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So I guess it's time for my second entry of what's becoming my bi-monthly update on my life in Paris. I haven't left Paris since I went to Provins, but that's all right with me. There's so much to see and experience here, there's not really much need to travel too much. And that's another thing I have noticed about people in Paris study programs versus people who study elsewhere, people based in Paris travel a lot less. But I think a lot of the time when people study abroad, they spend so much time traveling every weekend that they end up missing out on where they are actually studying. And that is definitely something I do not want to do. There is a reason I chose to study in Paris, and by the time I leave here, I want to know it intimately as a home town. Some people are not taking advantage of those opportunities however, but I guess that's their choice.
Anyways, just to give you guys a heads up, most of my traveling will be done in April. I will be going on a couple day trips with my center to Fontainebleau, Vaux-le-Vicomte, and Giverny the first couple weekends, and then the last week of April is my spring break in Florence, Nice and Nantes. So look for information on other locations next month. I also think I will be going to Spain for about a week after my program gets out, but planning for that is in the very beginner and tentative stages.
So now back to my life in Paris...The weather is still pretty cold here, but I can feel spring peeking through at odd moments. For example, we are getting a lot of the spring showers. But also, the sun is rising earlier, so now, when I wake up in the morning, instead of the usual gray gloom, it is nice to open my eyes and see rays of sunlight shining through my curtains. And, speaking of the time and sun, I actually have no clue when daylight savings time is here...I should probably figure that out sometime soon though. So back to spring being in the air...the sun shines more now each day, and the flowers are starting to peep through everywhere. And the flowers here are actually beautiful, not like the little wildflowers that make a brave attempt to stay alive in the blinding heat that is Texas. Here, they have tulips and buttercups, and they are absolutely breathtaking. I think I am going to buy some little flowers to plant in the window box right outside my window. It is interesting to think that all throughout this giant, gray, gloomy city, there are little bursts of green and flowers in every possible little space they have to grow. There are flower shops on nearly every corner, kind of like our starbucks I guess, and also, many people have window boxes or potted plants outside of their doors or restaraunts.
So now that I have gone off on a tangent about the weather and the flowers and all those other aspects of polite small talk, allow me to continue my own, personal story. Since the last blog, I have actually gone to a club, or "boite de la nuit" as the french people here like to call them. It was pretty cool, and overall, it was free, so that was fun. But I think I might have mentioned that in my last blog, I don't know, it is hard to keep up with everything now. I finally went and saw the outside of the Pompidou center and wandered around the Châtelet Les Halles area...which for those of you who don't know, apparently you are not supposed to make the liason with the "s" from "les" and the "h" from "halles". I don't know why that is, but it has something to do with the linguistic history of the phrase or something, as so much does here. Anyways, the area around the Pompidou center is really awesome, and I definitely recommend it to people visiting Paris for the first time. It is interesting to see because, while the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and everything represent the historic Paris, the Pompidou is a beaming icon of the modernity of the city as well. I haven't actually been inside it yet though, but I will be doing that tonight with my art history class for the first time. Inside, it houses a ton of stuff, most of which I have no idea about, but I also know that it houses a huge modern art collection, including works by Matisse, and sculptures and such by Italian futurist artists.
On the subject of art, I went and saw the Vlaminck exhibit at the Musée de Luxembourg with a friend last week. Vlaminck was a fauvist painter at the beginning of the 20th century, and the exposition was actually really cool. I loved it because he uses such pure and rich color, and I actually bought a book that was specifically written for that exhibition because I loved it so much. To give a little background on fauvism, because I know you guys are dying to know, it originated around 1905 with Henri Matisse's "The Woman in the Hat" (La Femme au chapeau) and the exhibit of the "Cage of Fauves" which caused a scandal in Paris when it first appeared. For those of you who don't know, the word "fauve" in French means "wild animal" and the term was actually coined by a critic who thought the works were just beastly because of their bright, pure colors and lack of modeling of figures, and the fact that the people in the paintings would have blue faces, or the trees in the background would be red or something completely unnatural. But basically, this movement paved the way for abstract art and Braques and Cubism and everything modern that was to follow after. Anyways, I've realized being here and seeing more and more of this style of painting, that it is my favorite period of art that I have studied so far. And to go totally philosophic and weird on you, I just feel like it is a style of painting that just fits my personality...it's bright, loud, colorful, and a little disconnected :)
But to continue on, and it's hard, because I could talk about art for hours, I will instead tell you guys about a couple other things that have been going on. I went to this other museum exhibit last weekend with my French friend, Marion, and one of her friends. It was actually really cool, it was all about fashion and feminism in France in the 1920s. It was cool because they had clothes from such designers as Coco Chanel and Paul Poiret. For those of you who don't know Paul Poiret, he was actually very influential in liberating women from having to wear corsets. In fact, it was this idea of liberation and freedom and movement towards women's suffrage in France that led to the boxy look style dresses and flapper-esque ideals of that era. It was a time of liberation, and a time of trying to forget the "Great War" as they called World War 1, by drowning themselves in night life and parties. It was very interesting to learn about the history and ideas of french feminism and then to discuss them with two French girls. And also, to compare that history to the history of women's suffrage in the US. In the US, women gained the right to vote much earlier than in France, in the year 1920 with the introduction of the 19th amendment. In France, however, women did not get the right to vote until 1944, 24 years later! when president Charles de Gaulle was in power after WWII.
