Music Music Music

The past week for me has been one full of music - which is always a good thing!

It started last Wednesday when one of my students asked me to babysit for her - given the tragic state of my bank account I decided that indeed it would be a good idea to accept this opportunity to take home some cash in hand. What I didn't realise when I accepted to do this was that this particular student is the proud owner of a beautiful piano and that I would be allowed to play it whilst sitting on the baby (sorry Margaux - hope i wasn't too heavy). So, Wednesday was the first time I played piano since leaving good ol' oz almost 13 months ago - believe me I had missed it! Although, being Paris, where everybody lives in apartments and walls are paper thin, I was forced to play with the pedal on non-stop to quieten the sound coming out - not quite the same bashing of the keys that used to happen in Allambie Heights - but it was great all the same.

Thursday night was none other than the Fête de la musique which co-incides with the longest day of the year and the first day of summer (thats right - these weirdos over here start the seasons on the 21st of the month - whatever!). The Fête de la musique is as the name suggests a celebration of music. What this means is that the whole city is overtaken by music and that anywhere you go you will find people singing and playing in every kind of musical style you can imagine. For me, this night was also the birthday of a friend from work, and so we began the night on the Champs de Mars - the grassy area in front of the Eiffel Tower - with a lovely picnic. My roomie provided the music for this occassion as she brought along her guitar and sang us a few tunes. At about midnight we decided it was time to move on, so we headed to St Michel to go to a bar. The night was a bit crazy - the streets were full of 14 year old drunkards, who were so excited to have an excuse to be out at all hours of the evening. And of course, being France, the night wouldn't have been complete without public nudity - we were lucky enough to witness a guy who climbed to the top of the fountain at St Michel and then proceeded to strip and remain starkers whilst he admired the view from the incredible height he had climbed to - formidable!

By Saturday night I was ready for my next taste of music - this time in the form of a concert. So Christian, Olivier, Laurence, Delphine and I headed off to Le Trabendo (nice intimate venue - think the metro in sydney, but in a round set-up) to see Au revoir Simone. Despite the French name, this band is actually a group of 3 girls from New York playing indie tunes. As I didn't know the band very well - I was sent the music the night before and spent all day Saturday trying to become aquainted with it before the concert - I went into the gig with no expectations and I was very pleasantly surprised. The songs were great and played with such energy that there was a real positive atmosphere in the room. Very enjoyable! For those of you fluent in french, you should check out the link to Owen Noone and read the review 'it's saturday night and I don't want to go out' because it paints a great picture of the evening. After the set the girls were nice enough to join the crowd and speak to everyone. So as the boys amused themselves having photos and asking the ladies if they were engaged, I stood back and admired the band who were not only undeniably beautiful, but talented as well - hats off ladies.

The Language Phenomenon

The language phenomenon is a particularly bizarre experience which happens when you move abroad and begin to live in another language....You may be under the false impression that moving to another country with another language means that you become bilingual very quickly - possessing a worthwhile skill of being able to make yourself understood in 2 languages...In fact it is the opposite - you become shit in both languages!!! - It's not just me I swear! In my french/english case I can report the following observations;

1) The experience of being surrounded by french means that your expressions in english become direct translations of french phrases or that you begin using the syntax of a french sentence when you are constructing sentences in english - it results in gold sentences like the one that my roomie used when she called her Irish friend and didn't get through to her but got her answering machine - she started the message with " Oh what a shame, I fell on your answering machine" - which as I'm sure you're aware doesn't make any sense in english....
2) Teaching english everyday and constantly hearing the same mistakes because a student applies the "french way of thinking and speaking" to the english language doesn't help at all - you hear the mistakes so often that after a while they sound normal to you and you begin speaking like your students - saying things like - I don't want to give a course - instead of - I don't feel like teaching....
3) Being surrounded by french also means that there are a number of english words that you "lose" - you know the words that are used in everyday expressions, or words that your students need to use all the time - but words that are not used everyday - something the tiniest bit obscure - you forget - a student asks 'how do you say "......" in english?' - and you realise that whilst you understand the french word and know what they are saying - you have forgotten the english translation...
4) Speaking english everyday at work means that you cannot escape your mother tongue and that you find yourself trying to translate english expressions or using english syntax in your construction of a french sentence...

In the end it is a vicious cycle - your french influences your english and your english influences your french and you can't make yourself understood to anyone - you begin to sound like a retard in all circumstances....sorry to spoil the bilingual dream! - and don't even get me started on spelling - that's even worse - is this even how you spell "phenomenon"??? - somebody help me!

Musée d'Orsay

Aujourd'hui je suis allée au Musée d'Orsay (la quatrième fois depuis Août!) avec Guéna et Olivier (la première fois avec eux et un plan français). C'était bien mais il n'y a pas grand-chose qui a changé depuis la dernière fois...Mais l'endroit n'est pas très important parce que c'est toujours un plaisir passer l'après-midi avec Guéna et Olivier - n'importe où! On s'est baladé un peu aussi et Guéna s'est amusée avec mon appareil-photo...

Moi et Guéna sur la terrasse au Musée d'Orsay
Guéna et Olivier sur le pont

Moi et Olivier dans le jardin des Tuileries

The customer is always WRONG...and should be assaulted

Tonight I had a great time with my aussie friend Mia...We began the evening in Mia's apartment, looking out the window onto the fabulous eiffel tower while eating chocolate, cherries and drinking red wine...after a few hours of this, we decided that we couldn't possibly eat chocolate for dinner and that we must head out and about in search of the finest in french cuisine - which led us of course to Mcdonalds!! Ok, so maybe its not french cuisine - but it was all we could find open for dinner at 11pm...

The fun began with a confusing few minutes spent ordering - Mia ordered fries and a filet-o-fish but no drink (pas de boisson!) but the guy thought she said "pas de poisson" - here was our first problem - boisson (drink) and poisson (fish) sound remarkably similar - but the poor guy was trying to work out why she wanted a filet-o-fish with no fish.....until we explained that she had said boisson and not poisson and that she just didn't want a drink....first complication over!

Then, as we were quietly seated in Mcdonalds luxury we suddenly heard a large crashing sound. As we looked up we noticed that it was nothing more than a chair which had been knocked, tumbling down the stairs...we looked over to the culprit who looked slightly embarrassed - poor guy we thought - it was a bit embarrassing...but what we didn't realise was that the act of him knocking a chair down the stairs was obviously a gross insult and offensive act to those working at Mcdonalds - the manager on dining room and the manager in the kitchen came running over to see what all the noise was about and made a human wall at the bottom of the stairs to block him from leaving the store...as he came down the stairs to try to leave, the managers started yelling abuse at him - as the guy tried to assure the management that he hadn't done it on purpose (which it didn't seem like he had! the poor guy looked too embarrassed to have done it deliberately) they decided that this was unthinkable - it was obviously an act of malicious intent - so they began to push him around...the guy kept protesting that it was an accident - wrong response -this resulted in him being kicked in the stomach by the manager...as this went on, 2 employees working in the kitchen felt that they were also offended by the chair falling down the stairs and came out to help the managers kick the guy and escort him out of the store!

And it was at that moment that Mia and I remembered that we were in France! - the customer is always right? N'importe quoi!!!