I live in a neighbourhood named Belleville.
Here are some exciting Belleville facts:
Belleville is on the second highest hill in Paris next to the famous Montmartre.
The name, Belleville (beautiful town), is most likely derived from Belle vue, or beautiful view.
Belleville is historically a working-class neighbourhood. The village of Belleville played a large role in establishing the "Second French Republic" in 1848 -- which is to say it played a large part in the French Revolution. In 1871 the people of Belleville were some of the strongest supporters of the Paris Commune, and when the Versaille army moved in that May, it's toughest opposition was in Belleville where the last baricade stood.
To this day Belleville is leftist and votes accordingly for either the Parti Socialiste (the French Socialist Party), the Parti Communiste Français (the French Communist Party) or the Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle). Communist Party headquarters is just outside Colonel Fabien station, between Belleville and its northern neighbor La Villette.
Starting in the early 1900s many immigrants settled in Belleville: from Armenians and Greeks in the first 30 years of the century, to German Jews and Spaniards in the 30s, and Algerians and Tunisian Jews in the 60s. I've noticed, in my area of the neighbourhood, many North African families and businesses. If only I had family or friends in North Africa: I can get great deals on phone cards to countires in the aforementioned region.
One of Paris's 2 China towns is located in Belleville.
Edith Piaf was born and grew up in Belleville and was famous for singing with a Belleville accent: the French equivalent of a Cockney accent. The accent is rarely heard these days. (Personal interlude: there was an old French man who helped me find my apartent when I first arrived here. He spoke with Juliette who later said that he had a strange accent. We now think, especially since he was quite old, that it might have been a Belleville accent.)
So there are my fun Belleville facts.

In more personal news, I just bought a second hand guitar. It's lovely. We have great fun together.
In related news, I have just learned to play Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." I am very happy with my ears right now, and even more happy with my old pal Leonard. I've decided that he's an absolutely brilliant lyricist (I know, I'm not exactly the first to come to the conclusion, but this is special because it's my epiphany), and that Hallelujah especially is an extrordinary work of song-writing/lyrical genius. I've already ranted extensively to Tala about this, but I beg you all to listen to whichever version of the song you can get your hands on, and also to read this fascinating article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(song)
Make sure to check out the links to Lyrics that it provides.

Of course, I have piles of news that I could dump hap-hazardly upon you, but that would just be rude. Or messy. So, until next time, my necessarily fragmented life and I bid you all adieu,
Erin

ps. I just pulled out the dictionary because I realized that I don't know how to spell "necessarily", and my spell-check on this program doesn't work (yep, same old Erin, unable to spell, although, upon checking, I did spell necessarily correctly the first time around). When I pulled the dictionary off the shelf it fell open to, and the first thing I saw, at the top of the page, was "megadeath." It was perfect. Who knew that Megadeath was a real word?! Apparently it can be defined as: a unit used in quantifying the casualties of nuclear war, equal to the deaths of one million people.
How morbid. And clearly developed during the 1950s: total Cold War jingoism. "War on Terror," anyone?
Because, you know, there's no point in having a term like "megadeath" except to rile people up. Is it really any easier to say "there will be five megathdeaths" than to say "there will be five million deaths?"
At least a name was invented for the band Megadeath.
Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Megadeath.
There were 3 bands and three awesome names to go around.
If the concept of "Megadeath" had never been developed there would have only been two names to go around. It would be like duck-duck-goose: one band would be the odd band out; nameless. They would've have to choose some crappy and inappropriate name, and would almost certainly have spent all of eternity languishing in their parents' basements. The course of rock'n'roll history would be altered utterly.
So, I just gave you the dictionary definition of "megadeath," but, because I changed dictionary pages to find "necessarily," I had to reopen the dictionary to find the definition of megadeath all over again. When I opened the dictionary the second time, guess what word popped out at me first thing?: "minuteman."
I swear this thing is rigged.
Here, let's try again:
..."bloomer?"
What a let-down.
Probably because I was trying too hard.

Here are some pictures from my flea market adventure that took place about 2 weeks ago. At the top are some of the friends I met at the market. Then there are some doors and pictures, just as an example of the specialization that can be found at the market -- all the old doors you could ever want. Also, in the pile of old photos, you might notice some of those old 3-D pictures where the same scene is photo-ed from 2 slightly different angles then the two images are arranged side by side and viewed through a device, like an old school viewmaster. Stephanie and Eric, you probably remember studying, in your history of photography class, the craze that took place over those things. I thought it was pretty cool to actually come across a giant pile of them.
There are a bunch of pictures taken of the market. Unfortunately most of them are taken in the same area and don't acurately represent the size and variety of the market.
Finally there are some photos of books. The second book pic is a photo of just the newer art books in this one warehouse full of books. All the other books were elsewhere. As you can see there were a few of them. Finally, there's a first edition Tin Tin!!! It was just sitting on the shelf (not behind a display case) and was selling for 300€!

