WANDERLUST: the irresistibly strong desire to travel or wander

So I know that it is has been a while since I have been home from Paris, and am back at school in Denver now, but thought I would do one last post basically summarizing my time abroad, especially in Paris. All I can say is that keeping this blog has been lots of fun and I can promise that the next time I venture outside of the US, I will return to this blog in order to keep y'all updated on my travels and well-being. So, without further ado, my fond memories of Paris and Europe.

 Paris: a collection of memories and trinkets gathered but never forgotten

Having lived in Paris for roughly four months (28 weeks, 122 days, 2,928 hours, 175,680 minutes, 10,540,800 seconds) it is no wonder that I gathered an extensive list of memories that will last me a lifetime and beyond. The experiences I had in Paris can never be fully explained, nor can they be replicated, but I can try and do my best to quickly try and give you an idea of what stood out to me as memorable, especially my memories from living in the Cambronne apartment. One thing needs to be explained first about said apartment. I think the apartment complex has a name, RDC, but it will be always known as Cambronne (even though that is the metro stop it is named after, and the closet metro stop (even though, la Motte-Picquette-Grenelle is a lovely 5 minute walk away)).

Besides being very small, like our toilet room resembled that of Harry Potter’s bedroom under the staircase and our single room housed two twin beds pushed together (not because my roommate and I liked to cuddle but because otherwise there was no room to walk around the beds and get into the closet), our apartment was very classic and filled with old-lady trinkets, including a locked china cabinet that then become the holder of all things to be brought home as presents, as well as a poor excuse for a shower with a showerhead on the moving wall attachment in the middle of the tub and no shower curtain so you had to shower crouched and facing the door which usually resulted in vast amounts of water just about EVERYWHERE. There was also the lovely washer and dryer all put in one machine which made crazy air siren noises and had no lint trap which then meant that the lint was all over the bathroom so we eventually gave up on drying clothes. On the walls were hung fancy-smancy looking oil paintings, on the ground woven tapestries that had seen better days and a vase in the corner that was covered the majority of the time with a lovely Oktoberfest hat. And I might as well mention the TV, which was very hard to figure out – I struggle back in the States with TVs with multiple remotes, so really, it is easy to see how I would struggle with the French TV that always had various remotes. Oh and the silk couch, the very small silk couch. Not sure what else to say besides that we were told that she adored the silk couch the most out of the whole apartment and that we had to take very good care of it. But, it was the perfect sized couch for Kat, who slept on it several times. And while I was cleaning, found out that it is actually a pull out bed!!! Who would have known? Finally, the temperamental outlets and adapters. Not sure what to say about them, except that they were temperamental and liked to throw temper tantrums all at the same time, which was a VERY big inconvenience. All of this added up and tremendously added to its charm and quaintness, so on to the memorable memories that graced that apartment.

Being conservative and quiet college students 99% of the time meant that we required that 1% of time to rock out, and what better place than the very small Parisian elevator. So whenever the elevator was on the ground floor, we would pile in, wait until the doors closed (to make sure no one would join us) and then we would have a legit 30-second dance party and no one was the wiser. To anyone that saw us, we were just normal people riding in a normal elevator, but to us, the second those doors closed and the small box disguised as an elevator, it was a dance club filled with our very own music.

Honestly, I am not sure what next to write about. There is just so much, I don’t want to write about all of it right away, and it also makes me sad to see that all my memories can take up such little space when they took up so much time and seem so much more important in my mind then they do on paper. I guess I can go back to the music topic real quick and explain about how our old-lady apartment was down the street from not one, but two, night clubs, which I find hysterical. But fist, I need to mention the fact that at all hours of the day (morning, mid-day and night), and scout’s honor, I’m not kidding, cars would drive by blaring all different types of music, which once again, resulted in more 30-second dance parties, especially if the light at the end of the block was red and they had to stay put for a bit. Now, on to the nightclubs. Oh, where to start, I guess with their names because their names are just as funny as the idea of dear ol’ sweet Cambronne being down the street from them. They were Backup and Chez Alize. It was always weird to be walking down the street during the day and to go past these quiet, unlit buildings, when walking by at night, there was always a line out of the door and down the street and if we were lucky enough, and there was no line, and the door was propped open on good evenings, then we were granted a glimpse into the waiting room/front lobby of Backup, which was made really awkward when you made eye-contact with the guy behind the desk. I guess right here would be a good time to talk about creepy guys on the street hitting on you. This fact just became a way of life in Paris. The occasional “Madamemoiselle! Madamemoiselle!” with a guy coming after/towards you was rewarded with a death glare and the always-applicable action of just do your life (if you are on the metro, do the metro, if you are walking, do the walk). I mean it took some getting use to, and I’m not sure I ever truly got use to it, but it definitely kind of became a part of the norm.

