"Paysage de neige," Cuno Amiet

Scheduling can be great. Scheduling can allow you to get a paper in, call your mother, meet a friend for coffee, and get to Bon Marché before it closes. Let it be said, though, that scheduling can also provide you with a permanent sense of obligation and productivity that dulls the senses and kills creativity. I have never been so aware of this as in Paris.

Although I intentionally took things slowly at the beginning of the semester, about halfway through, I went into overdrive. “I need to speak French more of the time! I need to see more art! Oh my god, I haven’t bought a single piece of clothing in Paris!” It didn’t help matters that I had a string of guests, which upped the number of cultural activities and tightened time constraints.

Needless to say, I wore myself out. I got sick and holed up in my apartment for the requisite period, and as I began to re-enter the world, I acquired a wonderful new habit: doing things on a whim. I think this is what Dana was talking about in her post about “Le Flâneur,” because essentially, a whim-driven lifestyle is what defines a flâneur. I don’t know, in retrospect, if I could have adopted the flâneur mentality just from reading a book; perhaps I had to arrive at it out of necessity.

Lately, I find myself a bit noncommittal about concrete plans. I’m guarding what little free time I have at the end of the semester for, well, To Be Determined! Some mornings when I wake up, I feel like going for an icy-cold run in the Parc Monceau. Others, I just want to curl up with my current French novel near the (one) heater in my apartment. Today, I intended to go Christmas shopping again. Instead, I walked from NYU across the Pont Bir-Hakeim in the drizzling rain, and looked up at the Eiffel Tower, half cut-off by fog. I took the train to the Musée d’Orsay, which I had been warned might be closed because of museum worker strikes. Au contraire: everyone was getting in for free, because the ticket stands were shut down! I didn’t revisit rooms I had seen before, or ones that seemed obligatory. Instead, I saw the current Art Nouveau Revival exposition, and spent the rest of the time visiting rooms that looked a bit empty. I discovered a Bonnard I had never noticed, as well as the most expertly painted snow I’ve ever seen (the photo doesn’t do it justice!) In short, I removed the “shoulds,” at least for a few hours, and enjoyed myself all the more for it.

I don’t think there’s any place better than Paris to roam around, stumble upon, follow one’s nose, or discard obligations. Old European cities are chock full of small and large beauties, and I’m glad I’ve learned better how to find them.

AmundsenI can’t think of very much to say about Paris right now … I feel “done” with Paris, in a sense, though I think this is probably a feeling that comes and goes for a lot of people living abroad. Anyway, it’s because I just spent a long weekend in Copenhagen, and I was very tempted to not get on my flight back to Paris last night. So I guess I’ll write about Copenhagen here.

Three of my friends who are studying in Prague had planned to go to CPH for the weekend and had been trying to convince me to go too. And so, despite the expensive tickets and my plans to go on the NYU trip to Grenoble this past weekend, despite knowing that I should be exploring France, or somewhere new, or at the very least Paris, I went to Denmark instead.

My ex-boyfriend/friend/lover (it’s complicated, sorry) lives in Copenhagen, and so do his friends, many of whom I’m also friends with, and his family, who we stayed with while my friends visited because their apartment has more beds. For me, the weekend was less like travel and more like going home to my family, or my second family, only with a little orange kitten, Amundsen, instead of my crazy father. We drank tea in the warm apartment and played cards and cooked everyone dinner one night: fiskefrikadeller (the fish version of Danish fried meatballs), boiled potatoes, sautéed spinach, and salad. We took my friends walking around the city until it got dark, around 4 in the afternoon (the early sunset can be really disorienting). On Sunday my friends left at three in the morning for a 7:45 AM flight from Malmö, Sweden (a half-hour train ride from CPH and apparently much cheaper to fly to from Prague), and my Dane and I slept until 2 in the afternoon, waking up in time to see the little Christmas tree lighting in the apartment’s back garden, drinking gløgg (mulled wine) and eating æbleskiver (little pancake-donuts) with powdered sugar with his parents’ neighbors as the sun went down.

Admittedly, it’s still frustrating to be in Copenhagen and not speak more than a few Danish sentences—when I don’t get a neighbor’s joke, for instance, and I have to just smile and remember to ask my Dane to explain it to me later. It’s not a problem I’ve really experienced in Paris, since I came knowing French and living here has forced my French to keep improving. Still, this past weekend felt more comfortable, happy in a simpler way, than a lot of my time in Paris. I guess Paris is still my adventure, and it’s nice to have somewhere to go and take a break from all that.