A note on wine etiquette:
To continue on in the little historical sidenotes, one interesting thing they do here is when they drink wine. Once everyone has their glass, instead of saying cheers or something, there is a whole system to how drinking to each other's health should be done. Allow me first to explain the present situation, and then to explain it's origins. Now, when a group of people have wine, each and every one chinks glasses with every other person there individually, and you never cross arms with another person, who cross over 2 people while they are doing this, you wait until you have a clear shot. Next, as you are chinking glasses with someone, you say, "chin chin" and look them in the eyes. That last part is very important, you must ALWAYS look someone in the eye when you are doing this, and this is where the history comes in. Apparently, back in medieval times, there were several cases of poisoning, which was actually a very common thing. So back then, they would fill each person's wine glass to the very brim, almost to overflowing, that way, when people "chin chin"ed, there glasses would touch and each glass would exchange a little bit of wine with the other. This is where the importance of eye contact came in. When that exchange of wine into each other's cups was going on, each person would look each other in the eye, and if one person's eyes widened or their face showed any sign of them freaking out when the wine from the other person's glass passed into theirs, everyone would know there was poison in the cup. Pretty interesting huh? And it's interesting too to think that a lot of French people don't even realize that, it's just a little nuance of their culture that most have never even really thought of before. It compares with the origins of why we say "bless you" after someone sneezes, and both are rooted in medieval times. And for those of you who are unsure, the reason we say bless you is because, in medieval times, when someone sneezed, people thought that left room for demons to enter the person, so they would always say "god bless you" in order to prevent that.
So moving on once again, last week there was a small scale metro strike, so I ended up being 20 minutes late to class, even though I left within plenty of time that would have normally gotten me there 5 minutes early. But yea, it was pretty crazy. I barely missed the metro as the doors closed just before I got on the platform, and then the next one did not come for 10 minutes, and it was too full to accomodate anymore people, so half the people on the platform couldn't even get on, and then the next train did not come for another 10 minutes. Needless to say, I hope it doesn't turn into anything more serious, because public transportation is really very heavily depended on here, and otherwise, I might just have to buy a bike and get into a lot better shape :)
So now to make another comment on some of the people here. So you know how in the US we have emo kids? Well here, they have something much worse, though I guess much less depressing and more amusing, and these are the so-called "techtonik" kids. That's right. Techtonik. And they are everywhere. They wear this little gelled, mullet type hair-do(nt)'s and have this crazy type of dance they do, that actually doesn't really look like dance. Apparently they all get these tapes from this girl who teaches this style in Asia, I don't really know. But yea, if you wanna check it out, just go to youtube.com and search under techtonik, and you can just watch them jam to your heart's content I guess. Apparently they have whole clubs for that style here, can't say I've been to one, but I've heard about them.
so to start to wrap things up, this tuesday I went to the Grand Mosque of Paris, which was pretty freaking cool. It's actually in Paris, Je T'aime (the movie) also. But the interesting thing is that, in the movie, the door the girl walks out of is actually the entrance to the restaurant that's inside the mosque...ooo movie magic, how silly. But I felt really cool that I could figure that out. But yea, we got to walk around the courtyard and see the library and the hallways and got to peek into the prayer room which was cool...we were not allowed to go inside the prayer room because we were visitors though, but that's all right. The mosque is actually relatively new, it was built in the mid to late 20th century and funded by the French government to appease their ever growing muslim population.
Anyways, to get there, we wandered through the "Jardin des Plantes" (the garden of plants) and it was very pretty. We passed the museum of natural history which we wanted to go into, but some other time I guess. And it was really cool because this guy was doing tai-chi under this enormous, blossoming tree covered in flowers. I should really get a book on all the parks here or something, because I would love to know what types of trees are all over the place, there are so many incredibly beautiful trees and plants and flowers everywhere, and I have no clue what their names are.
Anyways, I think that about sums up my life here over the past couple weeks, have been spending a lot of time in the grocery stores, just wandering and seeing what there is to see, and also been spending quite a bit of time in bookshops, they just don't have them like that back home. But now it's time for me to go.
Until next time |
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Posted by bringle on 2008-03-20 07:20:05 | Rating: | Views: 128
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