The amount of time I have in Paris is interesting. It's not long enough that I can really consider myself to be living here, particularly since I don't have a job here, and that's just as well, since my living situation, while reasonable for a short stay, would be pretty dreary long-term (of course, if I were here long-term, I'd probably spruce up the place a bit, and buy lamps and things but it would still be small and old). But it's too long to be just a tourist trip. At this point I've run out of major touristy things to do, and grown somewhat tired of museums (if you can believe that). Plus there's the fact that tromping around turns out to be exhausting. Fortunately, a big part of the reason I came to Paris was to write, which at home I seem to always find so many distractions from (even if most of those distractions, i.e. the internet and books are available here, I was correct in thinking that by comign to a different place I'd give myself new habits), so when I'm not touristing I can be doing that.
Today I didn't even make an effort to tourist; in fact, I didn't exert myself physically at all. First thing in the morning I went to Starbucks (on Sunday it's really the only thing open before ten or eleven). My goal for the morning was to outline the novel I've been working on, which I did... I didn't so much outline what each future chapter will be about as outline what past chapters have included, which got me thinking about the different elements of the plot and how I think the should develop. So hopefully this has helped me get a bit more organized.
In the afternoon, I went for a walk; my intention was maybe to find a coffee shop at which to sit and watch the passersby, but there was absolutely nothing open and almost no passersby. It was actually quite desolate, more so than I've ever seen it. Usually on Sunday a few things are open, restaurants and a few food stores and the occasional touristy outlet, and there are plenty of people walking. It could have been partly the neighborhood I was in, which was less touristy than some, but I remember walking in that neighborhood on another Sunday and it being much more populated. It was actually very spooky. Every single storefront was locked down, and while there were enough other people walking that I didn't feel like I was really in danger, it was not nice having homeless people hiss and yell at me. I did find a boulangerie open and bought some bread; I would have liked cheese, but all the fromageries were closed. After an hour I returned home and haven't been back out.
So, today was not the greatest success in the exploring-Paris department. I wonder where everyone is? Perhaps things are closed because the Tour de France is finishing today, or maybe I've just gotten lucky on other Sundays. It seems like even weekdays have a weekend atmosphere, with people sitting over breakfast at cafes until eleven in the morning, but this was beyond anything I've ever seen. I think New York would have been more lively on Christmas Day. Paris seems like a wonderful place to visit - especially after the touristing is done and it's just walking and eating - but I can't imagine living here.
In addition to the outlining, though, I've written 4,000 words today. I'm now up to about 38,000 words, not counting another project I started in the first week of the trip but abandoned. Not that they are necessarily good words...
And now the sun is setting behind the house with the flowerpots on all the sills, and I can see a woman setting her dinner table and lighting candles. Nobody ever said Paris wasn't beautiful.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
On not hating academia
I should be going to bed, but I really needed to respond to Megan McArdle's semi-recent comments on tenure. This is one of her (many) pet topics, and while as usual I find her arguments reasonable, I don't agree with her position . (Caveats: she seems to be talking mostly about liberal arts and humanities fields; the sciences are often ignored in such discussions, perhaps because there's a better outlet to non-academic fields. Also, I have no statistics and I know of many people who are actually very bitter and feel academia has ruined their life, including myself on occasion.) I think it's important for me, as I switch from a decade devoted to academia to an entirely new phase of my life, to make sense of this for myself.
Of course tenure itself doesn't involve me directly, but McArdle's comments are about the entire structure of academic work, which she assumes (I'm not sure how correctly) arises from and only because of tenure. She also has the (important if true) belief that many tenured professors have long periods of doing almost no work; I've never seen or heard good evidence of such a thing happening in my field. She is, however, correct that there is a pyramidal structure in which the majority of aspirants fail to attain tenured positions, and in which they sacrifice things many people spend the early part of their careers striving for: good income, stability, freedom (as an early-career scientist you are generally both tied-down and unstable). As a person who fits the description of someone how has been victimized by the system, I am fully acquainted with the unpleasantness of interviewing for entry-level jobs at the age of thirty, and while I don't usually feel that my life has been "ripped up" (her terminology), it's certainly the case that my early adulthood - where I lived, who I was friends with, my relationships - was very much influenced by my academic career.