There is a saying here in the Czech Republic, that Communism took seven years to end in Poland, seven weeks in Germany, but here, it only took seven days. The beginning of those seven days was November 17th, 1989. That date marks the day a student march from the Charles University faculty on Albertov, swelling to thousands by the time it marched up the Vltava to Narodni Street on its way to Wenceslas Square, was brutally disbanded by armed police. The demonstration provoked such a huge response from the Czech people that within seven days, the entire Communist leadership had resigned. The saying is of course, misleading, as the Communist state was not fully dismantled for some time, but November 17th remains a seminal day in Czech history, and is now a national holiday, marking the beginning of the Velvet Revolution.
This past Tuesday, the 20th anniversary of that fateful day, the march was recreated, with thousands participating. I was among them for part of the way. Comparing it to marches and parades in the US is nearly impossible. In America there is always a lot of shouting, a lot of singing, and a lot of police presence. There was all of this during this parade, taking place slowly but surely as the sun set and we approached Narodni Trida, where a stage was set up for performers such as The Monkeys, the most popular modern Czech band. However, much was oddly subdued. In some places it was almost as if there was just a large crowd walking from the football stadium to the parking lots after a game. In others, young children gleefully held up signs referring to events they were to young to remember, or modern issues they were too small to understand. There were elderly people marching with their crutches, supported by their younger relatives, many of whom remember Communism only as a mild discomfort from childhood. There were no spectators. The parade route was not marked off by police barriers, banners, or balloons, but everyone knew where to go.
It wasn’t the drunken revelry of St. Patrick’s Day, the family-oriented event of Thanksgiving, or the patriotic, chaotic, togetherness of the 4th of July. It was a little bit of all of these things, true, and as we marched, we felt part of something bigger than us. But it was also a very isolated and isolating phenomenon. Strangers weren’t hugging each other or laughing with each other, singing patriotic songs, or crying. Many held candles, faces calm and contemplative, not speaking, as if they marched in a memorial procession, not in a celebration of freedom. In a way, I suppose they were marching in memorial. They were marching in remembrance of freedom from an oppressive, severely damaging regime, and the wounds are not yet healed. American holidays aren’t bittersweet. They are either bitter or sweet, and very few are bitter. But the rich dark chocolate of that night among thousands gathered in celebrative memorial was the only way to truly taste the Velvet Revolution.

La Parisse

In Paris, and all of France really, bread is a religion. From certification to selling, Parisian bread is made and sold with extreme care. The culture of bread extends beyond the boulangeries, however, into the daily lives of the French people. Parisian’s buy bread on a daily basis and care for it with a ritualistic sense of pride. If there is one thing that I have learned in Paris thus far it is how much the bread culture here reflects many other facets of the French way of life.

First, let’s talk about the variety of breads in France. They can vary region to region, but there are always the standards. Baguette, Demi-Baguette, Pain de Tournesol, Pain Complete, Pain Multi-cereales. The list goes on and on and on. My personal favorite is La Parisse, a rustic looking-baguette that is perfectly crusty on the outside and soft and delicate on the inside. For a bakery to be able to make La Parisse, they must be certified by on organization, which monitors its production. This bread is particularly special because it is made with wild levain instead of yeast, giving it a more complex and ultimately satisfying flavor.

The French generally buy their bread at a boulangerie or a boulangerie/patisserie, rather than at the local Monoprix. The quality is better and the price is lower. Plus, freshness is always a consideration in the French food culture and very often you can get a just baked baguette at any point during the day. Bread is a true art here, which you can see through a daily bread like La Parisse and it is respected on a similar level. Bread in Paris is cared for like a loved one. In a boulangerie, the breads are stored out of reach of patrons and are available for sale the moment the come out of the oven. When they are bought, the bread is carefully placed in a sleeve for the walk home. I appreciate this care. It makes me feel good about what I am buying. However, the French cherish their bread in a way I could never understand. Generally, the French buy bread that will be consumed immediately. If it is not, they carefully wrap the bread in a tea towel to preserve flavor and freshness. It is always stored in a dry place of moderate temperature. It never stays in the paper sleeve it came in, nor is it consumed when it is past its peak.

Despite their particular habits of bread consumption it is never wasted. Stale bread is used for soups, stews, breadcrumbs, breading, etc. The entire process of selling, buying, and eating a baguette is distinctively French. The French have little everyday rituals like this one for almost everything: buying cheese, picking vegetables, getting dressed. There’s a formula and they appreciate the consistency. This idea is present in every café where you can always pick from the same menu of steak frites, omelets, or salads. I have not assimilated to the French formule of life completely, but I have fallen in love with les secrets du pain.

