dave, and I at dinner tonight:

[The two women were talking about leaving Paris to start new lives/families. Not that we were eavesdropping or anything...I mean...in our defense, the tables were really close!]

Woman 1: You can just wander around North Carolina...

Woman 2: Wander around North Carolina? What does anyone do in North Carolina?

Woman 1: I don't know. Drive around? Go to shopping malls?

---

Clearly they weren't eavesdropping on us, or they would've known that North Carolina contains all kinds of awesome.

Besides eavesdropping on random women of indeterminate nationality, Ana, Dave and I also hit up the Pantheon and the Notre Dame in the morning, and the Eiffel Tower and a patisserie in the evening. Consider this our apartment's Christmas card — Happy Holidays from our future home (in the alleged land of the shopping malls) to yours! 

[gracetatter-blog]

Out of the all things we ate yesterday, Ana declared only the chocolate soufflé at Bistrot Paul Bert (one of the best reviewed restaurants à Paris) "life changing."

It was definitely my favorite too. But I also enjoyed:

the crêpes we had at the charming Little Breizh Café for lunch, and how they served cider in a teacup

the TRUFFLE FLAVORED macaron I tried at Pierre Hermé's (Ok, I don't know if "enjoy" is the right word for mushroom flavored dessert items, but it was really interesting)

My tuna carpaccio and plat at the bistrot — some fish with delicious chanterelles on the side

The fries that I stole from Phoebe, Dave, and Ana that came with their steaks

The fact that we sat at the restaurant for hours. Just like Lenoir, y'all, except for without the cookies.

Good thing I'm going to Krakow at the KRAK of dawn tomorrow...I'm sure Poland is super low-cal.

[gracetatter-blog]

Forget Lenny Kravitz...

L'As du Fallafel is now also endorsed by Ana, who is visiting from Sevilla with her boyfriend Dave.

We followed dinner in Le Marais up with a walk to Île de Ste. Louis for some Berthillon ice cream: white chocolate, salted caramel, chocolate, and honey nougat. We ordered well.

[gracetatter-blog]

This is the only place where I am at home. Everywhere else, I camp.

--Salvador Dali re:his childhood home in Spain.

Tourist activity of the day: Queueing up with Phoebe and Caroline at the Pompidou to see the new Dali exhibit. 

[gracetatter-blog]

I love Paris. I really do.

But I think what I love the most is being 20 and carefree (pass/fail classes for the win); having time for three-hour lunches in Passy and having amazing friends to make dinner with every Monday night. Maybe sometimes I conflate love for this stage in my life with love for this city. Or is it all the same?

Paris is probably a city for all life stages, anyway.

[gracetatter-blog]

So lucky these two are coming back to Chapel Hill with me!

An Austin creation, with some help from me and Grace!

Brussels Sprouts with toasted hazelnuts and pomegranate; herbed rice; sautéed potatoes and chanterelles

Soygurt with pomegranite and orange for dessert

[gracetatter-blog]

Now that school work has temporarily let up, I've been playing tourist my all-too-soon-not-to-be home. Phoebe and Judith have had lovely visitors (El and Caroline) to make the sightseeing/eating (always) more fun:

Crêpes at the rightfully hyped Breizh Café

Vin chaud and Belgian waffles at the Champs Elysée Christmas market

Le Petit Palais: A Gustav Le Gray exhibit (he was one of the first photographers) and a UNICEF  auction of dolls designed and dressed by various haute-couture designers

Le Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum that might be my new favorite museum in Paris (sorry Monet!)

L'Orangerie

Musée Cluny (Museum of the Middle Ages)

Rose Bakery. And Rose Bakery.

[gracetatter-blog]

I saw my first Christmas lights in France on my way home from Sevilla in late October. But now, it seems, Christmas is really here. Signs I have witnessed:

Ladurée being decorated

A Christmas tree ready for decoration at an antique shop in St. Germain-de-Pres

The big Christmas tree being up outside the Orangerie, at the end of the Tuileries

Brussel sprouts and pomegranate seeds, prepared by Austin (I think the colors of the meal were coincidental, but they certainly fit my theme)

[gracetatter-blog]

We made yeast rolls with out eggs, a recipe, or yeast (French grocery shopping is HARD). They tasted like straight up butter, but people ate them anyway.

