C'est fini!

The strike is over. Transportation is almost back to normal. The weather, though chilly, has decided to cooperate. People are back out shopping with and have descended en masse on Printemps and Galaries LaFayette.

Wednesday seemed to be a pivotal day in the battle between the transportation workers and the rest of us. At work students came in one after another - tired, frazzled, having walked for miles- and completely broke down. They sobbed, they pulled their hair and they called their mothers. Exhausted professors and school administrators lost their tempers and could barely drive their motor scooters out of here fast enough, especially since Montparnasse seemed to have turned into manifestation central. Furious smokers took to the streets in front of school in an chaotic demonstration of their outrage at the possibility of no longer being to light up freely in Parisian cafés. Something had to give...

And happily it did. We got our metro back. Secretly, I believe that this is all due to the indefatigable efforts of one of our cleaning ladies, Chantal, and her ferocious poodle mix. Every morning at 6 a.m. they went to the bus and metro depot near Porte d'Orléans to growl and hurl insults at the grevistes. For the 10 minutes every morning Chantal would let loose a ferocious tirade as a sort of primal therapy that I think we all could have benefited from. And so, just as many Republicans believe that Reagan brought down the Iron Curtain, I believe that had it not been for Chantal we might still be hoofin' it to work.

Retraction

I am officially retracting my post concerning the grève. How naive it seems of me now, after five days of trekking to and from work in the cold, wool scarf wrapped up to my nose. Yes, the temperature in Paris decided it would play along with the transportation workers and go on strike as well. As I write this, my heater is on full blast, but it still won't lift the chill from the room. And according to the weather channel on lemonde.fr, it is 1°C in Paris and may possibly snow. Moreover, it looks like it is going to rain or snow all week. How delightful.

Today unhappy Parisians are organizing a contre manifestation to show their disapproval of what many deem to be the transportation workers' selfish abuse of power. I wanted to participate, but after walking for a mere fifteen minutes outside, I could no longer feel my legs and knew there was no way I'd make it all the way to République without severe frostbite.

Enough whining. Will try to use the rest of the day for complete self-indulgence - movie, glass of wine on the terrace of a heated bistro, maybe a home spa night.

Ikea chronicles

It all arrived in boxes. And when I opened them I wanted to cry. Assembling furniture from Ikea...A two-day long saga. A suivre...

Grève, mais pas si grave

So there is another grève, or transportation strike. For the past week everyone has been talking about it - will it last? will it be like the '95 (when a massive transportation strike ground the city to a halt for more than six weeks)? Happily, it looks like this will not be the case. I took the metro yesterday and again this morning. It wasn't a very pleasant experience, mind you, being squeezed in between perfect strangers, but I didn't have far to go.

Strikes are always an interesting cultural experience. And so when I heard the unmistakable sounds of a manif' on boulevard Montparnasse from my office yesterday afternoon, I just had to make the few students who had made it to class go outside to take a picture and to experience the manifestation for themselves. I'll never forget my first manif' - walking from République to Nation, eating a Merguez (Moroccan sausage) and fries sold by vendors at the strike, listening to the monotonous chanting coming from the man in the truck in front of me with a microphone and 6-ft speakers...This time there were no Merguez vendors, but there was monotonous chanting, a dead rat on a pole, a van blaring Johnny Cash (?!), four very bizarre men in gold lamé robes and Beatles wigs singing and dancing, and small fire works. The students were unimpressed, especially our little Ecuadorian, who is used to violent strikes with pepper spray and militia. One student thought it was like a cheap version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Everyone found it very anticlimactic...Oh well, I tried...

How not to ride a Velib'

Since arriving in Paris I've been wanting to try the Velib', the new bike-rental system that the mayor has put into place in the city and that has supposedly transformed Parisians into much more bike-friendly individuals. The idea is simple: you go up to an electronic post where you insert your credit card and choose an abonnement - one day, seven days or one year. All rides under 30 minutes are free and those that go over have a very nominal fee.

Like I said, it's really simple, at least in theory. Of course, I like to make things more complicated for myself, and so decided one drunken Saturday evening to rent one. I couldn't have chosen to do my first essai (the first time I've ridden a bike in years, mind you) near a park on a Sunday morning. No, it had to be a busy Saturday in the Marais in the time between drinks and dinner. As I had spent the entire afternoon and early evening participating in a pub crawl, I definitely wasn't in the best shape to be mounting a rather heavy bicycle in one of the cities busiest quartiers filled with some Paris' narrowest streets.

