SORRY!

      So, I haven’t posted anything in a while. Sorry. Classes started which meant homework started although I honestly haven’t had a lot of it yet. But then I got sick, so all I felt like doing was sleeping and drinking water. I’m better now, it was just a cold, but it made me literally tired ALL THE TIME. Like, every other thought in my head for the last week has been, “I really just want to lie down *insert place name* and close my eyes.” On a related note, I found this medicine here called Actifed, and it is MARVELOUS! The box only has enough doses for four days (four doses each day, so 16 pills) and I was skeptical at first, because most medicines in the US give you a flat 24 or so doses and leave it to you to take it as long as you need. But this one even had the pills labeled as ‘morning, afternoon, dinner, and sleep’ so you knew exactly when to take them. And today is the fourth day I’ve been taking them, and I’ve still got a bit of a runny nose, but even that’s mostly cleared up. I’m pretty sure this is the fastest I’ve ever gotten over a cold. Usually they drag out for a couple of weeks, even with medication. So, that’s a plus for France in my book!

                My classes have all been going good. In France contemporaine, we’ve learned all about the major newspapers and how they were founded and which political parties they favor. Today we started on the overall structure of the government of France. We talked about the different constitutions for the different republics (we’re currently on the fifth one), and learned the differences between a republic and a democracy. There are differences, mostly in that the general public has more power in a republic. For example, France doesn’t have an electoral college like the US does, their elections are direct. Also, there’s this thing which I think is pretty cool, where the president can go over the Senate and the National Assembly and have the people directly vote on a law. This is pretty rare though, and only used for big, but somewhat simple changes, like the length of the president’s term.

                Architecture is probably my hardest course, mostly because I’ve never learned anything about the subject before now, and even if I had all the vocabulary would still be completely new as it’s in French. Also there are a lot of dates and dynasty and period names and classifications, which call for straight memorization, which is never much fun. We have had three excursions now, which were much more interesting. The first Wednesday we went to the Musée Carnavalet and learned about interior architecture, things like floor designs, murals, and decorative arts pieces on walls, ceilings, and doors. This last Wednesday, we had a walking tour of the Marais Quarter, which is where many of the aristocrats had their town houses, mansions or ‘Hôtels Particuliers’. This was basically the same tour we had during the first week, but with less detail about the nobles who lived in the house and more details on the construction of the houses themselves. Then we had an extra excursion yesterday, to an exposition about the Hôtels Particuliers. The museum had several rooms set up like they would have been in one of these mansions, as a sort of ‘virtual tour’ and then paintings and commentaries on specific ones.

                The cinema professor is very energetic, but he likes to repeat himself, first in French and then in English. This would be helpful if I didn’t understand his French, but I can, and so can the rest of the class, and his English is not the greatest, so we’d really rather he didn’t. We don’t actually watch the films in class, but he gives us a copy and we get together as a group and watch them on our own time. So far Friday evenings have been dedicated to this, with us meeting up at Reid Hall and eating our dinners while watching the assigned movie.

                What other class do I have? Oh right, French. We speak French. And write French. And learn grammar, which I suppose I could elaborate on, but do you really want to know how to conjugate subjunctive verbs? Or the long list I now have of different ways of introducing my opinion? I didn’t think so.

                I haven’t done much else. Last weekend I was lazy and enjoyed a couple of quiet days. But I’m actually going to do stuff this weekend! Tomorrow (Saturday) I’m going to the Musée d’Orsay. On Sunday I’m going to go see Midnight in Paris, because I’ve been told by lots of people to see it, and it seems appropriate as I’m in Paris. Then next week, we have our vacation in the south of France! We’re going to Avignon, Arles, and Nice! I’m super excited! It’s going to be so warm!!

                What else has happened lately? Hmm, well, one of my hostess’ sons and his family came for a visit this week. They were there for Wednesday dinner, and then the kids (a girl of 12, and a boy who was 9 or 10) stayed the night. They were stayed last night too, but left this afternoon if I understood my hostess correctly. It was interesting to meet some different people, but I also felt like I was intruding on their family time. They didn’t make me feel that way, though. They included me in the conversation and seemed interested in where I came from and what I was studying and such. It just felt weird. I don’t know. It’s probably my hermit tendency cropping up again. I’ve been strangely consistently social these past three weeks. One thing I have noticed missing a lot, is green, nature-y things. I was living in a big city in Japan, but there was still a lot of green around. I haven’t seen as much here in Paris, and even in the parks and gardens I have found the green is very constrained. French gardens are all about man conquering nature and they look very manufactured, which makes me sad. It makes me want to jump over the little, ankle-high fences, and run around on their perfectly cut grass, mess it up a bit. On second thought that’s probably not such a good idea, but I still want to do it.

                And I think that about sums up the last two weeks. I’ll try to get another post out about this weekend before we leave on Monday morning. I’m not taking my computer with me though, so you’ll have to wait to hear about how nice Nice was until next weekend!

It's Saturday Night Folks!

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday was a very long, fun day. I got up around 9, and made myself breakfast. Then I got on the metro and headed to Champs-Elysées at 11, to meet up with people. We met at the Arc de Triomphe, which wasn’t hard to find, as it’s the first thing you see when getting out of the metro, but it was a bit harder to figure out how to get to it. See, it’s in the middle of a giant roundabout, the convergence of TWELVE streets! Eventually I found the stairs to the underground passage that lets out under the Arc. It looked like another entrance to the metro. We got tickets to go up to the top, free for us as students!

There were a lot of stairs. I lost count, but the informational pamphlet says there are 284 to the very top. The first set is the longest, and a tight spiral that is very tiring.  Then they give you a little break to look at some historical stuff, then some more stairs to the attic room, which has some more history and models. There’s also a memorial to the Unknown Soldier. Then a few more stairs will take you outside to the roof. You have to be really careful when walking around on the roof, because there are little steps down and up all over it. You get an amazing view of the city from there though.

After we came down from the roof, we walked along the Champs-Elysées, which is one of the largest shopping and café streets in Paris. We got a quick lunch and warmed up some, then headed back out into the crowds and did some shopping. Most of it was just going into stores, looking around, and trying a few thing on. We split up and headed home around 5:30 after making plans to meet up in the Latin Quarter at 10. I wandered around my neighborhood a bit until I found a burger/sandwich shop where I made a fool of myself as I ate dinner. So, I ordered my sandwich and fries, and then stood there at the counter waiting for the guy to ask for my money, because that’s what happens when you order food. You order it, then pay for it, then eat it, in that order usually. Not here apparently. He told me to get me to get my drink and sit down, so I did. About 5 minutes later he came and asked if I wanted any sauces on my sandwich and I said no, and then went to follow him to pick up my sandwich and pay for it, which was also wrong apparently. I got told to sit down again, and then he brought the tray to my table-still without a receipt or asking for payment! I was quite confused at this point, but decided to just eat my food, so I did. Then, finally when I took my tray up to the counter, he took my money and I got out of there. It was a good sandwich, and very much in my budget, and I kind of want to go there again, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to work up the nerve to show my face there again!

After that, I went home, which I had to myself, and hung out for a couple of hours. Then I got dressed and took the metro to where we were all meeting. I got there a bit early, 9:50, but it turned out to be a lot early, as only one other girl was there. Two others finally showed up around 10:30, and we headed down the street to find a bar. We found a nice one, called Zebar, which makes me laugh because it’s like “the bar” with the stereotypical French accent! It definitely catered to tourists, as our waitress started speaking to us in English before three words had made it out of our mouths to ask for a menu. After an hour or so, more of the girls showed up, bringing us to a group of eight. As fun as it was to have a large group of us, trading stories and whatnot, it made it hard to get into the next place we decided to go. I don’t remember the name of this one; we just chose it because it had people actually dancing in it. We danced a bit before making our way to a booth in the back. I, and two other girls, only stayed for about 40 minutes there, because we wanted to make sure we got back home before the metro stopped running at 2, 2:15, or 2:30. See, everyone we asked said it stopped running at a different time, so we left with plenty of time to spare. I got home, and through the gate and doors, without any problems. My hostess was back and asleep as it was 2am, so I tried to be quiet as I got ready for bed.

I didn’t do much on Sunday. Slept in till almost noon, which was wonderful because the curtains and shutters on my window keep out almost all light. Also, it must have snowed sometime between when I got in and then, because there was a light dusting of snow on the street outside my window when I opened the curtain. I went out for lunch, which ended up being a sandwich at a nearby patisserie, and ate it while wandering around the neighborhood. I found a lot of good priced restaurants and cafes, but most of them are closed on Sundays. But they will be good for Friday and Saturday lunches and dinners if I’m staying at home. I also found what I call a park, and the signs called a garden or square, nearby. It has lots of benches and trees, and a playground for children, and I have a feeling I’m going to spend a lot of Sunday lunches and afternoons there once it warms up. There were several children running around, playing in the snow, and it was beautiful!

Versailles

Friday, February 3^rd

                Today was Versailles Day. We met at the train station, and took the train half an hour outside of Paris to the City of Versailles. I can’t really describe Versailles any differently than anyone else has. It’s huge, of course, and full of ornamentation, of course, and really gaudy ornamentation at that, of course. It was also crowded and not well heated, but it was out of the wind, so I can’t complain about the cold too much. I took way too many pictures, and probably not very good ones at that, but that’s sort of what you do when you go to a place like that. We did learn quite a bit of history and such which was interesting. Like the fact that there isn’t much furniture, not because they didn’t have it, because boy did they, but because it was destroyed during the revolution.

                ALSO! All the paintings on the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors are depictions of France’s victories over other countries. The kings of France, I think it was Louis XV in particular, liked to invite the kings of those other countries to Versailles and show off his spectacular Hall of Mirrors and the beautiful paintings on the ceiling…after said victories were achieved and painted. :D I also learned that most of the mirrors in that hall serve double duty as doors into the ‘private’ rooms of the king and queen. I say ‘private’ because their lives really weren’t private at all.

               We spent several hours in the palace, and then a couple of hours getting back to Paris, splitting up, and eating lunch. The group I was with explored the area around the school for a bit after that and did a bit of grocery shopping for our dinners. Fridays and Saturdays we’re on our own for dinner as well as lunch. The rest of tonight I’m hanging out at home, alone, as my hostess is out with her friends for the night. I’m watching one of her DVDs, which she recommended, as I write this. She described it as a classic French film and a bit strange. I have to agree with the strange part as I’m not getting much of it. She seemed a bit surprised that I was spending a Friday night in, but I’m enjoying it, especially after the past week of constant information input and walking. Besides, I’ve got plans to meet up with people tomorrow afternoon to do some tourist sites. Then most of us are getting together for dinner and then going to a club tomorrow night. So I have my peaceful night alone tonight, and tomorrow I’ll be an active, social person! And then classes start on Monday!

Classes and Cinemas

Thursday, February 2^nd

                We didn’t do much today. This morning each of us had a meeting with Audrey, the Director of the Program, to discuss our class schedules. I was put in the French 303 and 304 classes, focusing on grammar and oral improvement. They’re the lowest level French classes offered here, and as I haven’t really studied French since last May, over 8 months now, I was pretty sure I’d be taking these classes. I’m looking forward to relearning/improving my grammar.

                I’m also taking a class on contemporary France, a political science course. I’m not much for politics, but France certainly is, so I really should learn more about them, especially as they concern France. And since I’m not interested in them myself, I know I won’t  look up stuff on my free time, so I ought to take a class in it. My other class is about French architecture. I’m really looking forward to this class, because we meet twice a week-once in the classroom and once “en ville”, which means we get to go out into the city and see stuff first hand! I probably won’t be quite as excited once we get out there, considering I’ve been complaining about the cold when we’ve been walking around this week. But it’s only for an hour and a half each week, not all day every day, so it’ll be easier to suck it up.

                We only have classes Monday through Thursday, so when I was looking over my schedule before talking to Audrey, I thought my schedule looked pretty empty with only those classes. I talked to her about it and she said that it’s possible to take five classes here, and other students have done it, but it’s more difficult than taking five classes a semester in the states. She’s going to let me try it for a week, though, and then talk to her about it again. My trial class is Cinema, which she said is a really good class with an enthusiastic professor. So I’m looking forward to that class too, and I hope I can work it out and take all of them!