Train Station in Film GrainI'm late in posting because it's been my fall break for the past week. During this time, I've had the chance to travel outside of London to Amsterdam, Brugge and Paris. All 3 of those cities seemed completely unreal and fairytale like. Let's start with Amsterdam.
Amsterdam is known to many people as the place where marijuana and prostitution are legal. For that reason alone, people make treks to the Netherlands. There is more to that country though, and it comes in the form of cheese, clogs and windmills. As my guide told us, “if you don't like windmills, there is something immensely wrong with your personality.” Our journey to and from Amsterdam was a fairytale in itself. After nearly missing a flight to Dublin the week before and journeying in the pouring rain, the sheer idea of not having to deal with airports was great. My friends and I took a tour that took us by bus and ferry to Amsterdam. Going this way means you don't have to even show your passport until the return trip. No check in. No baggage restrictions. No security check line. In other words, the easiest trip ever. Once we got to Amsterdam, this fairytale got even better (is that even possible?). The houses are beautiful; the people tolerant. We stayed in a hotel (not hostel, a real hotel) which had one of the best breakfast buffets ever. The nightlife...is, well, what you'd expect. Fascinating, oftentimes overwhelming, yet fascinating. And the food? Chocolate covered waffles at nearly every corner made it better. Of course, the discovery of the Heineken Brewery on a rainy day just added to the surreal feeling I had of the city. The guide put it best: “Amsterdam can't exist anywhere but Amsterdam.” There is something about it that doesn't seem real; how can a place be so tolerant, so beautiful and have nothing really hidden under the surface? My friends and I tried to find flaws but seemed to only find dead ends. The only flaw I could really find with it was that it was small.
2 days in that surreal place led to a day trip to Brugge, yet another fairytale. We got to watch the movie “In Burges” on the way to the actual city (I highly recommend the movie). Brugge is a picture perfect city. It is a city still in its medieval form. Streets are still cobblestone and with the leaves in their fall colors, you couldn't ask for a more gorgeous place. We got to go to the top of the Belfry Tower which gives a bird's eye view of the town. Standing there, you can't help but think that you're in a movie. Where in the world can you find a city that has kept its charm and original form and yet evolve with the passage of time? It seems like a movie concept: stuck in a time period yet with modern trappings. Also, Brugge, as is Belgium, famous for chocolate and beer, a fantastic combination. In fact, you can get chocolate beer (pretty good actually). Who doesn't love at least one of those two things? There is no end to either. Walking throughout the town makes you feel like a kid in a candy store.
And finally, Paris. Paris is a city known for its beauty. People spend years studying art and fashion there and once you go there, you see why. Every building contains beauty and is inspiring. The monuments are stunning and you expect nothing less of the city. But even the houses are gorgeous. They are the typical Parisian style, recognizable for their elegance. It's easy to see why artists come here; there is so much to get inspired from. It is this beauty that makes Paris fairy tale like. The beauty is everywhere; there does not seem to be a place in Paris that isn't beautiful. Even when I went to Versailles Palace which goes through the suburbs of Paris, the suburbs, though not as elegant as Paris, still have beauty. It's an undeniable beauty too. What I mean by that is in NYC, there are places I find beautiful that others would argue are not (i.e. St. Mark's Place). However, these places in Paris would be beautiful to almost anyone. Anytime you get a place that people can agree upon, that's magical in itself. And lastly, the journey to and from Paris? Eurostar makes that incredibly easy. 2 ½ hours in comfortable chairs and you can go from one country to another. The security and customs checks are quick. There's no worry about checking anything in. No restrictions. No issues.
And what better way to have a fall break than one free of issues?

The obelisk

Recently a few of my friends from back home arrived here in Argentina. They were originally going to go to Rio de Janeiro and then come here to Buenos Aires, but there was some complications with their Brazilian visas, so it seems that they’re just going to get an apartment here and maybe travel around Argentina. I wasn’t expecting them until a few weeks later, but a few days ago my buddy sent me a message on facebook letting me know that they’d touched down. Last night we hung out for the first time, and it was an incredibly strange, but awesome experience.To begin with, it was so cool seeing my friends, three people who I’ve known since before high school, in Buenos Aires. With their arrival, I’m seeing this city with new eyes again. I’m remembering what it was like when I first came here, before I got settled here. I want to be able to show my buddies what my life is like here and give them a good, fair, portrayal of Buenos Aires, the good and the bad. Not that I’m an expert now and I definitely don’t know the city perfectly (it’s huge!), but I live here, I have places that I go to regularly, and it is my home. Seeing my friends really made me realize this. It brought together two totally separate worlds and it made me realize that I have a pretty established life here. I have an identity. This is no longer a new and exotic to me, it’s simply Buenos Aires, my home. In many ways, is kind of like how my relationship with New York changed. Before coming to NYU and living in New York, it seemed like this magical, dream-like place, but after living there for a while, the awe kind of wore off. I am NOT trying to say that I’m tired of it here (or in New York for that matter), instead what I really mean is the opposite. Now is when I am really enjoying living in this city, not just visiting. I’m discovering and enjoying many new aspects and realizing just how much it truly has to offer. The arrival of my friends has made me look back on my time here and realize how great it’s been and how wonderful it will continue to be.

