After starting classes and figuring out my schedule, I've found time to sit down and write about the past couple of days (this blog will be a great way for me to remember things about this trip, too). So, here we go!
The program I'm doing with UChicago is all about primates and human evolution. I'll be taking three classes on those topics, and we'll have field trips to museums and zoos. I'm staying here for ten weeks and while I do hope to travel outside of Paris, I want to focus on getting to know this city first.
My flight was Friday evening at 7:00, which was inconveniently the second day of Rosh Hashanah. My mom and I rushed to the airport from a nice lunch/reception at our friend Linda's house, and got to the airport entirely too early. After checking my bag (49.5 lbs woohoo! Just under the 50 lb weight limit), I said goodbye to my mom and waited in the airport to board the plane. The ride was relatively uneventful, and since it was an overnight trip, and we were going east and arriving in Paris in the wee hours of the morning, we got to see a beautiful sunrise (below)!
We arrived in Paris at about 9 am, and I took the train from Charles de Gaulle airport to my new home in the Cite Universitaire, which is a beautiful international campus on the southern edge of Paris for visiting students with many different buildings named after countries or parts of France. I'm in the Maison des Provinces de France (French Provinces House). After checking in, I unpacked and relaxed before meeting the rest of the group and taking a tour of the local neighborhood. We are in the 14th arrondissemont (section), which has tons of great restaurants and bars and grocery and supply stores. It's very quiet and peaceful and un-touristy, which is nice because we can get cheap(er) food here! But we are also very close to quite a few metro stations, and since Paris is fairly small, it doesn't take long to get anywhere.
After taking a tour and buying a metro pass, a couple of people from my group went to dinner and wandered around the neighborhood. We stumbled onto a small group of people dressed in costumes in the street singing and dancing. I'm guessing that they were wearing traditional French country clothing and showing some kind of festival performances, although it seemed very unofficial. They did a dance around the maypole, in which they danced around while holding ribbons, weaving them into a complex pattern around the pole - the coordination was so impressive!
Later that night my friend Gareth and I went to the Parisian festival Nuit Blanche, in which Paris opens up galleries and churches and museums for free from 7pm to 7am, and everyone goes out for the whole night and runs around having fun. We started out at Notre Dame:
They were having an organ concert inside with three men singing along, which was amazing! The pipe organ was gargantuan:
Unfortunately, that was when my jet lag started kicking in, and I realized that sitting down comfortably would be a bad idea, so we left and walked to the Louvre. The building and the plaza with the pyramid were absolutely stunning at night; I can't wait to go back during the day and see it in the sun!
It's kind of hard to tell, but that's the pyramid in front of the Louvre. This was when I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower (see our shadows?):
So we decided to walk to the tower, thinking it wasn't very far. How wrong we were! Although Paris' architecture is grand, it has very few tall buildings, and so the Eiffel Tower is visible from very far away. It took us about an hour, meandering and stopping along the way to look at buildings and shops and the Siene, but we eventually made it there!
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| Underside shot! |
Standing beneath the tower made me feel appropriately tiny. We got there a bit too late to climb up or take the elevator, but I definitely plan to come back soon and climb up as far as they'll let me go. I got way too tired after that and went home and crashed.
Sunday was a tour of our classroom campus on the Siene in the 13th - I'm a commuter now! It takes about half an hour to get from home to class, whether you're taking the subway or the public bike system, Velib.
Monday we started classes - the first three weeks are Apes and Human Evolution. We have a very small class (12 people), which is nice. Then I get a three hour break (three hours!!!) to eat lunch, study, wander around, etc., before my French class. Thankfully, I'm not the only person who knows absolutely zero French: there are two whole classes of complete beginners. After class, I biked back to campus with a friend and met up with a friend who will be studying here for the year. We got bread, fruit, jam, cheese, and wine, and had a little picnic on the main lawn of the campus - felt very Parisian! So far, it's been a great start to the quarter.
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