Birthdays and Castles

Thursday was Elizabeth's 21st birthday, so we all went out to Paris to celebrate.  Michael, Katie, Monika, Michele, myself, and obviously Elizabeth got on the train that would take us from Versailles to Paris.  And once we had sat down in the first car of the train with some other people, this older man walked by us with a suitcase, and as he walked by, we all smelled the most wretched stench that we had ever smelled on a human.  He smelled like a dumpster and old cheese and it was evident based on his clothing and his stench that he probably hadn't showered in at least 2 weeks...possibly more.  His smell lingered for a while and we considered switching cars, but thankfully he sat at another end of the train away from us and eventually the smell faded a bit, so we decided to just stay.  That guy ended up clearing out the entire section of the train he was sitting in--all the people who had gotten there before him had to leave because they couldn't stand it, and any subsequent passengers who started toward his section of the train to grab one of the many available seats in that section, immediately reacted to his smell, understanding why no one else was sitting over there, and either left the car or headed to the other side of the train.  What was most annoying and disgusting about this guy was the fact that he kept moving around a lot so his stench would start circulating through the train every once in a while...it was like he was completely unaware of his stench, which is hard to believe because his smell literally made me gag when I got a good whiff of it.  Then when he sat down, he would raise his dirty sweater up to his neck, exposing his pudgy belly, and just start rubbing all over his chest and belly--he probably did that because he was so dirty.  That was definitely one of the longest train rides and we were so happy to get off.

We went to a place called Abrakadabar and ordered some drinks and listened to the live music playing.  About 15 minutes after we arrived, the band stopped playing and then they just played recorded music.  A bunch of people were just standing around while we were drinking, and by the time we finished our drinks, a lot of the people had started to clear out.  We all decided to dance, and we were the only ones doing it.  Eventually everyone cleared out and we were the only people on the dance floor--all six of us.  It was fun though and we didn't care we were the only people out there.  Eventually, we inspired some other people to come and join us (or the alcohol inspired them).  Either way, it was good to see more people out there.  Unfortunately, we encountered a creeper with bad teeth.  He started dancing with Elizabeth, but then she escaped him, and then he moved on to Katie, and he seemed to like her a lot.  She eventually escaped him too, by just flat out stopping dancing with him.  Soon after we all had to go to catch the last train to Versailles, but Creeper tried to talk to Katie and get her number, and even after she said she didn't have a cell phone or number to give him, he continued to stalk her so we all had to run away.  Thankfully, we made it back to the train station in time, and while we were running to get on the train, Katie stumbled, lost one of her high heels in the process, and this lost shoe ended up falling onto the train tracks.  Katie was pissed she lost her shoe like that and thought she'd have to walk home barefoot, but thankfully, someone helped her retrieve it before the train left.  Then we all got home at like 2:00 in the morning.  It was a fun night.

Then I spent the next day packing for my 10 day tour around the south of France, and this morning, I woke up at 5:15 AM to get our bus at the train station at 6:45 AM.  I had to carry like a 20 pound bag for 20 minutes walking from my house to the train station.  That was annoying.  Eventually I made it and got to sleep on the bus as we headed to Tours to see the Chateaux de la Loire.  We first visited the Chateau de Blois which was inhabited by various French kings during the 15th century.  The castle was very colorful on the inside, and the architecture was really beautiful.  We then visited the chateau de Chambord, but only saw the outside of it.  It was a beautiful castle with lots of towers located in a gorgeous location full of hunting grounds, since that was a popular pastime of many of the French kings.  It was a nice day too, so the beauty of the area was more pronounced.  We then ate lunch at a little restaurant and ate so much food--pate and meats for an appetizer, salmon for the main dish, cheese, and then dessert.  It was really good and really anticipated because we were all starving by the time we got there.  After lunch, we visited a third chateau called the chateau de Chenonceaux where King Henri II lived with his wife Catherine de Medecis, as well as his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  I'm sure that wasn't awkward.  Despite that strangeness, the castle was really cool.  It was built on water and the interior and surrounding gardens were really pretty.  We visited the chapel, the various bedrooms, the kitchens, the salons, etc.  I'll post pictures to show what they looked like because it would be too hard and boring to describe it here.  

