The Time People Said "Joyeux Anniversaire!"

Today marked my birthday, but we also heard the news about the Supreme Court ruling in support of same-sex marriage. What a big day!

Our class trip began at 9 a.m. with a bus ride to Chartres, a town 50 km south of Paris. It was supposed to be a hot day in Paris, so we were glad to have slightly less heat there. Teo took us to Chartres to show us the cathedral, which he said was built as a monument to Mary. Since it's the only cathedral built within one generation (25 years), he said it's a perfect example of gothic architecture because new adornments were not added as years passed. It was a lot simpler than Notre Dame but still had the rose windows to let in light.

The inside was simply gorgeous. Stained glass panels all around, and huge arches reaching to the ceiling. I was really interested to see that different parts of the walls were different colors - some dirtier and darker than others, while the center was a pristine white. Teo said it just depends on the cleaning; people have cleaned the main hallway around the altar, but some side walls were blackened from pollution and smoke over the years (it's not a shadow!).

He told us the way we see medieval churches and buildings now is not how they saw them, because they were painted with bright colors all over, and were made of white limestone typically. Now the paint as worn off and we see a grayish stone color. I can't imagine the Chartres cathedral all painted in color - it was huge with many details.

For lunch, we found a café called Le Serpente where I ordered ravioli and creme brûlée - I think this was my first official dessert from a restaurant and it was, of course, crunchy on top and custardy below. One of my friends had been wanting French onion soup for a while because, well it's France, and she finally found some there.

For our afternoon walk, we toured the small town of Chartres, which is a medieval village with buildings that are 700 years old. They were built of wooden beams and reminded me of Sleeping Beauty's house. One especially pretty part was a river that flowed through the town under small bridges.

Back at our hotel, we rested for a couple hours before going to dinner. I went with two girls to an Italian place we found on Yelp called Gusto Italia. Teo jokingly shook his head at us for choosing Italian in France, but hey it's the closest I've ever been to Italy!
And the restaurant was actually perfect - it was a very cozy place near the Eiffel Tower with very friendly employees. It was really funny because we had some trilingual thing going on, where we speak broken French and they know we're English so they speak broken English, but then the menu items were in Italian and the employees would say some things in Italian. It was complicated but humorous.
We all three ordered specials - they had shrimp dishes and I had risotto 4 fromage. It was very amazing and rich and cheesy. Their seafood meals were very flavorful, too, which was a nice change from simplistic, classic French food. We aren't complaining, but it was good to change it up - and the employee brought us a free grilled veggie entree.

Though tiny little bugs came out at dusk, we all really liked this restaurant and agreed it was our favorite so far. It started to sprinkle a bit, but felt good in the humid air.
For dessert, we shared a nutella tiramisu because the employee recommended it. It was deliciously soft and creamy and not too overpowering.

Following Parisian customs, we'd eaten dinner from 8 to 10:30 p.m. so it was finally beginning to get dark when we left. From there, we just walked around Paris a bit to see the city of lights at night. We passed by the lit up Eiffel Tower and decided to take the metro to Bastille to see it in the evening. There were a lot of cafés and bars open with beautiful lights, but we didn't stay in the area long before coming back.
One thing I like about Paris is how active it is at night because the sun sets so late, at least in the summer. Everyone is always walking along the river or in a park at 11 p.m., which makes the city seem more alive.

The Time Art History Was Useful

Today our walk and lecture were integrated, so at 10 a.m. we took the metro to Bastille. A statue marked the place where the revolutionaries stormed during the French revolution.

This area still has many furniture stores today. Teo also said that Bastille is a really hip, young area of Paris with a lot of nightlife. I think it's interesting that each neighborhood of the city has its own flavor or signature. Bastille was a bit more modern than the other neighborhoods, which is still less modern than American cities. It just seemed a little more metropolitan and new. 

For lunch, we stopped at a daily market that, like the market by our hotel, blew my mind. It was blocks of flowers like peonies and fruits like cherries and peaches. An inside portion contained a seafood market and cheeses and milk and other animal products. It's pretty strange to see a huge counter of ice with crabs and oysters and scallops. 

We decided to get cheese breads at the bakery nearby, because we couldn't cook the seafood obviously. I had a ficelle lardon that the baker warmed up - she was very friendly to us and let us use her bathroom in the back. Even though it was so tiny that my legs touched the door and we didn't know how to flush it, we were grateful that she was so nice to us. I also found pleasure in watching her regular customers come in and speak French to her, as she cut a slice off a huge loaf of ciabatta or tossed them a baguette. 

The next part of our walk was in a park that was transformed from old railroad tracks, so it was suspended above the city as a long path with plants all around. A clever way to add nature to a city, in my opinion. 

The last thing on our sweltering walk (it was in the 80s I believe!), was the train station Gare de Lyon. Teo said around the 1800s, the train stations were like palaces or often nicer. This was true - I could've sworn the inside was in a movie at some point, because of the architecture and high ceilings and trains lined up ready to take off. Like many parts of Paris, the picture doesn't do it justice. 