Manu Ginobli

Yesterday, NYU in Buenos Aires got a unique chance to play against a club basketball team in the barrio Quilmes (Shares a name with Argentina's most famous beer). Quilmes is a suburban neighborhood outside of Buenos Aires that is known for its hospitality and middle to upper class homes. In Quilmes, there is a recreations center called Club Bertelli Athletico where we were invited to play their team in basketball. We arrived and there was almost no one there. We began to shoot around and eventually, more people started pilling in. The NYU team consisted of six guys and six girls. The team as a whole was not very good. Three of the six guys did not really play basketball. The other three including me played on a regular basis but that was not enough. The first quarter started out actually pretty close. We started out with a two-three zone, and they started with man to man defense. Their man to man defense was tough, but they were awfully confused by our two-three zone. We got a few quick points by dumping the ball into our big men, while they stayed in the game by going three for four from the three point line. The first quarter ended with NYU down one. The score was fifteen to sixteen. The second quarter was when things started going down hill. The first four minutes were fine. Then my team started loosing its wind. It happened slowly like a snowball. The other team started getting fast break points left and right. Even when we managed to score, they were getting fast break points off of that which is basically unheard of in basketball. By the end of the second quarter, we were down big. In the third quarter, we allowed the girls to play. This of course did not improve the level of play, but rather decreased it. The other team played their less good players, but that did not matter much. The gap between scores started to grow out of control. I think the other team was up twenty points after the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, my team started to get their wind back and both teams had the same amount of points in the fourth quarter. After the game, both teams came together for pizza and soda. It was super good. We had corn pizza, tomato pizza, and onion and cheese pizza. My favorite was the corn pizza. We discussed different styles of basketball over the food, and was all in all a good time.

This past weekend I flew to Oxford, England with my friend to visit her friend who attends Oxford University. And I have to admit, I was semi-dreading it... only because our travel plans turned out to be a bit ridiculous. Leave at 3am Friday morning to get on a plane at 7am; arrive in London Stanstead Airport and take a bus that would arrive in Oxford around 1pm. Then we would leave Sunday morning at 2am, wait in the frigid cold for 2 hours (at 3 in the morning) at Heathrow Airport until the bus left again for Stanstead Airport and arrive back in Florence at 3pm Sunday afternoon. Anticipating the uncomfortable journey, the short stay, and sleepless nights, I was thinking to myself, "What have I done?"

What I didn't anticipate was one of the best weekends of my abroad experience.

Nothing particularly significant made it so great... But a combination of traveling with a friend I met here in Florence and who I feel incredibly close to now, meeting her friend who has the most lovely British accent and the cutest personality, and exploring a city teeming with university students who aren't American. It was probably one of the most educational weekends I've had... Sure, we didn't really visit any historical hotspots (apart from Christ Church where Harry Potter was filmed... yes, I will admit it now, we pretended we were Harry Potter with our wands in the Great Hall. Embarrassing, but so worth it.) but it was so refreshing not being a tourist for once and simply enjoying ourselves... Sipping tea with scones, eating Japanese for lunch, having the BEST cookie ever followed by the BEST milkshake ever. Eating more chocolates. Watching a fireworks display in commemoration of Guy Fawkes and talking with some Oxford students about their lives in England.

It reminded me also of the short time I have here in Florence... But how I still have time to make the most of my experiences here. That I don't need to keep checking things off my list of things to do, but that by simply letting go and soaking in each day, I can come away from this semester feeling truly fuller and richer. So onward to more good times!

cell phone: necessity or luxury?Technology. It makes life so simple and easy. Yet it is also overwhelming at times in that maybe it makes things too easy. In my standard lifestyle in the US, I almost always left the house with my cell phone. People could always contact me whenever they wanted, either through texting or calling. Regardless if I’d answer or not, their message would be made. And most importantly, I could always contact someone if I wanted. I could even text google to find out directions and phone numbers. I could take pictures with it. My cell phone became my gadget, my right hand man. Instead of a luxury, it became a necessity.

