Monday, November 12, 2007

It came in (one) 'piece'........my experience at a Parisian Post Office


Well this morning I had a letter in my mail box (in French) from the
post office....I saw the word 'object' which led me to believe I had a
package!

(exciting)

SO....after standing in line for twenty minutes and not moving more
then a foot I left only to return two and a half hours later to only
stand back in a similar area. With baguette in hand and frozen foods
defrosting in my bag I toughed up for another half and hour to get up
to the clerk at the desk.

So the clerk goes behind the desk and about five plus minutes later
she arrives with a disheveled box that looks like it has been around
more of the world then I have. Literally...the corners on this box
are non-existent at this point. So she places this item that was once
a box on the counter in front of me and pulls out a paper for me to
sign. BUT THEN she gives me some whole speel (spelling) in French
which I understand mainly....ah....NOTHING......I tell her I do not
understand and she decides to try to make things easier for me to
understand by redoing the whole talk in basic French...Do I
understand?....um...nope.

All in all after the third talk I understand that I have to go open
the package and decided if I want to keep it or not, and claim if
anything is broken. At this point I am thinking to myself, "Lady I
don't really give a damn if anything is broken, I just want to get out
of here so all the French people in line behind me stop staring at my
demented box and the silly girl that can't speak French." So I walk
around the corner and I go and pretend to open the item, claim that
the items inside are chocolate and sign my name next to what I think
says "accept" in French. So I turn around and start to
think...."Blast! Do I have to get back into that darn line?!?!?!"
Thankfully I didn't.....BUT then she starts asking me more in
French.....what the heck....I signed your darn papers!!!!! She was
asking me if anything was broken.....which took her about 45 seconds
of me giving her a confused look in lack of comprehension to tell me
in English what she was saying. So I learned the French word "broken"
(which of coarse I forget right now).

I scurry on home to actually open the item and find a parcel full of
Halloween candy (pumpkin candy corn....yum) that cost my parents $36
to send to arrive two weeks late, cost me my nerve for the day and to
teach me a new word in French which I don't remember

So that is my crazy experience at the French post office.

AHOY Prague!




































Vienna!

So I went to Switzerland last year with my class...they decided to go again on the same trip to study...so I got go off on my own to the place(s) of my choice...so Vienna and Prague, here I come!

At this point living in Paris I am so tired of croissants, baguettes and Bordeaux that all I crave is BEER and WIENER SCHNITZEL!!!!

Le Loire Valley

Vaux le Vicomte


Once a small château located between the royal residences of Vincennes and Château de Fontainebleau, the estate of Vaux-le-Vicomte was purchased by Nicolas Fouquet in 1641. at that time he was an ambitious twenty-six year-old member of the Parlement of Paris,

Fifteen years later, Fouquet was King Louis XIV's superintendent of finances (finance minister) and construction began on what was then the finest château and garden in France. This achievement was brought about through the collaboration of the three men of genius whom Fouquet had chosen for the task: the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun and the landscape architect André Le Nôtre.

The château and its patron became for a short time a great center of fine feasts, literature and arts. The poet La Fontaine and the playwright Molière were among the artists close to Fouquet. In the inauguration of Fouquet's Vaux-le-Vicomte, a Molière play was performed, along with a dinner event, organized by François Vatel, and showing an impressive firework show.

The château was lavish, refined, and dazzling to behold, but rich in hidden drama. Indeed, the King had Fouquet arrested shortly after a famous fête that took place on August 17, 1661, with Molière's play 'Les Fâcheux'. The celebration had been too impressive and the superintendent's home too luxurious, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert had pushed the king to believe that his minister's magnificence was funded by the misappropriation of public funds. Fouquet was arrested by Colbert, who would replace him as superintendent of finances. Later Voltaire was to sum up the famous fête thus: "On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France: at two in the morning he was nobody." La Fontaine wrote describing the fête, and shortly afterwards penned his Elégie aux nymphes de Vaux.