Last Few Days!

Here I am, back in Chicago, missing the beautiful city I spent three weeks in.

On second to last day, we had class in the morning, and then met back up again at Berkley Books to do an end of session reading. Here's some pictures from that (and one really great picture of me making a very awkward face as I read):



This is the majority of my class (about half of the people on the trip). The second photo is us making our "metro faces":



But! Before we had the reading, I met up with my cousin Johanna! She is in Paris for a semester, and we didn't even know we were in the same city until I saw something she posted and reached out. We went to a very nice breakfast place in walking distance of where we were both staying (we totally forgot to take a picture...oops. Sorry for the disappointment). It's too bad we didn't realize it sooner, because we would have had a chance to do more together!

After the reading, the class went out to a jazz club where people were swing dancing. I picked it up pretty quick and had a blast!



I know that picture is blurry but I think it's kind of cool!

The next day, Emma and I spent most of the day in Le Marais. There was a pretty cool food and wine festival going on, as well as beautiful views and someone tight rope walking!



The next day, we had to wake up very early and get on our plane. It's been a lovely trip and I'm so glad I had this opportunity!

Some things I should remember for next time:

Paris is more expensive than you realize, so budget accordingly.
Bring more hats and gloves! It's colder than you'd expect.
Take more videos of things. Paris's life is in its movement.
Don't bring an umbrella--it never pours, so a hood is always enough.
Be more prepared to do more walking (shoes and clothes... etc.)
Sweaters are the best, dresses and skirts are unnecessary.
Learn more French!!
Even if you aren't going for a writing course, bring books and do lots of writing. It just feels right there.

I will post a short video compilation of the trip soon. Until then, Au Revoir! 

Musee D'Orsay

Hello friends!

Yesterday I went to the Musee D'Orsay after our early morning class. Here's what the back of the building looks like from across the Seine:



I stopped at a cafe near the museum to get some lunch, and had a rather unpleasant time there. The waiter, who spoke perfect English, got mad at me when the mean was 13.75 Euros and the credit card minimum was 15. I told him I didn't have cash and usually I would expect them to just let it slide because it's pretty close to the minimum. Instead, he told me to just pay 15 Euros! I would have told him to give me a pastry for it or something, but his attitude smelled so bad I needed to get out of there.

The museum was awesome, however. There isn't a whole lot of art there, because it's a reverted train station, but on the 5th floor there's a whole long gallery of impressionist art. I saw so much Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, and my new favorite, Camille Pissarro.

Here are some of my favorites:



And of course, I loved the dancer sculptures by Degas!





It was very nice to see all of it, and nice to have some alone time to think. Tomorrow a special guest will appear on my blog... stay tuned to find out who!!

Versailles

This morning I woke up early, made myself breakfast, and headed to the Montpanarsse Bienvenue station to catch the metro to St Michel. From there, I met my tour guide Onno, a dutch guy who has been a tour guide in Paris for a few years now. There were 7 of us on the tour, and we caught the RER train to Versailles (about 30 minutes). 

When we got there he taught me some very interesting things about the palace, especially why it was built in the first place. Story has it, the Minister of Finance at the time apparently had a lot of money (go figure), and built himself a chateau south of Paris that was quite large and spectacular. He invited King Louis XIV to a housewarming party to show off, and three weeks later the minister was sentenced to a life sentence in jail for embezzlement (how convenient). Only a few days later were a landscaper, an architect, and an interior designer hired by Louis XIV to start turning what used to be a small lodge in a swamp used for hunting by kings past into what we now know as the Palace of Versailles. King Louis XIV did not like being shown up.

It took 5 million Euros to restore just the gates in the front of the palace in 2008. Imagine what it cost to actually build the thing! It is a total of 2000 acres (King Louis XIV actually owned about 10x more land than this, though) and took about 25-30 years to fully complete. It used to be swamp land and the landscapers had to pump water out of the swamp before starting to make the gardens. There are 50 fountains in what was supposed to be "the new Rome" in the Sun King's eyes, and it took 5% of the total GDP of Paris at the time to make (yikes).

In the 1680s, 8,000 people of high ranking lived in the Palace. King Louis XIV kept his friends close and his enemies in the room next door. He kept the nobility busy by turning everything he did into a spectacle--100 people watched him get dressed every morning, and 3-400 people watched him eat breakfast, and so on. This way the nobility wouldn't realize that Louis was not really letting them do anything, because he was always giving them frivolous tasks.