By peeping into a restaurant inside the station, we spotted a painted ceiling with gold adornments. 

After the station, we were on our own for the afternoon and evening. A group planned to go to Musee D'Orsay so we took the metro and dragged ourselves in the heat through the Louvre's exterior, across the river, to the D'Orsay museum. The museum, it turns out, is also inside an old train station with a huge clock watching over the sculptures below. Each floor has a different era or artist, so we split up to prioritize the ones we wanted to see. 

My favorite floor (which was five rooms) was the impressionist, maybe because those are the ones I learned about in modern art class fall quarter. Nonetheless, it was amazing to see Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Gauguin and Courbet, who were some of the main artists from the class. I loved witnessing their unique styles as they progressed through time. 

It's unfortunate that we'd been walking for four hours prior, because my feet hurt so bad while I was looking at the museum. We stayed for two hours - of course we didn't see everything but I'd say I saw a lot and everything I really wanted to see. At the end, I walked around fiercely trying to find Olympia and finally found the last painting on my mental list. 

I was also surprised to see how big these paintings were! In my class, we didn't know the scale, but in person many of the most famous ones were the size of a wall, like Manet's Luncheon on the Grass.    

For dinner, we stopped at a nearby cafe, away from the tourist areas. The four of us ordered salads because we needed some vegetables and had just nibbled breads for lunch. They were actually good - mine had ham and swiss cheese on it too. Oh, and I almost forgot - we stopped at Amorino's for flower-shaped gelato down rue du Commerce.

The Time of Tea Time

The farmers market made another appearance today, which means delicious apple juice, an apple turnover and cherry tomatoes for breakfast. We had lecture in the Champ de Mars in the shadow of the Tour Eiffel about the cultural renaissance, as a puppy played fetch with a stick nearby.
A group decided to get an early lunch at a sandwich shop around the corner from the hotel, where Teo recommended a combo of a sandwich, dessert and drink for 7,00 euros. I had the best ham and cheese panini on a baguette, a pear tart and a soda called Oasis tropical. The panini was the best I've ever had - not classic American with the grill marks and flat ingredients pressed inside; instead, it's a warmed roll with gooey cheese of the best flavor. I can't place the taste, maybe it's just really good mozzarella.

The goal of our afternoon was to go to Sainte Chapelle to see the stained glass windows, but after we took the metro, we saw that it was closed until 2:15 and we had class at 3. We thought we would come back and go for half an hour. A couple girls wanted to go to a stationary shop "across the street" then get in line for Sainte Chapelle, but this store ended up being a mile away across the entire neighborhood. So, we spent 30 minutes being dragged to this bookstore where they bought journals that are also sold at the Monoprix next to the hotel. And by then it was too late to see the church because a huge line already formed at Sainte Chapelle. Instead, those girls left and a couple of us broke off to just explore outside Notre Dame so the time wasn't completely wasted. We decided not to do things in big groups anymore.

On our class walk, we explored more rues (streets). One was Hemingway's house from the 1920s, which required an uphill trek in the sun to reach. I noticed the little shutters of his little building. I love that all the buildings in Paris are so close together, so walls touch and create weird overlaps - you could jump roof to roof I bet.

Since today's "theme" if you will was Roman ruins, we also saw a "treat" as Teo called it - the ruins of a gladiator ring where lions used to fight. Now it's used as a play area for children's soccer and such.  

Another stop was at Teo's old apartment, when he lived here for two months one summer. The doors of Paris, let me tell you, are beautiful. Every building is practically an apartment and practically every apartment has a grand, high door. They're blue or classic wooden or intricate iron, for example. He opened the door to his apartment and we got to walk around the courtyard - a charming and beautiful villa area that reminded me of a tropical vacation - completely silent and fragrant. The courtyards of Paris might just be my favorite element. 

The final stop on the tour was the botanical gardens, which also host buildings that Teo said contain fossils in a history museum. 

The grounds of the garden were gorgeous and pleasant, like walking through a Jane Austen set. I've talked with other students and we all agree that walking around Paris feels like walking on a movie set because the architecture is so perfect and the ground is sometimes that light sandy gravel like in Western films. 

There was a nearby mosque and Teo said the adjoining café is good, so some of us stopped to have some mint tea and desserts in the afternoon. It was 6,00 euros for the best mint tea I've had, a pistachio turkish delight and a moon-shaped powdered sugar cookie that the employee recommended when I asked. I appreciated the atmosphere for its fairy garden meets desert vibe.

Dinner is becoming a struggle as we continually cannot decide where to go because many of the cafés have similar menu items - salad, bread items, and steaks. On the other hand, I feel bad eating any food besides Parisian food here because I should take advantage of it. But I can only eat bread for so long. One girl tried a caprese entree, and I had duck and green beans which was a much-needed break from carbohydrates.