After a long day, we all arrived at our hotel and got dinner on our own.  And now we have many more long and early days to look forward too.  Should be interesting.  Until next time...

Opera Garnier and the Weekend

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but I'll start with Tuesday.

I went to the theater to see Mamma Mia with my French parents. I'd already seen the movie in the U.S. but it was fun seeing it again dubbed in French except for the songs. My parents liked it and my French mom thought Pierce Brosnan was handsome, but she like everyone else I'm sure, didn't like his voice. Before we saw the movie, we ate dinner at the house and my mom cooked the most interesting meal--ham slices wrapped around cooked bananas in this banana-y sauce: two things I'm not a huge fan of. It didn't taste bad necessarily, but it was one of the weirdest combinations I've ever tasted and it wasn't a particularly good combination. She asked me if I liked it, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't really, so I said "yes" and "it's very different. I've never tasted this before." And then my French dad told me that she had created the dish herself. Glad I didn't tell the full truth. I also hope she won't make it again...

The next day we all visited the Opera Garnier in Paris. It was absolutely beautiful. The architecture was incredible, ornate, and very rich. The staircases were made of marble, and there were four different levels of the theatre. It was a prime social gathering for the noble families of Paris 300 years ago--it was expected that families come three times a week. A lot to live up to, but if I had an excuse to go to that opera that often, I'd take it too. We couldn't actually see the stages because the rooms were closed, but we can see it another time for free when it's open again.

On Thursday, Dr. Patton arrived and we all had lunch at his and Dr. Morgan's appartment to welcome him. Deem prepared a wine tasting for us and had us try three different wines. So we all hung out for about an hour eating cheese, bread, and different deli meats, crepes, and chocolate and drinking wine. It was a lot of fun and the wine helped me anticipate Mme Vaudel's conversation class more. I probably talked the most I've ever talked in that class that day and our conversation topics were fun because we all just relived our childhoods the entire time. I'm pretty sure Mme Vaudel had no idea what we were talking about most of the time, but it was fun for us.

On Friday, after Monsieur Sinniger's class, a lot of our group organized a trip to Burgundy on their own so some of them left to go there. I didn't want to spend the money required for that trip, nor did Roz, so we hung out together the majority of the weekend. I went over to her house to watch a movie. We watched a French movie called "Je vous trouve très beau" which ended up being a cute and funny little film. Then Roz, Enna, Erika, Lubaina and I went out to dinner in Paris and we ate at this great Italian place in Pigalle. We ended up seeing some of the Moulin Rouge and that entire street in Pigalle is devoted to sex shops and strip clubs--very colorful I guess you could say. Once we walked out of that area, we found a side street where this Italian place was and the food was delicious. After dinner, Erika and Lubaina went back to Versailles and Roz, Enna, and I stayed in Paris to find a club to go to. Enna had a book that listed a bunch of different cafés in Paris and she found a section in the book where music was played at certain cafés. She found one that played African music and that sounded cool because we thought we'd be able to dance to it, but when we actually found the café, it wasn't as great as we had made it out to be. The African music just came from a stereo, and the decor of the place was pretty cool, but no one was dancing--it was just a place for people to chill out and drink, which is fine, just not what we were looking for. So we looked up another café and saw that it had live music, so we found our way to that other café (which was pretty far from the last one we went to) and saw that there was live music, but no one was dancing to it--just sitting around and enjoying the band. We hung out there for a bit and listened to the band, but we were pretty disappointed that we didn't find a place to dance at. We spent most of the night traveling around Paris by the metro or just walking. So when I got home, I decided to look up dance clubs in Paris so we could actually accomplish our goal of dancing this weekend.

