As my second semester of studying in Paris was coming to an end, I decided it was time to revise my experience and my impressions of the French capital. Not surprisingly, I was not very enthusiastic about my leaving. One of the greatest cities in the world had become my home for almost a year. I had the chance to get lost in its alleys, uncovering its secrets off the beaten tourist tracks. I found my favourite café for the morning caffeine boost and my favourite bar for the evening cocktail; the best whole wheat bread; and the sunniest spot by the Seine for an afternoon picnic with a view of the Notre Dame cathedral. I have seen the colours of Paris in every season. And this is but the beginning of the pleasures of Paris.

As I was not obliged to take many courses and pass a number of exams at my university in the suburbs, I had time to stroll around other Parisian schools and grands écoles, a group of the most prestigious French post-secondary institutions, to see what they offer. There are twelve universities in Paris alone and a number of other educational institutions. Thus I attended some classes at the famous Sorbonne whose inner court, which you can only enter as a student, is even more impressive than its front, overlooking a fountain and a square where students gather at lunchtime.

Some of the lectures I was interested in took place at ENS (Ecole Nationale Supérieure), a peaceful sanctuary right behind the Pantheon with a garden and a fountain. The courses were quite demanding, especially as I was missing some of the basics in philosophy (not to mention my insufficient knowledge of French terminology in this field). However, just to hear some of the well-known philosophers speak made me feel I was not only in the heart of the French capital, but also in the heart of French thought.

I also attended some lectures in linguistic anthropology at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) where I was fascinated by several presentations made by visiting professors from the U.S. In Musée du Quai Branly I listened to lectures by a couple of French professors, a dance choreographer, and an Australian anthropologist. And in the auditorium of the impressive Collège de France I attended some free public lectures on history and democracy. I believe that in terms of academic and learning pleasures Paris is hard to defeat.

Another aspect of the French capital to attract people from all over the world is art in every form. Each week you can buy Pariscope, a magazine with every possible event taking place, for just a couple of cents. I saw a number of plays, concerts, and films, but there were a couple of them I will remember better than others.

The first of them happened on a windy Sunday when we were strolling around the biggest marché aux puces (flea market) in Europe, just north of Porte d?Orléans. After rummaging through yellowish books, crumpled bank notes (we even found some Yugoslav ones), rusty railings, and dusty but firm furniture that could still be very much in vogue, we were ready to set off to the metro when we suddenly heard some loud jazzy music coming out of a small bar. We stopped for a glass of lemonade and surrendered to the sounds of two guitars while outside the storm burst. The musical pleasure of Paris–unexpected, unplanned, and unforgettable.

A few days before our leaving, we also had the chance to enjoy Fête de la Musique, the music festival. After a glance at the never-ending list of concerts, I gave up on looking for something special, so we just walked up the Latin Quarter once again. It proved to be the right thing to do, as everywhere you went music just filled your ears and people were dancing wherever they could.

Together with some of our friends we settled at a square where Zoran, an immigrant from Belgrade, Serbia, and his group were playing rock and were indeed good at it.

As the custom is in Paris, where parties often end when it is time to catch the last metro at one o?clock in the morning, all concerts stopped at midnight. But on our way back home, we bumped into a group of drum players. Their beat seemed to be addictive for we not only stopped to listen, but even followed them up the Rue Mouffetard again. Our procession grew along the way as more and more people with tired, sleepy faces suddenly became revived at the sound of drums and turned around on their heels to join us. For a moment it seemed as if a breeze from Brazil drifted over Paris, making everyone forget the lightening sky that was already announcing another working day.

Then there was the weekend in Belleville, a quarter in the northeastern part of the city, when the local artists opened their studios, which were often parts of their own apartments, to the public. Armed with a map specially designed for the occasion, we climbed the narrow staircases of buildings too old to have escalators installed, poked our noses into people’s homes, discovered what is usually hidden behind enormous blurred windows and high stone walls, and explored the most diverse artistic talents.

The pleasure of staying in Paris for a while also lies in small discoveries you cannot afford if you only come for a couple of days. We spoke to a Slovenian tourist guide who knew but the main Parisian tourist sites–the Louvre, Palais Royal, Notre Dame, Versailles, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. The queues to climb the latter are never-ending at any time of the day on any day of the week. On the other hand, there was nobody at the ticket office to mount the 56th floor of Tour Montparnasse in forty seconds. The panoramic view is just as breathtaking and you can include the Eiffel Tower itself in your picture.

Then there is Arènes de Lutèce, the Roman amphitheatre in the 5th arrondissement that the city authorities wanted to transform into a dump but that Victor Hugo fought to have preserved. Concealed by the surrounding buildings, it now serves as a park where the locals eat take-away pizza and children play soccer on Sundays. And then there are the carefully tendered secret courtyard gardens behind virtually every heavy wooden door, often dating back to the 19th century, that seem impenetrable to a passing tourist. In reality, you can enter many of them by simply pushing the button on them and in the next moment you are surrounded by un-city-like peace. There, you can easily feel like Alice in Wonderland, and experience the pleasure of discovering a faraway countryside in the heart of what appears to be a stone-cold city.

During all those months, I also got to know some Parisians and was often mesmerized by their views and lifestyle. However, what I admire most about them is their ability to take a day’s moment for themselves; to stop, look around, and become aware once again of the pleasures their city has to offer.

