Paris, je t'aime.

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a movable feast."
-Ernest Hemingway

The French know how to say their goodbyes.

It’s always à bientôt (see you soon), à demain (see you tomorrow), or the slightly more vague à plus tard (see you later). If you know when you’re seeing the person again, you specify it in the goodbye (“A cet après-midi!”). To take the most final of goodbyes, au revoir, literally, it translates to something along the lines of “’Til we meet again.”

There’s hope in these goodbyes, a linguistic proclivity to maintain a relationship. And so to Paris, this city that I love so much and I am leaving tomorrow: a most fervent au revoir. It’s been a wonder.

Les grèves: revisited

About a month ago, I commented that it seemed the dramatics in the French strike had disappeared. I was wrong.

I woke up this morning to a distant angry thrum of voices. There was chanting of incomprehensible slogans, yells, and whistles. For the first few minutes as I lay in bed, trying to pick out words, I was scared; we all remember the horrors that took place in Mumbai so recently, and bombs were discovered in a popular Parisian department store earlier this week. The American Embassy sent out a warning to all Americans in Paris to watch out. Fear was not a good feeling to wake up to.

But then, slowly, comprehension trickled back. My older host sister was going to skip school today, because the lycéens (high schoolers) were striking, protesting a law that would severely change the French education system, cut out most of the arts and languages, and downsize teaching staff. Ever resourceful, the students stole the big garbage bins around the quartier early this morning and are now using them to block off the school - barricade-style. I can still hear them shouting, whistling, and screaming; after all, the school day is only beginning.

Oh, someone's using a bullhorn to address them - a police officer, I guess? It's really bizarre to be sitting inside and hearing all of this. I need to venture out of the apartment in two minutes to get on with my last day in Paris, so maybe I'll have more to report on later.

Didn't your maman teach you manners?

It’s the final crunch of the semester, and I’ve been in massive need of caffeine. This morning I made a quick trip to a little boulangerie down the street from me for a cup of coffee. There was a rather long line, as is typical of this particular place, and the man in front of me kept impatiently jiggling his leg as the queue inched forward.

“Une baguette,” he said brusquely when he arrived at the cash register.

The woman behind the counter raised her eyebrows. “Mais, bonjour, quand même!” she said in a loud bark. (The sentiment of, “Say hello, at least!”)

The man quailed a little under her glare, meekly mumbled “Bonjour, madame” and then repeated his request for a baguette. She gave it to him begrudgingly, muttering “This isn’t Starbucks here” in French loudly enough for all of us to hear as she slid the bread into a paper sack. He practically fled from the boulangerie, not meeting anyone’s eyes. I didn’t feel too sorry for him. He was French; he should have known better.

One of the biggest compliments in France is to say someone is bien élevé. It has to do with manners and a good upbringing, but also encompasses all sorts of social graces. The opposite could probably be most closely translated as a mixture of rude and ignorant, and sometimes takes on more political undertones: while our current president coined the term “Axis of Evil,” Jacques Chirac called enemy countries mal élevés. Grumble as you will about slow service in Parisian restaurants, the French take their politesse extremely seriously.

So when I finally stepped up to the counter, I put on my friendliest smile and launched into the polite formula I’ve been using without a second thought whenever I order anything in French.

“Bonjour, madame. Je voudrais un grand crème, s’il vous plait. Merci! Bonne journée!”

She smiled at me serenely as she handed me my drink.

The most wonderful time of the year

The timing was perfect. As I rounded the corner onto the Champs-Elysées last week, I heard Nat King Cole’s voice through my earphones, swooping spectacularly on the phrase “Chestnuuuuts roasting on an open fire…”. The Champs-Elysées was festooned in holiday finery, and the smell of fresh sapin (Christmas tree) was wafting over to me from every direction. It is Christmastime in Paris, and I am in love.

I was in Strasbourg on Friday, self-described as the “capitale de Noël,” for the legendary Christmas market. Between taking pictures of the magnificent decorations and the Santa-clad band playing in front of their famous cathedral, I barely managed to feel the cold.

Strasbourg might take the prize for overwhelming Christmas spirit, but Paris isn’t doing too shabbily, itself. My walk home takes me past the Notre Dame cathedral every day, which means I was present for the erection and subsequent decoration of the enormous Christmas tree out front, which has become the backdrop for every tourist’s photo as they start to arrive in droves for a holiday season in Paris.

Everywhere you look you can see Parisians in their winter uniforms of highly stylish peacoat and scarf hurrying down the streets to avoid feeling the nipping cold. As soon as they enter the warmth of a café, their shoulders fall and relax. Maybe it’s just my own Christmas-fuddled imagination speaking, but the holiday mood seems to have mellowed out this city’s residents. There are more smiles from strangers, more people holding open doors for you as you leave the metro after them.

If I have to say goodbye to Paris so soon (five days, I can’t believe it), at least the Paris I'll be leaving is the one I most want to remember.

