Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

So that was a great 24 hours.....not.

A collection of all things jacked up about Scandinavian Airways:
-their flight attendants are really not very nice, on average, probably the least nice flight crew I've ever encountered.
-when I bought my ticket there wasn't a place to request meal options (like it really matters though, when I flew Delta and I knew I had the vegetarian meal they still were like, oh sorry, we just don't have that), sooo woo fish for me.
-their movies and tv shows just played on loop, so it was really hard to catch an entire movie since if you decided to watch say, a tv show first, and then a movie later they were already around 30 minutes into the movie
-there was small child in front of me that was flipping out for most of the 8 hour flight and crying and hitting her mom for some strange reason and shouting things like YOU DON'T LOVE ME, NO BODY LOVES ME. WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME?
-on the second flight from Copenhagen to Paris we didn't get anything to eat and it was 2.5 hours long. :(

but I did steal their blanket, and I got two complimentary beers (not like they were really complimentary, I paid 700 dollars for them).


Anyway, on a happier note? I got to my dorm (ici) and took the train into the city with two other Americans, one from Middlebury, and one from Columbia. I then took a three hour nap and then took a while figuring out the internet as my cable just wasn't working and I had to go down to the front desk and explain to her in broken French that I did what the instructions said to do and it still doesn't work. After I had a little love fest with my laptop and stayed on the internet for a while, and then at Elliot's insistance I wandered around the city for about a half hour and went and ate a baguette. And then I Skyped with Richarde and then Jen and all is right in the world.

Ratatouille

It seemed quite fitting that the last meal that I cooked for my family before I left for France was French in origin. Especially because of the nature of ratatouille in the first place, it's a summer stew made from random assortments of vegetables. I purchased the aubergine (eggplant) and courgettes (zucchinis) from a farm in Connecticut and pulled the rest of the vegetables out of my fridge and just started chopping and sauteing (sauter is French for to jump). So nothing says French (or American) summer like ratatouille.

Which is not this (a fabulous Pixar movie):


But this (the ratatouille I made tonight):


Composed of things like this (plants from the community garden I worked on this summer):


More pictures from the garden
Article about the garden

George Gershwin

Inspired by my post on the Mauritius blog, I knew it was high time that I finally started the blog I've been thinking about all summer. It was high time that I got my act together to put my fantastic pun to good use. Alas, in my mind, An Amanda in Paris won out over A Connecticut Yankee in Paris. The most pathetic thing about that though is that I've never actually seen An American in Paris. So when my mother came into my room tonight I told her we would watch it before I leave on Saturday (ack! so soon!). She then suggested we watch Kismet, I ask if it is set in Paris.....she says no. (movies set in France is another blog post to come)

Anyway, I got to Wikipedia to find the plot line as I enjoy ruining movies for myself and the site that popped up was for not for the 1951 Gene Kelly movie, but for the Gershwin song of the same name. I then had a duh, hit your hand on your forehead moment, as I have listened to it probably a hundred times. Gershwin is one of my favorite composers and I have a couple of random compilation CDs of his. So I felt a little better knowing I've heard three-fourths of the songs in the movie and that I could probably sing them too.

So, anytime I am feeling homesick, I know I won't be that lonely in Paris, I'll have George with me.

Some songs from An American in Paris:
Our Love is Here to Stay Sinatra
'S Wonderful Fitzgerald & Davis Jr.
I've Got Rhythm (This one is an excerpt from the movie and reminds me very much of teaching English in Mauritius as we would asininely have them name random things and we would sing and dance like morons all of the time)

France Timeline:
Tuesday-Thursday: Pack and water the community garden
Friday: See Rachel and get my visa
Throw Petrone a surprise birthday party!
Saturday: Leave for Newark around noon
Sunday: Arrive in Paris and figure out how to get to my dorm?
Monday: Start orientation at Sciences-Po