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Réservoir de la Vanne

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    • TravelerParis Semester Abroad
      1
      Day 50

      Toad’s tidbits debut!

      February 25 in France ⋅ 🌧 8 °C

      Hello!
      While on the phone yesterday with mother, I came up with a grand idea. In one of my favorite French movies, the main character Amelie kidnaps her father‘s beloved garden gnome and makes it appear as though it is traveling around the world, sending him commemorative postcards at each destination. I don’t have have a garden gnome, but I do have a small stuffed toad (from the frog and toad series) that my mother knitted for me. I figured might place him in silly destinations around Paris, with a snarky caption, as a small creative project.

      While taking this first series of pictures at my favorite local grocery store, Auchan, I noticed something peculiar. I often struggle with social anxiety in public places, particularly in Paris where it’s crowded and I don’t speak the language very well. But the act of doing something small and ridiculous (and ultimately harmless) in a public place, accompanied by my pet toad, made me feel strangely relaxed and unbothered by the prospect of being judged. It was really cool. I think I will take him to more places soon.      Read more

    • TravelerParis Semester Abroad
      11
      Day 51

      Hoppy birthday Sigrid!

      February 26 in France ⋅ 🌬 6 °C

      Hi everyone! Nothing special on my end but certainly for my lovely mother, who is turning an undisclosed age today. How she has managed to keep it together for this long baffles me. Alas I do not have the funds to send her France‘s best wine, chocolate, macarons, and yarn, which is everything that this incredible woman deserves and more. My mother is the person who most encouraged me to come to Paris and to write a penguin post every week sharing my life. She’s the person I call when I’m sick, tired, lonely, and homesick. Her patience with my whining and petty problems is (almost) infinite. Without her it’s safe to say, I’d be very lost, and not the sort that google maps can help you with. So my trusty toad and I got together and decided to make her this little birthday card. We hope she likes it as much as we do. Happy birthday Sigrid! 🎉🎁🥂🐸Read more

    • TravelerParis Semester Abroad
      1
      11111
      Day 70

      Saturday stroll in le neighborhood

      March 16 in France ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

      I woke up this morning in a horrible state of anxiety. The kind where your lizard brain thinks your house is on fire and you need to flee immediately. Sometimes this happens to me during high-stress periods (applying to internships, planning travel, meeting school deadlines etc. etc), but I’ve recently been trying to put more of an effort into healthy coping. So instead of pulling the covers over my head and drawing my curtains to block any ray of sunshine from entering the room, I pulled myself together, got dressed, and took a walk outside.

      These are some of the pictures that resulted. Saturdays are a lively time in France where parents, kids, old couples, and randos who haven’t done their grocery shopping for the week emerge from their apartments and fill the streets with bustling activity. I love the 13th because of the endless number local businesses that line the narrow streets, affording it a delightfully crowded and communitarian vibe. The corner only a step away from my apartment represents a microcosm of the middle class arrondissement in Paris. We may all come from different walks of life, but we all need to grocery shop.

      France fact #1: France is the epitome of the phrase «parts sold separately ». French people are notoriously suspicious of big business, « la grande distribution », and supermarkets have only recently come into fashion because of their convenience. However, even convenience has its drawbacks. Who wants to buy imported pomegranates from India and ham packaged in plastic when you could get a juicy slab of « jambon de Paris » from your local butcher and cheap, delicious apples grown in the south of France at a market. In the second photo you can even see the business had won a gold medal for their sauerkraut in 2012, giving their products extra credibility.

      So instead, we have a poissonneries (seafood store), boucheries (butchers), fromageries (cheese shops), épiceries (local grocers), and traiteurs (vendors of cooked food). The traiteurs in the 13th are particularly diverse, encompassing Lebanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, and Italian cuisine, to name a few. All of these stores are a bit more expensive than standard grocery prices but always come with the benefit of better quality and support for local businesses. I don’t shop there often, but when I do it’s worth it.

      Enjoy these pictures of my lovely neighborhood everyone. I hope you feel as charmed as I do, especially by the last photo of the lady in the blue coat with her husband. I tried extra hard not to violate their data privacy.

