i hate endings!!!

ok so before i end this blog forever, lets catch up.

my finals all went really well! expecting good things from this class. we went to the carnival in the tuileries yesterday to celebrate... SO FUN. i rode the swings, the rainbow, and that ejection ball bungee cord thing. then we went to our end of term party at school where they had prepared hors d'oeuvres for us and a photography exhibition of photos students had taken during their stay in paris. quite pleasant. that night we went out to Social Club again and of course had a late night to celebrate. and now here i am... 

i leave paris tomorrow :(... sads. haven't started packing... must get around to that at some point today.. my shit is all over the place. mom?? help me?? 

oy. i don't know where to begin.. so in the mean time i'm going to make a list of all the things i'm going to miss about paris (the city, the program, etc)... so here goes:

-first and foremost, the people in my program. seriously. i lucked out with them. 

-having a chill roommate. 

-the excellent and cheap vintage shopping

-the way the city looks like artwork at night

-drinking by the seine

-navigo passes

-my freaking cool professor

-speaking french to strangers (if poorly)

-70 degree weather (but not the bipolar weather.. just better than the 102 degree weather i will be going home to)

-being able to have a glass of wine with my meal

-knowing the names of wines

-my RAs

-though there may not be an ATM on every corner, i'll miss that when you ask to get out 40 euro, it'll give you a 20 and two 10s. 

-the way people dress

-the cobblestone streets of the marais

-sleeping with the windows open

-the sun going down at 1030pm

-GOOD BREAD

-the boulangerie formule (a sandwich/quiche, drink, and a dessert for 5.50 euro!)

-the museums (particularly the pompidou and the picasso)

-being a short bus ride away from other cool european countries

-actually using a map to get around (it's an escape the the age of technology!)

-having my facebook in french

-the guy in my dorm who is constantly playing the piano and can be heard all throughout the building

-not watching TV. at all. (however, in my dvr at home, there awaits many a "So You Think You Can Dance?" episode.. much catch up)

-letting my hair air dry because i blew out my hairdryer the first night

-MACAROONS 

-and of course, blogging about all of these experiences here in paris :(

oy is this really the end?? guess i'll see y'all across the pond tomorrow! 

paris plages and outdoor cinema

i had a somewhat eventful tuesday. i've pretty much checked off most of my paris to-do list now. I'd been wanting to explore the "Paris Plages"--which is basically a "beach" on the Seine. it was actually kind of funny... they had random patches of sand along the river bank with chairs to lay out on and big pots of palm trees and ice cream stands scattered about the area. it looked kind of bizaree.. because people don't actually swim in the Seine.. they just wear bikinis near it. I took a healthy walk from the marias all the way to ponte des arts as i enjoyed a refreshing cone of coconut ice cream. 

that night we all migrated to the parc de la villette where the famous outdoor theatre is--or "cinéma en plein air"... didn't know about this before the blog, i swear. they were playing Mulholland Drive--a psychological thriller by David Lynch. movie blew my mind. no joke. i haven't seen a movie that good in a long time... i would highly recommend it. i can't really talk about the plot or anything like that.. because it will ruin it for you.. but trust me. just see it. 

what made it more enjoyable, of course, was the good company and good pic-nick food--the usual baguette and goat cheese with wine. mmmmmm... 

(the crowd was MUCH bigger than this when we were there... it filled the entire lawn)

the way i see it

                                                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                              my brother was kind enough to share this link with me, today, via facebook. it's an article in the new york times about the general museum crowd, and how no one actually takes the time to stop and look at the art anymore. too busy snapping pictures of pictures... 

it's worth reading if you have the time. if you've kept up with my blog, you'll know that i haven't taken any pictures of my own on my digital camera--and it's for the exact reasons mentioned in the article. i suppose that this blog is sort of like my way of having a  sketch book. my way of remembering what I actually experienced... without loosing some of the experience through the lens of a camera. so there.