 I feel so bad that this blog entry is so long, yet there are just so many memories from Paris. Since having covered the set-up of our apartment, the various nightclubs nearby, I guess, it is only possible to talk about what went on in the apartment building. The first being that about three weeks into my time abroad, the apartment a few floors directly above us happened to acquire an infant and a dog. AT. THE. SAME. TIME. Do you know how annoying a continuously crying infant and barking dog can be? I mean. COME ON. Aren’t there parents around to tend to said infant and dog? At all hours of the day these two were interchangeably and sometimes at the same time, continuously screaming, wailing, barking. At 8am when you got ready for class, they were howling. At noon, when you came back for lunch, they were howling. At 5pm when you got back from class, they were howling. At 9pm when you were having dinner, they were howling. At midnight, they were howling. At 2am, when you finally went to bed, they were still howling. At 4am when you randomly awoke to find yet again, a howling infant and dog. And the cycle would repeat. So, I ask again, WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?! At the same time, there appeared to always be one apartment above us that was always having a party. So, I ask, why weren’t we ever invited?

And maybe the answer to that question lies in the fact that we were always in our apartment having our own type of party full of our own special drinks and activities. Our new drink, that we like to take credit for, the reinvented French screwdriver aka vodka and Orangina. Way yummier than regular screwdrivers. And then our intense conversations covering such subjects as Ryan Gosling and his blind football league, the strip teasing required for OFII appointment, how I would throw my back out via being a stripper, which would lead to conversations on how to be sexy which would lead to a discussion on how we think that while listening to our iPod on the metro being a tripper and pole dancing would be really a good idea, lots of fun and REALLY easy until you realize that that whole idea is so not a good idea. And sadly, our discussions usually ended with how impressed we were with how good of YouTube ads France has.

These “parties” aka conversations usually took place at the kitchen table, Kat and I seated across from each another on our respective computers, typing away, when all of a sudden one of us would remark how we have lost the inability to type or speak in English and how everything wants to come out in French, or vice versa. Yet, it is usually only a problem when we are pressed for time and trying to finish homework with a severe lack of motivation. Here would probably be a good time to mention my journal. A journal that basically turned into a scrapbook, and a wonderful scrapbook at that. The best part being the sample cards from Abercrombie & Fitch that made the whole thing smell wonderful. And each time the journal was opened, a waft of A&F scent floated out of it, making both of us laugh and chuckle about the A&F store and how grandiose and over the top it is.

Even though these last two subjects don’t really go very well together, I am throwing them together just for the fact that they are best summarized at the end because they happened at the end or throughout my time abroad. So, the first being that of the behavior of French children versus the rest of the European children. I don’t know if it is the parenting (or lack thereof) or being raised in France or if it is just that I am way more observant of the children around me in Paris, but all that I can say is French children are way more ill-behaved, ill-mannered and annoying then the rest of the European children. But, you can’t blame all of that on just the children, clearly the parents have some role in this. What was the most obvious difference between French parents and other European parents was their manner of handling their child’s meltdowns and temper tantrums. I found that the French just ignored their child’s disruptive behavior, no matter how loud, rude, annoying and DISRUPTIVE it was to other people around them (be it on the street, in a restaurant, in a store etc.), but on the other hand, when I traveled outside of France, parents knew how to discipline their child without drawing attention to themselves and they handled their child’s meltdown, temper tantrum etc. with calm, ease and generally level-headedness. If the child had a meltdown in a restaurant, the parent removed said child from the premises until the child calmed down, ensuring that the people around them could eat in peace and quiet. Well, enough on that topic, maybe something more festive and exciting? CHRISTMAS MARKETS! If I really tried, I could leave it at that, and basically that is all I would need to say about that subject because these Christmas markets full of Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas cheer, and most certainly, Christmas hot mulled wine, le vin chaud, glüwhein, basically speak for themselves and that essence cannot be captured in pictures no matter how hard I tried, so I guess we will just have to settle for my mediocre pictures, while I reminisce on the memories and recommend that if possible, you make it over to Europe for any, if not all, of the Christmas markets.