A Scandanavian Christmas

Killing time at the Stockholm Airport. The chairs are ideal for napping: they are basically an extended padded bench, with no awkward armrests getting in the way of full horizontal relaxation. Unfortunately I am not taking advantage of this napping situation because I am trying to stay awake for a couple more hours in an attempt to lessen the 9 hour time gap. Why must Vancouver be soooo far?
I was in Stockholm for the past week staying with my good friend N’s cousins, and celebrating Christmas Scandinavian style. Some highlights include:
1. Lots and lots of snow everywhere! Some little cousins came over on Christmas eve, and while I could not communicate with them we took them sledding and it was pretty fun. (Until an ankle was twisted)


2. Learning how to make many the Swedish dish, which bizarrely was often ball shaped – meatballs, chocoballs…My favorite was this holiday candy that kind of tasted like caramel and had chunks of crushed almonds.














3. Christmas itself – there where many traditions I would not mind bringing back to Canada. My favorites where putting rhyming riddles on all the presents and singing a song and taking a shot before every course of the meal.
4. Realizing that as a Vancouverite I should REALLY know who the Sedin twins are, especially if I wanted to explain to new Swedes where I lived.
5. A Swedish Christmas day party in a mall (the bar was extended out for special occasions – picture a dance floor up against an H&M window). This involved me and N getting bitten on the shoulder (???), a constant stream of 90’s pop favorites such as Hanson and the spice girls and getting party boy-ed by a lot of high-spirited blondes. I was also told that I “could pass for Scandinavian, which is a good thing”. I replied this comment with “you could pass for Canadian!” (this was the only male in the place with no gel in his hair, and he was wearing plaid). His retort? “Oh no!”
In conclusion, it was a very good trip. While being incredibly cold, it was really nice to stay with a big family after 4 months of living on my own. Stockholm is also a really cool city – it is entirely composed of Islands, which I had heard before but couln’t really grasp until I actually saw it. I wouldn’t mind going back in summer though, to see what its like when daylight lingers past 3pm.

boxes

I forgot how much I love mandarin oranges. Not only is peeling them in once piece the most satisfying feeling in the world, the fruit itself is delicious. And there is something about natures neat little compartmentalization that really gets me. Compartmentalization. A friend here told me that was the best way to deal with conflicting emotional issues: put things into different mental boxes instead of trying to attack everything at once. However, while I much rather eat neat little mandarin half moons then deal with the messiness of a whole orange, I can’t say I agree that compartmentalization is the way to go. This does not make all that much sense, but its something I have been thinking about a lot lately. While dealing with everything at once can be overwhelming, sometimes it is the best way because once you actually deal with the issue it is done, instead of being stuck with lots of unopened boxes. And speaking of unopened boxes, my moving attempt is failing at the moment. I am leaving for Stockholm tomorrow morning and am not quite packed, nor have I yet cleaned out my apartment. I think I am so reluctant to pack up because while I am very excited to live in a new neighborhood with an awesome roommate, I am going to miss my place very much. The reason I am going to miss my apartment so much is because it was the crash pad for many of my good friends who will not be joining me at school come January. Which is quite triste (Sorry had to through in a French word somewhere). HOWEVER, while I am sad that they are going, my first term here has been made pretty amazing by their presence. I am excited that these friendships do not need to go into compartments that will never be reopened, because many of them live in Europe so I will be visiting them next term, and as for the Americans, I have a feelings things will work themselves out. STOCKHOLM TOMORROW! My first northern European experience.

Education.