Not only do they learn to keep balance while reading at the metro during the rush hour, they also know how to sit down for a glass of red wine after work, in company or alone, just to ponder their day while watching the sun set over the Seine–the pleasure of grabbing your self by its tail in a half-hour meditation before you get lost in the city crowd once again.

As my second semester of studying in Paris was coming to an end, I decided it was time to revise my experience and my impressions of the French capital. Not surprisingly, I was not very enthusiastic about my leaving. One of the greatest cities in the world had become my home for almost a year. I had the chance to get lost in its alleys, uncovering its secrets off the beaten tourist tracks. I found my favourite café for the morning caffeine boost and my favourite bar for the evening cocktail; the best whole wheat bread; and the sunniest spot by the Seine for an afternoon picnic with a view of the Notre Dame cathedral. I have seen the colours of Paris in every season. And this is but the beginning of the pleasures of Paris.

As I was not obliged to take many courses and pass a number of exams at my university in the suburbs, I had time to stroll around other Parisian schools and grands écoles, a group of the most prestigious French post-secondary institutions, to see what they offer. There are twelve universities in Paris alone and a number of other educational institutions. Thus I attended some classes at the famous Sorbonne whose inner court, which you can only enter as a student, is even more impressive than its front, overlooking a fountain and a square where students gather at lunchtime.

Some of the lectures I was interested in took place at ENS (Ecole Nationale Supérieure), a peaceful sanctuary right behind the Pantheon with a garden and a fountain. The courses were quite demanding, especially as I was missing some of the basics in philosophy (not to mention my insufficient knowledge of French terminology in this field). However, just to hear some of the well-known philosophers speak made me feel I was not only in the heart of the French capital, but also in the heart of French thought.

I also attended some lectures in linguistic anthropology at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) where I was fascinated by several presentations made by visiting professors from the U.S. In Musée du Quai Branly I listened to lectures by a couple of French professors, a dance choreographer, and an Australian anthropologist. And in the auditorium of the impressive Collège de France I attended some free public lectures on history and democracy. I believe that in terms of academic and learning pleasures Paris is hard to defeat.

Another aspect of the French capital to attract people from all over the world is art in every form. Each week you can buy Pariscope, a magazine with every possible event taking place, for just a couple of cents. I saw a number of plays, concerts, and films, but there were a couple of them I will remember better than others.

The first of them happened on a windy Sunday when we were strolling around the biggest marché aux puces (flea market) in Europe, just north of Porte d?Orléans. After rummaging through yellowish books, crumpled bank notes (we even found some Yugoslav ones), rusty railings, and dusty but firm furniture that could still be very much in vogue, we were ready to set off to the metro when we suddenly heard some loud jazzy music coming out of a small bar. We stopped for a glass of lemonade and surrendered to the sounds of two guitars while outside the storm burst. The musical pleasure of Paris–unexpected, unplanned, and unforgettable.

A few days before our leaving, we also had the chance to enjoy Fête de la Musique, the music festival. After a glance at the never-ending list of concerts, I gave up on looking for something special, so we just walked up the Latin Quarter once again. It proved to be the right thing to do, as everywhere you went music just filled your ears and people were dancing wherever they could.

Together with some of our friends we settled at a square where Zoran, an immigrant from Belgrade, Serbia, and his group were playing rock and were indeed good at it.

As the custom is in Paris, where parties often end when it is time to catch the last metro at one o?clock in the morning, all concerts stopped at midnight. But on our way back home, we bumped into a group of drum players. Their beat seemed to be addictive for we not only stopped to listen, but even followed them up the Rue Mouffetard again. Our procession grew along the way as more and more people with tired, sleepy faces suddenly became revived at the sound of drums and turned around on their heels to join us. For a moment it seemed as if a breeze from Brazil drifted over Paris, making everyone forget the lightening sky that was already announcing another working day.

Then there was the weekend in Belleville, a quarter in the northeastern part of the city, when the local artists opened their studios, which were often parts of their own apartments, to the public. Armed with a map specially designed for the occasion, we climbed the narrow staircases of buildings too old to have escalators installed, poked our noses into people’s homes, discovered what is usually hidden behind enormous blurred windows and high stone walls, and explored the most diverse artistic talents.

The pleasure of staying in Paris for a while also lies in small discoveries you cannot afford if you only come for a couple of days. We spoke to a Slovenian tourist guide who knew but the main Parisian tourist sites–the Louvre, Palais Royal, Notre Dame, Versailles, and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. The queues to climb the latter are never-ending at any time of the day on any day of the week. On the other hand, there was nobody at the ticket office to mount the 56th floor of Tour Montparnasse in forty seconds. The panoramic view is just as breathtaking and you can include the Eiffel Tower itself in your picture.

Then there is Arènes de Lutèce, the Roman amphitheatre in the 5th arrondissement that the city authorities wanted to transform into a dump but that Victor Hugo fought to have preserved. Concealed by the surrounding buildings, it now serves as a park where the locals eat take-away pizza and children play soccer on Sundays. And then there are the carefully tendered secret courtyard gardens behind virtually every heavy wooden door, often dating back to the 19th century, that seem impenetrable to a passing tourist. In reality, you can enter many of them by simply pushing the button on them and in the next moment you are surrounded by un-city-like peace. There, you can easily feel like Alice in Wonderland, and experience the pleasure of discovering a faraway countryside in the heart of what appears to be a stone-cold city.