                Here’s a layout of my schedule:

Monday

9am-10:30am: La France contemporaine (politics)

11am-12:30pm: L’Architecture

2:30pm-4pm: Français 303 (writing and grammar)

Tuesday

2:30pm-4pm: Français 304 (oral)

Wednesday

9am-10:30am: La France contemporaine (politics)

11am-12:30pm: L’Architecture-en ville

2:30pm-4pm: Français 303 (writing and grammar)

4:15pm-5:30pm: Cinema

Thursday

12:30pm-2:15pm: Cinema

2:30pm-4pm: Français 304 (oral)

I still have quite a bit of free time during the week, and with three weekend day, I’m sure I can handle the extra class.

                After our meetings with Audrey, we all met up with the tour guide in the Marais quarter. She showed us several of the “hotels particulaires” which are what the French call the grand mansions in the city where the nobles used to live. We didn’t see all of the ones that were supposed to be on the tour, because of the extreme cold. We were also supposed to go to another quarter and walk around there, but even the tour guide thought it was too cold for us to get any enjoyment out of the tour. We decided to reschedule to one of our Fridays, as they are usually free.

                After a quick lunch, three of us were going to see a movie, but first we couldn’t find the right theatre. Theatres are quite complicated here in Paris. There are about 3 gazillion of them-seriously, throw a rock and you’ll probably hit one. Most of them only have a few screens and only show three or four movies at a time. You have to buy a pretty thick booklet and look up the title of the movie, and then it tells you which theatres are showing it. Then you look up those theatres in the back, and find out the ticket prices and times. Thankfully, students and young people get awesome discounts, so we only have to pay around 6 euros for a ticket. We found a theatre near the school that was supposed to be playing Felines but we couldn’t find the theatre, and then one girl wasn’t feeling good and the other decided to call it a day too. I didn’t want to go home yet, and had gotten myself in the mood for a movie, so I went and saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows by myself. It was an excellent film, by the way and quite amusing!

In Which Emma Becomes An Art Person

This is for Wednesday's adventures. Sorry, the internet is being weird and not posting things. :(

   

   Today we started out at the Louvre. The meeting-up part was very not fun, as we were standing outside the pyramid waiting for it to open, which meant we were standing in a large open courtyard with plenty of space for the wind to get at us. But once we were let in everything got much better. The first part of our 3 hour tour was very interesting. We started with the history of the building itself which started out as a palace. We walked along what used to be the bottom of the moat which is now underground, and saw the foundations of the castle. Very cool stuff. Then we went on the quickest tour possible of the major areas and works of art. We saw a bunch of Greek statues, tons of French and Italian paintings-including the Mona Lisa. That wasn’t as exciting as I thought it would be. It’s quite small, and there’s always a large crowd surrounding it, so it’s hard to get a good look. Then we saw the two Michelangelo sculptures that are there-The Captive Slave and The Dying Slave, which don’t look very captive or dying honestly. I’m not much of an art person, so you really shouldn’t expect much awe or fascination with the great works of art I saw today. I looked at some art and it was pretty and then I was tired of standing and maneuvering through crowds, so I was tired and bored and ready to go.

And then we went outside. And I very much wished we were back inside looking at the art again, because it was even colder today than it was yesterday! They have some lovely, sneaky wind here in France. I think it’s sentient, because it can curve itself around corners and knows where to find the smallest gap between my hat, hair, and bare ears. I could have become an art person really quickly if it meant I got to go back inside the warm building.

                Well, we didn’t go back inside. Instead we walked around outside! We saw the passages of Vivienne and Colbert, which are basically streets around the gardens of the Palais Royal with lots of expensive shops and restaurants. The story behind the shops is pretty interesting though. Apparently, one of the cousins of the king-I don’t remember which one, sorry, but he was one of the first people to live in the Palais after Cardinal Richelieu gave it to the king-had expensive taste and liked to amuse himself. Consequently, he soon ran out of money. Then he got the bright idea of building some housing around his gardens, and renting it out the ground floors as shops and the upper stories as apartments. This was before the idea of walking down a street full of shops was invented. Actually, this is kind of the invention of a street full of shops. It was full of other sorts of amusements too, like gambling, drinking, and prostitution, which made the place very popular and successful.

