Monday was class as usual, I still feel like I'm on vacation so other than showing up at class, I don't put in a lot of effort (I know some of this isn't what a parent would want to hear but I'm just reporting the facts). After class Anna and I headed over to the Champs Elysee to see if she could find a winter coat on sale. We ended up spending several hours in United Colors of Beneton where I found a coat and Anna found some shoes and a dress. We were followed by security guards at one point, I regret to say that we did not provide any entertainment for them. That night Anna introduced fruit soup to Cara, Brandon and I... a delicious concoction of yogurt, orange juice and lime poured over chopped fruit.
On Tuesday Anna and I went to the Latin Quarter and walked around a little bit and found a cafe to camp out at. We journaled, wrote post cards and sketched... we are both on a quest to improve our artistic abilities while in Paris, so far its slow going. When Cara got out of class, we met for a snack and then went to see a movie called La Voyage du Ballon Rouge. Despite the fact that the film was in French with no English subtitles, we were able to get the general gist of the film and even then we found it soporific (I literally fell asleep for a few minutes). It was one of those artsy fartsy films with 30 minutes of footage of a red balloon floating through the air and lots of unresolved conflict... we decided the novelty of the movie was that nothing actually happened for 2 hours. Post this disappointment, we decided we needed a break from french food and set out to find a way to make Asian food. We were able to pull together fried rice an even found a wok for 5 euro at Franprix, victory! After a satisfying meal, we met several people from our Abroadco group at a bar called FUBAR for Maggie's 21st birthday. The novelty of this place: Tuesday nights are Happy Hour all night. It was ok although most of the bar was filled with American students.
Wednesday brought class again and afterwards Anna, Cara and I met to visit the Picasso museum. It was smaller than I expected but I loved it all the same. The architecture was beautiful and its ornate nature was an interesting juxtaposition to Picasso's art. The museum featured a lots of sculpture which I liked seeing up close (I was able to see the variety of mediums he used), especially his goat. We wandered around the Marais after visiting Picasso and found a cute little Spanish tapas place so we stopped for a coffee, sketched and read. For dinner, Lauren got up the courage to be the first of our group to attempt baking in France. Apparently they don't have baking powder or soda in France (that she could find) but she managed to make 2 loaves of banana bread that were thoroughly satisfying.
Thursday was beautiful and sunny so I walked over to Hotel des Invalides and sat on a bench in the topiary garden and sketched the museum. The tricky thing about sunny days in Paris is that they fool you into thinking its going to be warm but you still need 3 layers and a scarf to ward off the chills. When Anna got out of class, she and I met at our favorite cafe we call Club Sexy or Sexy Bar (we don't know its real name) for a snack and some prime people watching. We got chilly after a while and decided to visit the oldest bakery in Paris, something my Parisian friend Florent pointed out to me one day. It was fun to see but didn't stand out to my taste buds. I tried a chocolate eclair which was way too chocolaty for me and I felt like I needed to run a marathon afterwards to make up for the amount of calories I consumed. Anna made herself sick by eating both an almond croissant (she is on a quest to find the best one in Paris) and a macaroon. Cara got her classic ham and cheese combination in the form of quiche lorraine. We decided it would be a good idea to walk to the Musee D'Orsay to attempt at justifying our pastry stop. This museum is free for students on Thursday nights so we thought we'd say hi to a few famous guys for an hour or two. I saw some photos of Comtess de Castiglione (I wrote a paper on her photos hence my interest) and visited Manet's Dejeuner sur L'herbe which was a kick to see in person. We went upstairs to visit the Impressionists and saw Degas, Pissaro, Monet, van Gogh among others. It was crowded and there is only so much impressionism I can take before I feel overloaded so we got out of there after about an hour. It was a great museum and I cant wait to go back and see more. We were still tired of french food last night so we decided to check out a Thai place that one of my travel books recommended. Unfortunately when we arrived we discovered that it had been replaced by an Italian place, damn! So we went to Montparnasse where we know there are a ton of options and settled on tex-mex at a place called Indiana (why the French think Indiana is the home of tex-mex is a mystery to me but it was nice to eat guacamole and drink margaritas).
Today was fairly uneventful although I did go to the dry cleaners and dropped off some shirts without incident (I was expecting some sort of miscommunication disaster but i did ok). Tomorrow we leave for Brittany and Normandy. I was supposed to get internet today but yet again Abroadco fell through and i am left to harass my friends for use of their computers. More later! XO
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