During all those months, I also got to know some Parisians and was often mesmerized by their views and lifestyle. However, what I admire most about them is their ability to take a day’s moment for themselves; to stop, look around, and become aware once again of the pleasures their city has to offer.

Not only do they learn to keep balance while reading at the metro during the rush hour, they also know how to sit down for a glass of red wine after work, in company or alone, just to ponder their day while watching the sun set over the Seine–the pleasure of grabbing your self by its tail in a half-hour meditation before you get lost in the city crowd once again.

One of the first such weekend expeditions was to Normandy, the northwestern part of France. On a grey rainy day we reached Dieppe, almost the closest seaside town. With a sprinkle of imagination you could almost see England from its white, vast, sandy beach. This fishermen’s town and its port, safely hidden from the rough winter sea, are guarded by a medieval castle. When I stood there, looking at the mysterious images the sea had painted in the sand, I felt as if I could change not only place, but time as well. As the sky cleared, we climbed the steep cliff at one end of the town to watch the scarlet sunset. I was fascinated by neat little villas that were overlooking the clustered town houses, the beach, and the infinite sea. I wished I could sit in my own room with such a view; I would surely never get bored of it in my entire lifetime.

As my boyfriend and I are both explorers by nature, we didn’t stop where the path ended, at the cold fence on the edge of the cliff. We knew we could go farther. But what we found there immediately brought my daydreaming to its end, for at the tip of the street of those neat small villas there was a pillbox, a sad leftover from World War II. On the inside it was coloured by graffiti, as if that could make it any more welcoming. Turning back toward the beach, I realized it probably served its function very well from such an elevated position. In the next moment I again travelled back in time and I did not like what I saw before me.

On another walk later in the evening I noticed memorials, commemorating the unfortunate Dieppe Raid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid) and the British and Canadian soldiers involved. This, therefore, was most certainly not a view I would like to have from my living room, I decided.

Our next quest was even further to the south. We got a great train-and-hotel weekend package in Bordeaux. I’m sure this name rings a bell–you have probably heard about, or even better tasted wine from, the vineyards of this French region. Although the wine tasting was indeed tasty and the macarons (http://www.portes-ouvertes-bdp.com/macaron-provence.htm) even more so (not spaghetti, but special cookies we happily chewed during our visit to the nearby village of Saint Emilion, known also for the biggest underground monolithic church in Europe), I was most amazed at the local feast of Arcachon. When we first walked through this seaside town, we quickly dismissed it as a huge summer station, with nothing more to offer than some pretty nice residences and another sandy beach. But just as we were about to return to the ?real city,? we heard some music from a park overlooking the town. Intrigued, we climbed the stairs and when we reached their top, a fairy tale opened up before us.

The whole park was scattered with children’s games that adults were also more than happy to try their hand at. But what games they were! Until seeing this with my own eyes, I was convinced that nowhere in the world did people throw horseshoes around a stick anymore. Or huge fir cones into wooden frames. Or use a heavy stick to get an empty bottle around obstacles from one side of a board to another without it falling.

There were even groups competing at every game and you could see who belonged to which group by the colour of the ribbon around their hats. My enthusiasm for this creative feast became even greater when, on our return to Bordeaux, the first thing we saw were the flashing neon lights of a fun fair. Without much hesitation I knew which fair I would prefer to take my children to if I had some.

Moving up on the map again, toward northwest France, we discovered Reims. The city is famous for its magnificent cathedral and sparkling champagne, but it would not mean much to me if I hadn’t known a family living there which soon became like our very own. Our friend Mathea took us to several evenings of poetry and wine, something that is non-existent in the French capital but is known to occur in my country, Slovenia. (There, though, wine usually wins over poetry.)

In Reims, however, the two are not in competition, but intertwine like a vine and a vine prop. During the readings by the authors we usually tasted three different wines and learned about their history and characteristics. Yves, Mathea’s husband, also took us to a wine fair in the nearby town of Epernay. I won’t deny it, some of its visitors did get drunk–the tasting was free and you could even take your glass home. But for me it was a great occasion to acquire at least a bit of that tacit feeling that helps you distinguish some more varieties of wine than simply red and white.

In the same region there is also Charleville-Mézières, the home town of the poet Rimbaud. It is also the town of the world puppet festival (http://www.festival-marionnette.com/) Mathea came to see from Slovenia some 15 years ago. She didn’t know then that she would marry the boy she had met on the train that took her there. On the Sunday of our visit the town was empty, the marionette school closed, and only a huge puppet came out of a wall at every full hour to tell a part of Charleville-Mézières’s history.

But the red-bricked buildings got a whole other meaning when Mathea said, ?This is where the workshops took place.? An empty restaurant was suddenly enlivened by her voice–?This is where we first ate pizza together?–and the nearby dark woods seemed to be closing in upon us–?This is where we had our first fight.? And in a blink of an eye, their daughter is turning six.

Indeed, you never quite know for sure where the train you are stepping on is going to take you, but it took me all around France and I appreciated every stop along the way.

I leave the café just before noon, as another spectacle is about to begin on an empty spot between the fruit stalls and the park of the church. There are, in fact, many Sunday performances along rue Moufftard by musicians and street-theatre actors, but I prefer this one to all the others. A group of accordion players and singers prepare a provisional stage, the most important element being a microphone. They are dressed as typically French as they could be. Men wear black-and-white striped shirts, berets, and kerchiefs around their necks, while women wear long colourful skirts and wavy neckerchief of strong colors, pinned with brooches. Next to the musicians stand boxes of folders that contain texts of songs. As the crowd grows larger, the texts are distributed among the passersby, who stop to sing along. They stand in a half-circle and respectfully make space for those who feel like dancing. You are free to ask for a certain song to be played, but you are also free to take the microphone and sing it yourself. I will never forget that chilly yet sunny Sunday in February, when a tiny, white-haired lady sang a famous part of the opera Carmen with the voice of a prima donna while one of the couples danced something like flamenco, the man clicking with castanets. And all of a sudden you feel as if a light breeze had taken you out of the city, in some village two centuries ago.

Leaving the lively square behind, I walk toward the Seine. All the shops are normally closed on Sundays, but bookworms nevertheless get their satisfaction. Of course you can find some enormous, several-storeyed bookshops in Paris, but unlike elsewhere around the Western world, these have not pushed smaller, friendlier bookshops over the edge. As I am a frequent book buyer (not always such a reader, though), Paris perfectly reflects my idea of heaven. On a Sunday walk you can turn around some corner and you might just discover a book market where you can buy books by pounds! And not only that?new and used, novels and art books, all of them are amazingly cheap, at least compared to my Slovenian homeland. By the Seine, opposite the Notre Dame cathedral, there is the most famous bookshop in France, Shakespeare and Company Books. This shop contains not only new and used English and French books on all subjects one can come up with, but also several beds, a small kitchen, and a table with a real (!) typewriter, all tucked somewhere between the shelves that are filled with dusty books. Apparently, aspiring writers from all around the world can come to live there for several months in return for some help around the shop and a pledge to write their own book someday. And on a Sunday, you are even served a hot cup of tea while leafing through the word treasury.

If I do not get completely caught up in one of many such magic places until the end of the day, I sometimes pretend to be a real tourist and visit a museum. A good reason why you may want to do that on the first Sunday of the month (even though you risk being trod on by a constant flow of people if you admire a certain object a bit too long), is that every museum in Paris is free of charge. Just before my arrival here, a new museum was opened and I quickly fell in love with it. Musée du quai Branly is interesting enough for its architecture, but as a future anthropologist I am attracted to everything that is happening there. That includes not only anthropological exhibitions on virtually every corner of the world, but also conferences, films, lectures, and concerts. Where else could you observe the masks of New Ireland in the Pacific Ocean, follow a lecture on the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, and round out the day with a concert given by Cuban improvisational poets?

On other Sunday evenings, though, there is El Patio. You are right, this is not a French word. It is the Spanish name of a dancing room on the second floor of a narrow house in the heart of Paris. It is a place my boyfriend and I go to enjoy the company and dance of Carmen, a Uruguayan dancer of the Argentine tango, and her students, whom we joined a couple of months ago.

We soon came to adore this lean sixty-something lady who is bursting with energy and a love of tango. I once complained to one of our friends from the group that it is a shame the dances in El Patio are on Sundays since it is the end of the week and we often feel too tired to come. He answered that for him a new week simply begins on the Sunday evening when he spins around with one of the other amazing dancers to the rhythm of a tango, milonga, or waltz.

Can you imagine any better way to start your week?

So you can imagine I looked forward to spending my New Year’s holidays in Paris, a much larger capital with so many more possibilities to enjoy yourself and the people you might meet. It all started quite typically: in late November, marchés de Noël (or Christmas fairs) flourished, at least one in every town. There were a couple of them in Dijon, where my boyfriend and I went to pay a visit to a friend who was also spending her semester as an exchange student. On our weekend journey to Dieppe in Normandy the lifeless landscape of empty fields was enlivened by a sign for a fair every couple of miles. Along with the fair always came a carousel and sometimes even a small skating rink. One of these appeared right in front of the Hôtel de Ville, the town hall in the middle of Paris. It was not only fun, but also very convenient, because all the big shopping centres are right around the corner. Plus, you could guess what the most popular gifts would be this year according to the logotypes on the shopping bags people were carrying.

Maybe I had bad luck, since the Samaritane centre was (and still is) closed for renovation and so I was deprived of the most famous shop-window glitter. But hey, I thought, if there is a lot of anything in Paris it is shops, and I was convinced I would find them dazzling. That, however, did not happen: their windows remained dark and gloomy just like the sky above the city. To make things even worse, all the fairs mysteriously disappeared right after December 25. How could that be? And even though there were thousands of posters all around the city which invited people to discover Paris Illuminé Paris, the only street I could see bright at night was the avenue Champs-Elysées. A continuous river of people paraded by the closed, dull shops only to see that the lights on the box-shaped trees were lit and all was in order. No food-and-drink stalls to warm yourself, no gifts to buy, no friends to meet. Poor Parisians, I thought, they get to go down this road every year.

The atmosphere was therefore virtually forcing you to resort to food–and we did. There was a lot of it, all kinds, too, but not everywhere or at every hour. There is a boulanger (a baker’s shop) on every corner and, accordingly, there is one on the corner of my street. It takes about three minutes to get out of bed and fetch a warm baguette and pain au chocolat for breakfast. They usually sell pastries as well. My boyfriend is crazy about the soft, chocolate- or caramel-filled stick-like éclair, but I fell for the raspberry tartelette, a pie which reminds me of a ruby and is exactly as good as it looks. Especially for Christmas, the French prepare bûche de Noël, which literally means “Christmas log.” This chocolate or fruit or chestnut cake indeed reminds one of a log, but you would not want to throw it into the fireplace. Not to mention galette du rois, a special pie the French eat on the second Sunday after Christmas. It is made of flaky pastry and fruits and each of them contains a small, usually plastic, figurine. The one who gets it in his or her piece becomes a king or a queen for the day. This tradition is in fact the origin of the king cake in the United States during the Carnival season.

Since my mother was paying a visit, we longed for something famously French. So we decided on a special late lunch. But in France you can eat what you want only when the time is right. From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., every decent restaurant in Paris is closed. Still, although we grumbled about it, our swapping late lunch for dinner paid off. We found a true fondue restaurant in the popular rue Moufftard in the Latin Quarter. There I discovered not only the charm of the melting cheese in a pot above fire, but also the tasty meat fondue. In this case you fork pieces of beef or duck and let them roast in a sprinkling of oil. Best of all, however, I loved the fresh fruit in hot dark chocolate.

Paris, in the end, turned out to have quite a different New Year’s atmosphere from what I expected. We haven’t been to any nightclubs, so I couldn’t really say this is not a city in which to have fun in that way. But we did try to find a place to listen to the French chansons. Unfortunately, our quest turned out to be unsuccessful. It seems the smoke-filled bars where you could have a drink by the sound of an accordion and songs of amour in the fashion of Edith Piaf have gone with the winds of change.

The French capital is, however, definitely the best place to party on some other occasions. At the end of January, CGT (Confédération Générale du Travail, the major French workers trade union) organized a protest in the name of who-knows-what (indeed, some people I talked with went demonstrating without having any idea what it was really about) at Place d?Italy which is close to where I live. I know that protests are a uniquely French phenomenon and I have already felt its effects every couple of weeks when the metro did not show up when it was supposed to. But what struck me this time was the theme from Batman spreading down the avenues along with the smell of hot dogs and the colourful balloons floating in the clear blue sky. On the wide roundabout, which the demonstrators seized for their purposes, there were all the ingredients of a perfect party: booze, barbecues, party flags, crackers, and even a live concert performed by a Mexican group. Who said the French don’t know how to swing and swirl? If you mixed up the dates and occasions, the shame is on you.

Before I started preparing for my adventure, my mother and I took advantage of the impeccable weather and went to the mountains for several days. I stood on the peak of Triglav, the highest Slovenian mountain of about 9,500 feet, for the first (and hopefully not the last) time in my life. The very last part of the climb was really steep, and although there was a steel rope to hold to almost all the way up, I was scared as never before. The numerous memorial plates commemorating those who have died on that mountain, because of lightning or because they slipped, didn’t help much. But once we reached the top, I could finally look up and around. Above me there was nothing left but the blue sky. Around me there were pure white rocks and green woods deep beneath them. For a moment, I felt I was indeed standing (almost) on top of the world.

After my adventure, I left for Paris. I remember flying over the Alps and seeing the exact path I took with my mother during our trip. Not surprisingly, one of the first things I noticed about Paris and its surroundings was how amazingly flat it is. Even though I have visited France before, that detail somehow always slipped from my mind. Although, when I had to carry my two backpacks (that were so packed they were about to tear open at any time) up and down the stairs in the metro, I wished Paris were even flatter.

I was glad my boyfriend and I had found a studio apartment in the summer. We made a special trip to Paris just for this occasion. We had only a week to find and rent some place where I would stay and he would join me after his graduation. Luckily, we signed the contract just a few hours before our flight back home. It turned out to be a smart decision. Trying to rent an apartment in Paris is an unforgettable experience and even more so if you are a foreigner. Either you need sombody to guarantee for you (and he or she has to be Parisian, but how many Parisians do you know if you’ve never lived there?) or you need to have a lot of money to pay two months caution and three months rent in advance. As well, there is an estate agency fee. But we somehow managed and eventually I had a studio all to myself in the calm thirteenth arrondissement of Paris.

The next step was getting a bank account and the notorious RIB, the longest bank account number I have ever seen. There must me something magical about that number, as I soon realized it opened many previously firmly closed door. With RIB, I could get my own phone-TV-Internet package, just like that. I could also obtain financial help from the French government in order to pay the rent by sending a simple form and, of course, my RIB. Things seemed to run smoothly, but every now and then there my day was nevertheless spiced up by some bureaurocratic surprise. Once I called the estate agency, with which I could communicate instead of the owner, and as the conversation was almost over, the lady on the other side of the line remembered to ask casually, “Have you already arranged with EDF?” I had no idea what an EDF was. I was later told that it was something to be automatically arranged by the agency. I now know that EDF refers to the national electricity company.

After a week or so of freedom to wander around the city and discover the many small, but charming parks, alleys, and galleries, it was time to go to the university. The university I am officially going to is in the suburbs and I arranged to take some courses there. But that didn’t stop me from going to one or two other universities in the heart of the city. One university I visited was the famous Sorbonne, where I took Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of Mind courses en auditoire libre, The other university I visited was EHESS (note, the French love wine, good food, acronyms and abbreviations). EHESS stands for Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (translated as a school for social sciences), which is equivalent to universities, but the fact is that people who have graduated from an Haute Ecole have a greater opportunity of finding a job after completing their studies. I was surprised to learn how easily I could study for credit at this school. It would only take a filled completed application and about $300 (USD). However, I did not dare challenge that simplicity. I also took Linguistic Anthropology, another course that was available through a classification as “open to audience.”

