Paris Day 5

Our last day in Paris, and I have to say, I was very sad to be leaving. We got up fairly early, packed up our bags, and dragged them down to the hotel luggage room. We had until about 5 to explore Paris a little bit more, so Miles, Jamie White, Chad, and I went up to Montmartre to see their open-air markets. A quick metro ride took us right to the market, which had a few interesting things, but was mostly African/Rastafarian novelties, along with hookas and various other smoking parphenelia. We browsed the market for about an hour before heading off to the large 19th century Byzantine-style cathedral, Sacre Coeur. Along the way, we stopped in a boulangerie to grab some breakfast. I had a chicken-filled pastry that tasted a lot like chicken pot pie and a Sprite.As we made our way toward Sacre Coeur, we walked through a North African part of town and spotted a little Algerian pastry shop. Unable to resist, we got some pastries, and they were THE BEST THING EVER. Continuing our trek, my knee started to act up again, and it was only with great difficulty that I dragged myself up the hill to Sacre Couer. It was worth it though…not only was the church impressive, but the view of Paris from the top of the hill was incredible, even on a hazy day. Jamie White and Chad waited outside while Miles and I walked through the church. It was big and pretty, but annoyingly, there were staff there telling us exactly where to go and what to do. By the time we were done, my knee felt a lot better (maybe it was just a cramp?), so we headed down into the famous square in Montmartre where street artists sell their paintings. We looked through the paintings for awhile, and Jamie White even bought one. Afterwards, Chad led us to a restaurant that served delicious and filling french onion soup. This, along with a giant beer, made for a perfect late lunch.

Following lunch, all we had left to do was venture down to see the windmills, and, of course, Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge, as you might imagine, is overly touristy and not at all what it is supposed to be. Unfortunately, we forgot that this area also included an eroticism museum, so we didn’t get to go there. From what other people told me about it, I’m really sad that I missed it. At any rate, we all got on the metro at Moulin Rouge, and Miles and I split off from the group to go check out an ‘art deco Mosque’ listed in Miles’ guidebook.

We found the Mosque and went inside for a reasonable 2 euro fee. It was quite beautiful, with intricate tile work and a peaceful courtyard, although I couldn’t tell you what was Art Deco about it. It all just looked like Islamic art to me. We saw some people praying, which was interesting. Sadly, we couldn’t take any photos inside, and the postcards were kind of crappy. After leaving the Mosque, we stopped in an Islamic bookstore across the street, hoping they would have better postcards. They didn’t, and it was kind of awkward being English-speaking college students in a store full of the Islamic faithful. Not that they were rude or anything…it was just weird.

We left the Mosque and headed back to the hotel, where we got our bags, and after a short wait, took the public bus to the TGV station. At the station, there was more waiting. Jamie, John, and I got some sandwiches from one of the stands inside the station. Finally, we were able to get on the train. The ride home was long and a lot bumpier than the ride to Paris. I think maybe the wind was knocking us around a bit, but I can’t be sure. When we arrived in Avignon, it was colder than it was in Paris and windy.

The bus ride back to Lacoste was quiet and uneventful. I think Miles and I spent most of the time talking about anime. In Lacoste, I slowly dragged my bag up the hill. After only about 16 hours of sleep total in Paris, I was exhausted. I collapsed into bed and slept so hard that I missed my alarm and class the next morning.

Paris Day 4

Okay, sorry for the delay. Good news: Finals are over and I have officially finished with my last college class ever. Unless I go to grad school or something, but that doesn’t seem likely. It’s a weird feeling, and it will only get weirder I’m sure.

But enough of that for now. Back to Paris. Saturday morning, we were allowed to sleep in a bit (until 10:30) before taking the long metro ride out to La Defense. La Defense is Paris’ ultra modern business district. As we learned from a lengthy lecture by Christine Wacta (the architecture professor), modern architects were allowed to construct buildings here with virtually no limitations, so there are structures like the Grande Arche, which is actually a massive rectangle with a hole in the middle. The area also featured two monumental sculptures, one by Picasso and one by Miro. I spent quite a lot of time with the Miro sculpture…after a hearty breakfast of McDonald’s chicken nuggets that is. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed La Defense. I especially liked the feeling of standing in this incredibly modern space and looking down the Champs Elysees toward the Arc de Triomphe. In all, this La Defense is probably the most successful and enjoyable example of modern architecture I have ever experienced in real life.

