Hello again! Here comes another one of those really long posts that I end up doing after panicking over how many days I've gone without writing on my blog!
So I'm not gonna lie, for various reasons this past week hasn't been the easiest. But I don't really want to focus on the things that have made it hard, because there have been so many times that I've felt insanely blessed to be here as well. So, here's to a blog post full of positive thinking--not because bad things always need to be erased, but because for my sake, I could use some positivity right now.
Positive Event #1: on Monday, we spent our Art History class walking around the Louvre and discussing the various aspects and development of Renaissance art, and how we could see them in works by Da Vinci and others. (Totes saw the Mona Lisa too, btw.) Why is that so great, you ask? Well, first of all, the Louvre is GORGEOUS, but secondly because that means you get more Incorrect Caption Hour!
I honestly don't think I'm capable of stopping at this point.
Anyway, another good thing that happened was visiting the crepe shop next to the Pompidou, the really good one, and going inside for dinner. Nutella, strawberries, and whipped cream on a crepe make me happy:
Also, while this wasn't quite as happy of a story at the time, on Monday night on the way home from Paris, I really had to go to the bathroom--couldn't wait to get home. So Anisa, Anna, Quincy and I all got off the train and they nicely waited for me while I scampered around trying to find a bathroom in the metro station.
Fun fact: bathrooms are extremely scarce in Paris. I think that's the case in a lot of big cities, but seriously, in Paris it's a rule that if you see a bathroom, you go. Doesn't matter if you went twenty minutes ago, doesn't matter if you feel like you don't have to--you go, because it's quite possible that that could be the last restroom you'll see all day.
Anyway, that did not bode well for me. I was running around looking for a bathroom (because the metro had signs that just stated 'bathroom' but no directions for how to get there) and ended up running up all three levels of escalators only to still be unable to find one. In desperation, I walked into a Crossfit gym (it was about 9:30 at night at this point, btw) and asked the guy at the counter, "Est-ce que vous avez une toilette que je peux utiliser?"
He looked at me for a second--I'm sure I looked awful, sweaty, and white-faced--and then said expressionlessly, "Oui--pour cent euros."
Okay, pause for a second. For anyone who doesn't know, cent euros=100 euros. In my brain, though, my exhausted, stressed-out brain that was very urgently focusing on a bathroom, I somehow thought that 'cent' meant 'cents,' and he was asking for ten cents for the bathroom. I was like, okay, that's reasonable. So I went to reach into my wallet.
I heard him snort, and when I looked up he was grinning. "Je rigole," he said. "C'est la-bas." He pointed to a door that said 'toilettes.'
My face went from white to red very quickly, and I just said "Merci" and hurried to the bathroom.
I was so relieved to have found a bathroom that it took me a few minutes to realize the full implications of what had happened--I had just reached into my wallet when he'd said 'cent euros,' so to him, it must have looked like I was some extremely rich girl to whom a hundred euros was petty cash. He basically thought I was like the guy from this vine:
Oh well. At least the guy was nice about it.
Anyway, on to Tuesday! It was, again, not very eventful. I had to go grocery shopping, so I didn't spend much time in Paris. I thought you might like to have a look at the cool train station I go into every day to get home, though:
Ooooh, fancy, huh?
Wednesday was awesome. I'm just gonna put that out there, it was straight-up awesome. I went on a Paris walk with Caroline, Kate, and our professor, his wife, and two of their kids. It was walk number 6, Sights and Smells around the Madeleine. and everything about it was fabulous.
First fabulous thing: the flower markets lining the street next to the Madeleine, which is a huge church in the Neo-Byzantine style. So many beautiful flowers!
Gorgeous arrangements! Adorable little cacti/succulents! Roses in colors that I didn't even know roses could grow in! Just . . . !!!!
I love flowers.
I also love big old buildings, so the Madeleine did not disappoint.