So I started running up and down the metro, catching one course after another, but still I managed to find some time to lurk about in one or another café, scrupulously observing the locals from behind my newspaper or freshly acquired book. Slowly, but persistantly, their habits started arranging my daily life. I learned I had to get up and get out of my flat before 11:00 a.m. if I wanted some peace and quiet with my morning coffee in one of those French-as-they-can-get cafés. At noon, Monday or Sunday, lunch is served. I, however, was usually served only a few unfriendly looks, since I was sitting there with my empty coffee cup for way too long, depriving some hungry local of a sunny spot. Space is money.

Meanwhile, the leaves of maple trees by the sidewalks and the birches by the muddy Seine turned bright yellow, looking like a thousand little shining suns against the grey cloudy sky.

This summer I studied hard. Actually, I took a kind of survival course. The syllabus covered issues such as: how to survive a month living together with about twenty other people, how to survive an encounter with a deadly snake (or three), how to survive writing a 20 page directed research report in 24 hours, and how to survive conducting interviews in a language you don’t really speak. But, this was also a true academic course offered by the School for Field Studies (SFS) based in Salem, MA. SFS offers semester as well as summer courses in various locations around the world. The courses usually incorporate elements of the local culture and ecological issues.

I’ve always been interested in how to help keep the earth as clean and healthy as possible. In elementary school, I virtually made my best friend help me pick up the trash on nearby grassland twice and there was lots of it! I also adore traveling, but in the Americas I have never been south of Florida. I have even just completed my second course in Spanish. Alea iacta est. I was planning on studying sustainable development and the ecosystem of tropical forests in Costa Rica. Just days after finishing the exams at home, I got on a plane and flew across the Ocean to take one more final exam.

Once on the plane, I admit that I panicked. While my nameless co-travelers sobbed over a bad romantic comedy, all I could do was ask myself what on earth got me to do such a thing. I was the only person of European descent enrolled in the course (it seems foreign students in SFS courses are a rarity, which is indeed a shame), so there was no-one on the whole airbus who could comfort me and make my mental image of a bush rustling with snakes disappear.

Back on solid ground, though, everything changed. It turned out that the last thing I would be in my snake-battles was lonely. There were 16 other students, three interns and a student coordinator. We all slept under the same roof on a large finca in the town of Atenas where SFS is based in Costa Rica. None of us knew exactly what to expect from the month we were about to spend together in that great new world. None, or almost none, of us knew each other either. It turned out that we were indeed quite different, but we all seemed to posses that exquisite mixture of a pinch of tolerance and a spoonful of openness. I believe that was why we got along so well. At the end of the course, it seemed that we have been living together forever.

But let’s get back to the real stuff. Very soon after our arrival to the finca, we were faced with the reality of our schedule. We had four two-day trips, one each week. When we didn’t have trips to do, we had lessons in the classroom and lots of them! We also did short excursions to Atenas and the protected areas around it. We visited the local elementary school and planted trees with the pupils in the schoolyard. The children absolutely adored us (I guess they were quite bemused by “grown-ups” struggling to find words for “tree” and “compost” and “dig” in Spanish).

The over-night excursions though were my favourite. We visited four natural parks: Braulio Carillo, Volcan Poas, Guanacaste, and Monteverde. I could never have imagined a better way to get wet than while taking notes on a lecture in the middle of a tropical rainforest with our feet in the river where we, just minutes before, had enthusiastically collected micro-invertebrates. We actually did the collection as a part of a larger project. The poor little creatures that got caught in our nets are great bio-indicators, which mean their presence shows good quality of water. The five-year project of collecting and determining the species of micro-invertebrates will show whether the recently built highway located nearby has any effect on the quality of the park’s rivers.

In another park, Monteverde, we familiarized ourselves with the tropical cloud forest, huge colorful butterflies and tiny hummingbirds that were attracted to the Hummingbird Gallery’s artificial feeders. Without the feeders, tourists would have difficulty observing these birds, which are virtually invisible in their natural habitat and so fast are they our eyes can’t catch them. Our task was to find out whether these artificial feeders are charity for hummingbirds or murder.

We examined the biology and lifestyle of hummingbirds and discovered that the artificial feeders are indeed changing the birds’ behaviour. Behavioural changes include their migration patterns, competition between species, mating habits, and diet. We provided alternatives to the artificial feeders, such as using fewer feeders and for shorter amounts of time, or the use of hummingbirds’ host flowers instead. It is yet to be known whether the park’s managers will implement any of the proposals.

In Guanacaste National Park, we hiked through tropical dry forest to see what great damage mostly human-induced fires can cause. Supposedly, the fires are a result of bad relations between the park officials and the people living on its borders. People in Costa Rica have traditionally used forests for hunting, but as tourism is on the increase, the whole economy shifts from banana and coffee production to services. Larger expanses of land are becoming protected, which decreases the land available to the locals for hunting. Problems arise in attempting to convince the locals that what they really need is undisturbed nature. How can they be convinced to change their lives? Education is the most likely answer.