The turkey took two hours longer to cook than Billy and Doris thought it would, and cost a small fortune.

Parisian kitchens are minuscule.

The American to foreigner ratio was low, very low.

There was so much to be thankful for!

[gracetatter-blog]

In which I briefly consider a career in public health

On Tuesday night my friend Judith's laptop was stolen while she was sitting next to it, at our very ritzy school. I lent her my laptop, because I was going to a conference at our family friend's work the next day. 

"What conference?" Judith asked.

"Just some policy thing," I said. "It's called OECD?"

"Grace. That is not just 'some policy thing.' That is big deal."

And indeed it was. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a large, UN-like organization: a kind of hybrid think tank, research center, and regulatory agency. There were all sorts of finance ministers and academics there, and I learned a lot. Plus, Elettra treated to me lunch in their beautiful cafeteria.

Coincidentally, a UNC public health professor who reviewed an application of mine was in Paris, and I met up with him in the evening. I think it says a lot about UNC that a professor who is not at all in my discipline, and who I will never have, bothered to meet with me when he was halfway across the world. 

He and Elettra were so nice to me, that I was considering looking into public health courses as I walked home to Skype Ginny and Mary Margaret. But alas, I was an hour late, because we had agreed to skype 2:30 EST, and I translated that to 9:30 my time...I think if I can't even add 6 to basic numbers, I am probably not cut out for a field that is so number heavy. 

Today I'm making pies with Judith (read: I am doing homework and offering moral support as she makes pies), and then heading to Thanksgiving dinner at the wonderful Ciara's, homework be damned. I'm so thankful to have such a lovely makeshift Paris family!

[gracetatter-blog]

Like any visit with my nearest and dearest, this weekend's trip to Berlin was centered around walking and eating (I choose my friends well.)

I was visiting my friend Christina. Christina and I spent our first semester junior year together at CITYterm, and now she's studying abroad at NYU Berlin.

I use "abroad" lightly, because as far as I could tell, Berlin was Brooklyn, cleaned up and transplanted across the Atlantic, with some extra umlauts on the street signs. As you will see, my weekend included a lot of street food, street art, Veganism, and warehouses. Also, I ran into the girl who I sub-letted from in Williamsburg this summer. See? It even has the same people.

In all seriousness though, everything about NYU's Berlin program seems lovely. When Christina picked me up from the airport Friday afternoon,  it was already getting dark, and therefore cold — below freezing. (I couldn't help myself, and named the Facebook album for this trip Brrrrlin. I know, I know. I am too clever.) After dropping my stuff off at her palatial apartment, we headed to a little Christmas market and got something that sounded to me like "Glue vine," and was actually hot, mulled wine. I can't decide if I liked it or not. I was cold enough that I probably would've enjoyed the sensation of hot glue dripping down my throat, to be honest. 

After that authentic German experience, we went to a Mexican restaurant in the hip Kreuzberg district with Christina's roommate Rachel. Burritos are any self-respecting Chapel Hill student's main food group, and I've been desperate for one. The Germans do them pretty well, I am happy to report!

After burrittos, it was time for a nap, because, unlike in Paris, where we try to get the last metro home before 2, Berliners don't even go out until 1 or 2...or 4 or 5. Thankfully we opted for the relatively early hour of 1 a.m. (still an hour before my usual weekend bed time...), and went to a club in a warehouse called Cassopeia. To paraphrase JFK, I felt very much like a Berliner. And by the time we got home at 5:30 a.m., very tired.

Our late night/early morning did not keep Christina and I from sight seeing the next day. NYU Berlin's dorm is in Mitte, the very center of Berlin, so all of the major sights were nearby. Basically, Mitte is a history major's dream. We hit up the Topography of Terrors, the Holocaust for Murdered Jews, the Brandenburg Gate, a Soviet War Memorial that the German government is bizarrely responsible for caring for, the Reichstag, St. Hedwig's Church, and Museum Island all in one go, with various stops for snacks: pretzels, hot chocolate, and currywurst.

