Wednesday in Paris

Hello from Paris.

It's Wednesday night and the days and nights are definitely blurring together because of all the traveling.  It took us a long time to get out of the airport because one of our bags was misplaced.  The baggage office tracked it down and determined that it was in Paris at the same airport but in a different terminal.  They offered to deliver it, but couldn't say when that would happen, and insisted that someone would need to be home at all times for the next two days for that to happen.  We decided it wasn't worth having someone sitting in an apartment all the time in Paris, so we opted to stay at the airport while they located it, found someone to move it to where we were, and had us sign for it.  All of this took several hours, but it was worthwhile, because we didn't come here to sit in an apartment!

There was a thunderstorm when we landed, and it continued to rain on and off all day.  This meant that several roads and freeways were flooded, and the traffic was at a near standstill while cars took turns going through the lanes that weren't under water.

Our apartment is quite large and very nice.  We are all in a six story apartment that takes up an entire building.  There are several lovely terraces and a large kitchen and dining room for shared meals.  Tomorrow morning a group of students will scout out a local bakery and bring back bread for breakfast.  We already have oatmeal and yogurt, thanks to a quick trip Katy made to a market around the corner.  She also brought back a carton of something, noting that she didn't know what it was because she couldn't read the label, but it might be milk and she would like some if it was.  I just went up to the kitchen to read the carton and figure out what she got, and it turns out it's half-and-half.  I'm glad she was willing to be adventurous and see what turned up.  I'm not sure what we'll use the half-and-half for yet, but we're bound to find some use for it.

Daniella and I are the two who know French, so we're translating and assisting with menu reading and things seem to be working out fine.  Paris is actually remarkably compact for a major city, and a group of students went out for a walk this afternoon and accidentally came across the Arc de Triomphe.  I came upon them when they were engaged in a discussion (complete with photos displayed on phone screens) about whether this could have been the "real" Arc de Triomphe that they had just stumbled across or if it was some kind of replica.  I laughed to myself about that one - this isn't Las Vegas or Tokyo, so if you come across an Arc de Triomphe it's probably the real thing.  I think this is part of getting adjusted to the idea of actually being here.

We had a discussion this afternoon about cultural observations thus far.  I asked students to describe some things they saw or heard in the time since we were waiting for our Paris flight that were new to them or that they didn't understand.  They came up with a decent list, including a waiter who seemed much less energetic and eager to please than the average US waiter; several women in burkas, including one wearing a niqab (face veil), all of whom were carrying very stylish handbags; an overstaffed but social lost baggage office (very attentive, but also definitely enjoying each other's company), and several other interesting observations.  We discussed these and generated some hypotheses about them and came up with some that we want to keep watching and potentially find culture informants to help us understand more.  One of the things we do as part of this class is to help students hone their ability to make observations that can help them illuminate aspects of cultural and social situations.  Sometimes these observations lead us to surprising places and help us see more complexity than we might have initially imagined was there.  I think some of them were surprised that even in a burqa a woman is making a number of choices about how to express her individuality, and if you know where to look you can see them.

We've been encouraging the students to try to take only short naps today so they will adjust their sleep schedules, but we're all tired enough that it's been common today to turn to the person you were just talking to and discover that they have fallen asleep in the middle of the conversation.  We've finally made it through the day to a reasonable time to go to bed, so I will leave you here and will let one of the students fill you in on tomorrow.

Thank you to all the families and friends who shared these students with us for this period of time.  We're enjoying them.

Suzanne Mallery