Legible handwriting: the great French art form

The French education system puts a great deal more emphasis on neat handwriting than the American one does. I remember glancing at the notes of a boy next to me in one of my first classes here and feeling my eyebrows nearly touch my hairline: his handwriting was equivalent to the 'Palace Script' font on Microsoft Word, and coincidentally three hundred times neater than my own. It was a little unsettling after years of boys handing me the pen to write things down in group projects on the sole merit of being the girl. After all, I grew up with a father whose scribbled writings sometimes more closely resemble hieroglyphs than the English alphabet. (I say it with love, Daddy).

So it was with a great deal of amusement that I noticed some graffiti on the side of a building as I walked home today, calling for the end of Roi Sarkozy ("King Sarkozy"). It wasn't the content of the message that caught my attention - putting down Sarkozy is daily sport for Parisians. What made me snicker was the fact that it was written in the typical, flawless French cursive teachers here insist upon so strenously. The 'y' of Sarkozy was an especially curly delight.

Kind of takes the edge off the statement, doesn't it?

Louvre: check

I'm going to the Louvre this morning. This is not, in and of itself, at all unusual - I go to the Louvre a lot. It is also not particularly advisable from an academic standpoint, as I have an exam this afternoon. I can't quite bring myself to care that much, seeing as I have nine days left in Paris - how did this happen, people?! - and I refuse to be cooped up studying all day when there are still things on my list to see and do.

What is unusual about this particular visit to the Louvre, then, where I'll be heading off to French paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries, is that afterwards, I will have seen every section of the Louvre. There will be no new wings to uncover. When I return at some point in the future, I will already be at least cursorily familiar with all the permanent exhibits at the museum.

That is crazy, guys. I haven't been able to fully wrap my mind around leaving this city, but I can process this.

"I've never seen so few books in my life!"

Remember that part in Beauty and the Beast when the bookshop owner is all, “Hey, Belle, so you’re basically the only literate person in this town. Instead of concentrating on keeping my business afloat, I’m going to give you this book you like so much that makes up the entirety of your customer loyalty – for free!”? Or how about that unforgettable moment when the Beast tells Belle that his library is all hers? (Best. Present. Ever. I’d totally marry the Beast for a library like that.) Didn’t you kind of get the impression that the French were ridiculously nice and generous with their books?

Well, my friends, Disney lies.

Okay, fine, I’ve been in Paris long enough to know that Parisians don’t stick their heads out of windows and start shouting “Bonjour! Bonjour!” to the passerby on the street come morning. And clearly the corporation that brought us High School Musical tends to tweak reality a little. Alright, tweak reality a lot. But still! You’d think Parisian libraries would be open for more than an average of four hours a day. Or not make you pay to access a halfway decent collection of reading. Or at least allow you to take out books, for goodness' sake.

Yes, that’s right. Excepting the collections of municipal libraries, which have about as many books to choose from as those sad little bookstores at the airport, books are intended for in-library use only. As a student studying in Paris, you have to suck it up and get prepared to copy a lot of notes at the library.

Today I did just that and scurried off to the Bibliothèque Saint-Genevieve in the 5th, notebook and student ID card in hand. When I walked in, I felt a surge of bliss. It looked like the Hogwarts library in the Harry Potter movies! One beady-eyed woman behind the info desk even reminded me of Madam Pince! Was this it? Had I actually found a library in Paris that would work for me as well as the fantastic Miller-Olin-Bixler library trio of Colby?

Um, no.

My excitement dribbled away as I had to wait an hour for them to retrieve the five books I wanted from the upper landing’s bookshelves, off-limits to library patrons. Now, last time I checked, I was still able to climb stairs; and did I just imagine that there was a guy named Dewey who invented a decimal system to make finding books take minutes instead of hours? After a long afternoon painstakingly copying out the most pertinent information I needed, I finally succumbed to exhaustion, returned all my books, and tried to leave. A swipe of my brand-new library card on the turnstile’s sensor, and a button flashed red.

“Are you trying to take a book outside the library?” the beady-eyed librarian hissed at me.

Exhausted and rather frustrated, I managed to convey that no, I was not a book thief (I politely refrained from mentioning that normally taking out books is the point of libraries.) She directed me to another desk, still eyeing me suspiciously. This desk sent me to another one across the way. They sent me back where I came from. Eventually – half an hour later – the three desks were able to figure out that a clerical error had been made and that yes, indeed, I had returned all my books like I’d said. With no small measure of relief, I got through the turnstile, scary-librarian’s eyes on my back as I left. She was probably waiting for me to whip out a priceless original from my pocket and escape hollering with glee.

It was an awful afternoon. And the thing is, I really, really, really love libraries. Libraries, after all, are about broadening your knowledge and your love of literature in a hassle-free way. Which makes me wonder: how on earth do Parisians read with libraries as disorganized and inaccessible as this? No wonder Belle was so excited about the Beast’s book collection.