So the next day, Roz and I (Enna went to Burgundy that day with Lubaina) spent our day at the Marché aux Puces where there were a bunch of different stands selling everything from clothing, belts and accessories, shoes, scarves, hookahs, and lingerie. The lingerie sold here is really cheap, especially if you get it from the market, and Roz profited from that. After the market, we came back to Versailles ate some dinner, and got ready to go clubbing in Paris. We picked a place to go called SanZ Sans. We got there early, around 9:00 because we didn't want to stay out too late. The club is a bar and also a restaurant so most people were just eating at that time, so Roz and I hung out at the bar and ordered drinks. The drinks were also almost half price at that time--after 10:00, the are more expensive, so we took that opportunity to order all the drinks we wanted. Around 10:30 more people started pouring in, and they removed the bar stools so that everyone could dance in the area around the bar. At first there weren't a lot of people dancing, but towards 11:30 the place was pretty crowded. The music was really good and Roz and I had fun people watching. We talked a little bit with a French guy and then another guy approached us and told us that we were beautiful. His name was Marco and he was Italian--go figure. He was very flirty and touchy and wanted to dance with both of us, but he was pretty sketchy and not very cute so we said we'd dance with him later. Then he was all over another girl five minutes later. Oh well. The rest of the night was so fun though--a lot of great music was played and the place was packed and it was so nice to finally get out and dance because we hadn't done that in a while. As we were leaving this one black guy who was dancing near us looked at us and said "Bye!" when we left, which was really cute. Then we ran into a drunk girl on the street who heard us speaking English and decided to practice her English with us. She asked us where we were from and I said "United States" and she said, "I think that is the most beautiful town (yes, town) in the world. They really know how to party over there." Thankfully she had a sober friend with her who eventually clamped her hand over the other girl's mouth and just had her move along the street.

Unfortunately, we missed the last train to Versailles and we tried to find a night bus to take, but we learned that our only option was to take a taxi. And since we're like 30 minutes or more outside of Paris, we did not want to have to pay for that, so Roz had to call her French parents (they told her if she couldn't find a way to get home, to call them) and her dad came and picked us up. We felt awful that he had to do that because it was 2:45 in the morning when he got to Paris and found us. He was such a sweetheart though, probably the cutest French man I've ever met. Despite it being 3:00 in the morning, he was very lively and joked with us for the whole car ride. He acted like it was no big deal for him to pick us up, and I really enjoyed his company and was glad I got to meet him. He dropped me off at my house and everything, and was just really sweet. But Roz and I will definitely try to make the train next time.

Then today, I ate lunch with Roz, Madame Chauchat, and her husband at their house. Madame Chauchat is the best cook. This was actually my second time eating at her house because she made lunch for my class on Tuesday so we could hang out and talk since the only time we ever see her is for grammar class. Both times, she made excellent meals and desserts. She and her husband were so cute too, and we all spoke in French the entire time talking about a lot of different things. I just love her--she's my favorite teacher here and she's so fun to hang out with. She's so easy to talk to too, even in French. After eating lunch in her little sunroom, we went to this small living room and drank coffee and tea. It was so cute and French. Then she suggested we go see Marie Antoinette's farm at Versailles (when Marie Antoinette lived at Versailles, she had a little farm area with little cottages that she would spend a lot of her time at entertaining friends and taking care of a little farm, and all that is still at the castle). So Monsieur Chauchat drove Roz and I to the farms and Roz and I walked around the area. I had actually already been to that area with Michele, and we saw we had to pay to get into the actual farm area, which we didn't want to do. But it was a beautiful day, so Roz and I just walked around the extensive grounds and walked into the gardens of Versailles. It was so nice because we just walked and talked about a bunch of different things and there were a ton of French families out in the area. It was so cute, especially when we saw this little french girl feeding the sheep that were in the pasture area with her grandmother. We probably spent 2 or more hours out in Versailles just walking around enjoying the weather and the views. And now I have to catch up on my grammar homework. Until next time...

Grenoble, Annecy, and the Alps

On Friday, we left for Grenoble and barely caught our train from Versailles to Paris. When we arrived in Paris, we then took a train to Grenoble that lasted three hours. And of course, me having the luck that I have, I managed to be the lucky person who got to sit next to a creeper. This was a black guy in black leather pants who had the deepest, gruffest voice I've ever heard and a unique body odor. Yeah, it was a long three hours. Most of the time he slept, and made random deep moans while sleeping. Eventually though, he woke up and started sipping on a large can of beer that he had hidden in the trash can in our compartment. That was about when he started talking about Sarcozy...what he said didn't make a whole lot of sense and I could feel him looking at me every so often, which was really uncomfortable. I was really happy to arrive.