Things I have learned from my stay so far

1. How to be a pro metro rider
2. Stop for cars. They won’t stop for you
3. There are way many more kind strangers out there then you would think
4. Jewish history
5. Don’t walk around at night alone as a girl in an area you don’t know
6. The art of eating a pain au chocolate while walking without coating yourself in crumbs – and then if you are eating in public, guarantee a stranger will tell you “bon apetit”
7. The best crepes are made fresh: don’t settle for the precooked stuff
8. Elevators are a luxury, not given. Never a given
9. Cuing up is a cultural conception
10. It is possible to look good all the time, just difficult to master
11. First impressions are rarely accurate
12. In most of my classes, the teacher is always right.
13. Pierre Herme macaroons are the uncontested winner.
14. Chile’s political history
15. You are never too old to bike to work
16. You can never have too much wine
17. Or too much cheese
18. Or too much baguette
19. There is a big difference between being able to speak a language in a classroom and in a social situation
20. That 4 months is not nearly enough time here, but it is enough time to make amazing friends
21. NEVER address a distinguished old man as “tu”
22. Strikes happen. A lot.
23. Don't every try to look as effortlessly put together, waif-like, or naturally intimidating as french girls. it is impossible for us north americans. so is walking on icy cobbled streets in high heels (courtesy of Sarah)
24. Don’t tip
25. How to ignore the smell of urine
26. The men that try to talk to you on the streets are not the ones you want to talk to
27. Try as you might, you can’t prepare to be completely unprepared
28. Even the French don’t quite understand the Bureaucracy
29. You will never be the only person drinking in public
30. Eating as an art form
31. If you don’t have exact change at the boulangerie, tabac, grocery store, whatever – expect to be SCORNED and MOCKED
32. Don’t fly with Ryanair – it is not a better deal
33. Writing group papers are kind of fun
34. It is possible to find a new street / cool shop/ amazing area EVERYTIME you go for a walk
35. that I LOVE PARIS

Countdowns

2 days until my last essay.

4 days left of first term.

7 days left of my lovely apartment.

One week until Stockholm.

Two weeks until Vancouver.


CAN'T BELIEVE HOW FAST IT ALL GOES BY

From Pain au Chocolate to Pannenkoeken

I just realized that today was already the 13th and was completely shocked. I really shouldn’t have been that surprised as I knew it was Canadian thanksgiving which is always mid October, but somehow time has started to absolutely fly by. The past week I had an expose to present on Friday (an expose is a 10-20 minute oral presentation on pretty much any topic, but you need to have a “problematic”, so it is basically a spoken essay) – so my week was a mix of trying to be social while waking up super early to get work done. I also went to Amsterdam this weekend, so mixed into the being social / schoolwork was booking transportation and accommodation in Amsterdam. And apparently I can’t multitask, as I made one of the dumbest mistakes of my life:

I booked the hostel for the wrong night. Now, this doesn’t sound like a terrible mistake but it really was. First off, I was staying in a separate hostel then my friends because they were all booked up, so I was on my own. Secondly, you get around 3 confirmation emails once you booked, and I even called the hostel to confirm. Thirdly, I forgot to print off my bus ticket so I went into a panic the night before knocking on my neighbor’s doors to borrow a printer and then making sure everything was in check – BUT I DIDN’T CHECK MY HOSTEL SLIP. Fourthly, once I tried to check in at the hostel and the mistake was made clear I made the excellent call of getting pancakes and beer instead of looking for a new place to sleep.

When our group returned to their own hostel, it became apparent that they wouldn’t be ale to sneak me in ( they were staying at a very serious, very Christian hostel – kind of at odds with everything else we had experienced of the city), so we started to call every hostel in Amsterdam to see if they had any openings. As it was 2am on a Saturday night, absolutely everything was booked. Eventually I did the only thing left to do- I started to cry until the man at the front desk of the hostel let me sleep in my friend’s bed. It was quite an experience, but at least I was not on a park bench, which seemed like a very probable option for a while.

Day 2 was much less stressful, as we rented bikes and explored the city all day. There is such a different feeling from Paris, everything from the way people dress to the general etiquette when crossing a street is much more relaxed. (In Paris, no rules apply – people generally take a red walk sign to mean, “run for dear life” and cars will usually power straight through the greens). Day 2 was also quite an adventure for far superior reasons, but im not going to write out all the details…there was lots of getting lost on bikes and eating Dutch apple cake(pictured below), with the van Gogh museum and the flower market thrown in. Despite some stressful moments I would say the weekend was a definitive success, and one of the best aspects of the weekend trip was how happy I felt getting back to my apartment. When I was on the metro nearing my stop and again when I was finally in my bed I really felt like I was home. Which is an amazing feeling.

