Josy à Paris I: Steak tartare

For the next week, this blog will be nicknamed Venue Vu Josy in commemoration of my time in Paris. If I had just come from Vancouver, I would have put the effort into temporarily changing the design, layout, and title of the blog; but alas, I just came from Italy, where idleness has rubbed off on me, so we will just use our imagination together.

I had a very relaxing day despite it being full of travelling. I woke up early to add any last-minute items to my luggage, carried my two backpacks to school, left my last class 15 minutes early and walked to the train station to head to Pisa Aeroporto. I arrived almost 2.5 hours before my 4:20pm flight, quickly checked in, had a latte macchiato (caffe latte) and a brioche, and then went through security and awaited for my flight. I took out Chloe (my laptop) in the hopes of accessing internet--nothing was free--so instead I devoted myself to writing for an hour in deep concentration. I wrote an almost 1000-word essay on Italian culture that I may share with you one day if you're interested; I must say that I'm quite proud of parts of it, mostly the parts that spilled out from my fingers without needing to stop and think. For now, it is titled Un'osservazione di un'italocinese-canadese (An observation of an Italian-Chinese-Canadian girl).  Before I knew it, it was almost time to board.

I spent my whole 1.5 hour plane ride reading Harry Potter e la pietra filosofale (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), and to my delight I read 47 pages without much difficulty. I arrived in Paris Beauvais, a small airport almost 80 km north of central Paris that services low-cost airlines, and immediately was able to purchase a shuttle-bus ticket and pick up my luggage. Then I made my way to the bus terminal, where a shuttle was already waiting for the latest batch of passengers. During my 1.5 hour bus-ride I tried listening to French music on my iPod while conjugating common French verbs in my head, all to prepare myself for a week of francophony. It's been about five years (already!) since I last studied French, plus Italian has overridden most of it, so we're in for a linguistic adventure.

My shuttle arrived at Porte Maillot in central Paris at 8:00pm and then I made my way to meet Pleuve at the nearby metro stop. When she found me--which was difficult because I didn't know exactly which exit I was in--I was in over-joyous disbelief. I was with Pleuve! In Paris! And for the first hour or so, she and I both realized that I had started thinking in Italian because as we were chatting, I would throw in a "perché" (why/because) or automatically respond in Italian.

A couple of metro transfers later and we were a short walk to Pleuve's apartment. It's located in a beautiful area and you can see la Basilique de Sacré Coeur off in the distance. She has really made the apartment her home--there are touches of her in almost every corner, and then there's an amazing shoe closet of sorts (something I know I will never strive to replicate). Even more, she made it feel like home for me by setting aside spaces for my things, getting my Twinings vanilla tea, and supplying guest towels. I'm so lucky!

After we exchanged presents, we strolled to a restaurant called Chez Clément, a bit past the Palais Garnier (Opera), for a relatively late dinner. We shared raw oysters (a first for me) and I ordered the steak tartare.

Steak tartare au chez Clément - meat intake equivalent to one month in Florence

On our way home I took some pictures of Palais Garnier.

Pleuve made us some Taylors of Harrogate earl grey tea. I managed to break the strings on both of our tea bags. That's 3 for 3, since the first time I tried using these special pull-spring tea bags I broke it too.

Paris, I'm looking forward to recreating our relationship. That goes for you too, French.