Un Jour Mauvais, Puis Un Jour Incroyable

I'm more than a little exhausted, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing anything tonight. I just wanted to jot down a few things so I wouldn't forget them by the time I get around to writing an actual post.

The Bad Day:

1. Host Family Faux Pas

2. Early Wake-Up

3. Required Film for School

4. Rain

BUT THEN:

1. Rainbow!

2. Play

The Good Day:

1. Sun

2. castle

3. Lunch

4. Horse Show

5. Street Musician

6. Shopping

7. Dinner

8. Metro Musician

9. Irish Pub (Street Musician: The Sequel)

I'll go into detail tomorrow. Suffice it to say that Thursday started out horribly, and ended decently. Today was amazing. It was a Best Day Ever, even though I've only gotten about 10 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours.

And now, I sleep.

À Paris, on doit flâner

I've spent a good part of this week and last weekend just wandering around Paris without any particular destination. Last Sunday, Mary and I started out at the Pompidou (after looking at a modern art exhibit that consisted solely of black canvases with different textures) and wandered around. We came across l'Eglise de Saint Eustache, which was smaller than Notre Dame, but less touristy and quite beautiful. After that we stumbled across a street with lots of little pet shops, and we spent some time playing with the most adorable little puppies I have ever seen! We ended up at this open-air market on l’Île de la cité with flowers, plants, and a TON of birds. Mary and I pet a chicken, a goose, and some bunnies.

Last night, Mary and I walked around town (in the freezing cold), trying to find a little bar where she met some French artists last weekend. We finally gave up and took the metro there instead, because she knew how to get there from the metro stop, and we sat in the bar for a long time and chatted. We didn't meet any French artists, but that's okay.

Also this week, I booked my flights and hostel for Spring Break! I'm flying to Dublin for 4 days, then to Norwich to visit Merlin, and then we're both flying to Edinburgh to see Jules! I honestly can't wait to see both of them, and to have them meet each other. It seems really strange to me that they've never met in person because I'm so used to having Jules already know my friends.

I started my classes last week, and I'm really enjoying them, especially History of France. I used to be fascinated by Joan of Arc (think about it: she was a teenage, uneducated, schizophrenic peasant girl, and she basically led an army, saved an entire country, and restored the proper line of the monarchy), and I finally actually learned the cause of the 100 Year War. I always knew the basics: the king of England has some claim to the French throne and tries to take over, but I never really understood that claim to the throne. The thing is, he probably should have gotten the French throne because he actually was the closest descendant of the Capetian line. What happened is that the Assembly (made up of the clergy, the nobles, and the bourgeoisie) realized that it would be bad news to give Edward III the French crown as well as the English one, so they dug up an outdated law (the Salic Law) that forbid inheritance through a woman (the French were sexist pigs), and Edward was the grandson of Philip le Bel through his daughter, Isabelle. Hence, the claim to the throne was null because Isabelle couldn't inherit anything to pass anything down to her children. The crown actually passed down to Philip le Bel's nephew, and the Capetian line passed to the Capetian-Valois line, ending one of the longest direct dynasties ever. Edward, of course, didn't take kindly to this, and so he attacked France, which led to a little over a hundred years of fighting and civil war in France, as well as the end of the chevaliers. I find this history to be fascinating, and I also think I'm going to visit the castle where Isabelle lived when I go visit Merlin in Norwich!

A Plethora of Monuments

This weekend was basically one of the busiest weekends of my life. Sistadre came to visit, and I think I only got 5-6 hours of sleep per night from when she arrived on Thursday night and when she left last night. As a result, I am now the proud owner of a head cold. Awesome.

The weekend started out great; I met Jules at her hostel, and we had a drink in the bar (and were marginally involved in what might have escalated into a bar brawl), and chattered at each other for a long time before I left to take the metro home. It was really strange to leave Jules at the end of the night because I don't think we've ever been in the same city without staying in the same place before. I think we both felt really anxious when we parted, which was a bizarre feeling.

