Woke up early on Saturday morning to bake. Duh. K was having another brunch, and, as I had refused to host it for him, felt the least I could do would be to bring a yummy lemon poppyseed cake. (Mission successful, by the way.)
The brunch was tons o' fun. I didn't stay till the end because I was party hopping like a frog on New Year's Eve, but he invited a different crowd at the begining than usual, so it was nice to make new friends. Most of these cats were ENS - École Normale Supérieure - masters students; I talked to one girl who was studying the morality of infants. The explanation of her thesis totally went over my head, but it sounded very cool. (K very cleverly has his guests stagger their arrivals so that each different group of friends is at the party for a different block of time. Sneaky.)
On my way back home to bake another cake for party number two, I was stopped in the courtyard of my building by an man who asked me to come talk with him and his friends. I was like, "Um... yeah, no, I have to go home." But he was kind of insistant in a non-creepy way, and because he was about 60 and wearing a kippah I figured it couldn't hurt. I followed him to a room on the rez-de-chausse, where he and three other kippah-toting men were finishing a Shabbbas lunch. We talked for a while, and every so often they'd offer me food or coffee or whatever, but I kept saying no. Finally, I couldn't resist the challah on the table, and asked if I could have some. They were like, "How do you know challah?" "Je suis juive," I said. They all exclaimed and laughed and the man who had invited me in looked very smug; apparently, he had guessed that I was Jewish from "mes gestes." So that opened up a whole nother can o' worms - I ended up staying for nearly two hours, talking Jew shop with these men and eating challah. One of them, the first, told me he wanted his son to marry a Jewish girl like me - and then he invited me to Shabbas dinner at his house next week. Sneaky. Another, a little older than the first, lived most of the year in Jerusalem. I knew that most Israelis of a certain age were very anti-Palestine, but I didn't realize how rabidly anti-Palestinian they were! This man was insane; when I pointed out that the wall didn't fix any long-term issues, he got very agitated and said, "Why do you not want us to protect our children? Thay are coming in and killing our children. How can you tell us we do not have the right to protect ourselves?" Okay, fair point, but the Israeli army kills Palestinian civillians and children all the time - what about them? Obviously I didn't say that out loud, but. Anyway, it was very very interesting. I hope I manage to make it back to lunch with them next week!
The second (or third, if you will) party of the day was hosted by K's sister, Julie. She and her friends had just finished the Bac and were celebrating. (Taking the Bac is kind of like doing the SAT Is twice plus three SAT IIs all in one week. Yikes.) I took the train 40 minutes of of Paris into the beautiful western suburbs. It was so bizarre to see stars and houses, actual houses! I had a great time; we barbequed and ate pie and watermelon and it was lovely. Best quote of the night came at the end, as K and his mother drove me and a few other guests back to the train station: "The problem with the suburbs," he said, "is that every town has a chateau." Problem? What? Okay, with this town it was definitely a problem; their chateau was hideous. In theory, though, it sounds pretty sweet!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment