Salut tous!
This week was insane! I feel like it was so incredibly long, yet instantaneous at the same time. My friend Dan came to visit with his dad for the week, and on top of wanting to show him everything cool about the city, I had phonetics (I only have the classes every other week). In short, it was definitely very busy, but really good! Kind of ironic, because on one hand, I’m finally beginning to feel like I’m getting the swing of things the “Parisian” way- conversing, all of my classes, sitting in restaraunts, ect. On the other, I felt pretty touristy trying to take Dan to all of the “must-sees” of the city. Highlights of the week:
-Art classes. Just like last week, they are both still SO HARD. But so good! I had live models for both classes, which is both challenging and inspiring to try to work from. In Painting (the Tuesday class) the model had her dog with her.. kind of taking a twist on the whole “still life” effect, as the dog decided to move whenever he wanted. J
-The Louvre!! I FINALLY went. I regret to say that it was a required visit for the Central class, so I had to go whether I liked it or not, but I am so happy that we did. We went on a tour of some pieces during Louis XIV’s reign.. including Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Chardin and Rigaud (all artists who I have studied before and thoroughly enjoyed). The tour guide was an older French man who knew everything and anything you asked him, and was so interesting to listen to! Not to mention, he was hilarious. He kept yelling at people who were talking too loudly (we were all listening to him through earphones, and he had a mic attached to his shirt) and he would switch back from French to English whenever he felt like it. I even got to ask him a little about some of Robert’s work- an artist who loved to paint the ruins of the city and give them a fantastical feel- but unfortunately the piece I was thinking about isn’t in the Louvre. Even so, it was a great tour.
-Les Eglises. Dan’s dad really loves organs, so whenever we were walking down a street and saw a church, we went in to examine the organ size and age as well as the history of the church. Once again, I want to slap myself for not doing this before! Every church we went into was absolutely beautiful. I don’t remember the names of the 6 or so that we went into, but there was also a visit to Saint Severin and Notre Dame. (The Sainte Chapelle is next on my list!) I have also been seeing a lot of signs for free concerts in different churches, so I definitely want to try one of those soon.
-Père Lachaise. What a beautiful place. It is by far the most serene, peaceful place in the city- and even for a cemetery it just has an air that is both solemn and comforting. We spent all of Friday morning walking around- seeing Jim Morrison’s grave, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Moliere and Lafontaine, but in truth every grave was beautiful in its own way. There was one statue that really struck me- a life sized bronze (now green-ish) statue of the Virgin with her hand covering her face. It was so sad, and just seemed so real. On a lighter note, there was a grave right across from Chopin’s that had a clay painting on the tombstone, along with a pretty poem. On a closer examination of the person’s grave- the painting had a signature- Marc Chagall! How insane is that- a grave of a person I had never even heard of, with a personal tombstone by Chagall. I wonder how many people walk by it every day without even knowing what it is.
The week ended with a Friday night raclette dinner and a trip to the
No comments:
Post a Comment