PS – I started a pain au chocolate count for October and lost count already. I feel like this is a bad sign

PPS – my American friends took pity on me for missing out on Canadian thanksgiving so they made an impromptu dinner consisting of chicken that tasted like ham (???), delicious bree with date spread and some weird mystery meat that my friend insisted was pigeon. Yum…

Nuit Blanche

Now that school has officially started, I feel like my life here as actually started as I have a schedule, things to accomplish, and A REAL HOME. The transition from roaming tourist to actual student happened really quickly, as I got some form of weird flu last week that made all the days blend together. It also made moving my suitcases on the metro pretty difficult, as my friend who was helping me also had the flu. (at first we couldn’t figure out how we both got so sick at the same time, but then realized it was probably attributed to the fact that we didn’t have cups in our dorm, so we usually drank out of the same wine bottle. Very sophisticated).

Another exciting development – I REALLY love my apartment. Its located on the edge of the 14th, 6th, and 7th, and as Paris districts are distributed like a snail shell that means not in the center but not too far off either. However, the best part of the apartment is that I have an extra mattress and key, and enough space for someone to come visit me quite comfortably. I had a “party” on Saturday night, and managed to fit 17 people inside the apartment, which I think was fairly impressive. It did get very hot though, and I’m still taking the wine bottles down to recycling in increments so my neighbors don’t think I am a raging alcoholic.

<-- a posed picture on my bed


The reason I had people over on Saturday was to celebrate our first Parisian “Nuit Blanch” which is a kind of all night modern art show all over the city. (They have them in Toronto and Montreal as well, and I’m sure its spreading to other places..) We left the apartment at around midnight to explore, and were amazed by how many people where on the streets. I have honestly never seen Paris that busy, not even on a sunny Saturday. The crazy thing was the mix of people – at first I thought it was all drunk students, but then I realized that there were also families, and old couples, and people by themselves who were really into the art. I didn’t make it out of the Latin quarter (the neighborhood close to my place) because I was not sure I would be able to wait out the first metro at 5 am. (My friend who did said that there was huge spontaneous dance party outside a metro stop at 4:45am as everyone tried to pass the time…)
My favorite “piece of art” that we saw was in Luxembourg gardens. In the middle was the worlds biggest disco ball, suspended from a giant crane and reflecting various lights and lasers all over the garden. It was pretty cool to see, and later I read the program to see the point behind it: to represent the starry sky that can’t be seen from big urban cities.

“Impossible dans les villes de contempler un ciel étoilé: la luminosité des centres urbains occulte le spectacle immemorial de la voute céleste”

All in all things are going well, despite the oral presentations and massive amounts of reading...
A bientot

An unfortunate incident involving old world staircases.

This week my mom came to visit me (all the way from Canada) to see the city and to help me figure all the things I had left to do. This seemed like a good idea, as she was going to stay in the apartment I would probably be living in and figure out Internet, help me with phone plans, and generally be a mom when I needed it the most. Unfortunately, things did not work out this way. The first night she was here I took her out for gelato to show her around and introduced her to some of my friends, which was really nice. However, her third night here she took an unfortunate tumble down some stairs and broke her foot in four places. From this experience we learned one crucial lesson: Paris is NOT friendly towards those on crutches or in wheelchairs. For example, the apartment my mom was staying in is four tiny flights of stairs up with no elevator. Most metros do not have accessibly elevators either, and at the stop I usually get off at you literally need to hop over the gap. However, I also learned that many French doctors, while they do make you wait, are incredibly friendly and helpful.

