On your mark, get set, profitez! OR How I spent my last 24 hours in France

Pictures from my travels with my mom and grandma and my last day in France can be found at the following links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011035&l=ccdd4&id=1158900089
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011038&l=a102c&id=1158900089

Some of you may have noticed a time lapse between my last entry, which covered the end of my time in Avignon, and the subject of this entry. Very astute of you all!

A brief summary of what has happened: Took a bus to Barcelona, met up with my mother and grandmother, saw Spain’s Arc de Triomphe (I like France’s better), had internet at home for the first time in four months (though that only lasted 3 days), walked up and down Las Ramblas, saw a Flamenco dance performance, saw some cool plazas or places or whatever they call them in Spanish, saw Columbus’ monument which had my gal Isabella on it (mother of my favorite of Henry’s eight wives: Catherine of Aragon), went to the big Cathedral which was under construction and covered by a tarp, went to the Gaudi Cathedral which was also under construction (as it has been for over 100 years) but was not covered by a tarp and was therefore more interesting, went to the beach, got locked in a park with my mother, went to a small mountain town B&B, had hamburgers that actually seemed to be made of ham (odd), had a yummy breakfast that actually contained protein (very un-French), set foot in Andorra, made it back to my home country of France, went running in a Caracassonne suburb, bought lots of baguettes, bought lots of pains au chocolat, went to the medieval town of Caracassonne (I like Avignon’s walls better), climbed up to a Cathar castle stronghold in ballet flats (it was worth every blister!), bought another pain au chocolat and some quiche (had to get in all the French cuisine), went to a beach town called…I don’t remember what it’s called…never mind, got tan, went to Arles and got four mosquito bites on one shoulder, went to Salon de Provence, went back to my home city of Avignon, visited IAU, visited my host mother and picked up my baggage, hung out with the only remaining IAU student in Avignon, ate a Kebab Frite, went to about three different book stores (the other student was an English major, too), hung out at Rocher de Doms and Palais de Papes, helped a lost American couple.

But you don’t want to hear about all that. (Or if you do, you’ll have to be patient, because even I in all of my English-majorness cannot handle typing that much up right now as I am waiting to board my plane back to the States). What you want to hear about is everything that I have managed to accomplish in the last 24 hours. I took a train into Paris yesterday morning and arrived a little afternoon. I put my suitcase in storage at Gare de Lyon, as I did not want to have to waste any of my 24 hours with taking them up to my hostel in the 19^th arrondissement and then coming back down into the more central part of the city. I met up with my friend from MU, Sarah, as well as a friend from Whitney, Michelle, and one of her friends. Michelle was a year ahead of me at Whitney, but we had a Creative Writing class together. As soon as she graduated, her family moved off to Seattle, so I haven’t actually seen her in three years. However, she’s been studying in France all year, so we decided to meet up. We all got sandwiches and then walked around a market in the Bastille area. After about an hour of that (and after I ordered a delicious tranche of brioche), Michelle and her friend went to go study for their finals, which start tomorrow, and Sarah and I went off to the Musée d’Orsay so that I could have my Degas bonding time.

A brief interlude that will perhaps but probably not explain why I am so obsessed with Degas. When I was about 6, I read a book called Degas, the Ballet, and Me. This was a picture book, but it was really interesting in that it talked about one girl’s explorations into the world of art, starting with Degas. It was at this time in my life that one of my best friends had a mom who was also our art teacher, and in addition to this making us play computer games about the Louvre, this also meant that we made regular expeditions to the Art Institute. While my artistic endeavors had started off with a very serious water color obsession (I painted more sunsets over lakes than anyone would ever want to see), the book on Degas lead me to experiment with pastels. A lot. And with all my trips to the Art Institute, I decided very quickly that I was going to be an artist one day, and thus I started bringing along a sketch book to every Art Institute trip and recreating lots of Degas paintings.

This obsession probably lasted until I was in fourth grade—I remember making sketches of figure skaters at the 1998 Nationals. And after that, I’m honestly not sure what happened to it. My best bet is that figure skating took over my life, and between figure skating and being determined to plough through Jane Eyre at the age of 10, art got pushed to the side. It had a brief renaissance with my required high school art class, in which I had a lot of fun getting back to water colors and pastels. However, one of our assignments was to do a charcoal reproduction of any other piece of artwork. I picked one of Degas’ lesser known pieces, almost went insane trying to draw one particularly difficult arm position, but successfully survived before returning to my safe landscapes (I can draw kick-butt trees). Regardless of the fact that I may or may not have sacrificed my artistic dreams for more realistic aspirations (such as being a noteworthy author of my generation), Degas will always hold a spot in my heart, and it is with that memory of Degas that I set off to Musée d’Orsay, home of many of his famous paintings.