all photos on this blog have been stolen from the google... credit given. 

the day a macaroon changed my life

so when you take a bite of a Pierre Hermé macaroon, you don't just taste it... you experience it. after touring the Musée de l'Orangerie (which we'll get to later, macaroons take priority), i stumbled upon this pastry shop i'd been hearing about from everyone. i ordered a set of 7 mini-macaroons, all different flavors, and headed on my merry way to the subway station where i planned to take my first bite. this was a bad plan of action... upon sinking my teeth into the delicate texture of a rose macaroon, i gave a little gasp and frantically looked around the metro car for someone who i thought might understand what i was going through. i was waiting for someone to look at me and nod his head, but i was never given this sort of comfort. i had to put the macaroons away until i got back to my dorm room--a more secure place to experience such a masterpiece of pastries. 

once i arrived i took a bite of every other flavor i got-- cassis, chocolate, vanilla with olive, passion fruit with chocolate, mint, peach with safran and apricot, and finally... jasmine. jasmine was by far my favorite. you have not experienced a macaroon until you have tried this one. i WILL find a way to bring some home with me.. this kind of experience needs to be shared. 

pop culture reference: in the last episode of season 2 of gossip girl, when chuck comes back from europe to bring blaire her favorite stockings from germany, her favorite macaroons from france... these are the macaroons he is talking about. i'm not joking. these macaroons are mentioned on gossip girl... they're THAT good.

so back to the l'orangerie... it's probably one of my favorite museums in paris. the top floor rooms consist of monet's massive water lily paintings, les nymphéas as they are called. the cool thing about these rooms is that they were designed according to monet's specifications. they're basically big ovular rooms with natural lighting, and the paintings form to the curve of the wall.... it's like monet in-the-round. 

downstairs consists of more artists from around that era: gaugin, modigliani, rousseau, picasso, cezanne, matisse, renoir, soutine, utrillo, and sisley ... it had a lot of stuff for a relatively small museum--a high concentration of just... really good art. apparently, most of the art downstairs came from two really major art collectors-- Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume, and there were a few rooms dedicated to recreating how these collections looked in the homes of these two men. paul guillame's wife was fortunate enough to have posed for many of these famous artists.

since my final exam schedule is so crazy, i sat at a cafe near the bastille for dinner and studied for a little while. i have an oral exam tomorrow, a written final exam on wednesday, and an oral presentation thursday.... !!!! help. me. i shouldn't even be blogging right now. not going out tonight (four nights in a row would be a little excessive)... but i only have 4 days left! don't remind meeeeeeee :(

début de la fin - deux

ok sorry about that… I just had a moment where I realized I was just too tired to type on a keyboard. I had to go to sleep right then and there.

Where did I leave off? Thursday night… Cuban jazz club was about it. I was pretty tired from the festivities the night before. BUT FRIDAY was pretty cool… went up to the little touristy neighborhood of montemarte near sacre-coeur where Picasso used to live. Lots of little shops and café’s… there’s a little square where a bunch of “artists” ask you to pay a stupid amount money for a portrait that doesn’t look like you. Do I sound bitter?? Don’t ask.

Other than that, the view is exceptional. You can pretty much see all of paris from there.

After that, we ventured off to explore the Ile-de-St-Louis… the more quaint of the two islands on the seine. You can pretty much see the whole thing in a span of 20 minutes. We sat at a café with a view of the notre dame  and then headed back to rest up for a night on the town.

We went to a very student oriented bar area near Odeon, and managed to get free drinks the whole night because a friend of mine somehow stumbled upon a tiara somewhere and pretended that it was her birthday. That usually doesn’t work, but I think the tiara gave it a more realistic effect.

Saturday I went to the pompidou to see the Kandinsky exhibit I’d been dying to see. I’m happy to say that it lived up to my expectations… the exposition was very ambitious. It followed practically his ENTIRE career. They had many famous pieces of course, but also some interesting, smaller works I never even knew existed. They had an entire room of these old newspapers where he had published extensive exposés on art alongside woodblock prints. who knew?