More photos of my apartment for the more demanding of my friends. There are a few of the courtyard at the back of our apartment. Some of these are taken from the bedroom window while one is taken from within the courtyard. There is a picture of the bedroom, and a couple of the kitchen/living room. There's a picture of one of out front windows. There are also a couple of pictures looking down our street. I hope we are all happy now.

The School of Cool

Or of the french language. Or of both. Hmmm, here's a question for yalls: when one writes of french as in the language, one uses a lower case "f." When one speaks of French as in something from or of France, one uses a upper case "F." Now, when one uses the phrase "french language," does one use an upper case or a lower case "f'?" Because one is speaking of the language, so the lower case seems appropriate. And yet, and yet, when one says the "French language" is not one saying the language of or from France? A conundrum, or so it would seem. Feel free to comment, or as I believe the button at the bottom of this post will read, feel free to "Comments." So, where were we before this breif diversion? Yes, we were about to discuss my french classes. I was somehow placed into an intermediate french class. I think I either tried a lot harder on my placement test that anyone else, or, and this is my theory, I just had sheer dumb luck on multiple choice sections of the exam. Whether that dumb luck turns out to be of the good or of the bad kind only time will tell. At any rate, I often find myself a little confused about what is happening in my class, I often don't know the vocabulary being used, and I seem to be behind most of my classmates in my french comprehension. Either I will learn a lot through my accelerated program, or I will be left utterly in the proverbial dust. I've just finished my first week of the program, and I can't quite tell where I stand yet. I think some of the concepts we are covering are beginning to clear up a bit. I don't know what I would do without the internet, though. I think I'd be in trouble. My new favourite site is the French Verb Encycleopedia http://french.about.com/library/verb/bl-verbencyclopedia.htm Here I can find the conjugations for irregualr verbs that I should supposedly already know. Here I can also find things like the "present participle" and "subjonctif" forms of verbs, both of which in my entire 5 weeks of french courses I had never encountered. So, I've spent most of this night (yes, that's right, Friday night) brushing up on my verb conjugations while taking occasional breaks to dance around my appartment to some good old-fashion (North) American indie rock. Thanks Malkmus. The internet also helped when I needed to figure out when to use "qui" or "que." Thanks to the message boards at Word Reference www.wordreference.com some kindly french-english bilingual folks were able to clear that up for me with a very simple answer. Besides the "practical" courses that I have for 2 hours every day, I also have a phonetics lab for an hour each day, as well as hour long courses on French literature, French history, and French art history (note the use of an upper case "F" here) each once a week. So far I've learned that Marguerite Duras is relatively easy to read for french-language beginners (and thanks to Dan's extensive literary collection, I have a couple of her books at my disposal and have started upon one), that the French-German dispute over the Alsace region dates back to the 9th Century when the 3 grandsons of Charlemagne (now, I could have said the sons of Louis le Pieux, but I wanted an excuse to write Charlemagne because it's a way cooler name) divided their father's (and grandfather's) territory into 3 parts that corresponded more or less to present day France, present day Germany, and, of course, the Alsace region, and that my art history prof talks really quickly. As far as getting to know people in my classes goes, I'm starting to make some progress. Big groups of people are always a bit overwhelming for me so I often don't get to know people immediately. My best school friend at the moment is a guy named Christian who comes from Cologne, Germany, and like so many Europeans, speaks impecable english. He wears khaki pants and a dress shirts to school every day, and is really... German. Like me, he has just completed his undergrad and is taking the french course for his own interest. He's pretty awesome. Other than that I've spoken with a few other people in my classes, including a few Americans who thought it was hilarious when I called my coil notebook a "scribbler."