I'll shut up about it. Here's some pictures!!

I did not go inside (the tour was of the gardens only and lasted a good 2 and a half hours). The inside looks just like the Louvre, and it cost more money and there was a long line. I was reassured missing the inside wasn't a big deal--it's really the grandeur of the building that matters, and wow, was it grand!!

The Louvre and Some Snails

On Friday, instead of class our teachers took us on a nearly 5 hour long walking tour, centered around Hemingway. We saw where Hemingway lived, where he ate, where he wrote... along with some other famous authors--here's Gertrude Stein's old apartment:



We also ate lunch at Hemingway and Hadley's favorite cafe, just down the street from where he lived for most of his time in Paris:



Apparently, the two cartoonists who wrote for the Charlie Hebdo paper, who were shot almost a year ago exactly, loved to come here too. These are pictures they drew on the chalkboards in the room we were sitting in:



Our teacher Kathie also knew the owner of one of the only English book stores in the city. I picked up an Anne Tyler novel and read it the whole time we were there:



Dana and I went out for drinks at Le Select afterwards with our teachers! Le Select was Hemingway's favorite place to write--he wrote most of A Moveable Feast there, which is the book I am reading now!



After drinks, Dana and I headed to the Louvre because it is free after 6 pm on Fridays for people under 26. All we had to do was show our IDs and we got in! I was more in awe of the rooms than of the paintings. Like this one:



And, of course, we saw my girl the Mona Lisa:



I was more impressed with the painting on the opposite wall to her--this painting was as big as the entire wall and just blew my mind with how long and complicated it must have been to paint it!



That night, Emma and I and a few other people from the group we are in went to Le Falstaff for dinner. Hemingway often sites this cafe in his books about Paris.

The next day, I woke up late and got breakfast with Emma, then met up with Dana to go to the Latin Quarter to do some shopping! Only we took too long to get there and find a good street to shop on, and then got hungry and had to eat dinner (in the end, we didn't really get to buy anything!)

On the bright side, I made some slimy friends!





Snails are quite good when there is good sauce and good wine and good company and a good atmosphere. It was a recipe for deliciousness!!

Days 1-3 of the Program

Here I am in Paris again, sitting in my hotel on Ave du Maine called the Citadines. We are staying in the 14th arrondissement, in Montparnarsse. The hotel is small and comfortable, exactly what we need. I am sharing a room with Dana.

On the first day after everyone arrived (Sunday) we went on a short tour of our immediate neighborhood, then took the metro to go to the Eiffel Tower to do the boat tour (a surprise--I got to do it twice!). This time we went earlier than I went a few days ago. Here was the view:



That night my fellow student Emma and I went to dinner at a nice restaurant and had delicious food. The next morning, we had orientation at 9 am at the school, which is off the metro about 25 minutes from us, almost directly north of us. Once orientation was over, we went on a longer walking tour.

This is a beautiful Opera house that many dance performances have taken place in for decades:



This is the view from that square:



This is Harry's New York Bar, where apparently Mr. Harry actually took the bar from his restaurant in New York to Paris to recreate his restaurant. Also, the bloody mary was supposedly created here. Many famous artists visited this place frequently in the 20th century.

This is a giant place to shop for very expensive things (I totally forgot the name of this square), like Dior and Channel and you can even stay at the Ritz next door:



Here is the Tuilerie Park:



And this is a monument given to the French by the Egyptians. There were two that stood in front of Ramses tomb, but after it took forever to get one to Paris, the French told the Egyptians they could keep the second one...!



The Arc de Triumph:



And the Notre Dam:



That night, Dana, Emma and I went out to dinner and then a club and met some very nice Parisians! Great fun!

The next day, we had our first day of class. I will post some of the things I write in class on this blog soon! After class, we took a walking tour led by my teacher Phillip of Montmartre, a district in the north of Paris that almost all the artists lived in during the early 1900s (Picasso, Hemingway, Stein...).

This is a restaurant/bar that Picasso and Hemingway used to frequent:



This is one of the last vineyards in Paris:



Some more beautiful views from the tallest point in the city:



This is where Picasso's old studio was, and the street he lived on:



This is cool: apparently the Governor Daley of Chicago really liked Paris, and designed a Metra station on Michigan Avenue after this stop in Montmartre. It looks identical!



Of course, we had to see the Moulin Rouge!



Dana, Emma and I went to dinner in the area before returning home for a good night's sleep. Can't wait for more adventures tomorrow!