And that was what lead up to Saturday night's festivities… this would have worked out better logistically had I finished this post last night.. but here we are.

Right now I’m sitting in the Luxembourg gardens… blogging on location!!! hadn’t been until now, and I must say it’s quite breathtaking. The grass is so lush, I wish I could sit in it L… there are multiple statues, little ponds with fountains, and so many flowers that the park is actually fragrent. To top it off, there’s an orchestra concert going on in the background. “the young orchestra” it’s called… looks like high school students, but they sound pretty good.  

I can’t believe it’s my last week here. There’s so much that I still want to do.. must prioritize. 

début de la fin

i just completed my last saturday night in paris :( but it was super fun! we went salsa dancing on the Seine... it was really hot but then it started raining! somehow outdoor salsa and rain go together really well. it was like i was in a shakira music video. a nice frenchmen taught me all the moves, but i'm still no expert. 

after that we went to a club in the 2nd arrondissemont called "paris social club"... apparently it was some of the best techno music in paris.. idk what that means, just more arbitrary dance motions for me... but we had a really good time. at one point the dj made a mix with some piccolo music. there were many a neon light and the place was packed with trendy europeans. apparently ray-ban opticals have caught on here, too. 

BACK TRACK. where did i leave off before?? thursday. went to a free outdoor cuban rap concert at the jardin de belleville (belleville gardens)... they were actually pretty good! "rap" is a little bit of a stretch.. they were more reggae/reggaeton than rap, but i don't know if that translates in france. we picnicked on the grass and then got up to dance a little bit for their last set. i wanted to be best friends with the lead guy... he had dreads down to his butt and he utilized them well in his dance moves. i was very impressed. 

oyyy i'm tired.. will finish this post a little later. we have much to catch up on! 

the paris underground

sssssso. life in paris after amsterdam.. not too shabby. 

class was rough our first full day back. but we made ourselves a fancy night at "le 138"--a nouveau chic bar near the bastille with mismatched victorian furniture and vintage stevie wonder in the background. we certainly enjoyed ourselves. 

the next day i met up with a friend at the Institute du Monde Arabe (the Arab Institute, basically). she's a middle easter studies major and i was intrigued by the contemporary palestinian art exposition... and i had every reason to be. as with a lot of contemporary art, i didn't understand a lot of it. but the really excellent pieces made up for that. to the left is a still from a video installation by artist Larissa Sansour. the opening line of the short film was "Jerusalem, we have a problem" as she takes off in a spaceship towards the moon. very powerful. 

the architecture of the building was also very impressive (pictured below is a shot from the interior of the windows that make up the facade... interesting mix of traditional arab art and modern industrial materials)

that night we were all feeling a little rowdy so we had an american nostalgia night at the dorm... beer, beer pong, and flip cup. it got pretty intense. the only problem is that they don't sell red solo cups or any equivalent in france! our plastic cups were too small for beer pong, but flip cup worked out pretty well. i'm not used to playing games like that but it was actually pretty fun. 

"what is this?" you ask. they're bones. six million bodies worth of bones. a few centuries ago, the french government was doing work on the left bank of the seine near a cemetery. however, all the water work was washing up all the bodies... so they decided to move them all to one place underground--the CATACOMBES were born. they've been there this whole time, and now you can tour the mystique underworld for 4 euro... which we did, of course. it was kind of a gimmicky tourist trap, but the eeriness of it all made it kind of exciting.  

that night we ventured to the "bateau concorde atlantique"... a boat party club to make a long story short. it was a cool crowd... euro-hipsters and the occasional famous dj lurking in the corner trying not to be seen. i wore my new amsterdam leather mini-skirt--it was definitely a leather mini skirt night. fun music, but the drinks were expensive. we didn't get home till 4am.. so you know it was a pretty good night. 

ughhh can't wait for the weekend!!