So we go to our hotel and drop off our bags and Deem takes us around the city. We took the city's network of trams and Deem took us to some historical parts of the city--mainly just really old buildings and stuff. Then he took us to a cathedral, which was interesting because the cathedrals in Grenoble are much less elaborate than the gothic cathedrals we've been seeing--they were much plainer, and one was actually built right next to a bar (or rather the bar owner decided to situate his business next to the cathedral to provide some irony). Since Grenoble is located in the Alps, we were able to take a tram car that just looked like a big bubble up a mountain. Once we got to the top, we were able to see the majority of the city situated against the mountain range right as the sun was setting. It was beautiful and as usual, Deem planned that we arrive on this mountain at sunset. So we all took a million pictures and then took the bubble back down the mountain. Then we went to a restaurant that specialized in making dishes specific to that area--mountain food basically. So we ate this thing called a raclette which consists of the waiters bringing a giant chunk of cheese from a cheese wheel to your table and putting it under this heater for it to melt. Then they give you a plate of different deli meats, a salad, and a small bowl of potatoes. Michele, Roz, and I shared this meal between us and it was so much food. Michele and I ordered a pitcher of red wine between us and Michele really loves wine, especially if it's red wine, and at one point while I'm eating all the different parts of my meal, I notice that the pitcher is totally empty! I only had one glass of wine and Michele had already drunk the rest! Lol and she was pretty much really drunk from that point on. It was entertaining because Michele is not really a happy drunk, she kind of adopts this "f*** it" kind of attitude whenever she talked about anything. It was entertaining. In fact, the whole evening was one of the best I've had. I felt good after my kir (which is like fruity champagne) and glass of wine, Michele was was feeling better about the fact that she couldn't understand French well, our waiter was cute, and Roz and I had some great conversations. We basically laughed the entire evening. It was so fun.

Then we went back to the hotel, and Michele and Katie decided they wanted Deem to tell us a story before we went to bed. So we all gathered in the triple I was sharing with Roz and Michele and Deem told us the story of Charlotte Cordet, who was a young murderer during the French revolution. Interesting story. Then Deem left, Michele passed out, and we all went to sleep.

The next day, we left at 9:00 to catch a train to Annecy, a little French town deeper in the Alps. When we got there, there was a little market/festival thing going on. These people walked out wearing old fashioned mountain clothes and carrying these long horn-like instruments. I forgot to find out what they were called. But the players formed a circle and played these horns for the crowd, which was really cool. Then we pet this giant Saint Bernard dog who had a complicated name that I can't remember. Then we walked around the city some and walked through this huge marketplace that was selling lots of homemade items like james, pastries, candies--one stand was even making its own apple juice. We bought a bottle of it and shared it between us, and it was delicious. This marketplace was really cool because there were a lot of people dressed in old fashioned clothing from like the 1600's or something and there was lots of music and it was just very lively. We then ate lunch at a café and spent so much time there--our lunch lasted 2 and a half hours, but it was so good and worth it. That's basically how the French eat anyway when they go out--meals usually take 2 and a half to 3 hours. After lunch we saw a parade that consisted of musicians and dancers and horse-drawn carriages. They were celebrating the return of the farm animals from the mountains. For many months from spring until now (the fall) the farm animals of the city move to the mountains and spend the spring and summer months living up in the mountains and at this time with shepherds and at this time, they return from the mountains before winter hits and there's a parade and celebration celebrating their return. So after watching the dancers and musicians, the animal herds came through. There were herds of goats and lots of cattle and even some baby cows. They all had giant bells around their necks and a lot of cattle had their necks adorned with flowers. It was interesting--only downside was all the poop in the street after the parade was over.

After watching the parade, we went to a park that was just in front of the mountains. It was so beautiful. We were lucky to have a really nice day and the blue sky combined with the green grass and the changing trees and the mountains created a beautiful scene. There was a river bordering this town so we walked to the river and took a boat tour around the city looking at all the mountains. It was so beautiful and lots of people were on the water in their own sailboats or smaller boats. We even saw a castle on a little island in the middle of the river. We even met some other American students on that boat who were from California. One particular girl we met was named Apple--so apparently there are others who share the same exotic name as Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter. After the boat ride, we walked around the city some more and fed the many swans that lived in that city. Then we had to catch a train back to Grenoble. When we got back, we were on our own for dinner so Roz and I went out and bought a pizza to take back to our hotel room while Katie and Monika went out to clubs. Katie ended up coming back early, but Monika had some fun till 4:00 AM. Roz, Michele, and I just hung out in our room watching French TV, eating pizza, and talking. We talked for about three hours, which was really nice because we don't have many opportunities to actually do that since we're constantly on the go. So even though I stayed in, it was still really fun.