In fact, education seems to be of great importance in Poasito, a town close to Volcano Poas National Park. As we interviewed the villagers about the relationship they have with the park, we became aware of their situation in the globalizing world. The park in their vicinity is not a very large park, but tourists come to enjoy one of the most spectacular views of a volcano. This has had a great influence on the life of the locals, as well as on the local economy. It would be expected that the local income from tourism has generally increased, but this is not the case.

It turns out that people don’t have the appropriate assets or the knowledge to profit from the tourists who come to the park. Most of the locals don’t speak a foreign language and, since they have traditionally been farmers, they can’t afford to establish their own restaurants or hotels. It is true that the local pupils receive education on the importance of protecting biodiversity, but their parents lack the knowledge of how turn from strawberry plantations (not a native species in Costa Rica) to services. Once again, the key lies in the hands of the government and political system.

I’ve learned all of this and much more in just one month under the guidance of SFS staff and two amazing professors. Even though I sometimes still think the environmental situation is hopeless, I now know there are people who firmly believe the battle is not lost yet. And they fight by passing their knowledge on to young people all around the world.

As for that deadly snake I was afraid of encountering in some bush, well, it didn’t wait for me in the bush after all. It came out to greet us in the laundry. And it didn’t take a whole bunch of us to get it captured. It only took a 17-year boy, a bucket, and a mop. Luckily, nobody was hurt in the process of returning the snake to the bushes. I am sure it will be delighted to greet you there someday.

What I also knew, after some minor research on the Internet, was that white people there were more often than not nice bait for the guerilla war veterans (“Chimurenga,”, the war against White colonialism) (1) in search of justice. For the first time in my life I was less happy to go on holiday than I was supposed to be.

During our month-long stay, there was one day I remember particularly well: the day of our visit to Harare, the country’s capital. Leaving us in front of the National gallery, our friends said “It’s really easy to get there,” pointing in the direction where we should go to meet them a couple of hours later. After visiting the gallery we would find our way through the central jungle to the best hotel in the city. Easy to say, but when you have no idea of the city’s dimensions and when you are nervous about walking around with a map in your hands, making it clear to everyone you are a tourist, you do feel a bit ill-at-ease when you consider this little adventure awaiting you.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind getting lost a little in practically any other city in the world. But as one of the four Europeans in a country where white people are being chased off their land and even killed, I believe I was very entitled to feel slightly uncomfortable.

After we left the safe environment of people-free gallery, our journey begun. First we went through the park where a book fair was taking place. The flower bushes and fountains, both water-deprived, were somehow sadly left behind. No wonder, for the eyes of the park’s visitors found a new point of interest: the previously mentioned four confused Europeans (an enigma that for me, remains unsolved–what is it that always makes other people know you’re a tourist?). Still looking lost and receiving much more than just occasional glances, we finally crossed the black sea of people at the commercial center and, overwhelmed by the power of crowd and by the rhythm of a capital, we sought refugee in the closest garden of what turned out to be an Anglican church.

When the silence of the patio became too loud, we decided on a final cruise through another park, the only obstacle on our way to the hotel. What we didn’t know was that there was a trap waiting for us just at then end–a crafts market. That was where we voluntarily slowed our pace, just to make ourselves more obvious on top of being white, speaking a weird language and asking for prices of small statues and souvenirs.

The most intriguing offer, however, was that of money. Zimbabwean dollars were at the time a luxury as they were impossible to obtain due to the economic (and every other possible) crisis the country was facing. But–miracle!–a hustler proposed we could change some of our American dollars for Zimbabwean currency at a surprisingly good rate. Three of us didn’t even give him a look as we had been strongly advised not to, unless we wanted to live the ultimate experience of being ripped off. The fourth member, though, fell for it. The image of him, waving in the middle of the street, feeling both furious and insecure because of our moneyless state, and screaming after us “But we need the money!” will never really disappear from my mind. Luckily, he didn’t carry any money so he couldn’t make a deal without our consent. As we did not want to be robbed, raped or killed, we were just happy to leave him behind and hide in the hotel where hustlers couldn’t get us as they were not allowed to even approach the building.

It is true–everybody needs money. But then again, at what price?

PART 2: The first thing that surprised me when the enormous electric front door opened upon a view of the garden of our friend’s mini-villa, were two more than enormous dogs. The second thing was the servants. The friend we stayed with had his own cook and two gardeners, which is common in Zimbabwe, but very unusual for Slovenians. In our country only the richest people could afford to have home staff, and even though, they may not, so for me it was something out of movies and Hollywood. But, sitting later in the day at a long wooden table in the dinning room, I could easily imagine getting accustomed to having my very own cook.

After some time we noticed that some of our things had disappeared, namely some of our clothes, and the toothpaste tubes were also strangely slimmer than before we left them carelessly in the bathrooms. Of course we complained to our friend, but his reaction was quite surprising to us. It was obvious that the cook, who was also a maid and, in cases of emergency, a babysitter, took our things, but our friend was neither upset nor angry about this. He said that all the things are probably somewhere in the cook’s house in the backyard and that they will eventually come back, if only we asked the cook about them often enough. Beside that he asked us not to be too upset about the cook stealing some of our toothpaste. Noticing our surprise, he explained that after living in Zimbabwe for 23 years he became used to having natives for servants, a custom of the usually better-off white people in Zimbabwe. When the natives came to live in his house, they brought their habits with them. Unfortunately, these habits included such petty crimes such as stealing dough from the kitchen. Therefore, hiring another servant because the recent one is stealing (which was our first solution to the “problem”) would not really change much, besides maybe our diet. Another option would be to go to the police, but our friend was strictly against that, saying that in Zimbabwe, turning in a black person in means he or she would go to prison without any questioning, and being in a Zimbabwean prison basically equals death (prisoners often get beaten up or even raped, which also contributes to the fast spread of AIDS).