In addition to the work that I recreated, they had several other Degas pieces, including his statue “La petite danseuse de quatorze ans”. I was really excited to see this, since I saw a sketch of it when I was at the National Gallery in Oslo. There were a number of other statues there that were really interesting, largely because they weren’t discovered until after Degas’ death. As his first sculpture had gotten very poor reviews, he never exhibited any of the other ones he worked on, but dozens were found in his apartment after his death. Besides more than enough Degas to keep me very happy, they also had some Gauguin woodwork. I have some ideological problems with Gauguin, largely due to the colonialist tendencies in his work, but I found the woodwork really interesting, especially since I’d only ever heard about his paintings. Lots of Van Gogh, lots of Manet, lots of Monet—yay for impressionism! Sarah and I went through the museum in chronological order, starting with pre-impressionism, then moving to impressionism and finish with post-impressionism. It was all very organized of us. We went

From the Musée d’Orsay, we walked over to Notre Dame, since we wanted to go to the Pentecost mass at 6:30. And we did! It was very cool to be attending a mass at Notre Dame of all places. It was packed, and it was a typical French mass (meaning limited song, and an uncomfortable hierarchical feeling plaguing me), but it was amazing just to be there. From there we went to grab dinner in the Latin Quarter, where we found a vegetarian place that had falafel and hummus and was affordable. Yay! We went over to eat on Pont Neuf so that I could see the Henri IV statue. When I had been in Paris before, I’d only walked over the first half of Pont Neuf before turning on to Île de la Cité, and thus I was within meters of the statue that I’d wanted to see the whole time I was there. Alas, I did not know at the time that it was at Pont Neuf, and so I missed it during that visit. However, after going back and checking my copy of Betsy and the Great World (the reason I was making the pilgrimage in the first place), I located the statue and was able to visit it during my second trip there.

After getting asked for money by an American (very odd, normally it’s a gypsy child), Sarah came with me over to my hostel in the 19^th arrondissement to make sure I got there okay. I did find it, and it was a pretty nice hostel. It was probably a good place for me to start my transition back to American life, since it was completely populated by Americans—the first language was definitely English, not French. I unfortunately did not sleep very well, due partially to the fact that it was really hot (a result of the gorgeous Paris weather) and due partially to the fact that despite being on the 6^th floor, I kept hearing people on the sidewalk outside. Around 4AM, I heard a group arguing whether they would get up at 9:15 or 9:45. I wanted to tell them to just go to sleep already or they wouldn’t be able to make either of those times, but I thought better of it. I was really glad when it was finally a reasonable hour for getting up, as I’d been awake for a while. I ate the breakfast provided (nothing too special, just baguettes and tea), and then took off for Montmartre to meet up with Sarah again.

We saw the Moulin Rouge, which was cool. Sarah said that ever since the movie of the same name came out, shows went from being five euros to being 90 euros. Oh, the power of Hollywood. From there we walked over to Sacré Coeur, which was incredible. It was a long climb up (sooooo many steps), but we made it and avoided the obnoxious bracelet guys who try to wrap a piece of string around your wrist and then demand money. This is one of the many reasons I’m so glad I studied in Avignon instead of Paris. I simply couldn’t handle that on a daily basis. The basilica was incredible, and I really enjoyed walking around it. We went to a small park nearby where everyone imaginable was doing yoga, tai chi, or some other form of meditation. It was a very quiet, peaceful place, and it was neat to see so many people in their own little worlds there.

From Sacré Coeur, we took the Metro over to the Jardin des plantes, an old herb garden that was the first public park in Paris. It’s also where the Natural History museum is located, but it was of course Monday, and Monday means that nothing is open in France, so that was not an option. We walked around the garden for a while, and found a zoo! Who knew they had zoos in the middle of Paris? We were too cheap to pay the €5 fee to get in, so instead we walked around the outside trying to sneak glimpses of animals. We were rather successful, seeing a red panda, a wallaby, and some black swans, and several goats. We were proud of ourselves! It was a fun little detour back to being a kid. From there we went over to Gare de Lyon so that I could start my trek over to Charles de Gaulle. We were first, however, in search of a bakery so that I could get enough pastries to last me until I get back to the US. Due to the aforementioned Monday closures, this was quite difficult, but I did finally succeed and had a delicious pain au chocolat amandes to reward me. Went and got my luggage out of storage, then figured out how to get to Charles de Gaulle on the RER, which was a bit confusing. I got myself a reduced ticket whether or not I was supposed to have one, but no one checked, so it ended up working perfectly. Sarah and I split up, which was sad. I’m jealous that she gets to spend more time in France, but in all fairness I did arrive a month and a half before her. I helped out a lost American who was running late for her plane. I thought it was funny that I was slightly anxious because I hadn’t made it to the airport two and a half hours before my flight, while she was slightly anxious because her plane was leaving in an hour. Hopefully she made it! Got through security without problems, and then bought a pain au chocolat to entertain me while I waited. And that was that!

I’m currently back in the States, land of skim milk and absurdly large everything. I’m still taken aback when I hear peopled speaking English on the street, and thus anyone who’s walked by me in the past week has probably gotten some weird looks. I’m quite happy to be back at my ice rink if nothing else. Sadly, this will probably be the end of this blog, though if I have any other travel adventures out of the country (I’m really hoping to go to Quebec some time soon) I will be sure to add those here!