During my five minute Velib' adventure, I did learn some valuable lessons:
1) Even if you think you can walk straight while slightly buzzed, you definitely cannot pedal straight.
2) Parisian roads arc in a much more noticeable degree than those in the states and gutters are unavoidable, especially if you've just learned lesson #1.
3) In order to shift speeds so that the pedals aren't spinning like the wheels of a Mazeratti, you have to pedal in a straight line for at least 30 feet or more, again rather hard to do once you've learned lessons #1 and #2.
4) Having a sober friend and consumate cycliste behind you shouting at you to "pedal, pedal" and ignore the cars, doesn't make the looming yellow headlights coming up fast behind you any less menacing.
4) Surprisingly, Parisian drivers don't want to deal with drunken cyclists screaming and skidding diagonally across the road in front of them into a gutter while they are trying to get to dinner on a Saturday night. (How could I argue with the driver who went past me and growled, "if you don't know how to ride a bike, you should walk"?)
5) It is best, if you have just learned the above lessons, to return the Velib' to the nearest station.

Though this was one of the most terrifying events in my Parisian life, I will still attempt the Velib' again, but doucement, bien sûr. Sunday in the 16th might be the best idea, after lots of coffee.

Working Animals of Paris: Youki

One of the particularities of Paris and France in general is that you tend to find animals in the most unexpected places - canaries in a café, Yorkshire terriers in a hair salon, cats in a bistro. I've decided to start documenting these "working" animals of Paris, starting with my personal favorite, Youki, whom I have known since her kittenhood when she first came to work at our university center.

Name: Youki ("snow" in Japanese; also one part of the infamous love triangle of Desnos-Foujita- Youki during Les Années Folles de Montparnasse)

Age: 3 (in December 2007)

Job: Catching mice, entertaining students, cuddling with evening receptionist on cold winter nights).

Favorite Pastime: napping, hiding in vacant classrooms, stealing baby birds from their nests, leaving disembodied bird parts in the halls.

Ma petite chouquette

The chouquette. My latest culinary obsession. Seems I can't go past a boulangerie without salivating over its display of little golden sugar-covered balls (alright, that just sounds obscene, but so is my passion for pastry...). I first tasted these little darlings while dog-sitting for gourmand of a Jack Russell, Schweppes. He has great taste and it shows. His rolly-polly little body often attracts derision from his long and lanky human compatriots. Of course, he is blissfully unaware of this and only to happy to continue indulging in large meals composed of steak, pasta, green beans and croissants, all slathered in salty butter from Brittany (only the best for monsieur, s'il vous plaît).

Anyway, I am only too content to feed into his addiction, as long as I can steal a bite or two. And so it was with this intention that I purchased my first paper sac filled to the brim with warm, fluffy chouquettes at the Alsatian bakery in Malakoff. In the end, Scwheppes had one and I had...well, I really can't remember, but it had to be more than six. I couldn't help it, they virtually melted on my tongue. I was immediately aware of the very real possibility of developing a full-blown addiction and so have since limited myself to an indulgence on Sundays.

I wanted to try to make chouquettes myself, but as my apartment has no oven, it's sadly impossible. All the same, I found what looks to be a promising recipe. Any testers out there?

Ingrédients :2 oeufs
50g de beurre
75g de farine
30g de sucre en grains
20cl d'eau
1 pincée de sel

Recette :1-Préchauffez le four à 150/180°C (th 5/6). 2-Versez le beurre et l'eau dans une petite casserole à fond épais. Faites chauffer quelques instants. Dès que les premiers bouillons apparaissent, ôtez la casserole du feu. 3-Versez la farine en une seule fois et mélangez avec une cuillère jusqu'à ce que la pâte forme une boule élastique qui se décolle facilement des parois de la casserole. 4-Ajoutez alors les oeufs un à un sans cesser de mélanger, puis ajoutez le sel. Votre pâte doit avoir une consistance lisse et ferme. 5-Formez des petites boules en vous aidant de deux cuillères et déposez-les sur la plaque. Attention! Laissez un espace suffisant entre les petits choux car il vont gonfler à la cuisson. 6-Mettez au four environ 15 minutes. 7- Sortez les chouquettes du four et saupoudrez-les de sucres en grains. Conseils :Tapissez votre plaque de four de papier sulfurisé.