It took my dad forever to get a cell phone. He never wanted to be able to be reached by people at all times. He thought that if he was in his car, or away from a phone, that that was his time to not be interrupted and simply live his life. But the rest of us always thought it was annoying because when we needed him, we could barely get a hold of him. I have now gotten in touch with his philosophy. In Argentina, I have the dinkiest crappiest cell phone ever. I never use it. It almost never leaves my room. I maybe charge it once a week. I use it more as an alarm clock than a phone. I have grown accustomed to being free, and I love it. I love not being reliant on my cell phone. I love that no one can get a hold of me whenever they want. The ball is always in my court. I don’t wear a watch, so I never know what time it is. Time limits don’t exist anymore. I never know the date. I don’t want to see my progressive count-down to going home. I have let go of the world of technology for a while and I love it. Free as a bird…or so I thought.

This weekend I was thrown back into my American reality. I started to think of my phone again as a necessity, and I hated not having it. I found out that my best friend was hospitalized for 36 hours, and I had no way to contact him. During his last college soccer game of the season, his own goalie kneed him in the face, breaking his jaw in two spots. He had to stay two nights in the hospital and receive a four hour surgery to screw his jaw in place and wire his mouth shut. He can’t talk. He can’t eat. He can’t open his mouth for 6 weeks. Sounds like the worst bone in the world to break. I had no way to be contacted about it all. He couldn’t call me when he was out. He couldn’t text me to tell me he was okay. I felt so helpless and alone. All I wanted to do was contact him and tell him how sorry I was. But I couldn’t. I wanted to be reassured about how he was doing. But he couldn’t. I wanted him to know I was thinking about him. But he doesn’t. It was the worst feeling in the world. I just wanted my tiny ol’ cell phone to send a text message, and to see one pop back up in my screen. I hated that I couldn’t be contacted. I hated that I couldn’t contact.

So now I find myself in a debacle. Is it really that great to be free as a bird? After all, technology was advanced for a reason. Maybe it is nice to be contacted and to contact at the ease of just pushing a few buttons. Cell phones do come in handy, especially in emergencies. So maybe it won’t be the end of the world to go back to a cell phone when I go home. I will just have to find a balance where I’m not obsessively attached to a gadget, yet I am accessible when needed. My friends and I came to a conclusion that right now there is the perfect amount of technology in the world. That life has been made easy enough, and we don’t necessarily need anything else. We live in a good time of moderation. We can’t take it all for granted, but we can’t let it take over us either.

This past weekend, most of our group went on an NYU trip to Cologne (in German, it's called Köln). NYU set up a partnership with the University of Cologne between our program and one of theirs. We basically take turns showing each other the cities that we're studying in and discussing various aspects of German vs. American culture, language, politics, and lifestyles. One of our classes prepared presentations on these various topics, as did the class from Cologne. Over this past weekend, half the presentations were done in their school. In the first weekend of December, the Cologne students will come to Berlin and we'll finish the other half of the presentations. I'm going next month - my topic is education and student life in the U.S. and specifically NYU. (While I'm talking about this, is there anything that you think is absolutely essential to mention? I want to make sure I'm not missing something glaringly obvious and important)

Der Dom: The Cologne Cathedral The city is along the Rhine River in West Germany. It's about a 4 1/2 hour train ride to get there directly from Berlin. The term "city" is used loosely, in my opinion. By German standards, it's for sure a city. I mean, it does have almost a million people, but it's not nearly as spread-out as Berlin. Perhaps it is for this reason that the areas we spent most of our time in felt younger and more close-knit. Most of the crowds who were out in bars or on the trams were in their mid-20s, which seems to be normal university age in Germany. A lot of the venues cater to students - for example, the Cologne students took us out to a club one night called "Studenten Club", where they played almost entirely early-90's American pop hits. Yep, even Backstreet Boys. My "guide" from the program (who is actually 31) said that it's THE place for first-semester students and he couldn't believe he was back there.

Going from New York to Berlin wasn't such a difficult transition except for the language barrier. However, the trip from Berlin to Cologne was much more different. Most parts of Berlin are not accommodating to students, except for the areas immediately surrounding the universities. Even the Village right around NYU has more of a college feel because of the cheap restaurants, coffee shops, salad bars and Campus Cash signs. Berlin doesn't have this same strong presence of students. The main part of Cologne, on the other hand, was filled with students about our age. It was startling, but also really comforting to be surrounded by students for a weekend. All in all, I loved the trip, and I for sure recommend making a stop in Cologne.