After about 2 hours at La Defense, we got on the RER (a regional railway connected with the metro system) and took a 35 minute ride out to the suburb of Poissy. This was a charming suburb that I would have liked to have had a bit more time to explore. To my untrained eye, there was quite a bit of Swiss-inspired architecture, along with a cute little main street, and an impressive Gothic cathedral. Our destination in Poissy, however, was Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. This is probably Corbu’s most famous work, and I was actually somewhat excited to see it. It did not disappoint- the building was extremely surreal, both inside and out. The way people move through it is supposed to remniscent of the automobile, and the entire house has what the architects call a “machine aesthetic”. I don’t know much about all that, but personally, the entire experience was a lot like being in a Rene Magritte painting, with a bizarre juxtaposition of the machine and nature.  Strangely, Villa Savoye gives the inhabitant the feeling of observing nature without really experiencing it. It has large windows all the way around it, and it is raised on stilts (pilotis) so that it’s a lot like being on a viewing platform at a zoo.

After visiting Villa Savoye, we were free to leave. Jamie, Miles, Jamie White, James, Jared, and I took the RER back into Paris. Miles and James got off at the Arc de Triomphe stop, while the rest of us continued back on to the hotel. I split off from the group to grab a couple of souvenirs and do some browsing in Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookstore on the Seine. The store was crowded, but I managed to pick up a few things, eager to support one of the biggest international proponents of free press. I went back to the hotel, where I was supposed to meet up with Miles to go to dinner. Dalton and company wanted to try to do the boat dinner again, but in the interest of saving money, I decided I wanted to find an Ethiopian restaurant recommended by Miles’ guidebook. Miles, Jamie, and I hung out in the Gay Quad’s room for awhile, watching German MTV. John Wolfe, McArthur, Brooke, and Ben decided they would come along with us to try to find the Ethiopian restaurant. Jamie, meanwhile, went along with the others on the dinner cruise.

It took us awhile to find the Ethiopian restaurant, even though it was only 2 blocks from the hotel. When we finaly did find it, we discovered they were crowded, and sadly, there was no space for us. Somewhat disappointed, we explored the area, and found there were dozens of restaurants to choose from. We ended up in a moderately priced Italian restaurant where the waiter would only speak to us in French. We all did very well with our ordering in spite of the language barrier, and in all, it was a very enjoyable dinner. After dinner, Brooke, John, and I went to meet up with some of John’s friends at the Universite. We arrived at the college, where we met John’s friends Lexi and Alex, along with a few of their friends at the lounge in the American dorm. There, we drank, conversed, and played a game of Mafia. Mafia is a bit like a poor man’s Murder Mystery, and it’s a lot of fun, especially when mixed with alcohol.

After 2 rounds of Mafia, most everyone who wasn’t from the Universite needed to leave in order to catch the metro before the stations closed. Lexi and Alex agreed to come with us to the Rue Mouffetard to hit a few bars since it was close to our hotel. Rue Mouffetard was a lot fun- there were plenty of reasonably-priced bars and also plenty of public drinking. We ended up spending most of the night in one bar that offered 3 Euro shots. We had really disjointed and confusing conversations with some of the French patrons and watched music videos on the strangely-placed TV. Finally, Lexi and Alex decided to head home, which was our cue to leave as well, despite John’s protests. Unfortunately, in our inebriated state, we had some difficulty finding the hotel, and, to Brooke’s dismay, probably wandered the streets of Paris for a good hour before finding our way back. In spite of that little adventure, though, it was definitely a fun way to spend our last night in Paris.

Paris Parts 4 and 5…

…are coming soon. Just let me get through finals first! Sorry for the delay.

