A lot has happened since last time!
The program is over at this point - sad, but kind of a relief. I managed not to murder my GPA, so, there’s that. And my French is really quite a lot better than when I started - now I’m somewhere around the preschool level!
It was sad to see everyone go. It’s funny how close people get to each other when they have no other choice. The program was full of great people, and we (for the most part) wholeheartedly enjoyed each other’s company. But fortunately most of us will be back at the U of A next year.
On Saturday night, I went to a jazz club I’ve been meaning to try - Le Baiser Salé (“The Salty Kiss”). It was amazing. The place is located in the little red-light district around Chatelet, on a little strip of bars sandwiched between strip clubs and kebab shops, and the stage itself is more or less a converted attic with some chairs haphazardly thrown in. But the band played some of the best live jazz I’ve ever heard. These were professionals.
And the bassist looked like my old Philosophy of Mind professor, without the dreadlocks (somehow, that seems like it ought to be the other way around…)
Sunday I wandered around le Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen (Marché aux Puces literally translates as “market of the fleas”) - basically I spent the whole time admiring various Maghrebi pride T-Shirts and trying not to get stabbed. Ate a damn fine kebab, though!
Today, I went to the Centre Pompidou - the modern art museum. Spent a great deal of time trying to make heads or tails of the feminist art exhibit which populates the entire first floor, which is, I suspect, what everyone else was trying to do as well. As I was standing in a room entitled “Genital Panic” a grey-haired American gentleman walked into the room, and (confronted with a giant, woven, three-dimentional representation of a somehwhat controversial part of the female anatomy) was only able to blurt out “Oh my goodness!” - but the phrase was imbued with such good-natured, goofy equanimity that it retained only vestigal signs of shock.
I guess that’s more or less how I felt.
But the Kandinsky exhibit was fantastic!
Tomorrow is Bastille Day. If it’s anything like La Fête de la Musique, I’ll have the pleasure of witnessing several small riots.
Good times!