But I think McArdle has missed something very important. I don't think many people enter graduate school with the idea of making it to a cushy tenured position and then resting on their laurels; I imagine that any who do quickly drop out. It is simply not worth it, and this is obvious from the beginning. If your primary desire is money or status or comfort, there are ways that are much less uncertain, or require less sacrifice in the short term, or lead to greater potential rewards. The only way that struggling through a career in academia is at all sensible is if you really enjoy the work you are doing, and I think that she completely ignores that payoff - or rather, she seems to assume it is entirely deferred to the future, post-tenure period that for many academics never arrives. (I also think she conveniently ignores the fact that in all fields, most people never make it to the top... most people who go to business school don't become CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, instead spending their careers in middle-management positions. Does that make them failures, which is what she seems to think adjunct professors are?)
It is true that there are problems in academia; I've certainly witnessed my share of them. There are also politics and strong personal rivalries that shape the system more than they ideally should, and some scientists receive recognition beyond their due, while others fail to advance as far as they perhaps should - but how is that different from any other field? There are also frustrations entailed in the long training period - but in the sciences, most of the length of that training period arises out of necessity; recent college graduates are not generally capable of conducting a meaningful independent research program. Certainly, I think there are adjustments that should be made - supports that could be added to help people through the early parts of their career, provisions for reviewing how faculty treat their research assistants, ways to reward self-promotion and sucking-up-to-important-people less and good research more.
But, even as one of the "victims" of academia, I find it hard to really hate the system. It's true that I did not earn as much as a grad student or postdoc as I would almost certainly have earned in most other likely jobs; it's also true that I experienced plenty of stress and disruption, particularly on a per-dollar basis. But, I got to spend several years doing original scientific research with some of the leading experts in their fields. I got to think about the way the world works on the most basic level and try to understand things that are not yet understood by anybody, and that was my job. I got to participate in the development and publication of new theories that helped shape the discourse on a (very small and specialized) topic in physics. I got to attend conferences where I heard about brand-new research from the people who were doing it, asked questions, and argued. And I got to do all this while wearing jeans and never worrying that my division wasn't profitable enough and I might get laid off. It's true that I didn't take home a substantial paycheck, and that I will never attain the position of tenured professor. But I learned a lot - which is its own payoff - and had some pretty cool experiences, and while perhaps in retrospect I should have gotten out a couple years earlier, it was a pretty interesting ride.
Of course tenure itself doesn't involve me directly, but McArdle's comments are about the entire structure of academic work, which she assumes (I'm not sure how correctly) arises from and only because of tenure. She also has the (important if true) belief that many tenured professors have long periods of doing almost no work; I've never seen or heard good evidence of such a thing happening in my field. She is, however, correct that there is a pyramidal structure in which the majority of aspirants fail to attain tenured positions, and in which they sacrifice things many people spend the early part of their careers striving for: good income, stability, freedom (as an early-career scientist you are generally both tied-down and unstable). As a person who fits the description of someone how has been victimized by the system, I am fully acquainted with the unpleasantness of interviewing for entry-level jobs at the age of thirty, and while I don't usually feel that my life has been "ripped up" (her terminology), it's certainly the case that my early adulthood - where I lived, who I was friends with, my relationships - was very much influenced by my academic career.
But I think McArdle has missed something very important. I don't think many people enter graduate school with the idea of making it to a cushy tenured position and then resting on their laurels; I imagine that any who do quickly drop out. It is simply not worth it, and this is obvious from the beginning. If your primary desire is money or status or comfort, there are ways that are much less uncertain, or require less sacrifice in the short term, or lead to greater potential rewards. The only way that struggling through a career in academia is at all sensible is if you really enjoy the work you are doing, and I think that she completely ignores that payoff - or rather, she seems to assume it is entirely deferred to the future, post-tenure period that for many academics never arrives. (I also think she conveniently ignores the fact that in all fields, most people never make it to the top... most people who go to business school don't become CEO's of Fortune 500 companies, instead spending their careers in middle-management positions. Does that make them failures, which is what she seems to think adjunct professors are?)
It is true that there are problems in academia; I've certainly witnessed my share of them. There are also politics and strong personal rivalries that shape the system more than they ideally should, and some scientists receive recognition beyond their due, while others fail to advance as far as they perhaps should - but how is that different from any other field? There are also frustrations entailed in the long training period - but in the sciences, most of the length of that training period arises out of necessity; recent college graduates are not generally capable of conducting a meaningful independent research program. Certainly, I think there are adjustments that should be made - supports that could be added to help people through the early parts of their career, provisions for reviewing how faculty treat their research assistants, ways to reward self-promotion and sucking-up-to-important-people less and good research more.