Paris Day 3

When I woke up on Friday morning, my knee felt much better (although it still hurt). After breakfast, Miles and I decided to go see Sainte-Chapelle, a 13th century Gothic cathedral near Notre Dame. It is known primarily for its stained glass, and understandably so. There was so much! I don’t know how the building could have possibly remained structurally sound with so many massive windows. The stained glass was really beautiful, although it would definitely be better on a clear day. On our way back from the church, we stopped in a comic store (of which there are 1000s in Paris) and admired the numerous action figures and the wide variety of comics. We somehow both made it out without buying anything and returned to the hotel.

The non-architecture Le Corbusier students were given all of Friday free, so I took a few minutes to determine what I wanted to do with my day. I ate lunch with Jamie, Brooke, and the ‘Gay Quad’ (Coleman, Ben, McArthur, and John). After lunch, they decided they wanted to go to Sainte-Chapelle and the aquarium. I wanted to see the Catacombs and Pere Lachaise, so I elected to venture off on my own. We agreed to meet up at the Louvre at 5pm so we could see the things that we missed on our first visit.

I parted ways with Jamie, Brooke, and the Quad at the Saint-Michel station and took the Metro to Denfert-Rochereau. By this point, I had completely mastered the Paris Metro, which is a lot easier than people make it out to be. Maybe it’s because I got used to using the T in Boston, but I don’t know…it’s really not all that complicated. Anyway, I walked around Place Denfert-Rochereau for a bit, admired the giant lion statue, and finally got in line for the Catacombs. They only let about 20 people in at a time, so I had to wait for a little while, but it wasn’t bad. I found myself in line with a French family with British father, an Australian couple, a group of young to middle-aged Americans, and a couple of  French people. I did my best to inconspicuously try to follow the conversations of the French people to pass the time.

When they allowed us inside, the first stop was a small museum-type area. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the information plaques were in English as well as French, which is actually more uncommon than you would think. I was amused to hear the British father (perhaps a stepfather?) teaching his French family to read the English plaques. Anyway, I learned from the museum area that the Catacombs were actually old quarries. In the 18th century, the cemeteries in Paris were so full of bodies that the people living near them were getting diseases, mainly bubonic plague and tuberculosis. After all the regulations imposed on the cemeteries were ignored, the city came up with a new solution. They would move bodies from the worst of the cemeteries into the old quarries under Denfert-Rochereau. When all was said and done, over 6 million bodies were moved underground. The part with the bodies, also known as an ossuary, actually only occupies a small part of the massive system of underground tunnels, quarries, and caverns underneath the city of Paris.

After the museum area, I descended a very narrow, long spiral staircase that took me 100 meters or so underground and into the quarries. For me, the quarry area that hadn’t been turned into an ossuary was the most claustrophobic part of the visit. It was quite dark, with very low ceilings and cramped walls. Eerily, there was a black line drawn on the ceiling that went all the way down. I later learned that the quarry workers drew this line so they wouldn’t get lost in the maze beneath Paris. When the passage finally opened up, there were little carved castles in the cavern, which some quarry workers built in honor of friends who had died in a nearby collapse. Beyond these strange little monuments, there was a deep underground well.

After the well, the passages started to show more structural features, such as arches. Finally, I reached the entrance to the ossuary, over which was carved “Arretez. C’est ici l’Empire de la Mort” which means “Stop. This is the Empire of the Dead”. By this point, I had hung back pretty far from the group in order to take photos and experience this strange place in solitude. When I entered the ossuary, I was immediately surrounded by neatly organized stacks of skulls and what appeared to be femurs. The stacks continued throughout the ossuary, sometimes including other bones, sometimes stacked to form shapes. One that particularly stands out in my mind was a wall where the skulls were stacked to form a heart.