I've gone to a few record stores since coming here. Bimbo Tower (which to me sounds like a bizare interpretation of Virgin Megastore) specializes in... weird music http://bimbo.tower.free.fr/. They have a lot of stuff that I like, but they're a bit much even for me. I don't need every Acid Mothers' side project ever recorded, thank-you. Wave Records is another local shop that is more to my liking http://www.dsa-shop.com/. In fact, if I chose all the music that was going to be put into a recored store, it would be Wave Records. I was happy to see that they seem to specialize in electronic stuff on lables such as Touch, Mille Plateaux, Sub Rosa, Raster-Noton, etc. Allia, I think you would really like Wave. They also share my huge crush on Constellation Records. I have bought a couple of CDs from Wave already, even though I am severly limiting my music purchasing habits. I was happy to find many copies of the Fifths of Seven record at Wave, which, despite being a Canadain group, are nearly impossible to get your hands on in Canada (believe me, I've tried) due to some distribution problems. Of course, I bought the record. I was in Wave for the second time today and purchased a Sylvain Chauveaux record and listened to a few others. The guy in there was kind enought to suggest a soundtrack that had artists such as Fennesz, Francisco Lopes, and Tim Hecker on it. A good suggestion. Our communication was pretty awesome since I spoke very little french, and he very little english.
My last music-related comment for this post has to do with a place called FNAC. They are a chain store that seem to have pretty much monopolized the Parisian music/electronics market. There seem to be few independent record stores for such a large city in part, I think, because one can find almost anything at FNAC. For example, they had a whole large section for the No Neck Blues Band. You don't find that at a whole lot of chain stores in Edmonton. FNAC also sells concert tickets. So far I've purchased Hot Chip and Cat Power tickets from them. I'll be back to pick up Sufjan Stevens, Yo La Tengo, and Denison Witmer tickets. Yippee! Next weekend both Sunburned Hand and Tanakh are playing. I think I'll catch both shows.

I've bored you long enough with that bit on my french musical experiences. Lets just say, I think there are a few of you who would have asked anyway, so that was for you.

I returned last Sunday to the flea market at the Port de Clingnancourt just outside of Paris in the suburb of St. Denis. This time I discovered that I hadn't even scratched the surface on my first visit. The market literally stretched for blocks. One can find an utterly confounding amount of junk there. There's new stuff such as clothing, shoes, scarves, jewelery, CDs, rip-off designer hand-bags, and souvenirs. There's second hand clothing. There's utterly useless junk such as old VCRs and other outdated electronics, only some of which actually works, mis-matched cuttlery, unwanted house-hold items. There are old books of the merely second hand type, right on down to the first edition antique type. And there are shelves upon shelves upon shelves of them. There was an entire warehouse of them. And that was only one of the places one could find books in the flea market. There's old military "stuff," old post cards, old fabric, antique clothing, entire statues, stands dedicated to various types of lighting fixture, and the list goes on. Olya would have never left. Ever. She would be lost to the world if she ever found this place. After spening an entire afternoon wandering the flea market I ended up at a tiny shack of a bar in the flea market. There were pictures of Django Reinhardt all over the walls and, sure enough, there were a couple of dudes playing "gypsy" jazz on electric-acoustic guitars. Not usually my thing, but these guys were really good, and it was the perfect ending to my flea market day.

A couple of observations:
1) It's nearly impossoble to find lined paper here. All of the paper, sold in packs or bound in notebooks, is graph paper! Weird.
2) The French haven't yet realized the magic of the hole-punch. Anywhere you can find school supplies you can find these books that are full of transparent sleeves. Instead of punching 3 holes in their paper and throwing the sheets into a binder, the French seem to put ALL of their paper into pockets. Although one can buy binders, one can also buy packs of these sleeves to put into the binders, presumably so that one's paper, which, by the way, is not sold with pre-made binder holes as it is in Canada, can be put into the binder VIA the sleeves. Also weird.

Ok, I'm done. It's 2 in the morning here and I'd still like to read before bed. I'm going to publish a few posts worth of pictures before that, though...

Until next time you goonies,
I've been Erin

Due to Popular Demand...

Ok, really just Olya and my mom.
Here are some pictures from around my apparment etc. As I have previously mentioned, I don't know how to format these pictures in blogger and I am far to impatient to offer anything more than a token effort at figuring it out. Therefore, you'll just have to bear with me and try to figure out which picture corresponds to each comment. I think it should be fairly obvious. For example, if I'm talking about the view down my street and you see a kitchen utensil, you can assume that I'm not trying to be "deep," and that the image-text relation is merely coincidental. Try another photo. Or another comment. I'll leave the decision to you. Not that I could have much say, even if I wanted to. Note: all of the photos are backwards compared to the comments. Or the other way around.

Let's begin, shall we?

