New Friends and Too Many Languages~ Le 14 Octobre

Yesterday has officially reached my top five of the best days that I have spent in Paris and I owe it all to my new roommate, Malina (I love Tamina and Gabriella as well!) but yesterday was incredible. Malina is my German roommate for the next two weeks. She’s seventeen, blonde, spunky, adventurous and insanely sweet. She arrived in Paris Sunday and since then, we have managed to get to know one another pretty well. I love hearing about her year in London, her childhood in Germany and of course the differences between our two cultures. I never noticed how truly different being American really is, but that’s for another blog entry, so its back to Thursday’s excursion, with Malina.

After classes Malina met Erin and I on Boulevard MontParnesse where we shopped, of course. Monoprix and H&M are the greatest stores ever, sorry Forever 21, someone has outranked you. Shopping only lasted about two hours when we decided to sit in the Luxembourg gardens and listen to European music. It’s so cool that in Europe they listen to everything from every country. It’s a nice change from always hearing Keisha and Kanye on the radio. As Americans we definitely need to expand our music taste on the radio. From Malina I quickly listened to some of the most interesting sounding bands. I cannot wait to steal her music, I’m sure some of you back in the states are going to love this foreign Indie, Alternative, Rock, Punk genre of music. Alors, we stayed in the Luxembourg Gardens until the police walked around vigorously blowing their whistles for everyone to leave, which was hilarious. Those police definitely enjoyed this part of their job WAY too much, but it makes sense because the Luxembourg Gardens surround the Senate’s building, so it cannot stay open the entire night. With all of the social turmoil here surrounding recent terrorist threats (religious conflicts), union strikes and demonstrations against Sarkozy changing the retirement age, its no wonder that Paris wants to protect one of the prettiest gardens and buildings that I have seen in Paris. With our hang out spot shut down, Malina and I headed back home to have dinner, just to quickly leave and visit her friend Edouard in the Marais.

This was the most interesting part of Thursday and was one of my best nights in France. Edouard is Parisien, a student, loves music and has his own flat in the city, which is where we went last night. His friend Roman came as well, and Roman brought his sister’s au paire, Sophia, who did not speak any French. Luckily, everyone spoke English, but I could follow the French, I was completely lost with the German though. I have to say, while drinking 1662 and a bottle of wine, we were able to cover a range of topics and I was able to learn a lot about young French culture. It was refreshing to finally have access to kids our age living in Paris. For instance, Roman said that the most disgusting foods he ever had in the United States were seven eleven slushies and fluff. I’m just saying the French eat frog legs and snails and I’m pretty sure that melted sugar and frozen sugar cannot even compare to that horrifying cuisine of animals that should NEVER be eaten. Last night was a great decision and I hope that I’ll get to see the group again because once again this weekend I am heading off with my group to the Loire Valley. Should be wonderful. I’m looking forward to the wine tasting. PARTY.

The Eiffel Tower~ Le 3 Octobre

Today started out as calm as ever, but it ended up being a beautiful and exhilarating day. Today was THE day that I walked up all of the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. Suprisingly, there were not that many stairs because you can only walk to the second level where you are then forced to take an elevator to the top. Regardless, I don’t think that I have ever been so nervous walking up stairs. Although, The Eiffel Tower is a solid structure, I still could not shake the feeling of falling thought the metal barriers to my imminent death. It was Definitely the greatest view that I have had of Paris and I am extremely happy that I was able to persuade poor sick Erin to climb with me.

(Making the walk from Trocadéro to the Eiffel Tower)

As of right now Paris is a main terrorist attraction, so the city is on red alert. Thank you Sarkozy! Therefore, many of the main tourist attractions and the metro are supporting heavily armed troupers like this one. Isn’t his pose just fabulous?!

(HAWT)

Erin and I had the best luck with lines, as in there was none. We walked right up to this ticket booth and started the stairmaster of a monument as soon as we arrived.

It’s the staircase that never ends…

A few photos from the first level of la Tour Eiffel. Needless to say we needed a small breather.

(This camera officially wins "World's Best Zoom)

The second level. Is home to a gift shop, a small café, the world’s most romantic restaurant and of course twisted lines for the elevators.

(Lines. Lines. Lines)

(Monkey Bar Time on the Eiffel Tower. I'm mature.)

We made it and of course its just breathtaking.

(At the top and loving the wind?)

(One of my favorite Photos from the day.)

La Nuit Blanche ~ Le 2 Octobre

October 2nd was an all day affaire that started with the shortest visit to the Louvre ever known to man. Allegra, Kelsey, Erin and I were in the museum approximately one hour, which is enough time to see:

The Mona Lisa without a mosh pit in front

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

The Greek Sculptures

(These are the three fates. I loved this sculpture.)

Some random, yet famous, paintings that would make Sankara's heart melt

to visit the starbucks inside

(My obsession with starbucks has officially commenced. My poor wallet.)

and to see the pyramids on the outside?

Needless to say, there are many other Louvre visits in my future.

After museuming it up, we had to eat. Clearly, I am becoming French. All I can think about is food, wine and art as is the French way of life, so the girls and I headed off to the Latin Quater for another delicious Italian meal and some not so delicious cocktails at a piano bar. As you can tell from the pictures below, we LOVED our drinks. Prices and Music were great, but the drinks were terrifying. The best part was definitely the singing. The french love to make up words that are similar to english words when they forget lyrics. Its HILARIOUS and makes absolutely no sense at all. ahh...language barriers how I love you!

(Our live performer at the Piano Bar.)

(I can always count on Erin's facial expressions to describe the moment.)

(Jackie met up with us for one delicious dinner one great bottle of wine. She has officially got me hooked on Bordeaux.)