Apart from the organization of the bones, the thing that struck me most about the experience was reading the carvings in the walls that had been left by the churches that had moved their cemeteries into this ‘Empire of the Dead’. They were phrases that were religious of course, but they were words of comfort for the dead that seemed almost apologetic, as though these people felt guilty for moving the bodies into this anonymous mass grave. Occassionally, there would be a stone sarcophagous, which I assumed was for clergymen or important people who had been buried in the cemeteries…people whose bodies the churches would not throw in with the millions of nameless people by whom I was surrounded. I learned during my visit that the appearance of organization was somewhat deceptive. The bones that were visible were actually stacked in this way to form walls that hid behind them piles of bodies that were simply thrown into the former quarry. At one point, I just had to stop and look around, trying to absorb the enormity of what I was seeing. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

After huffing and puffing my way back out of the Catacombs up yet another steep, narrow spiral staircase, I realized that the exit was somewhere completely different than the entrance and I had no idea where I was. Fun. Using skills learned from my Grandad along with some instinct, I headed north, and pretty soon, the area started to look familiar again. Just to be sure, I asked for directions to the nearest Metro in a pharmacy, and sure enough, I was just three blocks from the Denfert-Rochereau station. I was happy to see that I had almost three hours to explore my next destination, Pere Lachaise. Little did I know, it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

I took the Metro to the Pere Lachaise stop and decided to stop in a cafe for a beer and a crepe. After my little snack, with about 2 hours until I was to meet everyone at the Louvre, I crossed the street to Pere Lachaise, the largest cemetery inside Paris’ city limits, and the final resting place of famous figures such as Jim Morrison. There were people selling maps outside the cemetery, which I thought  was a scam until I went inside and realized just how big the cemetery really is. According to Wikipedia, it’s 118.6 acres, and the tombs are packed in there like sardines. There are over 300,000 bodies buried in the cemetery.

I had in mind 3 people I wanted to visit: Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Frederic Chopin. I quickly realized that A) I would need to buy a map to do this and B) It was going to take all the time I had just to find these three tombs. So, I purchased my map and made my way up to Oscar Wilde’s grave, which was all the way in the back. Along the way, I stopped by Eugene Delacroix’s (the artist I mentioned in my previous post) grave. Visually, this tomb was very interesting. It was all black with gold lettering, which seemed appropriate considering how dark his paintings tended to be. There were two fresh yellow roses lain over one corner of the tomb, which stood out brightly against the black stone.

Next, I finally made it to Oscar Wilde’s tomb. Just as legend says, it is covered in lipstick kisses, and visitors had left many flowers and other various gifts for the late author. I spent quite awhile with Oscar (probably longer than I should have), and it actually helped a lot with the occassional periods of the blues I’ve had since coming here. After lingering as long as I dared, I moved on to Edith Piaf. It was quite a lovely tomb, with a lot of flowers and prayers left for the chanteuse. I spent a few minutes here, but moved on quickly because a large crowd of people was coming toward it.

Realizing I was running out of time, I hurried down to Frederic Chopin’s tomb, which was mobbed by Asian tourists. It was also right alongside the path, making it inconvenient to stop there for long. This tomb, however, was as beautiful as you might expect, and covered in fresh flowers. After taking a few photos, it was time to go and I hurried back to the Metro stop.

My mastery of the Metro allowed me to make it to the Louvre with about 5 minutes to spare, but everyone else was already there. It was then that Jamie told me we were supposed to meet Dalton at the hotel at 6:30 to go to a cruise dinner on the Seine. At 50 Euros a head, I was a little skeptical, especially considering the medieval dinner from Wednesday night. Nevertheless, this was the expensive dinner I had planned for and was excited to go to, so we only had about an hour to spend in the Louvre. We used the time to return to French and Northern European paintings, which we liked much better than the Italian ones. Here, we saw masters such as Rubens, Renoir, and Wacteau. I wished we could have spent more time with them, but we had to hurry back to the hotel and get ready for our dinner.

Jamie and I met up with Dalton, Anna, Emily, Claire, Corey, and Alex in the lobby. From there, we took the Metro to a stop near the Eiffel Tower and walked down to the river where the boat was supposed to be docked. We searched up and down the river, but were unable to find the boat until we saw it pull in on the other bank. We rushed across a bridge and to the boat, only to discover we weren’t likely to get in without a reservation. Anna, with her excellent French and people skills, did her best schmoozing with the captain, but the best we could do was two tables of four. Since part of the group was unwilling to do this, we gave up and decided to eat elsewhere, but not before making reservations for the next night.