The next morning, Katie, Roz, Michele and I went with Deem to visit a small village in the Alps. Monika was tired from clubbing so she slept in and stayed in Grenoble. We took a bus to this village and did a 4 to 5 hour hike in the Alps. It was really hard because we walked uphill most of the time, but it was so worth it because the views of the mountains were incredible and the fact that it was fall made the hike even more beautiful. The mountains and all the different colored trees made for some pretty incredible scenery. We hiked all the way up to this small little cabin where this one guy lived during the summers. It was cool because the cabin was tiny and completely isolated. Roz and I peeked in the windows and saw a bottle of wine on the table with some glasses next to it. So I guess the guy did alright for himself. So we sat on the top of this mountain outside this little cabin and ate some food and then started our hike back down the mountain, which ended up being much harder than the hike up. My legs were hurting pretty bad and we were going downhill for the majority of the hike. And my butt is sore because of it. But it was time well spent--out of all the hikes we've done, that one was by far the hardest, but also the best. Everything was so awe-worthy.

After getting off the mountain, we walked around the village and saw more incredible views. The mountains are by far my most favorite type of scenery. The air was clean, the weather was perfectly warm and cool, and everything was colorful and green. We were all pretty ravished after our intense hike and unfortunately, France has this annoying habit of closing everything on Sundays. So we had to walk for quite a while before we could find a little food booth that was open. I ate a croque monsieur and then a chocolate waffle, and it tasted so good because I was so hungry. Then we found a place nearby that offered lots of air sports like paragliding and hang gliding. We found this area of astro turf that was used for the hangliders I guess to run off the side of the mountain. So Katie, Deem, Michele and I walked along this astroturf and I got up to the very edge of the turf that dropped off the side of the mountain. It was really scary but really cool at the same time. Then we had to catch our bus back to Grenoble and then take a train from Grenoble back to Paris and then a train from Paris to Versailles. We left Grenoble at 7:20 and I finally got back to my house around midnight. All in all, it was a beautiful weekend and we were so lucky once again to have beautiful weather for it. This weekend trip was one of my favorites, which is good because it might be my last one. Deem sadly leaves us this Saturday since we're halfway through the program, and Dr. Patton will take over and we've been told we won't have any more weekend trips except for a 10 day trip we will take around all of France later this month. Deem will be missed, but Dr. Patton should be fun too. More updates to come...a bientot!

Les Invalides

Yesterday, we all went to Paris to visit Les Invalides. All our professors came with us too because we were getting an exclusive tour--yeah it was special. We had some issues getting to Paris because the train we took that was supposed to take us to Les Invalides stopped at one of the stops and then the conductor told everyone over the intercom that we had to get off the train because it wasn't going to be running further. So everyone got off the train and no one knew why we had to get off. People were saying it was electrical issues but no one was really sure. Thankfully we were dropped off outside of Paris so all we had to do was walk around and find a metro, and luckily found the metro line that would take us to Les Invalides. So we got there and our tour guide was waiting for us. She was a really small French woman and was very interesting to listen to when you could hear her--unfortunately she spoke too softly sometimes so I didn't get to hear everything she was saying. The tour was pretty sweet though--we went into this small auditorium area and watched a powerpoint presentation about the history of the building and its functions, mostly as a military hospital. Then we walked all around the building, visiting a church where many ancient flags of France's past enemies were hung when France conquered them in battle. We even got to go into a part of the building that was closed off to the public for renovations, but our tour guide was able to get us through to see the closed off rooms, which had paintings on the walls that were being restored. Then we visited one of the museums that contained the armor of many of the French kings as well as swords and bayonets. Then we went to the section of the building where Napoleon's tomb was. Again, a couple sections of this building were roped off because the marble floors were being renovated in certain areas, but our guide took us behind the barriers and had the marble restorers talk to us about how they restore the floors. It was really cool being able to be with this little woman who could get us into the areas that everyone else couldn't see. We felt pretty special! When the tour ended, the building had closed so we all went back to Versailles since we didn't really have anything else to do.

