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So, I haven't had an extremely eventful last week in Paris. It's kind of unfortunate. Mainly, it's because everyone (including myself, finally) is stressing out about our 10 to 15 page final paper. The other reason for me at least, is that I've been sick with a cold and an ear infection. You know, it especially sucks to have clogged ears in a foreign country, because you already have trouble deciphering individual words. Now, it's just amplified! Plus, when I say, "What?" they think that means I don't speak French. Really, though, I just can't hear them! It's infuriating.

I have been to the Marais twice in the past couple of days, though. On Tuesday, I met Maria at a great cafe on Rue des Rosiers (where all the falafel places are). It's away from all the stands, and it's called Le Loir Dans La Theiere. We had amazing tea and ate lemon meringue cake that was cut in the biggest slices I have ever seen! So yummy.

After, we went to the Place des Vosges to do some work on our papers. Then, we went to Mariage Freres, this beautiful tea shop, where I bought tea and a music box that plays the Swan Lake music. I'm going to use it as a jewelry box so that I every time I need a necklace, I'll get to hear beautiful ballet music!

We then met our friends and ended up at La Belle Hortense, a literary cafe on Rue Vielle du Temple. It was really relaxing, as there were bookshelves and paintings everywhere, and we took over half of the back room with our laptops.
The rest of that day was boring...basically just me at home trying to fix my ear/work on my paper.

Then yesterday after class we grabbed lunch at La Grande Epicerie (probably for the last time) and went to the Marais to do some vintage shopping. I ended up going to this olive oil store instead to buy artisan oils for my family, and then I went to a vintage store alone. By then it was already around 6, so I headed home to work on my paper.

Today, I am still working on my paper (it's a long, arduous process) and am about to shower, stop by the pharmacy next door, and go to the Centre Pompidou Library where I will eventually meet Paulo to grab dinner.

I still need to pack, too, which I'm going to start tonight after dinner.

I wish my last week in Paris wasn't so work/illness filled, but it makes me appreciate the city as a place where you actually live. If I study abroad here for a year, every week isn't going to be full of sightseeing and fun, so it's nice to know I'll still be able to enjoy Paris when my life is busy or icky.

I'm planning on doing one more post (it might be two, who knows) before I return home! A bientot!

Le Loir dans la Thiere. It was adorable inside!

Beautiful sky at Place de Vosges.

A painting on a restaurant wall. Evidence of the strong Jewish influence in the Marais.

La lunette d'approche. AKA The Telescope. My favorite Magritte piece. Just stare at it for a while. Wow.

haute cuisine chez anna

I've been sick with a cold all day (a terrible way to start off my last week in Paris, I know), but I had a wonderful day yesterday/last night. I woke up late after a late night of clubbing, so I got up and went to the Marais where I ate a sort of oniony pastry (fresh from the oven) from a Jewish bakery and went shopping. I went into millions of awesome boutiques and clothing stores, but nothing really jumped out at me.

At around 5, I met Anna near Les Halles and we went up Rue Montorgeuil to buy foodstuff for dinner. It's a great market street, full of fresh produce stores, boulangeries, fromageries, boucheries, and epiceries. We bought tons of veggies, chevre, burrata cheese, basil, fresh bread, and more. We walked back to her house and cooked an AMAZING meal of green salad with fennel, avocado, tomato, basil; caprese salad with tomato, buratta cheese, and basil; sauteed haricots verts with shallots; and tartines (open faced baked sandwiches) with special Poilane (my fave boulangerie) bread and chevre. We also had these special gourmet olives that we had bought to munch on. Our friend Kenneth arrived with wine and dessert. He had bought an amazing lemon meringue pie at a nearby patisserie. We stuffed ourselves with food and wine and cake and were dying to lapse into a long food coma when our friends Maria, Ariel, and Kelly came by to pregame for a night out clubbing.

So, we prettied ourselves up and went out to an awesome club (well really it's more of a bar with a dance floor) called Kong, that had once been featured on Sex and the City. It was somewhat posh, but still really fun and nearly everyone was dancing by 1. We split a cab back to Anna's at around 3:30, and I was asleep by 4!

It was a great, albeit long day, and I hope the rest of my week will be equally eventful! Also, now that I rested today, I'm hoping I'll get better soon so I can really enjoy my week. I've drank nearly a quart of orange juice, so hopefully that will help......

I only wish they had Airborne in France!

Our lovely spread. 

Up close and personal with the buratta cheese. It was the night's surprise winner, because we bought it on a whim at the last minute. We actually went to a second fromagerie just to grab some.

Anna and our dessert. Doesn't the pie look delish??? 