Anna, Corey, and Alex decided to go up the Eiffel Tower and get dinner in the area, while the rest of us elected to eat in the vicinity of the hotel and hit some of the nearby clubs. We took the Metro back and looked around for awhile before finally deciding on a relatively inexpensive Italian restaurant. Each of us had a glass of champagne at the restaurant, and we spent awhile there eating our dinners drinking cheap (but good) wine. Finally, we left and headed for Cafe Georges (Cocktails and Dreams), which had caught our eye the night before because all of the servers wore gold masks. We drank a lot at Cafe Georges, partially motivated by the fact that drinks came with sparklers and shots were lit on fire. We also had a lot of fun dancing, and Dalton and I in particular had a good time imitating the strange European dancing. They even played some Lady Gaga, to our delight. After awhile, though, it seemed like they were only going to play reggaetone (electronic reggae, very popular in France), so we finally left. From there we stopped briefly in a Latino club, then went to a bar near Notre Dame. We wanted to play more, but it seemed everything was closing, so we ended up back at the hotel. It was a very fun night, especially compared with the previous night, and I went to bed happy, in spite of the fact that once again, I was in for a night of less than 4 hours of sleep.

Paris Day 2

Our next day began with a school-wide trip to the Louvre, which is so much bigger than I ever could have imagined. We were given until 3pm to explore, and I can tell you right now that it was not anywhere near enough time to see everything. When I return to Paris, I will likely devote a full day just to exploring the Louvre. Jamie and I broke off from the group and started our tour with the ancient Egyptian exhibit, which alone probably took over 2 hours. It probably could have been a museum all its own. They had everything  from massive monuments to weapons to pieces of jewelry. There were even mummies- one human mummy and several animal mummies. I think I most enjoyed the monumental statuary and stelae. The jewelry was also really interesting. Overall what impressed me most was how preserved everything was…in a lot of cases the colors were still bold and bright.

After the Egytptian exhibit, we went quickly through the ancient Mesopotamian exhibit, which featured a lot of HUGE statues among other things. I wished I could have spent a bit more time in this part, but our schedule had us in a rush. From Mesopotamia, we found our way to the apartments of Napoleon III. These truly defy description…the incredible opulence and gaudiness of it was almost overwhelming. I particularly enjoyed the large dining room, which featured a table that sat at least 20 people, several crystal chandeliers, lush drapery, and…huge dark paintings of animals violently tearing each other apart. How…appetizing?

We went from the apartments past Nike of Samothrace (which was exciting to see in real life), to Italian Renaissance paintings, hoping to see the work of the great masters/Ninja Turtles. Instead, what we got was mostly relgious paintings that characterized the early Renaissance, with only a few Raphaels and one Leonardo (the Mona Lisa, of course). It was a little disappointing, but we did happen upon the works of one of my all-time favorites, a French painter named Eugene Delacroix. His most famous work was The Raft of the Medusa, and seeing it in person along with his other works was worth the museum trip alone. We then passed through the Greek antiquities on the way back to the entrance, where we were going to meet Claire for lunch. It was mostly ancient sculpture, which I very much enjoyed and again wished I could have had more time to view.

After lunch, we had a little bit of extra time before we were supposed to meet up with the sequential students for our trip to the Catacombs, so we passed through Italian Renaissance sculpture, and were once again disappointed. Obviously, none of this is to say that the sculpture and paintings weren’t good. It’s just that we were hoping to see one thing and got quite another. If I had it to do again, I would have gone to the French sculptures and paintings instead. Anyway, we finally met up with the sequential department at 3pm. The architecture students were long gone on a trip to several Le Corbusier buildings. I got out of those trips by convincing Daves that the Catacombs were more relevant to my major and that I personally had much more interest in them. He agreed to letting me go, on the condition that I would meet up with the group at the Cite d’Architecture at 6:30pm. After making sure we had everyone, we took the Metro to Place Denfert Rochereau, where the Catacombs museum is located. After some confusion in trying to find it, we did in fact reach the museum. And it was closed. Why didn’t they call ahead and find this out beforehand? Your guess is as good as mine. At any rate, we were allowed to go do our own thing after that.