This place is quite the eclectic piece of work. It looks more like a Roman temple than a French church from the outside--but from the inside it's straight-up reminiscent of mosques in Turkey:
Seriously, apart from the lack of mihrab, this place's big arched domes look a ton like pictures I studied last semester for my Humanities of Islam class.
Another cool thing about the Madeleine--it apparently houses one of the city's best pipe organs:
Oh, c'mon, you knew I was gonna make that reference.
The Madeleine is perched pretty high up on top of a bunch of stairs, which means excellent views across the way:
FYI: Cars along this particular roundabout honk louder than pretty much anything I've ever heard in my life. Hooo-whee.
Next up on our walk was a stop at Laduree, which is an extremely famous French pastry shop that opened in the late 1800s.
Not only does it win the most-adorable-window-display-ever contest, it's also the place that invented the macaroon, so of course we had to stop in and try a few of their signature flavors.
(Sorry for my face . . . I look extremely tired for some reason? Anyway.)
In this bag are three cookies, all different flavors: chocolate, blackcurrant-violet, and rose petal. Laduree is particularly famous for their rose petal macaroons, which are supposed to taste the way roses smell. I know, that sounds kind of impossible, but I'm here to attest that it's true. It was like my mouth had a Eureka! moment to eat that thing, let me tell you. Definitely a unique experience--although to be honest, my favorite was blackcurrant-violet. Fruity and delicious!
Along our walk, I was reminded again of the almost obscene amount of beauty that's just casually everywhere in Paris. Like, I almost can't believe how cute everything is. Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Our final stop for this walk was the Fragonard perfume museum, which was absolutely adorable, as well as really informative.
I never really knew how much work goes into making perfume, and this tour did a really good job of explaining it.
For instance, when all the essences from flowers/trees/whatever are gathered and distilled, they're arranged like tiny people in a stadium so that the perfumist (I don't know if that's the right word or not) can pick and choose each one to create the desired scent. Coincidentally, it's also called the organ:
I'm sorry, I just love that picture.
We also got to see a lot of antique perfume bottles, some of them from the 1700s or even earlier, that were representative of the priorities that people placed on their perfume. Sometimes, the perfume bottles were even more expensive than the perfume itself!
We also took a look at the various decorations/designs that would go on the outsides of perfume boxes. One of my favorites was this little tiny ballerina:
After the tour ended, we had the opportunity to buy perfume at a discounted price. However, since 'discounted' in France means 'still hecka expensive,' I opted out for the time being. I'll definitely want to come back, though, as I found a scent that I thought was really unique and I'd love to have for myself. And here's me with a bunch of different eau de toilettes/beauty products! Everything here was so cute and neatly laid out.
Shout out to the random Pegasus statue outside the museum:
At this point our walk was done, so we started walking in the direction of the nearest metro station. And on our way, as if the day could get any better:
Hello, Opera House!
I really really love that building.
That's basically the end of Wednesday--although I think it's important to mention that Wednesday was the first day that I started seeing these everywhere:
In case I forgot to mention it, this fall marks the 30th anniversary of the musical Phantom, and as part of the celebration they're staging it--for the first time ever--in French, in Paris. Which, of course, I'm going to go see in October, so major squealing about that.
If you want a reaction image for how I feel about the whole Phantom-in-Paris thing, look no further than this picture that I took of an oddly anthropomorphic squiggle on the RER on Thursday morning:
It's-a me!
Thursday was again a more relaxed day. We went to class, and I munched on this yummy sandwich with Indian spices and flavoring:
Thanks, Maddie and Larissa, for taking me there!
Also, I would just like to submit that every time I see colorful doors here in Paris, I think of my mom. So, Mom, this one is for you!
After school on Friday, I went with Kate to the Louvre, because I had some homework to do for my art history class. We're assigned to do object studies, which means choosing a couple of art pieces from an assigned list and staring at them for an hour to try to analyze the different choices that went into making the art, how they are reflective of the artistic styles of their respective time period, etc.