Givernyyy

I had a wonderful day yesterday in Giverny! Up until last night, that is, when I went all the way up to Montmartre to see the cabaret at Au Lapin Agile but was too late and was thus locked outside and forced to leave and go to Ile St. Louis/Cite, where I engaged in self-pity eating and had an ice cream cone and nutella crepe for dinner and also took some cool video of Notre Dame at night. Oh, and then my host family left this morning for their vacation. No big goodbyes or anything, which was a bit weird, but I'm actually kind of glad they're gone because now I can pretend I actually live in Paris! Anyways, last night sucked. But yesterday was great!

We went to Vernon via train which took about 45 minutes. We arrived at around 11:15, rented bikes, and rode them through the town and down a bike path until we reached Monet's garden. Giverny is really cute, with lots of adorable houses and B&Bs and cafes. It was sooo picturesque. Vernon was not as cute, but I still enjoyed seeing a regular old French town. 

The gardens, though. Wow. They were breathtaking. Better than I could have imagined. I did a sketch of them which is way too detailed, which made me realize: In a place so overwhelmingly beautiful, too much detail doesn't capture its essence. Monet's "impressions" were really the only way to do his gardens justice. 

Inside his house, he had Japanese prints all over the walls, obvious representations that Eastern art largely inspired Impressionism. 

After we saw the gardens, we went to a creprerie and had lunch. We had a great view of the quaint houses/street, and we sat talking and laughing for quite a while. 

Next, we went to the Musee d'Impressionisme. Kind of a letdown. They only had an exhibition going on of the neo-Impressionist Maximillien Luce. It was good, but I was expecting to look at that and then be able to see their permanent collection. But, they don't even HAVE a permanent collection. Weird, right? You'd think the Impressionist museum would at least have a collection of go-to Impressionist paintings. 

Anyways, one cute anecdote: While I was seating on a bench drawing Monet's water lilies/bridge, a little girl (she was Dutch or German or something I think) came up to me and looked at my drawing and smiled. Her mom had to coax her to do it, as she was shy, but I got the impression that she liked to draw as well. Later, when I was finishing the drawing in the Musee's garden area, I saw her again. Once again, she came up with a huge beaming smile, and just watched. Basically, she was adorable and the setting was perfect and I loved the whole cross-cultural connection thing. =]

After we saw the museums and such, we rode our bikes back across the bridge to Vernon, and me, Gus, and Kenneth went on a longer bike ride along the river (the Seine). It was really fun and cool to be in a place so different from Paris. It was also a good workout, which I liked since I have really only been walking here.

This afternoon I have class/walking with my class, and then I don't know what I'm going to do. I only have one more week in Paris though, and it's really sad! So, a bientot!

The other day at Musee de l'Orangerie. I got see the Waterlilies right before I went to see them firsthand! Awesome.

At Monet's Jardin.

My drawing of his jardin/waterlilies/bridge.

It's the real deal.

The big picture.

Impressionistic water lilies. I love the reflection of the clouds on the water.

Close-up. Still gorgeous.

A chair in Monet's foyer in his house. He probably sat there and looked out onto his beloved garden.

Lace-draped window in Monet's house.

Me, Gus, and Kenneth at the end of our bike ride. 

un video du metro

Here's a random video I made using footage I took while riding the metro. It's not the most inspired/interesting video ever, but it gives you an idea of the metro vibe here in Paris.

BELGIUM

So Belgium was amazing! The trip was incredibly tiring, but it was so cool to see a different type of country/culture other than France. Also, it was weird being somewhere where they spoke a language that I could not understand AT ALL (although French and English are widely used. Basically, it was just weird seeing Flemish words written everywhere). Here's my travelogue in photos!

My first meal in Brussels. Super healthy, I know. The specialties there are frites (fries), waffles, and chocolate. Yummy! Moules (mussels) and beer are also specialties, and I ate/drank a lot of them! I especially loved the fruit-flavored beer. 

A window in Bruges, where we went on our second day. I loved this window and how you could see the reflection of the "place". Anna kept saying how it reminded her of the piazza in Siena, Italy, and I have to agree. It's very wide, and the cobblestones dominate the scenery, as does the tall clocktower.

Bicycles on a tiny Bruges street. It's almost like a village, with smaller cobblestoned streets and ancient, yet normal-looking houses.

Me and Anna standing on the ledge of a bridge overlooking Ghent's river. We sat and did some sketches of the river for a while; it was super picturesque and relaxing. 

Another image of the river and the adorable houses.

We visited Gand (Ghent, in English) that day as well, and while I didn't love the city as a whole (it had a weird vibe; not very happy or lively), I had an awesome time climbing to the top of the old bell tower. It dates from the 13th century (as I remember) and you got a great view of the city below. There was also a festival going on that day, so there were a lot more ant-like people on the street than usual.