Jamie and I decided to take the Metro to Notre Dame and use our museum passes (neat little passes that let you into certain museums for free for two days) on the archaeological site underneath the cathedral. Unfortunately, this museum was a smaller lame version of the underground Roman ruins in Barcelona. We then went into the cathedral with the intention of going up into the towers, but by the time we found out how to do that, it was too late. With only a little bit of time before we had to be at the Cite d’Architecture, we went back to the hotel for a few minutes, then got on the Metro for the long ride out to our destination.

The Cite d’Architecture is a sort of interesting museum full of architectural features and models. We cruised through the museum pretty quickly, though, because it was right next to the Eiffel Tower and we wanted to see the light show they do every night at 7pm. The light show mostly involves flashing lights making the tower look sparkly and pretty. I have to admit, the Eiffel Tower looks a lot cooler in person than I expected it would. We rushed outside with Emily and Anna to see the light show, and after it was over, we decided to get some sushi at a restaurant near the hotel. James, Anna, Emily, Melissa, Jamie, Leigh, Isaac and I took the Metro back and, after a brief stop at the hotel, we went to the best sushi restaurant ever. It was super cheap and delicious (especially considering the price) and the waiters kept giving us free soup and tea and rice. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards, we walked through a part of the Latin Quarter that is full of ethnic restaurants, bars, clubs, and tourist shops. It was very cool and we saw some places that we definitely wanted to revisit.

We decided to go to a place Emily recommended for ice cream, and along the way, we happened upon a break-dancing exhibition. We (along with a huge crowd) watched the whole thing. So much fun. Finally, we reached the ice cream shop and it was as good as promised by Emily. I got a double with a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of raspberry sorbet. They went together surprisingly well. After dessert, we were all tired and ready to go back to the hotel. That is, until we ran into Claire and a huge group of  people who were heading toward a karaoke bar. We were all down for this…at first, that is. After we couldn’t find the first bar, we had the option of going to another one or going to a non-karaoke bar that Miles discovered in his guidebook. We opted to find the other karaoke place, which turned out to be REALLY FAR AWAY. During this walk my knee started hurting. After the first hour of walking, I was on the verge of tears because it hurt so bad and I couldn’t find a Metro, which was going to close in less than an hour, meaning I would have to walk at least an hour back.

Luckily for me, we did find a metro, and several other students and I took it back to the hotel. When I finally willed myself from the Metro station to the hotel and up the stairs, I was actually in tears. I turned on the shower, sat down in it and let the warm water hit my knee until the pain faded a bit. After my shower, I got into bed and lay there for about an hour before Miles and Jamie got back.  By the time I finally went to sleep, I was once again left with only about 4 hours before the next morning’s wakeup call.

Paris Day 1

Alright, I’m going to have to talk about Paris in a  series of entries to avoid a post even longer than the Barcelona one. I think the best way will just be to go day by day. You’ll get more pictures that way too!

After an annoyingly long and detailed power point presentation from Brett on Thursday night, we had to leave Lacoste by 6:30 am Friday morning, which meant everyone was a little grumpy from lack of sleep. We took the bus from Lacoste to Avignon, then boarded the TGV in Avignon. The TGV ride was uneventful (if you don’t include the fact that we were rocketing through France at 200 mph) and quite smooth. I got about an hour of sleep during the three hour trip.

We arrived at Gare de Lyon in Paris, and after making sure we had all the students and their luggage, left for the hotel at about 11:00 am. From the train station, we walked for 30 minutes or so to our hotel (the Hotel Home Latin) in the Latin Quarter, just down the street from the Pantheon and only a few blocks from Notre Dame. The walk to the hotel was rather painful for a group of about 60 people (including professors) hauling their luggage through a crowded city, but we managed. After quickly getting settled into our rooms, we were given free time to go explore the immediate area and get lunch before our first excursion. Jamie, Miles, and I set out in search of a Vietnamese restaurant listed in Miles’ Paris guidebook, but we weren’t able to find it, so we settled for a little sushi joint. It was a good choice. For 8.50, I got miso soup, a salad, and a big bowl of sushi rice with various sorts of fresh fish (tuna, salmon, and mackerel are the ones I can remember) on top of it. Delicious! After lunch, we stopped into a bakery and got some giant merengue cookies that were really weird, but I enjoyed them. We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with the group to go to our first school-organized event.