                We were freed for lunch after that and split up into groups in search of warmth and food. I went with three other girls, and we found cheap sandwiches in a warm café near the school. Afterwards, we headed back to the school, found the Hollins classroom, which was very warm, and we all took naps. Well, first we checked our emails, and I read a bit, but we all ended up asleep for various amounts of time in dubious amounts of comfort. Chairs and tables aren’t really made for comfortable beds after all. The rest of the girls came up at 4:30 and we had the bank meeting. Our accounts are being set up as I type, and we’ll get our cards and the rest of our food stipends for the month on Monday.

                We all hung out there for a while, trading stories of our host families, and just hanging out. One of the girls needs a new, warmer, coat, so I went with her to find the local H and M shop, which is an American brand shop, so we knew what the prices and sizes should be. There was still a bit of confusion about the sizing. Some of the clothes had American, European, and other sizing system all on the tags, and some only had the European system. But she found a coat that fit, so it all ended well.

                We had sausage and puréed vegetables-celery, potatoes, and broccoli-for dinner tonight, as well as the rest of the cake for dessert. I doubt very much that Madame Emanuely is actually a vegetarian. The fish the first night could be explained by some vegetarians not counting fish as a meat, which I know happens even if I don’t understand their reasoning. But the chicken last night and the sausage tonight don’t fit any form of vegetarianism I’ve ever heard of, so I don’t know what’s going on with that. She does eat/serve a lot of vegetables, which is fine, but it doesn’t make her a vegetarian. It’s all okay with me, but I hope she’s not eating meat, because she doesn’t want to cook just one serving of it, or because she doesn’t want me to feel uncomfortable being the only one to eat meat.

All of the Pretty Places

Today was a walking day. And we walked around a lot and saw a lot of pretty places, and also froze various parts of our bodies, because it’s freezing outside right now! My host mother said that this week is usually the coldest week of the winter. And we have been outside for most of it. Thank you Hollins. Good planning there.

                The group met up at Saint-Chapelle this morning. It used to be the royal chapel, so it’s got tons of pretty stained glass windows and ornate enamel work and basically looks like a giant jewelry box. Then we went next door to the Conciergerie, which used to be the main prison of Paris and is where they held all the people who were guillotined during the Reign of Terror. They have part of it set up as a museum for the prison, but the large main hall had an art exposition in it today. It was called Bêtes Off, which is pronounced “bets off”, but “bêtes” means animals or beasts. All the art featured animals and some of it was very strange, like a giant column of netting with live flies inside. We were all quite disturbed by that one. But some were really pretty, like a deer with long golden antlers.

                Then we walked over to the other side of the island and saw Notre Dame. Prettiest church I’ve ever seen, but then it is Notre Dame, so that goes without saying. There was a mass going on the whole time we were inside. They have the altar and pew area sectioned off from the visitors. Visitors, i.e. tourists like us, walk around the outside of this area in a large oval. There are little chapels all along the outside of this oval and all sorts of interesting stuff inside it. After Notre Dame we walked around the Latin Quarter for a bit, but it’s mostly full of souvenir shops and restaurants now, so we broke for lunch.

                We met up again near the Fountain of Saint Michel, where we got on the metro and went to Montmartre. Montmartre is Paris’ version of a mountain. It’s only 400 feet high, which isn’t bad for being in the middle of the city I suppose, but I’ve grown used to Roanoke Valley and Japan, where there are large mountains everywhere. We took the Funiculaire, or cable car, up to the top where the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre is. It’s another pretty little church, which we wandered through briefly. The only real thing of note for me at the time was that it was warm. Then we wandered around Montmartre and back down the streets until we found the metro again. We saw some interesting landmarks: Le Musée de Montmartre, which was the resident of many famous painters and artists, including Renoir, the café where Amélie was filmed, and the Moulin Rouge!

                After that we were freed for the day and we made our separate ways home. I’m still cold and utterly exhausted from walking around all day. But tomorrow we get to do it again, bright and early! At least we start out at the Louvre tomorrow morning so we’ll be inside for a good portion of the day. It’s kind of really sad that that’s the reason I’m looking forward to the Louvre, but it’s really, really cold!