My first study was of this thing, a vase known as Suger's Eagle:
One of the suggestions on the syllabus is to try sketching the artwork, to get a feel for how the artist might have gone about making it. I decided to give it a go:
Idk, am I doing this right?
Anyway, the Louvre was gorgeous, as always. I took this shot from inside a window, so sorry for the hand-reflection in the corner, but it's still beautiful, isn't it?
After the Louvre, Kate and I were going to go to another museum, but I ended up splitting up from her to head back home. Thanks for accompanying me that far, Kate! You're cool.
Anyway, I was gonna go home, but then I had the idea to go to the Place de l'Opera again and see if I could find the Theatre Mogador, which was supposedly just a little ways away from the Opera House.
I'm not gonna lie, I got a little lost along my walk and went too far down the wrong road. But it was okay! It meant that I ended up at this really beautiful old church:
And after sitting down on a park bench and consulting a map, I was able to find my way back on track, and a short while later . . .
TA-DAAA! I was so proud of myself for finding it. I'll be going there soon!
(Side note that I found out after I'd written this: there was a fire this morning (Sunday) in the basement of the Mogador, this theatre, which damaged/destroyed some of the sets and costumes for the show. This means that the opening will most likely have to be postponed--not sure how long yet, or what this is going to mean for my ability to go. But anyway, I thought it was important to mention. I really hope that nobody got hurt!)
Friday night was also an adventure, although not in the way I originally planned it to be. I was going to meet up with Rachel to go to a YSA dance in Versailles, only the two of us couldn't figure out how to get there, because it involved riding a RER line that neither of us had been on before, and so after two and a half hours of riding trains and becoming sequentially more lost, we decided to just give up and go home. But it wasn't a total waste! We talked a lot, got to see the Eiffel Tower at night from the window of the metro:
And had our own little party in spite of getting super lost. Thanks for making Friday night so fun, Rachel! You rock.
(Also: at least three different people came up to us and asked us for directions, and we were just like, 'lol dude we have no clue, we're hecka lost too,' so that was fun.)
And then there was Saturday.
Oh, Saturday; the day of sleeping in late and not having to go to class. I like Saturday. This Saturday was extra fun, too, because I spent my afternoon making THIS:
Ladies and gentlemen, my first-ever vlog!
Well, of a sort. My parents said they wanted a tour of the town I live in, so I happily obliged. My camera work is shaky, and I literally threw all the clips together into a relatively incoherent mess, but I had fun making it, so that's what counts!
Last little bit of Saturday: I went into town with Anna, Grace, and Anisa to get dinner, because a bunch of other people were going to a concert and we didn't want to feel left out. I got this really yummy salad with chicken:
And to close, I would like to submit a conundrum: I have no idea whether I like Paris better during the day, or at night. Because I passed over the same bridge to go eat and then, later, to get back on the metro and go home. I got two different shots of Pont Neuf at different times of day. First, late afternoon:
Then, evening:
Some people would say that nighttime wins, no contest. But for me, there are things that I love about both images, and I don't think I can really pick a favorite. The only thing I can say is this: I love Paris. I really, really love it. And even on days when things are hard, days when gym workers tell me I gotta pay 100 euros to use the bathroom and nothing seems to go right, I can still keep going, because I know I'm in the right place.
Our song for today is not really about Paris, but it is composed by a French man, Alexandre Desplat: "River Waltz," from the movie The Painted Veil.
This song came on on my Spotify the other day, and I totally fell in love with it. This song sounds the way walking along the side of the Seine on Saturday felt: calm, and peaceful, and absolutely right.
I'm so grateful that I get to be here in France. You, there reading my blog: Wherever you are in the world and in life right now, I'm sending you my good energy. Sometimes things in life get really, really hard, and pushing through it feels like the last thing we want to do, but I believe in you--you can do it! I hope my good energy helps you. I know I've needed good energy this week.
Well, that's all from me for now. Thanks for reading! See ya next time.
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