The sequential art students went to see a private art nouveau collection, and I would have tried to go with them had it not been for the rather steep price of admission. Instead, I went with architecture and painting to the Ecole Nationale Superiure des Beaux Arts. I should probably explain now that because Le Corbusier is the only class I’m taking here that’s relevant to one of the three majors being offered, I am theoretically expected to go to the sites that the architecture students are required to go to, but that doesn’t always happen because that would be really boring for me since I am not an architect. In this case, the Ecole des Beaux Arts trips was being divided in half, with the painting students touring the main fine arts school and the architecture students touring the architecture school. I (along with several other students from Le Corbusier who aren’t architects) asked Daves if I could go with the painting students, which he agreed to as long as I would meet up with the group at Pavillon de l’Arsenal. Sounded fine to me. Upon arriving at the school, both the painting and the architecture students waited around in the courtyard for a bit, most of us taking pictures of the neat old building and its statues. After 20 minutes or so, the tour guide arrived (in a fabulous outfit, I might add) and began to show the painting group through a part of the school that wasn’t currently in use, but seemed to be storing quite a bit of old artwork. It was difficult to follow what she was saying, but I gathered that the art and the rooms themselves were being restored here. The school was founded at a different location in the mid-17th century, but the building itself had existed as a convent for some unknown period of time, and then as a museum of architectural and sculptural artifacts. It was made the location of the Ecole in the early 19th century, and many of the artifacts from the museum were incorporated into the design of the building.

After touring the parts that weren’t currently in use, we moved on to the main building, which had yet another magnificent courtyard. This building was also under restoration, but it’s still functional. I found one point very interesting about the courtyard: the columns inside it are cast iron and double as drainage pipes. Very clever, I must say. We went from the courtyard to their little public gallery, which currently had a show of ORIGINAL SKETCHES from Michelangelo and his contemporaries. Let me repeat that: ORIGINAL paper and charcoal sketches that have been around since the Renaissance. SO COOL. The gallery was really crowded and we had to rush through to stay on schedule, and I had every intention of going back, but sadly never made it. Anyway, after the gallery, we were shown some of the studios, where the students were working. Most of them were painting studios, but one was a fresco studio (yeah, you can major in frescoes there), where the students simply cover the walls in frescoes. Evidently, they tear it all off every couple of years and start again, but the studio was so cool. There were so many different art styles all combined together and displayed proudly in this one room that it was kind of mind blowing. We spoke for a bit with the fresco professor, who explained the process and what makes it so different from regular painting before moving on to some more studios and the main lecture hall. As we went through the studio areas, we noticed that the students were allowed to graffiti the non-historic doors and walls, which I thought was a great concept since the graffiti actually added to the building in my opinion.

The lecture hall was one of those circular rooms with the dark decor like you see in movies set in the 19th century, which gave it a really cool feel, but the real draw of the room was the massive mural around the back wall. It was similar to Raphael’s The School of Athens, but this was all French and Italian masters of art and architecture rather than great Greek thinkers.

As we made our way to the library, the tour guide told us about the school’s selective admissions process and requirements. All students must read and write French (seems obvious since we’re in France), they must be approved by a committee, and weirdly, they must be under 26 years old. The biggest surprise to me was that the tuition was only 300 Euros per year, but it is a federally-run school and is funded largely by the almost-but-not-quite Socialist government of France. For the record, no, I don’t think that’s a good thing. The library was very old-fashioned and unsurprisingly decorated with art that I presume was from the museum collection I mentioned earlier. It had a very Sherlock Holmes feel to it in my opinion, although all the books were about art.