Today, my grammar/conversation group decided after grammar class this morning that we were going to have to bring food to conversation class today to make the class seem more enjoyable than it usually is. So Erika and I went down to the Super U to get some food, and coincidentally, Mme Vaudel had planned a surprise birthday party for Lubaina's 19th birthday (which was strange and unexpected because her birthday was a good 3 weeks ago). She had made profiteroles for us, which consists of this small, sweet bread roll that you put vanilla ice cream in and then cover in warm chocolate sauce. Of course, this happens the only day of this entire program where we decide to bring a bunch of food. Oh well, profiteroles was a better substitute compared to the bags of chips and grapes we brought. So we ate profiteroles and talked for the usual two hours. Though the presence of food made the class a bit more durable, the conversation got pretty awkward when we all ran out of stuff to talk about. Two hours straight of talking is way too long.

Tomorrow I leave for Grenoble and we're supposed to have good weather, so more updates to come!

Weekend in Versailles/Paris

Just spent my first weekend here in Versailles, and it was fun based on the people I spent the weekend with, but as far as finding stuff to do, it was unfortunately, a bit disappointing. Our prospects for the weekend looked good because there was an event in Paris that went on this past Saturday called La Nuit Blanche, which translates to "a sleepless night." Sounds like a huge all-night party, right? Sadly, Nuit Blanche was not at all what we thought it would be. The event consisted of a bunch of different independent films being played or certain scenes for films being filmed. We found a booklet full of the different activities going on that night, and there were a lot of different films and filmmakers all over different parts of Paris, so we went to Gare de Lyon where an Indian film was being filmed with Bollywood dancers. So we get there and the film space is right outside the station and it's packed. We get up as close as we can to see the Indian dancers, and we were excited to see them dance and just admire their beautiful costumes. So eventually, some music would start playing and the women on the "stage" would start dancing, but then the music would cut off after 30 seconds. We thought they were just having technical difficulties, so we waited until they fixed the problem. After waiting a good 15 minutes or more, the same music would start again, the women would dance, and then it'd suddenly stop in the same spot it did last time. It was really frustrating. We waited there for another 30 minutes or so hoping that we'd eventually see full performance, but it never happened. They played the music two more times (and we had to wait at least 15 minutes or more between the two times that they played this music) so by the time the music played and cut off for the fourth time, we got fed up and left. It was too crowded there and we weren't really getting to see anything. The dancers and director and crew of the film would've been there all night because the activities of Nuit Blanche lasted from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, but we couldn't stay out late because the last train that would take us back to Versailles would leave at 11:55 that night--which I thought was annoying because if people are supposed to stay up all night for Nuit Blanche, shouldn't the trains have run all night? We had also heard that all the museums were supposed to be open all night and be free, so we all decided we wanted to go to the Louvre again that night. But when we got there, it was closed. WTF? By this time, we had to head back to the train station to get back to Versailles, but we were OK with it because the events of Nuit Blanche were not turning out to be as exciting as we had thought. I went out with Roz, Katie, Monika, and Michele, and Roz even started asking people where the party was that night, but there was no such party for Nuit Blanche. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, but it just wasn't that exciting all in all, and it was disappointing that we couldn't get into the Louvre that night. By the time we got back to Versailles, we were all pretty tired. We hung out a little bit, but there wasn't a whole lot to do and a lot of things were closed, so we ended up calling it a night at like one in the morning.
Despite the fact that Nuit Blanche did not go as planned, we were excited for Sunday because we were told that on the first Sunday of every month, the museums in Paris are free. So since we couldn't get into the Louvre last night, we took the train to Paris again to get in this time, and for free. So we get in the Louvre and get through the security. We find maps of the place, decide what we want to see, and start heading off in the direction we need to go. And just as we're about to enter a section of the building, we are told the Louvre is closed. Again, WTF? That was just irritating because we took a lot of time to get there and then for nothing. I'm annoyed we had to go through security too before they'd tell us we couldn't go in the building. So we walked around Paris for about an hour since we were there, and then had to go back to Versailles to be back home in time for dinner. Thankfully, dinner at my house was fun that night because I got to meet the older sister and brother. It was really nice because the entire Malglaive family was there (7 people) and then me, and it was fun because we were all crowded around this little table in our small dining room and it was so cramped, but it was fun because everyone was talking all at once and it was fun to just sit there and listen to them talk and laugh. The food was good too!
So all in all, not the best weekend I've had here, but despite the disappointments and setbacks, I still had a lot of fun hanging out with Roz, Katie, Michele, and Monika. And the family dinner was a perk to the weekend. Next weekend should be much better--the five of us girls who hung out this weekend will go to Grenoble with Deem (he took the other five people in our group to the country in Brittany this past weekend--we all had a choice of whether we wanted to do a country or city trip, so 5 of us chose the country trip and the other 5 the city trip). So this next weekend is our weekend to travel and eat well, so I'm looking forward to that. A bientot!