So, while it was amazing to get to see my mom (for the short time she was here), the trip did not exactly go as planned. Today, after spending around an hour at the airport trying to find a porter with a wheelchair, she managed to safely catch a much earlier flight back home. It made me homesick to only get to see her for such a short time (and sad because she couldn’t really do any of the exploring she had planned), but it was still amazing to have a little bit of home here. In a week I will have been here for a whole month! Somehow it still feels like I arrived yesterday.

Tomorrow I finally have my first real class. I planned my schedule so I have Mondays and Tuesdays off for traveling, but that means that I have eight hours of class on Thursdays and Fridays. I’m starting to get a little nervous about the course load; this is definitely NOT the casual year abroad I had anticipated. For my lecture on “Cities and the Urban Experience” on Thursday, I already have over 150 pages of articles to read. (I’m taking 7 courses…starting to really wish I had opted for “the world of wine” instead of things like “Violence, Memory and Amnesia in Chile”). However, I have a feeling that if I were still at UBC taking a full course load of 3rd year poli stuff I would have around the same amount of work, just with a little less of the French rigidity.

While this entry makes it seem like I’ve had the worst week ever, I have still been having fun despite the unfortunate foot incident. This week I decided to lay off the wine a little bit and have a look at some more cultural aspects of the city. By comparing Chateau de Versailles with a graffiti exhibit called “Nee dans les Rue”, I realized that I’m probably going to be more interested in the less touristy attractions. (What an amazing discovery!) Versailles is amazing of course, but it was so packed it was hard to really appreciate it. However, the graffiti exhibit was so well done and unexpected in comparison that it got me really excited for the contemporary cultural scene that is huge in Paris. I also visited my first Parisian techno dance club (aptly named the social club), but I don’t think I’m quite trendy enough to become a regular.

Last little note – I bought a hair dryer today! This shouldn’t be that big a deal, but after blowing a fuse in my friends building with an unfortunate incident involving a faulty converter (or just my own stupidity), I have been terrified of using North American heating appliances. So, tomorrow I’m going to have a shower before my first real class and get to blow dry my hair and hopeful dispel the stereotype that I have propagated that Canadians don’t really know how to groom. Pretty exciting stuff…
A bientot!

Chasse au Trésor

I don’t think I am ever going to get used to how beautiful everything is here. As am I easily distracted in the best of times, it usually takes me twice as long as it should to get anywhere because I cant walk a block without stopping to look at something. (I probably walk into at least four patisseries a day, just to admire the colorful macaroons and tiny little cakes). However, especially after a summer of working two jobs, it is very nice to be relaxed enough that it doesn’t matter if I take the four winding side streets opposed to the one main road. My commitments for this week have been my welcome classes, but that ends today giving me a week before I have to start real school. Lots of time for exploring…

Last night was probably one of my favorite group organized activities: a treasure hunt around the big monuments. I’m using the term “treasure hunt” loosely, because it ended up being running from monument to monument based on a clue (such as – title of a Victor Hugo novel = Notre Dame), to be met with a challenge and a lot of alcohol. As you can imagine, after the first two stops we started going pretty slowly. The fun thing about the treasure hunt was that it was the first time I have seen a lot of the monuments here since I arrived. And really, wandering around the outside of the Louvre at night looking for a clue is very different then cueing for hours with your parents waiting to see the Mona Lisa. There was so many moments when we would all be running in a slightly drunken frenzy to suddenly stop and be completely taken aback by where we were. There is some cheesy “treasure” metaphor in here but I’m not going to go there.

