Paris Wanderings

I started one class last Monday and the rest are slowly starting up, so in the meantime I have continued to explore Paris. With hundreds of museums, there is always something to do here! Here a are few photos from the past week.

This painting was part of a grafitti exhibit at the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art museum located across the river from the Eiffel Tower. I also visited the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, which presents the major trends in today's art.




On my way to pick up my placement test result in the Latin Quarter.



Snowy Paris from the bus to the Latin Quarter.



Overlooking the Seine.




The Centre Pompidou, the very controversial building that houses the National Modern Art Museum of Paris as well as a large public library.




The Louvre from a boat ride on the Seine.



The Eiffel Tower during the day...


and at night.

Ma Famille d’Accueil

I’ve been in my homestay for almost a week and a half now and I love it! Nathalie, my host mother, picked me up and Victoire (14) and Prosper (10) greeted me at their house to give me a tour. I then met my two other host siblings Gaspar (18) and Celeste (17). I am living in the Bastille, or the 11th arondissement of Paris, about a 10-minute walk from the center for my program. The location is perfect! I have dinner four or more nights a week with my host family as well as breakfast every day. I am still adjusting to the rapid dinner table conversations and most often only pick up on the general topics. I understand pretty much everything when I am having a conversation with one or two of them, but my host brothers and sisters are very difficult to understand because they speak incredibly quickly. I have learned so many more words just in the past week and a half including many new food vocab words. My host mother is a fantastic cook and dinner every night consists of: soup, main course, bread, salad, cheese, dessert, and of course wine. I am growing more and more comfortable each day living here and speaking French. They all speak a little English and I think my host father, Pierre, speaks it pretty fluently, but they know I am here to learn French so we don't speak English. I just got done with a large Sunday lunch and Nathalie asked me if I would be willing to give my youngest host brother occasional English lessons, to which I of course agreed. I know teaching him English will help me improve my French even more, and I am looking forward to getting to know my family even better over the next 3 and a half months.

My Bedroom

The courtyard

My house

First Week in Paris

Hi everyone. Sorry it has taken me a few days to get started, but this will be my blog for my four months in France. If you want me to send out an e-mail everytime I update, let me know and I will make a group so I can do so easily. Or just save it as a bookmark and check in once in a while to see what I’m up to. Feel free to e-mail me if you want me to talk about anything specific in my entries. Enjoy!

My arrival in France last Friday morning went smoothly. My good friend Alex who I lived with this semester at American University is also studying in Paris this semester and she arrived in January, so she met me at Charles de Gaulle with chocolate croissant and sign in hand. We took a cab to my hotel and I checked in. I was not required to be here until Wednesday, but I decided to arrive five days early and stay in a hotel in the Bastille (the 11^th arrondissement). Before now, I was unfamiliar with the area as I spent much of my last trip here in Chatelet (1^st) and the Latin Quarter. After wandering a little I had still not seen a distinctive Paris landmark and didn’t quite feel as though I was in Paris. I had a croque madame (open faced bread egg and cheese sandwich) the thing I said I would do first when arriving in Paris. I then started taking care of some of the essentials: getting a phone, metro card, etc., all while struggling to begin speaking French. After getting my metro card I asked Alex if we could go to Chatelet so I could see something familiar. We exited the metro at Chatelet and walked towards the Seine. I was very excited as I knew exactly where we were and sped ahead. Saint Chapelle and then the Eiffel Tower came into view and it finally hit me that I am back in Paris.

Saturday morning I met Alex at the Saint Michel fountain in the morning and we had breakfast at a café overlooking the Place St. Michel. We decided that because it wasn’t raining for the first time in weeks in Paris we would take advantage of it and we spent the day outside wandering around Montmartre. We got off the metro there was a market with wine, hard cider, fish, and baked goods. We made our way around and sampled what we could before beginning to walk up to Sacre Coeur. When we reached Sacre Coeur we went inside, walked around, and then sat for a while and observed the front of the church. We then walked through Montmartre, passing the Moulin Rouge and we walked through the cemetery of Montmartre. Needing to warm up a little we took the metro to the Champs Elysees to see a “Pas Si Simple” (It’s Complicated). We finished off a long day with bread, cheese, and wine for dinner.

At the Market in Montmartre


walking to Sacre Coeur


view from the top

Inside Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur

Sunday started a little later at the Saint Michel fountain. I met Alex and a girl from her program also Alix. We had crepes and then walked through the Louvre to the Jardin de Tuileries (Tuilerie Gardens). Despite the cold, we sat around one the famous fountain in the Tuileries until we were numb. We walked to the end of the gardens and went to the Musée Orangerie. This museum displays the Nyphéas of Monet. Displayed in two oval rooms with benches in the middle, I sat for a while studying each painting. The downstairs of the Museum has a permanent exhibit that was not particularly interesting, but they had a temporary exhibit that I enjoyed. It was called “Les enfants modèles” (the model children) with the premise that children are very different models than adults and often artists force their children to model for them. Children are often drawn to the more creative work of their parents rather than work that we personally find to be more realistic. At the end of the exhibit there was a video interview of some of the adults who as children modeled for their parents. The Musée Orangerie is small and manageable for an afternoon trip: Monet’s paintings make even a short visit worth it.

At the Musée Orangerie

One of the Nyphéas

Monday morning it was snowing, so I spent the morning reading and then met Alex midday after her first class at the Institut Catholique. We had lunch in a café in the Latin Quarter and then walked around the Luxembourg Gardens until she had another class. I spent my afternoon at the Louvre walking through the Ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Greek sections. The Louvre always feels overwhelming. I finished my visit with my favorite part of the museum, the Decorative Arts sections which includes Napoleon’s Apartments. It is amazing how many hours I can spend in the Louvre and feel like I’ve seen the majority of their collection when I look at the map and realize that I’ve barely covered any ground. I now have my student card which gets me into most museums for free, so I will return often.

Tuesday was a fairly lazy day. Alex and I met in the morning hoping to go to the Musée Cluny- the Museum of the Middle Ages only to find that it is closed on Tuesdays. We wandered in and out of a few shops in the Latin Quarter checking out all the interesting Paris fashion before settling in a café for a few hours. We began discussing what trips we have in mind that we will start planning now that I have finally have my schedule.

Wednesday morning Alex helped me lug my bags to the Accent Center (the center for my program) and I thought I would be placed directly into my homestay only to find out that we would all be spending the night in a hotel and would be placed the next evening. The rest of the day I wandered around the Bastille and Thursday included orientation and welcome lunch. I arrived at my homestay Thursday night and will update all about it soon!