The next day, I got myself out of bed early and had breakfast with Jules before we headed off the Louvre, which is my new favorite place in Paris. I'm making a promise to myself to go every week, if at all possible. After that, we wandered around Montmartre and visited Sacre coeur, which was beautiful.

On Saturday, we went back to the Louvre, which was almost better than the first time. Then we walked over to Notre Dame, which I'd only seen in the rain. It was even more beautiful in the sun, and I couldn't help but sing the Disney songs in my head again. Saturday night was less great because we spent a good part of it trying to meet up with my housemate and her friends at a bar, but we weren't having much luck. When we did find them, they were all wasted and not very friendly, which was disappointing. After Jules left, both our nights went downhill, with her missing the last metro, getting humped by a guy on a bus, and having to take a cab part of the way home. Meanwhile, I was stuck in a bar, watching my wasted housemate throw herself at French boys until 4 in the morning when I finally dragged her home.

By Sunday, both Jules and I were getting worn out. We were tired and cranky with each other, and then we took the wrong train while trying to get to Versailles. We ended up in the banlieus (read: ghettos) of Paris, which were kind of sketchy and really depressing. Finally, we got ourselves to Versailles and laughed it off as best we could. Versailles itself was really cool, but not as cool as I'd hoped it would be. There were far too many people, and I hate crowds where I get jostled and overheated. But it was, overall, pretty awesome. That night, Jules came over for dinner with my host family (and my host mother's adult son who is GORGEOUS), and I drank too much wine, and Jules and I skyped with my parents together for awhile.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty chill. I had class for most of the day, but Jules came over on Monday night, and we watched How I Met Your Mother in my room for a while and just chilled. On Tuesday, we ended up in a cafe and had an hour long (at least) discussion about academia, the nature of history, and moral obligations. It was an interesting argument that brought up a lot of tough questions, even if Jules and I didn't see eye to eye on everything.

It was really great to see Jules, because it had been 5 months, which has never happened before. All in all, it was a great visit, even though we did have moments where morale plummeted. Also, I think I saw more of Paris in those 5 days than I did in the entire 2 weeks previous.

Rien Qu'un Jour

I went to Notre Dame early this afternoon, after realizing that my class was two hours later than I thought it was. This is part of why I love Paris; I had two hours to kill, so I hopped on the metro (using my handy dandy new metro pass), and got to a famous monument within 15 minutes. I spent an hour or so wandering around Notre Dame, which was absolutely beautiful. I sat for a while in one of the pews, just taking it all in. And singing "Out There" from Hunchback of Notre Dame in my head. In French, even. Then, it was stuck in my head all day.

Pictures will be on facebook soon, but I don't have the energy to go find my camera right this minute.

Also, I'd like to note that Merlin always has my back. I'll never doubt it.

Paris, je t'aime!

Good grief, it has been a long time since I wrote anything. I've started multiple entries, but I never seem to have anything exciting enough to post to a public forum. I mean, I had a great fall semester, but it was full of little things, so I mostly kept it to myself and to my personal journal.

But now, I'm in Paris, and that's exciting enough to merit taking up this blog again, especially because it will be difficult to update all my friends individually. I don't have a lot of time right now to blog, because I'm going out to dinner with some new friends, but I want to give everyone a quick update on my first week in Paris.

I love my host family! Helene works at a publishing company that works with artists to publish art books, so she gets invited to a lot of gallery openings and hobnobs with famous artists. She's full of energy and talks a mile a minute, which can sometimes be difficult because it's all in French. Thomas, her boyfriend (or "amant", as she likes to call him), is a lot quieter and more serious. He's very intellectual, but can be pretty funny. He enjoys speaking to us in English, which he isn't supposed to do, but he does it anyways, as soon as Helene has her back turned. Being with a host family does have its awkward moments, like I anticipated, but it hasn't been so bad at all. It's nice living with another student, too, because now I'm not the only one who has no idea what's going on.

Paris is beautiful! I've never been in such a beautiful city. Last night, Mary and I went to the Eiffel Tower, and we sat in the garden just next to it and drank champagne while we caught up. I know it's touristy, but I loved it. I didn't fully feel like I was in Paris until that moment.