Although we are much more accustomed to the Métro and the RER than we were a few days ago, we (I?) still have a few blips here and there. I swiped my pass and accidentally tried to swipe it again for reasons unbeknownst to me, so it denied my pass and the subway doors closed. I stood there like an American in Paris (a phrase that to me currently means a deer in headlights) until a nice French boy asked, “Tu viens avec moi?” (“Come in with me?”) and so I got to sneak in with him. Merci beaucoup :]
In class, which is everyday 10:00 am-1:00 pm, we had a guest lecturer, Kelly Conway. She is a film professor at UW and is currently in charge of the study abroad program in Aix-en-Provence. We talked about the origins of cinema (which, bien sûr, began in France with the Lumière brothers) and watched some Lumière/Mèliès clips. Stuff we’d all seen in CA 250, but a good refresher I guess. Jetlag still plagued a few of us so the lecture was difficult to get through, but we made it. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to watch “Un chien andalou” (my favorite avant-garde film), which was on the syllabus for the day.
After class we decided to go to the grocery store. But a crafty young girl on a razor scooter (yes, those are huge here) divided our 9-person group into two and we split up. So our then 5-person group turned around and got very cheap sandwiches for lunch (3,70 euros). This was followed by a walk back to ACCENT to use the computers for a little while, but we were scolded by a man working there, saying “It’s a beautiful day out right now kids, and the weather in Paris changes seasons about five times per day, so get out!” (The weather thus far has actually been quite nice. No rain except today, which we slept through most of.)
And so we did, and decided to walk to the Louvre. We got to see a large portion of the city (walked from the Bastille to the Louvre), but in retrospect it wasn’t such a great choice for our feet. People always complain about the amount of walking that occurs in a trip to the Louvre. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if we hadn’t just walked eight miles throughout the day (according to my phone), but we had. Our feet were dying in the Louvre.
KT meets IM Pei.
One boy and I forgot our ACCENT passes, which say that we are Art History majors and will get us into all museums for free. The tour guide heavily scolded us, and hoped we would be able to get in. We flashed our IDs at the security guard and we got in fine. The tour guide was most pleased, saying “When I saw zat ze security guard was black, I thought he would be cool.” The guide proved increasing awesomeness throughout the tour, saying things like “ (disgustedly) Ugh, I have never been able to skeeeep ze Mona Liza in a tour.”
We saw a very small portion of the museum. Greek works (including Venus de Milo), French works (Neoclassicism – notably David and Ingres! And Romanticism – Géricault and Delacroix), and of course the Mona Lisa. We also saw some Michelangelo statues, and the area that used to be a moat around the Louvre. It was amazing to see a lot of the paintings that we had to memorize in high school, and even more amazing to see their true sizes – a few of the most famous David take up an entire wall (almost 70 square meters!), and so do the most famous by Géricault. Crazy! I look forward to going to le Musée d’Orsay next week to see Impressionist paintings.
After the Louvre we headed to the Champs Elyssées for dinner (great idea, right?). We ate at the cheapest place we could find. I managed to get a fairly cheap meal (three deviled eggs for 6,30 euros), followed by a not-so-cheap dessert (8,90).
On the subway there was a saxophone player. There have been so many saxophone players playing on the Métro/on the streets in the past two days – we saw five today! Out of the five, one has been decent. The one we saw yesterday was not that guy. This guy busted out his soprano and played a God awful rendition of “The Entertainer,” and then an even God awfuler rendition of “Isn’t She Lovely?” and “Hello Dolly.” I was about to curse him and his ability to breathe into his instrument when he began to (attempt to) play “Fly Me to the Moon.” I thought, “So he plays one good tune? I can still hate him.” Then he played “Girl from Ipanema.” So then I couldn’t hate him anymore.
I used to think I walked a lot in Madison, but apparently I didn’t. Here are the walking totals this week from my phone:
Tuesday: 5.4 miles (didn’t do much)
Wednesday: 9.0 miles
Thursday: 10.5 miles
Friday: 10.6 miles
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