PARIS Pt.1

Instead of paying attention in class this morning I decided that a better use of my time would be to outline all of the things I wanted to say in this blog, and I discovered a small problem: I had nineteen bullet points. If I were to sufficiently describe the weekend that I spent in Paris, I would have to write a novella. This seems unfair, for I don't have enough faith in my writing ability to fully express how amazing this weekend was. (After all, it is Paris) I want to say too many things, but at risk of this blog running too long I will cut out the story of the wine tasting. I just wanted to let Claire and Bader know that I can tell them really cool things about wine now.

To begin at the beginning, I can only say that none of us could sit still in our art history class in the hour before our train left. I could listen to M. Dufresne all day, but I knew my attention floated out the window at the point in which I started doodling Mona Lisa with a mustache.

Mona Lisa with Mustache- QAVN 2012

 Nous y avons couru.  

Correction: We ran there with a quick pain-au-chocolat-pit-stop.

In all of the (good) movies that I've seen that have taken place in Paris, several major plot points rely on different aspects of life in the city. For instance, in Pixar's Ratatouille a rat becomes a world class chef based on not only his skills as a chef, but also Paris' abundance of fine cuisine and its affinity for creative stimulation. (For in the city, the most talented people could rise out of the gutter to show the world something fantastic) The list goes on, and maybe I'll come back to this point in PARIS Pt 2., but just know, that from the second I stepped off of the Glacière Metro stop to go to our hotel, I knew that in this trip I would discover a little bit about myself. Now don't accuse me of buttering up my accounts, because I didn't fall in love with Paris at first sight. I knew that I was in for a trip because less than an hour in, my toes were already blistering.

 

Now, the four newbs in our group have heard stories from the FIAP (The hotel where the fall group stayed for a month last year) but we could never fully appreciate how wonderful it was until we saw it with our own eyes. Unfortunately, I neglected to photograph the FIAP myself, so I am unable to fully convey how cool this place is. Just know this: French Commons is not as good as real Davidson Commons, save for the fact that they serve wine instead of Kryptonite.

Also, for those of you that don't know, I'm not in France because I'm a French major -- I'm in France because I want to learn the language and understand the way people think. I want to discover a little bit of what influenced the thoughts of great artists and thinkers that lived here throughout the centuries. I am a Theatre major, and after a month of living in France I finally saw a play. So in this voyage, a valuable use of time went to a small black box theatre in the Latin quarter to see Eugène Ionesco's The Lesson. I won't go into a review of the play itself, but I greatly appreciated being able to understand the majority of what was being said based on the strength of the teacher's acting ability. My ability to laugh with the French people, who do not always share my sense of humor, was comforting and made it easy to contort my mind around the absurdity of the play.

Sadly, as was said in a small bulletin that they handed to the crowed after the performance, the theatre is in trouble. Le Théâtre de la Huchette has been playing a double bill of La Cantatrice Chauve et La Leçon since 1957, and currently it is at risk of closing. If you are ever in Paris, it's a hop skip and a jump away from the Notre Dame. The performance is well worth the time and money.

There is a myth/rumor/tale/speculation that if one stands on the star in front of the Notre Dame, you are sure to come back to Paris at some point during your lifetime. So, as we left the theatre Friday night, Madame Kruger took us to do just that. It got me wondering if I unknowingly passed over the star the last time I was there with Dina, Diane, Francisca, Laurie, Tatiana, Margaret, Helenka, and Mme Imrem two years ago. If we did, I'm thankful, and this weekend I made sure that I am able to return again. When I saw the Notre Dame two years ago, it wasn't anything  like it was now. Now there is a giant christmas tree right out front.

Now, you might be wondering the precise moment that I fell in love with Paris. Well, it was right after we decided to make the most of our night by walking along the Seine from the Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. The fact that we made this excursion wasn't what caused my coup de foudre, it was the process. I believe I actually felt my heart skip a beat when we wandered through the courtyard of the Louvre and I saw the pyramid lit up against the night sky (or it could have just been Keith scaring the bejeezus out of me in the hallway). We did make it to the Eiffel Tower, and yes it was magical -- more so than any piece of art, music, or poetry could possibly convey. Il faut la voir. The city is just so big, and she has such a great history. Just trying to wrap my head around all of the things that have happened within the city limits and how many people have gazed upon the Notre Dame or the Hotel de Ville baffles me. As Jane pointed out while we ventured through the night, an outsider can't really live in Paris, because eventually you will take all of the amazing things that the city has to offer for granted.

Needless to say, I slept very well Friday night.

I slept very well Saturday night, too.

We saw the collection of the late Diane Arbus, a celebrated American Photographer at the Jeu de Paume.

We took the metro that puts Chicago travel time to shame.

We ate Libyan food and some really poche pastries.

Then we went to Centre Pompidou and saw some really cool pieces. My personal favorite there was the room that looks like the statue in my parents' wedding portrait.

We ate at a colonial food restaurant and Sara didn't eat her shrimp tartare. I did. Aren't you proud of my ability to eat weird foods, mom?

Et puis, we went to this really sick jazz concert. I sat there for two hours staring at the pianist's gorgeous hands. 

You can tell I'm getting short, can't you? It exhausts me even to run through Paris in my mind.

Sunday morning, we woke bright and early to venture to the Musee d'Orsay, my new favorite museum.
It wasnt just the collection that the Musée holds, it's the building itself. The preservation of a nineteenth century train station is a marvel that amazes me, and as we walked through, I couldn't help wish that I could see the turn of the century in it's prime, at home and abroad. I am also biased towards impressionism and neo-impressionism for it presents a really nice change from all of the bizarre collections of trash bins in many other art museums.

I would've taken a picture of many pieces at the Orsay, but sadly, photography is forbidden. I managed to sneak one semi-legal photo of something truly bizarre. Look closely at the four on the ornate clock face.

Cool, right?

A lot of walking happened on Sunday. Blake and I discovered the classiest metro line and visited the National Library where you have to pay to get into the reference rooms and are not always guaranteed a spot. (I'm betting that they don't put out Legos in the beginning of December, either)

A great English teacher once told me that sometimes clichés are an interesting choice to make, but are risky and often make a piece of writing sound fake or uninteresting. Right now, I want to throw his advice out the window and use every over used phrase I can think of to get my thoughts out of my head and onto my keyboard, not because of a lack of creativity, but because people have just hit the mark so well when describing the city of lights, love, and inspiration. That being said, I have probably already used a nauseating amount parentheses and misplaced commas that a few overused phrases would hardly make a difference.  (I'll try to abstain none-the-less)

In short, This blog post turned out a lot shorter than I thought it would be. The only place where I can accurately relive my January 27th-29th is in my mind or on the page of scribbles of quotes in my grammar notebook. To be completley honest, I'd rather dwell on Blake's observation that it really didn't matter if neo-impressionist painters painted the sky yellow than the logical structure of tenses in phrases that describe multiple moments in time. I told Keith today that I would beat him in overall word count, but I don't think I did. However, I do think I succeeded in clearing my head, and maybe tonight I can sleep without unorganized thoughts infiltrating my dreams.

I can't wait to go back. There is still so much to see and I want to conquer so much more. I need to make the climb to Montmartre and find the Moulin Rouge. I must find the hostel that we stayed in during the Starsbourg exchange and actually take my camera into the cathedral across the street. Hey, I might even be up for facing some spiders in the catacombs. All I know is that I will go back thanks to the star of the Notre Dame, and ceci n'est pas le fin du blog.

Traveling Quincy