it's a rich man's world

Thursday's tour of the Seine was wonderfully touristy; thankfully the sun came out but it was sooo cold and windy. I took a few fun pictures; this is my friend Tim from Bard who is making weekly video blogs or something like that for his scholarship. Also, for our dear blog readers logistically, you can see bigger photos of those in the slideshow on the right if you click on it. Also, I absolutely love the comments and I think Brian does too =).

Afterwards I FINALLY got creme brulee here (for my last two weeks at home I was craving it something awful and I did get some homemade which was very rich but still yummy =D) and it was a delicious unhealthy lunch with a cafe au lait (also my first here). We've been drilling grammar like no other and I still don't know anything. I've been reading "Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong" written by two Canadians who lived in France for two years, and listening to Sarkozy's fiancee (I really like Carla Bruni's music she's like a chill French Regina Spektor).

So about the title of this post. I live in one of the swankest neighborhoods in Paris. Sofia Coppola lives downstairs, the director of the Asterix films lives across the courtyard, etc. etc. I'm surrounded by Lacoste, Dior, the new Sonia Rykiel store, La Grande Epicerie (the biggest and one of the most expensive gourmet groceries in Paris), Au Bon Marche (huge and expensive department store), more designers and art galleries and furniture stores, etc. etc. And, being students, we're all pretty paranoid of running out of money while we're here and spending so much. Luckily I get to go to all the museums for free because my student ID says I'm studying history of art (though the other day I just snuck into the Musee D'Orsay via the coat check). I'm interested in getting a tutoring English job just for the income that I know I don't need if I budget, but I also want to do a student activity, maybe salsa dancing. And I want to shop and go to museums etc. All my classes are so damn far away from each other that this becomes very difficult, just having time generally.

[Philo-y thoughts]: But it isn't really a rich man's world. It's everyone's world, and no one's, because it's my world (me being whoever is reading this, right now it's me because I'm writing but it's actually you right now because you're in the future reading what I wrote at 3:30 A.M. in Paris on my 9th day here). And I have nothing else to compare to, because I live only my one life. So I didn't go to the swank soul club tonight that cost 20 euros. Instead, I had a blast at the free live music club and made a few French friends out on the smoking patio, who hate Sarkozy and think by Americanizing France, he's making the country regress and undoing all the progress since de Gaulle. I don't smoke by the way, but many of my friends do, and so does my French mom and sister, but not dad. Point being, soul club vs. free club, no difference because I'll never know what my life would be like if I had gone to the soul club. Just expand this to everything, and we see that all those potential lives and universes, they don't matter so much because what matters is that girl who hates de Gaulle or the woman on the subway with pink hair or the guy eating oreos outside of the church or especially the conversation over a cup of coffee with a good friend, maybe even preferably at the kitchen table rather than in that swank cafe where Hemingway and co. hung out. And that all is free.

Finally, I'm obsessed with this painting at the Yale art gallery: http://tinyurl.com/yorwh6 and paintings like it, of strong hurt looking women looking directly at the viewer, like the artist is speaking to you through this central, often vulnerable, female figure. So here are some of those that I saw at Musee d'Orsay.