Yesterday, I spent most of my day at the Salon du Livre (Book). It’s essentially a huge book fair, with authors signing books and discussions. We spent a couple hours wandering around, just looking at how many options there were. The great thing was, there were very few big book companies, it was almost all small publishers organized by region. They also had editors from all over the world, which I took full advantage of for discovering which Swedish writers I should read. I didn’t buy anything because unlike in the US, a book is not priced based on it’s size, but on it’s popularity. So, all the little paperbacks I wanted were around 20 euros, no can do. At the end I listened to a discussion on Translation and Translators. It was interesting to see how important this industry is in France and how much debate is involved.
After that I headed to St. Michel to meet an American friend who was visiting for spring break. (Here’s her blog from when she was here a year ago). We got couscous and then split up because half the group had to wake up early, and half the group wanted to go out for a drink. It ended up being me and four boys heading to an Irish bar, which sounds awkward but it wasn’t, I just felt like I was back in Southington with Brian and his friends. And it was actually pretty interesting to listen to a Frenchie, Chinois, and Lebanese discuss hitting on girls, which is apparently a lot more classy over here.
When I got home that night, I gave in to my new addiction, Glee. It’s a horrible horrible habit to watch american shows while I should be enjoying France or at least watching something in French. But, I’ve reached the point where I just feel like I live here, it’s no longer PARIS, just, Paris. It’s still amazing, I love it, but I need to get the spark back so I keep going to museums every weekend and don’t spend all my time watching Glee. If only it wasn’t so good…
Bonjour Escargot 