Despite stopping for French fries along the way and being horrible and throwing a cork into a cup our team still managed to win a basket full of French food, which we ate on Pont des Arts*. After sitting around until we were all almost frozen and hungry again, we went on a search for “cheap” food. This does not really exist in Paris, as a learned my first night out when I spent an hour in the rain searching for a 24 hour kebab stand. (It seems like the best bet is to stay out until the metros start running and the boulageries open up again). However, we did manage to find some affordable-ish Japanese food, which I have to say was the most un-Japanese thing I have ever eaten. (Beef with rice and cheese???) While eating our food, I spotted a group of French boys all holding vespa helmets. Feeling unusual courageous from the combination of liquors distributed throughout the treasure hunt, I asked them for a ride around town. This was probably one of my better ideas, as they offered me and my friend a mini tour of Paris, sitting on the backs of their scooters with big round helmets…It was just as cool as I thought it would be, but unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of my first vespa ride. I guess this just means I need to do it again?
*Cars aren’t allowed on this bridge as it is rather fragile, it so every night it is full of groups of people sitting around eating and drinking. I have somehow managed to end up there most nights, as it is a really good meeting spot for meeting new people and reuniting with the few people I know here.

Pictures: Our team holding our victory basket at pont des arts, David and I being tourists outside the Louvre and doing the "pass the cup of vodka with your teeth" challenge outside of notre dame

Settling In, barely

I have now been here for a week, but it still feels like I arrived yesterday. I think this is partially due to my terrible sense of direction as I’m still getting just as lost as day one, but mostly because things have been so busy it has not yet registered that I am in Paris. I also don’t really know where to start this because so much has happened in the past week it’s impossible to fit it into a short cohesive blog. I have a feeling I’ m going to need to eventually pick a focus or else this will just be even more all over the place then it already is…


I would have to say the 2 most important things that have happened this week are that a) I have started intro classes which leads to b) I have started to make friends. I have a feeling both are pretty crucial to eventually fitting in here. I didn’t quite realize it at home, but this school is going to be tough. It is a private school, which means it has well paid teachers and a large library selection, but it also means that all students here not on exchange are paying a HUGE amount of money to be here. Which means they take things very very seriously. I could write quite a bit comparing what I have experienced of the educational system here compared to the one back home, but I think I will save that for another day.

Friends – everyone you meet is from a different country. In my one class alone there are people from the Netherlands, Brazil, Latvia, Mexico, Czech Republic, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Finland, Norway, The US and of course Canada. The other night we all got together to go drink wine on the Seine* and I taught them how to play one of my preferred drinking games, whatthefuck, and the results were pretty funny. I probably didn’t create the best impression of Canada, but it was an overall success (people came up with pretty good names for themselves).
When I am not at school I am running around trying to sort out all the bureaucratic mess that is France. For example, to get a bus pass you need a bank account, but to get a free bank account you need a student card, but to get a student card you need to go on the date and time that corresponds with the first letter of your last name with all the correct documents, which you need to print off, but you can only access a printer if you have a student card….you get the picture. However, I have managed to get a bank account (step one –ish), a month long bus pass, and hope to get a student card tomorrow. Each new card feels like the worlds biggest accomplishment. However, despite all the moaning about getting stuff done and ALREADY having school work, there is a lot of time to explore and go on picnics and boat rides and eat pain au chocolate and drink amazing espresso and general have an excellent time pretending to be French. So in conclusion, to sum up my first week, I would say things are going good. I will try to be more on top of this next week so there can be more interesting anecdotes and less boring general information.

* Side note – The wine is just as amazing as you would think it would be. And just as cheap. Also, there are SO MANY rats running all around the seine. Its pretty gross, but also quite atmospheric?

I've arrived!

After an arduous 16+ hours of travel, I have arrived in Paris and settled into my room for a month. I’m staying in a dorm slightly outside of the city center while I (hopefully) find a permanent place to stay. Or else I guess I will be joining the hordes sleeping in all the lovely public parks.

My trip here was fairly uneventful, but the highlights would probably be:

- Checking in my bags to be asked if I had anyone to accompany me in my travels…aka implying that I was under 13, the age you need to be to travel alone. It’s like cmon, I know I’m not wearing any makeup but 13? Seriously? (sadly this is not the first time I have been asked this)

- Sharing the row with a Christian youth rock band that was going to Poland to spread the word. Which they proceeded to spread to me. In song. For 9 hours. OK I’m exaggerating, they didn’t actually sing on the plane, and as my awesome Dutch airline had games on the mini screens such as competitive tetris, it was great to make friends with my row-mates.

