Land of Hope and Dreams

Paris has more habitants than my whole country. Not including all the visitors or daily migrants ... The number of faces you see everyday is immense, the number of different destinies, wishes, expectations of life, it's overwhelming that we all come to one place, to this beautiful city of art, to find all the clichés the city has to offer including the hidden cafés,  bakeries, bars, shops, pompous museums or even only to peek through the narrow but high windows to see the interiors of the old Parisian apartments.

And all these faces make you want to have a sketch book and to be able to make millions and millions of croquis ... or photographs. 

So yesterday I was in Le Marais ... with these three ladies.

And today we've seen a little genius. This boy was reading Nietzsche on a tram. Our eyes popped out as we were trying to figure out if it is only a hallucination or merely a reality which has much more to offer than you'd think in your own dreamy and confused world. 

Rue Mouffetard

Just around a corner from our Uni, deep in Quartier Latin there's a whole little universe: a street of Greek restaurants, tea salons, pastry shops, greengroceries  ... Little cars and Parisian cafés with miniature tables loaded with plates, diverse food and water jars.

Impressions

When you see people on the balconies you realize all the houses of Paris aren't museums. They are so beautiful they seem so, though.

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"Oh, everything is so cheap!" ; "My god, we just payed more than hundred Euros for this!"

After shopping in Ikea.

After not finding the right bus stop, not having a map, you just have a right to look like this. 

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- Let's have a lunch together! 

- Okay, we'll cook in my residence, we have a table in our kitchen, you don't. 

- Okay, what shall we cook? 

- I've got some raviolis.

- I'll make lentils with rice. You have some pots?

There the complications started.

One pot, one pan, too little plates and non functioning stoves. 

Result? Eating out from the lid, cooking for two hours and a half. And cooking raviolis... in a pan.

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Weather in Paris seems much like the one in London these days; it's raining for two seconds then the sun comes out and it totally burns your skin. So you don't only have acne from the dirty metropolis but you also get a nicely red face. Paris has faces, too.

La Gourmandise

Ever since I came here I've been eating nonsense food, like salad with couscous or cereals from a plastic bowl (I got that with the couscous) and all that with the crockery I took from the plane when I came here. So yesterday me and my friend prepared a little dinner: tomato salad in that plastic bowl, a french baguette, a bit of Saint-Félicien du Dauphiné (fresh and mild French cheese). One was eating with a plastic fork and the other with a plastic coffee spoon. Yummy.

The exquisite cuisine without any crockery

No need to say we weren't even able to cook tea or coffee, so tomorrow the first thing is going to Ikea which is opened till 8PM (mind that that's on Sunday!). 

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However, I have finally made some food supplies. So today after all the sightseeing of Paris ensoleillé, picnic with baguettes, fromages and after hanging out with all the international people, we were cooking some pasta with those of them that actually own some "normal" pots and forks. A warm home cooked meal (it doesn't matter if it was just pasta with industrial made pesto) is more than you can look forward to in a huge city where otherwise you can get just about anything.

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What I have to add to all this is that almost everything French is made with style, even the (cheap) spices I have bought. We even witnessed a "stylish" French way cleaning: in front of the Victor Hugo's house one of the guards simply kicked the empty box of Marlboro cigarettes like a football to get it away from the fancy doorway. Do it the French way! Here are some other silly things we've seen today.

A warm welcome in front of a cosy pharmacy.

How to sunbathe in Paris: you take almost all the clothes off and go to Jardin de Tuileries, sit on a chair and make a nice sightseeing point for all the tourists.

The joggers in huge diapers (?!).

You can see anything in Paris. Even a man playing music with a plastic foil. And we haven't been around much yet!

Simple Twist of Fate

About 35 kg of luggage, no books, no phone, tones of paperwork aaand here we are, 1300 km from home in a jaw-dropping Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris.

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This is a residence I'm staying in. Seems like Oxford? That's because the architect was inspired by it's style. Built in 1925, Fondation Deutsch de la Meurthe is the first student residence in Cité. 

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My room currently seems a bit empty and desperately needs decoration. This is on my must do list just after settling down about a billion other things. But it'll get better soon.

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And all you have to do here is to leave your room, the adventure starts immediately. So somehow I found myself in the evening sitting along the Seine with Notre Dame all lit up, crazy and shiny bateaux mouches drifting along the river with people dining, shouting or singing on them; sitting with some random Erasmus and mostly medical students doing the same thing here as I do. Chatting, contemplating Notre Dame in the dark and realizing this isn't a dream at all! And hey, Knopfler and Dylan are in town next week having a concert together! The excitement is killing me. If not the excitement then the choice of food will for sure; being a vegetarian in Paris is like a voluntary starving. Nothing's perfect, right.