Yesterday we stayed in Brussels and went to a bunch of museums: the Magritte Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Bande Dessinee (Comics). The MOMA was in the same complex as the Magritte museum, and I did the sketch above of a sculpture in the twentieth century section. The Magritte Museum was much better than their modern colleciton, though; I especially loved some of Magritte's pamphlets explaining his process. A quote I wrote down: "Everyone tends to think that there is little relationship between an object and that which represents it..."

On Friday when we arrived in Belgium, we took a guided tour of the city. We stopped at five different locations for tastings along the way. We tried: this special Belgian biscuit/pastry called Pain à la Greque, which really has nothing to do with Greek people but was a mistranslation by the French; really yummy Belgian chocolate at a local chocolaterie; Belgian beer at the place above (I tried a specially made Belgian lambic beer called a "kriek. It's made with cherries and has a different fermentation process that makes it taste yeasty and super sour. Not my favorite at all, as it tasted like vinegar); really strong Belgian cheese with shallots in it that no one really liked but I loved; and finally sea snails that used to be a specialty when Brussels was once a port city. It was awesome but super tiring, and I was so full by the end.

Near the old port section of Brussels where we tried the sea snails!

On Friday night, we headed to a happening little neighborhood across from the stock exchange (Bourse) where there were a bunch of cafes and bars. We ran into a parade of rollerbladers and bikers on the way. We had a ton of fun at the bar though. The next night, we went to an Irish pub where we danced the night away. It was really really really fun!

Now, I'm still a bit tired from the weekend and need to finish a paper that is due tomorrow. This was my method of procrastination. It definitely feels good to be back in Paris, though. I hated two things about Belgium: 1) they don't give you a carafe of water and always make you pay for bottled water in restaurants 2) you have to pay around 50 eurocents to go to the bathroom (!). Ludicrous! On the other hand beer and other beverages are WAY cheaper than Paris. Still, it's good to be back in the beautiful city that has so many things to see and do. I only have two weeks left, so I'm going to be doing a lot. 

Can't wait!

plus d'esquisses...more sketches

I went to the Musee d'Orsay today with my class, and we had the most amazing tour guide. She was incredibly knowledgeable, and she told us a bunch of tidbits about Delacroix and Baudelaire and Manet. I was in art history heaven. After the tour (which I wish could have been longer) I did some sketches of Cezanne and one of Degas's Petite Danseuse. Here they are:

Cézanne. Portrait de l'artiste.

Degas. Petite danseuse de quatorze ans. 

One of the things I noticed about sketching in a museum is that everyone wants to see your drawing. People will come and stand behind you to peek over your shoulder, and you can hear them commenting to each other about your piece. One woman whispered, "It's wonderful!" to me, while a little boy told his mom, "She's good." It was definitely an ego booster, if nothing else. Also, the experience made me realize that when drawing in such an awkward, public place you are forced to draw quickly, without too much thought or intention. This results in a more loose style, which is good for me since I tend to be a bit timid about letting my hand simply wander. I plan to go back to the musee because I had to leave early to grab lunch with friends (I was starving). There is still so much to see and draw, I think I could spend virtually all day there! 

Tomorrow I leave for Brussels (bright and early at 8:30) so I may not be able to post this weekend what with all the sightseeing we'll be doing. Alors, bon weekend et à lundi!

I promise I'm not really antisocial...

Today I went to the Cathedrale Sainte-Chapelle by myself, since people were doing other things and I really wanted to make sure that I saw it. The stained glass windows were phenomenal (they virtually are the some of the best in the world), and I loved getting to peruse them by myself. In Paris, I've found that I'm a bit antisocial when it comes to visiting museums and certain sites. I like to take things in at my own pace, to wander, to stare, to sit, and I really don't like sharing commentary (unless it's with a few select people who I have personally designated "museum buddies"). Really, I love the freedom that I find when browsing. It's wonderful to be able to stop, sit, and sketch a sculpture that I really like, without having to worry that I'm making people wait and whatnot. That's what I did at the Pompidou Center the other day! I sketched a postmodernist sculpture, but was only able to finish it today after running to the art store to buy a pencil sharpener. Here it is:

Also, here are some pictures of Saint Chapelle:

Stained Glass Windows from the 13th century 

The Rose Window, a stained glass window from the 14th century depicting the apocalypse of St. John (which I don't really know what that is but it sounds like a big deal).

Moral of the story is, I really like doing stuff on my own in Paris! Cultural stuff, that is. Otherwise, my friends here are great and I can't wait to go out with them tonight! Bonne soiree!