First: we've got a great little espresso maker in the appartment. It is a three-chambered wonder. One chamber short of the human heart. ...or the less rheotrically effective "cow heart." The device actually screws apart thirds of the way down (in this way the carafe is actually superior to the human heart that cannot easily be separated into pieces and put back together -- now wouldn't that facilitate open-heart surgery?). This unscrewing reveals a bottom chamber, which, should one choose to make some coffee, one would fill with water. Just above this chamber sits a small metal cup bespeckled with tiny holes. One fills this piece with coffee grounds. This, again, on the assumption that the particular "one" in question is trying to make some esspresso. Then one replaces the upper chamber and places the delightful little contraption over a burner. After some time one will hear a percolating sound. When this stops, ones espresso is ready. The water from the bottom chamber boils, passes up through the tiny holes into the grounds chamber, then up narrow sort of spout and into the upper chamber. One can pour oneself a cup of esspresso straight out the spout from this chamber. Yum-yum. Note that you can see my reflection in the espresso maker. For this reason, I entitle the photo Portrait No. 1. While I'm here, I'll also mention the stove that you can see in this photograph. Unlike the cooking facilities in so many Parisian appartments, we do not have some shitty two hot plate set-up. Certainly not. Instead we have a luxurious gas range complete with an oven. Gas stoves, by the way, really are great to cook on.

Next: 3 pictures of out kitchen. It's well equiped for pretty much any culinary situation. Juliette, one of my roommates, is a cook. Like, a real cook, who, after working as a chef and baker for a few years now, is studying pastry in France at some prestigious old-boys'-club school. So we eat well around here and the kitchen is an important place. Oh, by the way, I went to a local grocery store the day after I arrived here, and guess where I found the eggs? Hmm? In a refridgerated area? Hmmm? NO! ON THE SHELF at... at... at... ROOM TEMPERATURE! That's right. No one refridgerates their eggs around here. They just leave them hanging out on the counter. Blows my mind. Want to talk about culture shock? -- eggs on the counter. Ya. In other food-related news: cheese, beer and wine are all dirt cheap. In fact, including the cost of transportation, I'm sure a load of soil would be significantly more expensive. My roommates are good people: they understand the importance of having a good bottle of wine (y'know the €3 kind) with dinner.

The Library:

The dude (otherwise known as Dan) who we are subletting the appartment from is a PhD. Student in Compatative Lit. He has a lot of books. Most of these books are in english. He has given us permission to read his books. And I was sad about leaving so many of my books at home. Ha! This picture is of just one (admittedly the largest) of his shelves. I just finished Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar which I shall certainly rant about on another occasion.

We love our computers. And our cleverly place table that serves as a computer desk, dinner table, and food preparation space while creating the illusion that the kitchen is a separate room from the living room/my bedroom. Oh, how clever! How practical! How stylish!

Here are some pictures for my mom -- to prove I'm not a morbid creep who only takes picture of coffee makers and graveyards. Of course I am a morbid creep, but... look at the perdy flowers! All of these flower pictures were taken in a park near the Cinematheque Francaise. I had, of course, come to the area for the legendary Cinematheque. I wasn't particularly impressed with the area of town. Much of it seemed like part of a newer development. While I like parks a good deal, this particular park in which I took my photos seemed just a little too upkept. Corsetted, if you will. It needed some forrest paths, and tree forts. Anyway, the cinematheque was a bit overwhelming. I didn't understand much so I just wandered around. There were some areas that I wasn't quite sure I was allowed in, but nobody stopped me so I just kept on going. The cinematheque plays an utterly stupid number of movies. I plan to see quite a number of them.

This is the view down my street: Rue des Rigoles. I live very close to Belleville, as in The Triplettes of Belleville. My metro stop is actually on Rue Belleville. I also live close to Pere Lachaise cemetary and the Parc Butte Chaumant. Yes, I live near the top of a big ol' hill. This is a residential neighbourhood with a large number of North African immigrants living in it. It's a good neighbourhood to live in and quite close to Rue Oberkampf where one can find a great bar scene (so many scooters and bikes, non dieu!), and even better kosher pickles.

Just a few doors down from me, there exists a small restaurant/bar where live klezmer music is played every Wednesday night. I didn't go this Wednesday, although I could hear the music as I passed by on my way home from a movie. I plan to drag Juliette and Ryan out there a couple of Wednesdays from now. I plan to dance like a lunatic.

Well, my lovelies, I'm sure this update is full of errors of both the spelling and gramatical sort, but I'm about done with it for now and don't care to proof read. So until later it will just have to remain as is. So there.