      A bientôt :)

      - Leah      Read more

    • TravelerParis Semester Abroad
      Day 24

      Une visite chez le médecin

      January 30 in France ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

      Congestion. Cough. Nausea. Random ear pain. Sandpaper throat. We’ve all been there at one time or another. Right now I feel like the kitchen sink of diseases. My mother speculates that I picked it up because I didn’t wash my hands after going on the metro. Either way, now I get to have the cultural experience of being sick in France.

      I’ve had a sore throat for about a week and a half now, and procrastinated going to the doctor for as long as possible. Even yakking at school wasn’t enough to stop me. But the push through method has failed to result in my symptoms actually improving, so I headed to the doctor’s, as recommended by my exchange organization.

      The office was in the 8th, about a 40 minute commute away. The doctors sign was not the most noticeable, but I called the number listed and said I had an appointment. The person on the other end tried in vain to get my dumb ass to figure out the keypad (embarrassing), so someone eventually came down and led me through a fortress of locked doors. Why this doctors office has Alcatraz level security, I can’t really understand either. Also, no one in this office spoke English, despite being advertised as an English speaking establishment. It would have been funnier had I not been so desperate to find out what was wrong with me and feel better.

      After muddling through the pre-appointment procedures, I sat down in a lavishly furnished living room. I’m talking chintz sofas, ornate mirrors, Japanese vases, and gilded crown molding that would make your contractor weep. I waited about fifteen minutes before being ushered into a room by an older woman wearing a white coat and UGG BOOTS. The dichotomy was hilarious. The office also reeked of cigarette smoke. We communicated with difficulty, but eventually she did a brief physical examination, didn’t test me for anything, and prescribed me a laundry list of sprays, syrups, and amoxicillin. As of yet none of them have made a dent in my symptoms, which is frustrating to say the least. You can probably hear a touch of resentment in my voice, but after being sick for a week and a half and not being able to figure out what’s wrong with you, wouldn’t you be too? The most valuable thing I got out of the experience was a doctors note, which will allow me to not be penalized for missing school.

      this has all been a bit of a mess. The pharmacy is thankfully right around the corner, and the nice pharmacist helped translate the doctors completely illegible script. 33 euros later I am still no closer to feeling better, and I have six hours straight of class tomorrow, which is when my medical absence ends. Pray for me everyone please.      Read more

    • TravelerParis Semester Abroad
      Day 74

      A moment of spring

      March 20 in France ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      Im pretty exhausted today. Class from 10-5 and the last one is three hour ordeal on European economic integration that seems to drain every last drop of concentration that I have.

      I always come home and open my window to let in the clean air. Clear away the things strewn around the apartment from when I rushed out the door this morning. Outside, evening is just beginning to set in. But today I heard something. The strains of someone practicing the saxophone in the distance. I paused to pick out the notes of of the theme: F C Bb Ab F. The voices on the street and chirping intermingled with the melody, as the floral perfume of my neighbor’s budding garden floated inside. And for a small moment I forgot about my worldly troubles. It’s spring in Paris and life is starting to return outside. I am surrounded by a world that I can’t always see, by people whose names I don’t know, but today their presence could be heard.

      A ten second video doesn’t capture the essence quite well enough, and neither do my descriptions. But if you turn the volume up all the way, perhaps you’ll be able to make out the saxophone and hear the sound of the 13th coming to life.      Read more

    • TravelerCycling France 2017
      1
      2
      Day 8

      Adapting on the fly...

      September 12, 2017 in France ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

      When the going gets tough, the tough get going...out of Dodge 😂.

      After 3 days of cycling we really aren't very far from the big city so we left our bikes and panniers behind and headed to Paris 🗼! Another day...or 3... battling the wind and rain didn't sound quite as good as sipping wine in a roadside cafe.

      We still got our distance in ... walking 17 km around the city. Les Invalides monument, Eiffel tower (of course - but just from the ground), Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe. Got lucky twice finding ourselves watching a rain burst while enjoying a beverage. (That either says something about our luck or time spent in cafes 😄).

      Weather is supposed to improve closer to the weekend so we'll spend another day or so here. Hmmm...wonder if we can find enough to fill our time.      Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Réservoir de la Vanne, Reservoir de la Vanne

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