But, even as one of the "victims" of academia, I find it hard to really hate the system. It's true that I did not earn as much as a grad student or postdoc as I would almost certainly have earned in most other likely jobs; it's also true that I experienced plenty of stress and disruption, particularly on a per-dollar basis. But, I got to spend several years doing original scientific research with some of the leading experts in their fields. I got to think about the way the world works on the most basic level and try to understand things that are not yet understood by anybody, and that was my job. I got to participate in the development and publication of new theories that helped shape the discourse on a (very small and specialized) topic in physics. I got to attend conferences where I heard about brand-new research from the people who were doing it, asked questions, and argued. And I got to do all this while wearing jeans and never worrying that my division wasn't profitable enough and I might get laid off. It's true that I didn't take home a substantial paycheck, and that I will never attain the position of tenured professor. But I learned a lot - which is its own payoff - and had some pretty cool experiences, and while perhaps in retrospect I should have gotten out a couple years earlier, it was a pretty interesting ride.
Today was devoted mostly to recovering, and I am still not fully recovered... fun and bizarre as this trip has been, it has been a bit exhausting, at least for my legs and my (limited) extroversion.
In the morning, I dragged myself out of bed for a run... this may not have been the best idea, since I felt pretty bad when I woke up and it was an extremely pathetic run - my legs were so leaden that I could barely keep up a non-walking gait for half an hour. But it did wake me up and (more or less) gave me the energy to petition a coffee shop for some breakfast. I spent my morning wandering between coffee shops and eating pastries and drinking coffee (this makes it sound like there was a lot more pastry, coffee, and shops than there actually were). One of the things I'd been meaning to do more of was loiter in cafes, but it is a bit less glamorous than it appears, especially when the weather is imperfect (it was cold) and I am not actually very French. But, it was a good experience to have, and I tried some new foods.
In the afternoon I walked around the left bank, window shopping, stumbling upon churches, and looking in bookstores. I've finally figured out how to get English-language books at a reasonable price (rifle through bins outside left-bank shops, where all the "foreign-language books" are shuffled together); the quality is mixed, but there are a few decent things to be found, and I bought one book (Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, a children's book set in England) solely on the strength of a movie character's recommendation (the Meg Ryan character in You've Got Mail... in my defense, I just read Pride and Prejudice - the Ryan character is supposed to be based on Elizabeth Bennet - and finished Northanger Abbey and am halfway through Emma, so I'm having a bit of a British phase).
I also went to a Canadian bookshop, which was pretty excellent. It's called the Abbey Bookshop, and it is just piled high with books, and the bookshelves slide over each other to hold more books, and there are books on the floor and on tables (I saw a store like this is in Reykjavik, too, but this one was smaller and tidier) and there is a basement with stone walls and more books. The proprietor was a nice Canadian gentleman who offered me coffee (real coffee!) when I came in, and he had a sort of hanger-on who spent the whole time I was there chattering away about the evils of America (very popular topic among Americans here). Of course I wanted to buy all the books, but that wasn't possible; I bought a Penelope Lively novel (more Britishness) for five euros, which I justify even if I don't get to it on this trip by the fact that her books are out of print (or were never in print?) in the US.
Around the middle of the afternoon, I started to run out of steam, so I came home for a rest. I went back out in the early evening and walked around the Louvre des Antiquaires (not related to the museum except by being near it... it's a sort of antique mall... obviously I wasn't doing actual shopping, just walking around looking at the pretty furniture and paintings and jewelry). I then walked around Paris Plage for the second time but it was much too crowded to stay long. In fact the whole city seemed to be more mobbed than I'd ever seen it; I don't know if this was my poor timing or if something is going on. (I just learned that the Tour de France is ending tomorrow on the Champs Elysees... I will be sure to avoid that area of town, not that I am generally in the habit of wandering to the most boring and touristy street in Paris.)
Aside from the physical exhaustion, I've also been having a hard time writing, meaning I haven't done any today, and only did a bit yesterday. I'm not sure if this is a side effect of being tired (and therefore will be gone by tomorrow, because we all know my legs will be magically recovered by then) or I'm just running out of steam. It's clear that if I want to be able to keep writing in any sort of consistent fashion I'm going to need to find a meaningful framework; on the other hand, getting one's writing published (the most obvious framework) is generally about as time-consuming as writing in the first place, so doesn't seem worth it; realistically, also, my writing is not that good, particularly since I haven't been practicing, taking classes, etc. in the last several years. Quandary.
