Je ne parle pas Francais

 Bonjour all!

It has been a fantastic first week, but also quite a tiring and hectic one. While I (thankfully, knock on wood) have been feeling only tired from the jetlag, quite a few other people in my class have been under the weather, so I'm hoping and praying that I don't catch whatever seems to be going around.

I forgot to mention that on Sunday we were also taken to L'Hospital Carnivale, a small unassuming museum made out of an old mansion that tells the history of Paris. As much as I would have loved to enjoy that visit, I was way too jetlagged, as was the rest of the group. In fact, the guide scolded our professor for taking us so soon after our arrival, since she knew we wouldn't have the attention necessary to appreciate the museum! I'd like to go back there one day, because the rooms we did see were stunning, and half the other rooms were closed off. The rooms were decorated in the advancing styles of the ages, and I got some great pictures of that, and we heard lots of stories about guillotines and Marie Antoinette and Louis XIV, but honestly I don't remember much else.

Statue of Louis XIV as a Roman soldier... with a French wig!

The gardens outside the museum

Such intricate woodworking!

These facades were hand carved into the wall and then hand painted.

Love the color, love the fabric.

More great woodworking!

I don't remember the year/period this came from.

Closeup of the wall details!

Gotta love the mirror shots.

The furniture from Marcel Proust's bedroom!

Models of "humane" guillotines made out of what looks like bone.

On Tuesday evening, I went with some friends to the Tour Montparnasse, which, other than the Eiffel Tower, is the tallest building in Paris proper! You can pay to go to the balcony and get an amazing view of Paris! The nice thing is that normally to get a view like this you'd have to be IN the Eiffel Tower, and this way, our view was able to include the Eiffel Tower. The inside of the building had great pictures and information on Paris and the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

Step by step shots of the construction of the Eiffel Tower

We caught the light show at the beginning of the hour! (sorry for the blur)

We wanted it to be in height order to match the construction of the Eiffel Tower, but we really only had two very short people and four very tall people instead of a gradient. Oh, well.

View of Paris at night! You can really see how no other buildings even come close to the half the height of the Eiffel Tower.

On Wednesday, after class, we were taken to a wine tasting at a local wine shop. It was quite fancy, with delicious cheeses and bread laid out. We learned all about tannins, the difference between dry and sweet wine and how the winemakers harvest the grapes to get them dry or sweet, the different regions in France wines come from, and, of course, how to taste wine! The owner was this sweet grandfatherly older Frenchman who didn't judge us for knowing pretty much nothing about wine, which we were all grateful for.

Great-shaped vase for undrunk wine

On Thursday, we had an extra-long break between class and a review session, so I went with two of the people in my group to Musee de l'Orangerie, which is a small museum at the foot of the Tuileries Gardens. I had been spontaneously invited to this outing, so I had never heard of the museum and had no idea what to expect. After getting lost a bit (thanks, confusing Parisian signs!), we finally made our way there, getting a glimpse of the gardens on the way (if it's not too cold, I DEFINITELY want to come back and read/draw/study here).

The museum turned out to be one of the smallest and best-curated I've ever seen - everything about the building was designed to let as much natural light in as possible, and the exhibits were designed with as little fuss as possible, which let the art stand out on its own without information and placards and ropes and odd lighting getting in the way. The main part of the museum - and my favorite by far - were two large oval-shaped rooms, each with four enormous Monet paintings along the walls. No matter how hard I tried, my poor point-and-shoot camera simply would not capture his glorious colors, which for me is 97% of the point of his paintings, so I'll show you an overall shot of one of the rooms:

And ok, fine, here's a shot of one of the long paintings:

Yes, Mom, I will bring you here.

On Friday we went to the Menagerie and the Paleontology Museum of Comparative Anatomy. We went to the Menagerie to look at their orangutans, since one of our papers will be choosing an ape and discussing its life in captivity versus its life in the wild, and which one is desirable. I unfortunately forgot to charge my camera that day, so I have no pictures. The Paleontology Museum was possibly the most crowded museum I've ever been to, not in terms of people, but in terms of the exhibits. I loved it and would have spent much more time there. We were then left to wander on our own, so a bunch of us went to lunch (egg, tomato, and cheese crepe, yum!) and then headed back to the dorm for naps and relaxation. I wasn't tired enough to nap, but I definitely wanted to relax, so I set up the X-Files on Netflix and did some sample knitting for a pattern I had been sketching in class:

The start of my colorworking career! (haha)

Today the plan is to go to Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the gardens, etc. - just get all the big stuff out of the way in one go so that we can start exploring the rest of the city. If you are observing Yom Kippur, have an easy fast.

Love, Naomi

Un, Deux, Trois

Bonjour!

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!

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.

And so it begins...

Hello all and welcome to my travel blog! I'll post pictures and stories of my adventures in and around Paris while with the University of Chicago study abroad program. This is an easy way for me to update people, so check back here to find posts. I'm absurdly excited to be in this beautiful city, now that I've finally unpacked, settled in, and gotten some desperately-needed sleep. More posts soon to come! For now I'll leave you with a picture of the Eiffel Tower I took Saturday night during Nuit Blanche, a Parisian festival (also the background of this page).

Love, Naomi