Sonic Inconveniences

As I've mentioned before, eating in Paris is often a pretty expensive proposition. Even with a "Menu Formule," (essentially a salad, main course, and dessert/drink) it adds up quickly. One of the ways that students circumvent the priciness of meals is through the numerous student cafeterias located around Paris. These cafes are subsidized by the government and offer cheap hot food for 2.70 Euros per meal with a student ID. For example, today I went to one not too far from the Institut Catholique and got "steak," french fries, a salad, and some yogurt. None of the food was amazing, but after sitting in my "propedeutique" (intensive language sessions) for 3 hours, anything was fine.

The tricky part in these student cafes is jostling in line and to get a seat. Everybody packs in, with barely enough room to maneuver a tray, and you have to use a combination of "pardons" and elbows to get your point across. The students so value their lunch time that today, as Meredith, Steven and I were sitting having lunch amid a sea of brightly-colored scarves and rapidly moving silverware, the fire alarm went off. Everybody looked up, annoyed, and continued eating. Two people in the back, in this cafeteria full of over 150 people, got up and left. After 5 minutes, the alarm finally turned off, to no great fanfare or acknowledgement besides a few exasperated sighs from the young ladies sitting next to us. All of it brought me back to the days of high school and college at GWU, where a fire alarm isn't just a sonic inconvenience.