In the morning, I dragged myself out of bed for a run... this may not have been the best idea, since I felt pretty bad when I woke up and it was an extremely pathetic run - my legs were so leaden that I could barely keep up a non-walking gait for half an hour. But it did wake me up and (more or less) gave me the energy to petition a coffee shop for some breakfast. I spent my morning wandering between coffee shops and eating pastries and drinking coffee (this makes it sound like there was a lot more pastry, coffee, and shops than there actually were). One of the things I'd been meaning to do more of was loiter in cafes, but it is a bit less glamorous than it appears, especially when the weather is imperfect (it was cold) and I am not actually very French. But, it was a good experience to have, and I tried some new foods.
In the afternoon I walked around the left bank, window shopping, stumbling upon churches, and looking in bookstores. I've finally figured out how to get English-language books at a reasonable price (rifle through bins outside left-bank shops, where all the "foreign-language books" are shuffled together); the quality is mixed, but there are a few decent things to be found, and I bought one book (Noel Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, a children's book set in England) solely on the strength of a movie character's recommendation (the Meg Ryan character in You've Got Mail... in my defense, I just read Pride and Prejudice - the Ryan character is supposed to be based on Elizabeth Bennet - and finished Northanger Abbey and am halfway through Emma, so I'm having a bit of a British phase).
I also went to a Canadian bookshop, which was pretty excellent. It's called the Abbey Bookshop, and it is just piled high with books, and the bookshelves slide over each other to hold more books, and there are books on the floor and on tables (I saw a store like this is in Reykjavik, too, but this one was smaller and tidier) and there is a basement with stone walls and more books. The proprietor was a nice Canadian gentleman who offered me coffee (real coffee!) when I came in, and he had a sort of hanger-on who spent the whole time I was there chattering away about the evils of America (very popular topic among Americans here). Of course I wanted to buy all the books, but that wasn't possible; I bought a Penelope Lively novel (more Britishness) for five euros, which I justify even if I don't get to it on this trip by the fact that her books are out of print (or were never in print?) in the US.
Around the middle of the afternoon, I started to run out of steam, so I came home for a rest. I went back out in the early evening and walked around the Louvre des Antiquaires (not related to the museum except by being near it... it's a sort of antique mall... obviously I wasn't doing actual shopping, just walking around looking at the pretty furniture and paintings and jewelry). I then walked around Paris Plage for the second time but it was much too crowded to stay long. In fact the whole city seemed to be more mobbed than I'd ever seen it; I don't know if this was my poor timing or if something is going on. (I just learned that the Tour de France is ending tomorrow on the Champs Elysees... I will be sure to avoid that area of town, not that I am generally in the habit of wandering to the most boring and touristy street in Paris.)
Aside from the physical exhaustion, I've also been having a hard time writing, meaning I haven't done any today, and only did a bit yesterday. I'm not sure if this is a side effect of being tired (and therefore will be gone by tomorrow, because we all know my legs will be magically recovered by then) or I'm just running out of steam. It's clear that if I want to be able to keep writing in any sort of consistent fashion I'm going to need to find a meaningful framework; on the other hand, getting one's writing published (the most obvious framework) is generally about as time-consuming as writing in the first place, so doesn't seem worth it; realistically, also, my writing is not that good, particularly since I haven't been practicing, taking classes, etc. in the last several years. Quandary.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Today after my morning writing session, I set off in the direction of Montmartre. I had already gone to that neighborhood, on the first full day I was in Paris, but only cursorily, and after hearing a couple other people talk about how much they love it I thought I should visit again. I went by a less direct route than last time, bypassing most of the tourist mess associated with Sacre Coeur, and although the walk was just as long as I remembered, today was much less hot than the last time I made it, so it was far more pleasant. I walked through the residential neighborhood, which seemed perfectly pleasant, although not very remarkable, and made another visit to the basilica, which I got to examine in a slightly different light after having seen so many other churches in the last few weeks.