Until next time,

Your only ErinCW

A Ramling Account of Times Now Past

So...
On Friday I had my wallet stolen. Awesome! It was turned in at some Hotel near the Sorbonne where it originally took off. Nothing was taken -- there was no cash in the wallet to begin with. Of course, the wallet was recovered after I had cancelled both my bank card and Mastercard. What a fiasco. I was about to be pretty upset after the disappearance of my wallet, but figured that such emtional outbursts would serve only to further disable me, and instead chose to "suck it up" and figure out what needed to be done. Perhaps creating and executing a plan was my way of dealing with an event that was otherwise upsetting and that could have made me feel helpless. I just had to remind myself that I still had some cash, travellers' cheques, and my passport, and that the theives gained nothing since I had no cash in the wallet and a very low, and somewhat used-up, limit on my credit card. Mostly it was a giant pain-in-the-ass for me, but not significant loss. I gained some satisfaction thinking about the pickpocket's dissapointment when she discovered... some junior high photos with cute notes on the back, old receits, ect. Hah. In the end I was very happy to recover said friends' junior high photos, not to mention the Edmonton Public Library card that I've had since I first learned to write my name, and the wallet that my parents gave me for christmas when I was 12 and swore that I would immediately lose. Proved them wrong. Anyway, suffice to say that money has been an "interesting" issue and paying for school down right "scintillating." Hopefully this stuff gets figured out. Meanwhile I wait for my new bank card and credit card to arrive in the mail. This could be a while.

In Other News...

I have spent most of my time in Paris simply walking. On Saturday I took the metro up to Port de Clingnancourt and walked just past the city limits to a giant (and well known) flee market. It's a good thing that I had no wallet because there were many cheap scarves, shoes bags, ect. I'm a sucker for this type of thing.
From there I made my way back into the city and around the north side of the Butte Montmartre. I really like this area, considered an "ethnic" area of Paris. Being an "ethnic" myself (Paris is supposedly 93% French), I fit right in. I walked all the way to up the hill to the back of Sacre Coeur, then slid down the east slope to the Barbes market, which was pretty much wrapped up by the time I got there. There were, however, plenty of "bargain" stores nearby which I wandered through. Let me restate: it's a good thing that I didn't have my wallet with me.
From Barbes I walked home past what I think was the Canal Ste Martain, and through the Parc Butte Chaumant. Quite a day indeed.

Yesterday was also spent walking. I went to the nearby Cemetiere Pere Lachaise -- famous last home of the likes of Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. Besides these illustrious name-drops, the cemetary is very old, very large, and very beautiful, although I must admit, I was surprised by the state of disrepair I found in certain areas. My walk next took me down the trendy Rue Oberkampf, through a boulevard to the Bastille, and on to the Seine and the island that Notre Dame is found on. I tried to find the legendary "super 8 street" said to be near Notre Dame, but I gave finally gave up and took the metro "home" I have some pictures from Pere Lachaise and the walk to the cemetary posted above. I can't figure out how to integrate them more appropriately yet. Maybe some day I'll figure out this blogging business. I must admit that some of these owe a lot to Olya, even if they lack her originality and technical proficiency.

An Opening Word:

This Blog is meant for my friends and family.
I am slightly uncomfortable with this metbod of communication, but alas, it seems the most practical and expedient. Unfortunately.
So my life, or, some carefully constructed version of it, will be posted on the web, free to peruse.
No, I don't think that my life is somehow so interesting that everyone ought to read about it.
Nor do I think that I have such brilliant, insightful, and downight original thoughts that everyone will naturally want to hear about them.
Rather, I can only hope that some of my inner circle are at least mildly curious about my personal adventures. I that spirit, then, here it is. It may not last long; I may impulsively delete the whole thing, but here's to trying.

First Things First: Long Day's Journey Into Night

It really was a day (and a long one no less). Actually, 23 hours on the plane and haunting Toronto and Heathrow airports. On top of that there was the time driving to the airport, the time waiting in Edmonton International, the extended search for the RER trains at Charles de Gaule, the train and metro rides, and, of course, wandering attempts -- luggage and all (and, make no mistake, there is a reason its called luggage)-- to find my appartment. All this for a grand total of 29 hours in transit.

I really did journey into night, arriving at my appartment just before 10:00 Paris time. As far as days and nights go, my poor sleeping habits predating the flight may actually have helped me adjust to the lack of a proper 24 hour day. I slept sporadically for the entire trip, and spent most of my 8.5 hours in the dreary Heathrow airport asleap. Thankfully.

So, back to the topic of my appartment. Apparently Rue des Rigoles is a fairly small street in Paris. So insignificant, in fact, that it does not appear on tourist maps. So insignificant, if fact, that many people living in the neighbourhood are unaware of its existence. Unable to find an unemployed taxi, and after some misdirection, I finally found a shopkeeper who knew the whereabouts of Rue des rigoles, and I was on track.