Je vous presente mon ville, Paris!

Bonjour all!

It's been a while since I've posted because two weeks ago was the final exam for our first class, Apes and Human Evolution, and then I had a huge presentation to give today for our second class, Primate Evolution and, well, I've been lazy.

The past two weeks have been much less hectic than the first three. I didn't get to do as much sightseeing, but I got to explore the city as a resident, which is a whole different experience, one that's very interesting to learn about!

I went to Les Puces de Saint-Ouen at Porte de Clignancourt, which is the biggest flea market in the world (No, really! It covers almost three square miles) with a few friends on a beautiful Sunday morning.  I bought a purse and got to test out my French haggling skills. I think I need a bit more work; I'm sure I could have bought it for less, but it was fun to practice my numbers, since we had only just started learning how to count in French class. We spent the rest of the time browsing through stalls, especially some of the wacky furniture stalls, where we sat in all of the giant comfy chairs we could find. It was fun, but also quite overwhelming, and I think I enjoyed looking at the scenery around the market (people sitting outside eating baguettes and cheese and wine watching the crowds go by, the brightly painted buildings, the ivy) more than I liked the goods themselves, but then again, I've never been a good shopper.

That week was full of studying and writing (a paper, a practical slide exam, a written exam, and an in-class essay, all on the same day), but on Wednesday I did get to make an outing with two friends to a museum and a chocolate shop! The museum was Musée du quai Branly, which is right next to the Eiffel Tower. They are having an exhibit on the Maori, which I wanted to see for the tattoo art in addition to wanting to learn more about the native New Zealanders, but although our student IDs gave us free admission to the permanent museum exhibits, we would have had to pay for the Maori exhibit, and we didn't have the money on us at the time (Benny, Shaun, Rosie, Dewey - I'd love to hear about anything you've learned about the Maori, and if we go back I'll definitely let you know what I find out!), so we explored the rest of the museum. The main part seemed to be an anthropological display of native cultures around the world - Native American, African, ancient Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and I think Aztec and Maya. It was set up in a rather odd way: there were tons of different items, and each was displayed in a huge glass case that usually was standing on its own so that you could see 360 degrees, which was great, but they were organized rather haphazardly so that I felt no matter how systematically you tried to see the exhibit, you were bound to miss something. But we still enjoyed our time there, pointing out our favorite items (mine were the textiles and swords and weapons and books, my friend Maria's were the masks and boats and (also) swords and weapons).

After that, we went to a pastry shop I had read about online, called Dalloyau. It was a very fancy pastry, chocolate, and savory food shop, one of the ones where you walk in and inhale the scent of butter and dark chocolate. They are apparently famed for their macarons (two almond meringue cookies that have either jam or ganache sandwiched between, depending on the flavor), so I bought four small ones: chocolate, coffee, raspberry, and... earl grey! The chocolate and coffee were amazing, but the earl grey was the most interesting by far: just enough bergamot to let you know it's there, but sweet enough to feel like a dessert. And I was surprised that the raspberry was my favorite of all - the jam tasted like summer! My friends were equally enamoured.

This past Friday was field trip time! We went to a museum about an hour south of Paris to look at a special exhibit about a woman named Elizabeth Daynés, who creates reconstructions of extinct fossils in the early human lineages for museums. She has no formal training in anthropology or biology or archaeology or anatomy; she's a sculptor by trade who started out making set props for plays and is completely self-taught. It was incredible to see the depth of work that goes into these figures; she works with experts to determine what the flesh of the face might have looked like using only a skull, and can spend up to six months attaching every individual hair by hand. Her intersection of craftsmanship and science is incredible, and she's so talented that the figures really do seem alive! The museum itself was a really cool building; it wasn't very pretty on its own, but it had huge windows everywhere to let in lots of light and was set in a forest, where they placed plants that would have been consistent with the environment of the fossils on display, and the result was absolutely beautiful. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the outside of the museum looked like this:

Afterward, we went back to Paris and to the Galerie de Paléontologie et d'Anatomie Comparée. We took notes for a paper that I'll be writing soon, but we also had more time this visit to look around and goof off, hence this picture of my friend Maria and me standing in front of the primate skeletons:

and:

The museum itself is pretty awesome; here's a shot from one of the balconies on the upper floors:

After, most of our class went back to the cafe in the Mosque, and I remembered to take pictures this time!

This weekend, I was working on my big presentation for today (which went well, phew), but I did get to go wander around the Latin Quarter with some friends. We went back to the knitting store I've found here, and I got a picture of their alpaca yarns (top) and woolen yarns (bottom) - so gorgeous!

Other than that, I've been enjoying the beautiful weather, which I hope stays around for a while, biking to and from class, reading, and knitting. I've started a new long-term project called the Beekeeper's Quilt, which is made up of tons of tiny knitted hexagon pockets, dubbed hexipuffs, which are filled with stuffing and then attached to form a blanket. I've decided on a color scheme (black, grey, orange, yellow, turquoise blue, royal blue) and a pattern.

The brown will be grey... and for anyone wondering, it will require about 1300 hexipuffs. Yep, insane.

Anyways, that's about all I've got for now. If you're on the East Coast, I hope you have power and are surviving through the freak snow!

Love, Naomi