My plan was then to walk east to the 11th arrondisement, another area I'd explored once, not gotten the hang of, but had been told repeatedly was too cool to miss. I thought it would be interesting to see what was between the two well-known neighborhoods of Montmartre and the Oberkampf; there are some parks and churches on the map, but they are further out than I made it. (Think of Paris like a clock face, although somewhat squashed in the vertical direction; Montmarte is at 12:00 and the Oberkampf is at 2:00. To see the parks and churches, I would have had to go around the circumference of the clock. Instead, I cut across a bit closer to the center, in large part because there seemed to be a lot of unpleasantness between where I was and the edge.) I did see, however, some ethnic neighborhoods, some traditional-seeming and others more rough; I had the lovely experience of being followed(?) for ten minutes by a gentleman who (a) was singing quite loudly, in some non-French language, and (b) adjusted his pace to mine. I also saw several train stations (Paris seems to have many of them) and many squares, cafes, and fabric shops (a big industry in that part of Paris). Finally I reached the canals on the east side of Paris, which is supposedly a wonderful neighborhood, although on later reflection I think the people who love it so much are the type of people who think that Williamsburg has been ruined by excessive gentrification. The canal is pretty and there are some attractive storefronts right on the canal, but in general the area seems more gritty, and less attractive, than a lot of other areas.
My reward for all this walking (over three hours, at this point) was lunch at the West Country Girl creperie. I'd seen something about it online and then it was recommended fervently by one of the people i met yesterday, an older man who had the look of permanent travel about him. I like crepes and have had a couple of street crepes and one crepe at a creperie which was perfectly nice, so I expected to enjoy this meal. I was not expecting it to be as absolutely incredible as it was. For nine euros (that's around $12) I got a glass of apple cider (which I think was mildly alcoholic), a "crepe complete" with andouille sausage (sort of stringy, mild smoked ham), cheese, and egg, and a crepe caramel. It was all so delicious. The difference between the crepes themselves and any other crepes I've had is like night and day; these were thin, light, crispy, and buttery, while the others (which were perfectly nice before I had these to compare them to) were much doughier and not as flavorful. And the caramel... I have not thought of myself as a person who particularly loved caramel, but I had no idea that it could taste like this. It was amazing. This was without question the best meal I have had on this trip.
After lunch, I had a long walk home; I was in no particular rush and misdirected myself several times (due to not paying much attention to where I was going relative to where I should be going), walked through some artsiness, and only really got a move on nearly two hours later when it started to rain.
That was pretty much it for me today. I went out for a bit this evening and walked around Paris Plage, the pseudo-boardwalk they've set up. Of course, my legs are ridiculously sore and basically any motion at all is tiring. I'm hoping I will (magically) be fully recovered by tomorrow so I can go for a decent run, which I haven't done since Wednesday... it is a bit frustrating that my body, specifically my legs, does not comply with all my schemes, but I suppose I should be thankful that I haven't had any injuries or illnesses or anything while I've been here.
My plan was then to walk east to the 11th arrondisement, another area I'd explored once, not gotten the hang of, but had been told repeatedly was too cool to miss. I thought it would be interesting to see what was between the two well-known neighborhoods of Montmartre and the Oberkampf; there are some parks and churches on the map, but they are further out than I made it. (Think of Paris like a clock face, although somewhat squashed in the vertical direction; Montmarte is at 12:00 and the Oberkampf is at 2:00. To see the parks and churches, I would have had to go around the circumference of the clock. Instead, I cut across a bit closer to the center, in large part because there seemed to be a lot of unpleasantness between where I was and the edge.) I did see, however, some ethnic neighborhoods, some traditional-seeming and others more rough; I had the lovely experience of being followed(?) for ten minutes by a gentleman who (a) was singing quite loudly, in some non-French language, and (b) adjusted his pace to mine. I also saw several train stations (Paris seems to have many of them) and many squares, cafes, and fabric shops (a big industry in that part of Paris). Finally I reached the canals on the east side of Paris, which is supposedly a wonderful neighborhood, although on later reflection I think the people who love it so much are the type of people who think that Williamsburg has been ruined by excessive gentrification. The canal is pretty and there are some attractive storefronts right on the canal, but in general the area seems more gritty, and less attractive, than a lot of other areas.
My reward for all this walking (over three hours, at this point) was lunch at the West Country Girl creperie. I'd seen something about it online and then it was recommended fervently by one of the people i met yesterday, an older man who had the look of permanent travel about him. I like crepes and have had a couple of street crepes and one crepe at a creperie which was perfectly nice, so I expected to enjoy this meal. I was not expecting it to be as absolutely incredible as it was. For nine euros (that's around $12) I got a glass of apple cider (which I think was mildly alcoholic), a "crepe complete" with andouille sausage (sort of stringy, mild smoked ham), cheese, and egg, and a crepe caramel. It was all so delicious. The difference between the crepes themselves and any other crepes I've had is like night and day; these were thin, light, crispy, and buttery, while the others (which were perfectly nice before I had these to compare them to) were much doughier and not as flavorful. And the caramel... I have not thought of myself as a person who particularly loved caramel, but I had no idea that it could taste like this. It was amazing. This was without question the best meal I have had on this trip.