- Having 20 minutes in Amsterdam to make my connection, I realized that I needed to go through security again as it was my first landing in the EU. Once I finally arrive panting at my gate I am met with a group of very casual travelers, many drinking Heineken tall boys while waiting in line to board. The Dutch clearly know how to travel

- Experiencing my first taste of Parisian romance as the couple sharing a row with me on the flight from Amsterdam to Paris made out and drank wine the whole flight. Cliché? Nahhhh.

- Having an amazing shuttle driver who made up for being two hours late (yes, two hours) by driving me around the scenic route with commentary such as “This is where Diana died!” while swerving oncoming traffic. When he dropped me off he said he would look for me when dropping off other students…yay for first friend in a new city.


We didn’t have any classes to attend today, as it was course registration. I thought it was a little excessive to give a whole day off just to register online, but it was stressful enough that I needed it. I somehow managed to mess things up long enough that a lot of my first choice classes got full, but I snuck my way into most of the ones I wanted and picked up some interesting fillers such as “a comparative look at the Jewish experience” and “violence in Chile”. To celebrate finishing the ordeal I went out to explore and have dinner with a friend from UBC – it was nice to finally get away from my dorm area and see what all the fuss is about. Paris is pretty awesome.

Anyways, tomorrow I have my first day of intensive French classes and an international welcome party so I should try to sleep to fix up this jetlag. More later...



13 and eager!

Some closing thoughts...

Packing up to move to Paris for a year is a bittersweet experience. It’s hard to reconcile the overwhelming excitement of moving to a new place with the incredible sadness of leaving everything behind. I just have a constant feeling of unease which I can’t label as fear or excitement, so I have a feeling that means it is a little of both.
It’s really weird to think that I am going to be leaving Vancouver for a year. Vancouver is really the only city that I can say I know intimately well, but that also means it is the only city that I can say I really love. I used to spend my summers in LA, and I liked the city well enough, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for Vancouver. Vancouver is my home and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That said, it doesn’t mean I can’t wait to experience something new. Which brings us to Paris.
In the couple days before I go, I’ve really been thinking about what I am going to miss most about home. Of course there is the obvious things, like my cats, but there are a lot of less obvious things that I have a feeling I will really notice when they aren’t there. If I had to classify top 5 all around awesome things about Vancouver it would be something like this

5. The cheap and delicious sushi you can find just about anywhere

4. How it’s acceptable (almost cool?) to always wear sweatpants/lululemons/leggings..which I guess has to do with the general west coast attitude

3. The weather ( many people might not agree with me on this one, but there is really nothing better then being forced to have a lazy day because its pouring rain outside, Especially if you have a skylight/good book/ worthy scrabble opponent)

2. UBC campus (which is kind of cheating, because this comprises rec beach, the view from my living room last year, amazing study spots, going out and knowing the entire bar, ponderosa cake …)

1. Everyone who lives here. This one is actually pretty darn obvious, and may appear to have nothing to do with Vancouver. But I think its something about Vancouver that attracts and keeps some of the coolest people I have ever met.
But somehow things change. As much as I would love for everything to always be as perfect as so many of my Vancouver memories, life would be very boring without a little upheaval now and then. So despite my love for Vancouver and everyone who lives here, I still chose to go away for a full year. Which is a huge deal for me, because I didn’t take the leap two years ago and chose an out of province or better yet out of country school. So this is it, my big nest fleeing, and the first time I will ever live more then 45 minutes away from my parents (or more then 5 minutes away from my dads office…). I am off to Paris on Sunday! So please, don’t lose touch. Write me emails, letters, comments, whatever – and I will reply. Because while I am away will intensely miss everyone who made my life so amazing here.
And finally, right before I go, I would have to say the excitement for Paris is winning over the sadness of leaving Vancouver behind. Because as much as I love Vancouver, its not going anywhere. But I am.