November, short version, Part III

Announcement: I, Natalia Martinez, ate beef on Monday. Considering this is the second time I have eaten meat since I have been in France, this is quite the occurrence. Granted, it was a tiny portion at an overpriced Chinese restaurant, but it was still, essentially and purely, beef. Chris, whom I met in Geneva last summer and who came from Prague to see me for the weekend, took me to dinner after work. Then we walked around the Champs-Elysees, catching up, and enjoying the cold Parisian night.

Other highlights have included, but not necessarily been limited to:
a.) Wine and cheese party with the roommates in Bourg-la-Reine. A lot of wine, a lot of cheese, a lot of bread, very good music, and 45 people stuck overnight in the suburbs because of the transit strike.
b.) Nina, Heike, Heike’s sister, and I went to an International Photo Exhibition. It was a great gathering of hundreds of galleries from around the world, exhibiting all kinds of photography. It was actually overwhelming to have so much variety in a single location, and after a couple of hours walking around, I could barely remember which galleries I had liked. It was generally very enjoyable though and I saw some photographs, the composition of which, was truly inspiring.

On a different note, I finally moved out of Bourg-la-Reine! I will really miss living there, dinners together around the table, entire days spent listing to David’s music blasting throughout the house. I feel incredibly blessed to have met these people, to have had the opportunity to live with them, and be welcomed into Paris through the doorway of their home. However, now I am living about 15 minutes walking distance from work, which is a blessing in a city like this! It’s a small studio on a 6th floor [with no elevator]…I’m sharing it with Goga, a hyperactively lovable Polish 30 year old. My bed, much to my father’s chagrin, is quite literally a mattress on the floor under a window the looks out onto, again quite literally, an ugly rooftop! We have two beds, a table, a bathroom, a small pantry, and a miniature cooking area, but it’s clean and organized [no surprise there, coming from me]. It’s also about a two minute walk from a Russian Orthodox Cathedral and less than a minute from a beautiful park where I run in the mornings. The walk to work is itself quite pleasant, as I get to see the city beginning to stir, and occasionally stop into a boulangerie and buy a croissant. For lack of a better description, it’s my favorite way to start a morning.

Coincidentally, the move has also allowed me to start running again. Park Monceau is a very famous and beautiful park in Paris, and surrounded by very exclusive apartments, it is an oasis of green in the middle of the 8th Arrondissement. I run in shorts and a sweatshirt, no matter the cold or the rain. I need it, partly because it’s a complete reversal of my usual mode of functioning: it keeps my body in motion, but my mind at peace [whereas my body is usually stationary while my mind is wondering in 17 different directions]. Running provides a release in the middle of my day, my body pushing against the cold, against any possible pain [it is difficult for me to run outside because of a calf injury]. It does not matter if all I have eaten that day is oatmeal because I have no money, or that I’m far away from home, or that I just worked 11 hours; all that matters is that I have things to be thankful for, a cold chill creeping up my body, and music blasting from my headset.

Strikes: We had transportation strikes for nine days. In other words, 1 in 4 metro trains was running, if that. The trains that were running, were packed full of people, and the streets, filled with drivers who usually take public transportation, were alarmingly hectic. The general mood was crazed, since it took people hours to get to work. Unlike the strike that happened more than 10 years ago, this one was doomed from the relative beginning because 80% of the population is in favor of Sarkozy’s reforms, whereas before they were in favor of the unions.

Work is still going well. I have been getting more responsibility in certain aspects of the new campaign launch, so I am trying to use the opportunities to learn as much as possible. I have met some of the other interns, which comprise a fun and relaxed group of twenty-somethings. We meet for drinks about once a week, usually for a Guinness at a nearby Irish pub. Sinead, who studies at Oxford, is a breath of fresh air in the office, and Philippe, with who I quite literally exchange “The Life Aquatic” quotes by the water cooler [cliché and all], is a blessing = he lent me the second season of “Arrested Development,” which I have been watching whenever I get a chance. Amazingly, I still laugh for minutes on end at some of the jokes.

Tres French experience: I had dinner with Chine and Asia [friends from Harvard] in Chine’s apartment. It consisted of multiple kinds of cheese, a loaf of bread, little sausages, oranges, and two bottles of white wine. We sat on the floor, ate, talked, and laughed; after a long work day, it was incredibly refreshing.