The Louvre

Yesterday we all visited the Louvre.  We got into Paris around 2:30 and a girl who went on the Versailles trip last year (Whitney Bost) flew to Versailles that day to spend her fall break here.  She met up with our group and came to the Louvre with us.  After we got our tickets we went in and were free to go wherever we wanted on our own.  So I walked around with Katie and Michael.  We walked up to the 2nd floor (there are 4 levels, but the bottom two levels are called the ground floor and the lower ground floor), so basically we walked all the way up to the fourth level of the building.  We looked at all the works up there and looked mainly for the works that we had learned about in our classes, like the works of Flagonard, Watteau, David, Ingres, La Tour, and others.  After walking through the French paintings section, we made our way to the Italian painters, and I've got to say, finding your way in the Louvre is not easy.  It is an absolutely enormous building--it was the palace of the kings of France originally before Louis XIV decided to move to Versailles and have the Chateau of Versailles built there.  The architecture of the building is beautiful and I can't imagine what the kings did with all the space they had.  It was so ridiculously large.  

Eventually we did find our way to the section of the building that housed all the Italian paintings.  This was a bit more enjoyable because there were more well-known works here, and since I don't really know much about art, it was nice to recognize some things.  Of course we saw DaVinci's Mona Lisa.  When we first entered the room where that painting was housed, I at first didn't see her because the painting isn't very big and there were a lot of people around it, covering it up.  Plus it was placed in a room that had massive colorful paintings around it, so I was also distracted by the other paintings around me before I finally realized that I was in the room where the Mona Lisa was.   We saw works by Giovanni and also saw the large painting of the coronation of Napoleon.  Before seeing this painting, we visited the Galery of Apollo, which is one of the most elaborately decorated and rich rooms I've ever been in.  It was overwhelming, but in a good way because you just kept looking up all around you, taking it all in.  It was fancy.  We also saw the actual crown of Napoleon which formerly belonged to Charlemagne enclosed in a glass case in this room--the same crown that was in that grand painting.  After looking at the Italian paintings, we looked at some Etruscan art, and then Greek and Roman sculptures.  We saw some of the works of Michealangelo and some other beautiful statues of Grecian and Roman gods and goddesses.  And then we saw the Venus de Milo.  It was very cool.  Then we moved to Egyptian art, which I've always found very interesting.  The sarcophaguses and hieroglyph stone tablets were my favorite things to look at.  They even had mummified cats in that section--which kind of made me cringe because all I could think about was shriveled cats.  Ugh. 

     By the time we finished with Egyptian art, we had spent about 3 and a half hours in the Louvre and were tired.  Katie and I had lost Michael at some point, so we decided to go back to Versailles together, and it literally took us like 30 minutes to get out of that building.  It's kind of embarrassing how long it took us because we kept trying to find our way out and ended up taking a lot wrong turns and staircases and ended up at dead ends.  It was pretty frustrating, but thank God we finally did find our way out.  We took the metro back to La Defense and hopped on a train to Versailles.  We then discovered we were on the wrong train so we got out at the next stop and had to wait 5 minutes for the next train.  Eventually one came and we got back around 8:00.  We were pretty tired because it took us about an hour and a half total to exit the Louvre, take the metro, and then take the train.  It was a long day, but worth the trouble because we saw some pretty amazing and historical works of art.  

     This weekend I'm staying in Versailles and will probably spend the weekend in Paris--hopefully I will have some interesting stories to tell.  Until then...