La Messe a Notre Dame, Rencontrer Tiphaine, Nouvelle Sous-location, etc. ("Mass at Notre Dame, Meeting Tiphaine, New Sublet, etc.")

Cher Tout le Monde,

Yesterday the morning, I began a small translation project I have from a family back in Minnesota...it is an article for a religious newspaper (I used to tutor for the family's daughter and that is how I got the job).

In the late afternoon, I went into Paris to find a place there where I can work regularly. I wanted to work at the Bibliotheque Sainte Genvieve, which is affiliated with the Sorbonne. Elisabeth told me you can register for a pass there in order to avoid standing in long lines.

So I took the RER until the Saint-Michel Notre Dame stop, which is near...you guessed it: Notre Dame. I was intending to walk straight to the Latin Quarter (where the Sorbonne and thus the Bibliotheque Sainte Genvieve are located, but of course I got sidetracked at Notre Dame. Outside there was a notice for an upcoming photographic exhibit of the life of Sainte Therese de Lisieux. ("Sainte Therese de Lisieux ou la brulure d'amour" = "The Fire of Love." Since I've read her spiritual biography, I would really like to see this exhibit when I have a little more time. She's a very interesting person; she became a nun when she was only 15 years old and died at only age 24.

I wandered inside, and happily, there was a mass going on. I happened to arrive near the end of the homily. There was so much echo that I couldn't get much out of it, but I understood all the liturgy. The Gloria and the Sanctus were both in Latin, while the rest was in the vernacular, much like in the United States. It was amazing to be able hear for the first time, in French, "Ceci est mon corps...et ceci est mon sang" ("This is my Body...and this is my Blood") and to "pass the peace" with people from all over the world. All the non-French would shake hands or smile and wave at each other, while the French would, of course, kiss.

After the mass I wandered towards the Latin Quarter, stopped at a cafe on the banks of the Seine and ate a Crepe Complete (ham, egg and gruyere cheese). As I made my way towards the Latin Quarter, I spied a poster for a concert at the Church of Saint Julian, a French-Melkite church, where there is some sort of concert taking place on Sunday. Depending on the price, I might attend.

It was fascinating going through the Latin Quarter because this was where I lived for the first month I was in France in 2004, so I recognized several of the street names. I finally found the Bibliotheque Sainte Genvieve, which is across the street from the Pantheon. But since yesterday was a "jour ferie" (holiday), the library was not open for its normal hours (usually open until 10:00 pm, according to its website). I was just asking Elisabeth the name of the holiday yesterday and she responded, to my surprise, "Pentecost Monday." France has a long history of bloodshed between Catholics and Protestants and can definitely have a militantly secular character, so I was shocked when she named off the national holidays, and only a couple had non-religious origins. She said that when it has been attempted to restore Pentecost Monday to a normal workday, there was such protest that the issue was soon dropped.

After playing phone tag for a good portion of the day, I finally succeeded in getting in touch with Tiphaine, the woman from whom I had the offer to sublet. She works in media, and her entire job right now involves working with journalists at the French Open, so right now she is working long hours at Roland Garros. She was still there but said she would call me when she was done. In the meantime, I found a bar near the Pantheon that also had wireless, where I could wait and check my email.

This whole subletting plan is thanks to Elisabeth. It was she who gave me the name of a website for sublets in Paris, through which Tiphaine and I found each other. A few weeks ago, before my subscription to the site expired, we sent emails through the website and exchanged Skype addresses.  Last week, she texted me through Skype to see if I was still interested and wanted to talk by video, so we did. I found out that she lived near the Arc de Triomphe (thus truly inside Paris) and was offering a reasonable price for the area because she wanted to improve her English skills, since she works with both French and English speaking journalists and players in the French Open. She is the same age as I am (29); we are actually only nine days apart in age.

After I was at the bar for a while, she called me back when she was done with work and gave me the nearest Metro stop: the Porte Dauphine. I took the Metro to that stop and called her back, and she gave me directions to walk from the Metro to her apartment and the code to enter the building. The building is very pretty and has a courtyard. I had a choice between three places to stay: a single bedroom with its own sink, a small refrigerator and a hotplate for cooking, a room in a different apartment where no other residents live yet, or a bedroom in the apartment with Tiphaine, her mother and her sister (21 years old). I told her I would rather live with them, because while I appreciate privacy, I am too social to be able to spend an entire day alone, plus I like to practice speaking French. So we arranged that today, I would move in. She said she will call me when she is done with work, which will probably be sometime in the evening. Since I don't know exactly when she'll finish work, I have just been hanging out in Antony for the day waiting for her to call. I'm very eager to get settled in and so excited to be in the heart of Paris!

Last night, I finally got back to Elisabeth's apartment about midnight. She had lent me her cell phone, and after entering the building (she had given me the keys), I realized that I did not know the letter of her apartment. I had her landline number so that I could call her and she could let me in, but it wasn't working. So I called Eric (Elisabeth's dad) to see if he knew her apartment letter, but he didn't. I was preparing to spend the night in the hallway, because I tried calling her roommate Flo, but as I found out later, his SIM card wasn't working so I couldn't reach him. As a last resort, I found her other roommate, Shadi, in her list of contacts (his name, Shadi Ben Khalifa, stood out to my Anglo ears). I felt a little strange texting him, since we had not even met yet, but I briefly explained I was her cousin and asked for the apartment letter and fortunately, he responded!

I just met Shadi a few minutes ago. He hasn't been around the apartment for a few days, apparently because it reminds him of his girlfriend who just dumped him. He was just telling Elisabeth and me that he's been having panic attacks since they broke up. When he was explaining this, he was using too much slang for me to follow well, so I asked him to speak more in standard French and he laughed and started over: "Depuis qu'elle m'a dit 'bye-bye...' ("Ever since she told me 'bye-bye'..."). He said he hyperventilates when he has panic attacks and I told him to hold a paper bag up to his face so he can rebreathe his own carbon dioxide, but he claims it doesn't work. He is quite funny and animated...much more, it seems to me, than the sarcastic, cigarette-rolling Flo. He has one Swiss parent and one Tunisian parent, was born in Switzerland and then lived in Tunisia before coming to France. He was teasing me, saying "Tu nous quittes deja (you're leaving us already), Mademoiselle?" I said I would be back to visit of course.

So...hopefully my next blog entry will be after I have moved to my new digs. :) I already have a full weekend: Saturday, I will be going on a hike in a town outside Paris with some members from Eric and Claire's church. Here's a description of the hike (Eric is organizing it):

Hike from Le Perray to Rambouillet. We will follow the old aqueduct built in 1685 through woods and near fields and have a picnic by l'Etang de la Tour near Vieille Eglise en Yvelines. We will finish near the Château de Rambouillet where we can enjoy its grounds and pools. Take the 9:35 train from Montparnasse to Le Perray (one hour). It's cheaper to buy a 5-zone Carte Mobilis (14.20 euros) for the day than normal tickets. The guide (Eric, 06 24 838 839) will be at Le Perray.

This weekend, Elisabeth is on a jury for a film festival in a suburb of Paris. The description is "21st century avant-garde" and she told me that she can't promise I won't be shocked (one of last year's films included a clip of Barbie dolls as prostitutes, but to condemn prostitution, not to promote it), but given my past impressions of French films, I may not appreciate or understand them as the French seem to, but I won't be shocked.

In other news, I got an offer for another translation project today from a client, but now the project is on hold...which is maybe a good thing for the moment, because all this running around Paris apartment-hunting has been taking a lot of time!

Hope all is well in les Etats-Unis!