After hearing all this we, of course, decided to wait for our things to mysteriously come back by themselves, and we were not complaining if that did not happen; after all, it was much easier for us than a Zimbabwean servant to buy a pair of socks and a chocolate bar.

PART 3: In July 2003 I read in a local newspaper in Harare that about 100,000 people were expected to begin to starve in Zimbabwe. In December I saw in the national Slovenian newspaper a picture of the Zimbabwean financial minister with a medium sized suitcase, the content of the which was the Zimbabwean national budget for 2004. Two months later I saw a picture in the same newspaper. This one showed the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, preparing a birthday party for his wife. The caption said several hundred people were invited to the party. I imagine they were not the same people as in the first article I mention.

Zimbabwe is a country where not only fuel, but food, too, is a luxury.

(1) Read more about Zimbabwean Liberation War: http://struggle.ws/africa/safrica/unrest/zimbabwe1.html.

My second trip to Portugal was of a different nature than all the other trips I have made in my life. For the first time I didn’t go studying or on holiday, but to do some serious work. Or so I thought.

I live in Ljubljana, a capital of Slovenia, which is a small country of 2 million people, tucked between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Looking for something to do for the summer, I found out about volunteer work camps through a local volunteer SCI organization (Service Civil International, http://www.sciint.org). After some browsing, my friend and I chose one camp among numerous others all around the world and all we had left to do was get our plane tickets. Before we knew it, we were off to a two-week adventure!

The work camp was set South of Lisbon in a small village called Canha; to get there we first had to take a ferry boat from Lisbon to Montijo, where we were picked up by the organizers of the camp and, after a surprisingly warm welcoming ceremony, then taken to another bus to reach our final destination. We only found out what our work would be once we arrived at the house where we shared bedrooms, bathrooms and breakfasts with ten other volunteers from all around Europe (France, Austria, Turkey, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia), three coordinators and many assistants (I was never quite sure about their role in the camp, and I not certain even they really knew!).

We worked in three groups, taking turns gardening around the kindergarten and “Casa de povo” (people’s house), painting walls at the elderly home and biking around the region, trying to find some interesting paths for a biking trail which would be later described in a tourist booklet. We also renovated some fountains by the main road where people still stop for fresh, drinkable water.

In Canha, there are not many places for sightseeing besides the church and the old fountain, which is regarded with a respect so deep that no one dares to touch it, not even for repair. However, there are surprisingly many little cafeterias where you can find the young and the old, but always mostly men. Most of them speak only Portuguese, so learning at least some phrases was a must. Those who speak little English or French (many had or still have family members in France where they are known as excellent builders) are very eager to communicate. If they were not able to make a decent conversation with us they definitely talked a lot about us! Of course, we were one of the few things “going on” in the village, at least until the Festival of St. Oliveira, the village patron, took place on the first weekend in September.

In contrast to not so serious work, we were seriously petted in our free time. We were taken to the beautiful sandy Arrabida beach and the nearby cities of Setubal and Montijo. The young local bands performed a jam session especially for us.

We did a 40 kilometer bike race around the vineyards and woods (and, despite the heat, survived). We visited farms and the wine production center (Portugal is well known for its wine named Porto, but in the Montijo region the sweet and strong Muscatel is more popular). We did canoeing and a boat trip with a fisherman on Tejo River. We jumped off the fire department tower, secured by a rope (the activity was called “radical sport”). But the most exciting was the village festival where we had the chance not only to see a bullfight in the arena, but also to look deeply into the bull’s eyes by ourselves (luckily, no one got hurt). Even if not everybody was eager to do that, nobody’s spirit was strong enough to refrain from dancing with the villagers through the streets of Canha at five in the morning.

I couldn’t imagine a better way of being so close to the local people, of getting to know their culture and way of living. We were not merely some tourists passing through. We were made a part of their community, although only for a short time, which was possibly thanks to the camp and even more so to the Portuguese openness.

Photo 1: (left) The group of volunteers, with Pedro (organizer) and Daniel (assistant) in the middle. We climbed on one of the many fountains, decorated with well-known painted ceramic tiles. (Middle) One of the streets, decorated for the festival. The decoration was mostly made by the elderly people staying the Elderly home and at “Casa de povo”. (Right) Taken on the Arribida beach. On the hills just above the beach a terrible fire spread earlier this year.

Photo 2: Canha by night. Impressive in its own way.

Photo 3: Small farms are scattered all around Canha and the easiest way to reach them is by bike through the woods of eucalyptus. It’s good to be accompanied by a Portuguese-speaking guide though, as we were when making a plan for a tourist bike trail; Pedro, our camp coordinator, asked this couple for permission to take a photo.

Photo 4: A typical guest of a typical café where everybody soon knew our names.

Photo 5: Cabo da Roca, the most western point of Europe, where different currents meet and, in the softness of the afternoon summer sun, take your breath away.