That's some pretty heavy history, and a lot of walking, so we needed a break at Ritter Sport World, where we made our own chocolate bars. They helpfully had a list of translations for all of the mix-ins, so if any poor English speaker wanted to know what a "marshmallow" was, he could be assured it was a "foam based sweet." Yummy. My bar included almonds, amaretti crumbles, and hazelnuts. I'm sure it will be coming to a store near you soon.

We went back to Kreuzberg for dinner with Christina's friend Cullen, and I drooled over how cheap everything was at the restaurant we ate at, and at their favorite bar afterward. Since we're not total beasts, we had an earlier start for the night, to ensure that we'd have an earlier bed time.

The next morning, Christina took me to the East Side Gallery, the longest standing remains of the Berlin Art Wall, and an outdoor art gallery. We only had a little time to peruse the exhibit before meeting back up with Cullen for brunch at Kopp's, which came very highly recommended by my friends and food-experts Jamie and Austin. Even the committed omnivores at the table loved their food, which, despite the absence of animal products, was authentic German cuisine! 

The rest of the day was a refreshingly lazy Sunday, replete with delicious Egyptian food in Kreuzberg and a viewing of the Graduate (can you tell that I was staying at NYU? Kidding, kidding.) 

Christina had class Monday morning, so I explored Prenzlauer Berg. This area was particularly Brooklyn-esque, and I enjoyed coffee out of a quaint daintily painted bowl, before looking in the windows of secondhand clothing shops. For our last meal together, Christina and I ate at Suppe & Salat, which was delicious, and, most importantly, very warm.

I loved Berlin, and I definitely want to go back. But until then, there's always Brooklyn.

[gracetatter-blog]

Meals

It's about to be Thanksgiving week in the States (I think. Right?). I have a 15-page paper and a 20 minute presentation the day after, that I'll not have been able to devote my full attention to, since I have an 8-page paper due the day of (in French, no less, quelle horreur!). Due to this mountain of work that jars quite hideously with my expectations for study abroad, I'm not sure if I'll get to partake in the celebration at my friend Ciara's apartment. Fortunately, I've shared these lovely meals as of late:

For two Mondays in a row, Judith made Phoebe, Ciara and I soup for supper — the perfect way to start the week. This week we planned a trip to Krakow as we ate. Lots of bad puns ensued. ("Let's get Krakowin'" is decidedly the favorite.)

On Saturday, after I came in exhausted from a four-hour midterm, Ester invited me to eat lunch with her mother, visiting from Argentina, her daughter, visiting from Barcelona, and her son. Ester cooks a lot, and I've always been impressed by what I see and smell, so I was eager to take her up on the kind invitation — even though her family speaks only Spanish. As the "guest," I got the biggest piece of chocolate cake. Nom.

Last week, Phoebe and Judith turned 21, which meant non-stop celebration, obviously. Friday, a big group of us ate at Chez Janou, which is famed for their bottomless bowl of chocolate mousse. Even we, who have been training for such a dessert challenge all semester, nay, our entire lives, barely made a dent into it.

On Sunday, Phoebe, her boyfriend Michael, Katherina, Judith and I brunched at Breakfast in America. We call shenanigans on the "In America" qualifier. The waitress didn't smile at us even once, and the food was meh. We stayed for ages chatting anyway, not realizing there was a pretty substantial queue outside...whoops. (Fun fact: Breakfast in America was the very first place I ate in Paris when I came freshman year to visit Emily.)

Also on Sunday, I ate at Le Bistrot d'Henri with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jamie, who were visiting from a third-world country without power, gasoline, and other modern amenities...and by that I mean New York. It was lovely to see family, especially since I am missing out on Thanksgiving. (To redeem the fact that Emily took me to Breakfast in America for my first meal in France, I have to add that she also took me here!)

Now on to Berlin for the weekend, to visit Christina. Christina and I explored New York together for a semester when we were 16, and again this summer. I can't think of a better tour guide for a city!

[gracetatter-blog]

This week's study breaks:

Café Select — favored café of the characters in the Sun Also Rises — with Mari and Katharina

The view from the roof of Tour de Montparnasse (the tallest — and ugliest — building in Paris)

Homemade French onion soup 

Celebrating Judith's 21st birthday...by naming all 50 states? In 6 minutes and 35 seconds (Should we be proud or embarrassed?)

Stargazing in the Tuileries — yes! you can see stars in Paris! About 40.