After lunch, I had a long walk home; I was in no particular rush and misdirected myself several times (due to not paying much attention to where I was going relative to where I should be going), walked through some artsiness, and only really got a move on nearly two hours later when it started to rain.
That was pretty much it for me today. I went out for a bit this evening and walked around Paris Plage, the pseudo-boardwalk they've set up. Of course, my legs are ridiculously sore and basically any motion at all is tiring. I'm hoping I will (magically) be fully recovered by tomorrow so I can go for a decent run, which I haven't done since Wednesday... it is a bit frustrating that my body, specifically my legs, does not comply with all my schemes, but I suppose I should be thankful that I haven't had any injuries or illnesses or anything while I've been here.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
This morning began inauspiciously, as I woke up late, sore in several places, and with a bit of a cold. However, I quickly realized that this was not a sign of the universe's evilness or my oncoming death but simply the likely result of a lot of tromping around over the past few days. I packed up my netbook and adjourned to Starbucks, where I spent the morning writing and produced three thousand (not necessarily very good) words, as well as finishing Northanger Abbey, my second Jane Austen novel of the trip (I read Pride and Prejudice before that; I am now reading Emma, which I haven't read in years due to the necessity of rereading Pride and Prejudice with such frequency; after that I will read Persuasion, which it is possible is the I have not already read, or maybe there isn't one).
In the afternoon, I cooked up my potatoes (half of which had already gone bad due to my delaying) and string beans in a big pan with some pre-cut bacon I found at the grocery store (here bacon comes with chunks, not strips). It was a bit odd at first, since I was worried the potatoes would never soften, and then there was a lot of liquid in the pan (from the bacon? or the beans?) that I had to pour off. But in the end it turned out all right; most of the volume is beans with just a bit of potato, and a healthy amount of bacon. I have decided this is probably similar to what French people eat for vegetables (actually, from what I've seen, it is not, because I did not have it with a cream sauce). After my bout of domesticity, I took a walk in the Marais, eventually making my way to a bookstore I hadn't been to. This was a tiny and actually friendly bookstore, and I had an interesting conversation with some of the expatriates hanging out there, most of which was about how American is evil because we are too attuned to convenience and not attuned enough to the liberal sensibilities of recent college graduates, but some of which was about places I should explore in the city. After leaving the bookstore, I went to Picard, a specialty food store recommended by the expatriates, which carries only frozen things, and bought more frozen food than I probably need for a week, but now hopefully I will get to try lots of interesting things without all the bother of constantly being in a restaurant.
In the evening, I bestirred myself to go out again, and wandered the left bank window-shopping, then hung out on a bridge and took pictures while the sun was setting. So, all in all, a pleasant and varied day.
In the afternoon, I cooked up my potatoes (half of which had already gone bad due to my delaying) and string beans in a big pan with some pre-cut bacon I found at the grocery store (here bacon comes with chunks, not strips). It was a bit odd at first, since I was worried the potatoes would never soften, and then there was a lot of liquid in the pan (from the bacon? or the beans?) that I had to pour off. But in the end it turned out all right; most of the volume is beans with just a bit of potato, and a healthy amount of bacon. I have decided this is probably similar to what French people eat for vegetables (actually, from what I've seen, it is not, because I did not have it with a cream sauce). After my bout of domesticity, I took a walk in the Marais, eventually making my way to a bookstore I hadn't been to. This was a tiny and actually friendly bookstore, and I had an interesting conversation with some of the expatriates hanging out there, most of which was about how American is evil because we are too attuned to convenience and not attuned enough to the liberal sensibilities of recent college graduates, but some of which was about places I should explore in the city. After leaving the bookstore, I went to Picard, a specialty food store recommended by the expatriates, which carries only frozen things, and bought more frozen food than I probably need for a week, but now hopefully I will get to try lots of interesting things without all the bother of constantly being in a restaurant.
In the evening, I bestirred myself to go out again, and wandered the left bank window-shopping, then hung out on a bridge and took pictures while the sun was setting. So, all in all, a pleasant and varied day.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)