La Nuit Blanche (the white night) is when the city of Paris is awake the entire night. The metros run until 3 in the morning and then start running again at 5am because there are light shows and musuem exhibitions that are open until 7am in the morning. I was expecting more of a fête (party) than the night that I had, but non-the-less, I got to see some very pretty lights? The french love lighting up their monuments and creating an ambiance with techno music.

Exibit A: Notre Dame, but I preferred the flame thrower in the Notre Dame courtyard!

Exhibit B: A light show along the Seine. Basically, a few boxes with lights.

(Isn't Paris just BEAUTIFUL?!)

Exhibit C: This word.

Exhibit D: L'hotel de Ville

(This was actually insanely cool. All the lights on the town hall said, "Love the Differences" in every single language. Also, there were girls in silver spandex with silver wigs handing out glow in the dark buttons. Très awesome.)

Finally, after viewing a short film about the making of Medea I decided it was time to catch the metro home. After all, I wanted to do something amazing that sunday...

Technical Difficulties

I do have photos for my post, but I am having trouble uploading them. Thanks to Allegra I know how I just can't get it to work. This problem is for another day, possibly during class?

Nude Friday

TGIF. This semester this saying is most definitely true. I have an entire semester with Fridays off, which has left me some free time to explore Paris this weekend. Yesterday a few girls in the group and I thought we would spend the rainy day at the Monet exhibit, but after finding out that it was a three hour wait, we decided to wait until Monday night. We do have free access anytime with these amazing paper cards that say, “Les Etudiants de l’histoire de l’art” (art history students). This piece of paper has literally saved my life and my wallet, so Monday night Monet seems like the game plan. This minor failure in our plans led us to Les Catacombs. The Catacombs are a mass gravesite hidden beneath the city of Paris. To access the Cataboms you have to climb down a set of twisted stairs and make your way through a dark stone-lined hallway, but don’t worrythere is only one path, so it is impossible to get yourself trapped, that is, unless you barge through the iron gates, which block off unknown paths. After a good five minutes of aimlessly wandering beneath the city, we came to this door.

“Stop. This is the empire of death.”

This is the official entrance to the Catacombs and I had no idea what to expect at this moment. Full bodies? A few sets of bones? Gravestones? Well officially it was none of the aforementioned. There were mass gravestones, without names of course, because the walls for the rest of the walk were lined with a meter or more of bones from hundreds of thousands of bodies. The bone walls were impeccably made and some of the bones were even arranged into decorative designs like the one below.

For most of the walk through the Catabombs the walls were lined with neatly arranged bones accompanied by a quote about life and death.

Kelsey and I striking terrified poses and getting dripped on by the leaking ceiling. Yes, the Catabombs DO flood when it rains. I recommend boots and a jacket with a hood.

This is the last room of the Catacombs. It is a ceiling that shows that you are 200 meters below the city. Très cool.

After this adventure, the girls and I decided to visit le Centre Pompidou. This is the modern art museum of paris and it is built inside out, so to speak. Pipes, wires and the like are all on the exterior of the walls and the building and are color-coded. It is a very unique building and stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the ancient city.

This photo is from our first trip to le Centre Pompidou, but we didn’t actually get to explore it that time because someone…Allegra forgot their student id! Yet I like this photo because the museum is in the background and the cement park in front of the museum is visible. That’s where we decided to eat lunch the last time before continuing our trek onto hotel de ville.

For this trip to le Centre Pompidou we used our all access passes to see the new exhibit by Gabriel Orozco. He really likes circles and shoeboxes. Clearly some modern art has escaped me, but I did enjoy two of his photographs. After this exhibit, I went up to the fourth floor. WOW and not exactly in a good way. I never thought modern art could scar someone, but that is exactly what happened. I will leave out the descriptions of what I saw, but in short, it involves barbed wire, nudity, blood, masturbation and sex. These first few exhibits on the first floor were definitely mind blowing…There were a few exhibits on this floor that I really did enjoy, but I have to say I fell in love with most of the art on the fifth floor. Kupka, Kandinsky, Sonia Delauney (no offense to her husband and son who also painted) and Pollack. I have to say I was not a HUGE Picasso fan, but I loved the artists who came after him and continued to paint in a cubist style.

These are just a few of the paintings that I fell in love with by the artists mentioned before. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon in le Centre Pompidou, until it was time for dinner. Hannah, Danielle, Erin and I all decided on dinner in the Latin Quarter at an Italian restaurant. I got the cheesiest meal you can possibly ever order. It was three cheese ravioli with heaps of Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. To my little Kate and Lisa, you would have loved it!!

Délicieux, non?!

Obviously tonight had to be dinner and a movie night to make the entire day complete. We decided to see the movie Happy Few. It was only playing at few theaters, but we could not find the street on any map that the first theater was on. Luckily, we ate quick like any Americans and were able to make it in time to see the movie in a theater that was on a map. As Hannah so sweetly put it last night, “I have never seen so much bush in my life.” Yes, I am sorry to say that the movie, may or may not have been pornographic. Dam this language barrier and our lack of reading signs such as this one:

Loosely translated it states, “Scenes in this movie will shock the sensibilites of the viewers.” AKA DISCRESION ADVISED. This would have been very helpful before being completely bombarded with these scenes. No wonder the woman selling tickets asked us, a group of four girls, if we were sure we wanted to see this movie. I was confused at the time, but that instance makes perfect sense to me now. Thank you Danielle for taking me to my first porno, but never again! As for the rest of the weekend, I hope it involves less nudity. Tonight, Saturday night, is La Nuit Blanche and I cannot wait!