After the library, we returned to the courtyard, but the architecture group was nowhere to be found and we were already late for our appointment at the Pavillon d’Arsenal. After some confusion, Craig (the painting professor) called Christine (the other architecture professor) and told us we were to just meet them at the site. Our print out that Brett gave us advised us to take the Metro to the site, which Jamie and I were ready to do, but the other stray students insisted that we walk. Turns out they should have listened to us as the walk was at least 40 minutes and probably more, but whatever. We got there to find the rest of the group sitting on the floor listening to the quiet Christine translate the equally quiet tour guide’s speech about the history of urban development in Paris. It was as hard to listen to as it sounds, and I was instantly bored, so I can’t imagine how the students who had been sitting through it for an hour at that point were even still awake. I finally had to get up and wander around the building, which was just a museum about urbanism in Paris. This is actually an interesting topic to me, but I think I would rather read a book about it than walk around a museum and read posters. Another 45 minutes probably passed before Anna, Jamie, and I got permission to leave from Daves, who seemed just as bored as the rest of us.

We started to head back to the hotel (with Melissa and Alex following along), but made a stop at a pharmacy so Anna and Melissa could get medicine and a patisserie so we could have a little snack before dinner. Anna wanted to also stop in Notre Dame, which was on the way back, but we went back and forth on the idea since we were all really tired. We had pretty much settled on not going until we crossed the bridge from which we could see the back of the famous cathedral. At this point Alex and Melissa were really far ahead of us, so we decided it would be okay to stop and take pictures. This decision eventually turned into stopping in for a visit (although it was too late to go up into the towers). Turns out it was a pretty good decision as we got to go inside while they were having service. Although I’ve heard a lot of people say that the Notre Dame isn’t that great, I was very impressed by it. Next to the Sagrada Familia, it was probably my favorite cathedral that we’ve seen. The inside wasn’t that ornate, but it was huge and the structure of it and the fact that the entire thing was built by hand was really beautiful to me. I also appreciated the intense blues used in the stained glass and the way the preacher’s voice carried through the building. It was at once an awe-inspiring and peaceful experience.

After Notre Dame, we returned to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Anna had talked Jamie into joining her and some others for dinner at one of those tacky Medieval restaurants (I think they were expecting it to be like Medieval Times, but it definitely was not). Anyway, it was the all you can drink wine that inspired Jamie to go, and I sort of tagged along in hopes that it would at least be fun if nothing else. When we got to the restaurant, we found that the price was 41 Euros a head, which was about 10 Euros more than I was expecting, and I was ready to bail at that point, but everyone else decided to suck it up and do it, and I didn’t particularly want to walk back by myself or eat with the other two students who were leaving since I barely new them. And that’s how I paid 41 Euros for mediocre food and bad wine. The servers weren’t even in costume, but there was an amusing ‘minstrel’ who was actually just a fat British guy with a guitar. But, and this alone may have been worth the price, he played Take Me Home, Country Roads. The French people seemed pretty confused, but I was loving it. He played a lot of songs I knew, and quite a few I liked too. Anyway, in spite of the rather disappointing meal, the company was good so it wasn’t a total bust. By the time we left the restaurant, some of us (myself not included) were pretty drunk, so after trying to decide what to do, we finally ended up at a bar near the hotel. Claire bought me a gin and tonic, which was a nice change from all the damn wine. I tried to pay her back for it, but she wouldn’t accept. Anyway, after about half of the drink, I had to leave for reasons I won’t list here and went back to the hotel, where I was only able to get about 4 hours of sleep before the next morning’s wake-up call.

France Part 6

Once again, only a brief interlude between posts. It’s like magic! If you haven’t yet, please read France Part 4 about Lyon and France Part 5 about the Musee d’Archaeologie in Apt and Jean-Pierre’s mosaic studio.

Well, the weekend started out with a bang. Thursday night, almost everyone went to the Cafe de Sade, and it was probably the drunkest night of the quarter. I know it was the most I’ve had to drink all quarter by far. Other than that, it was pretty much like every other drinking night in Lacoste though. I chatted up some of the locals, even though they’re a little creepy. It helped me work on my French.

The next morning, I got up bright and early looking forward to a trip to the Pont du Gard and Arles that I had signed up for the previous night. Unfortunately, my name was far enough down the list that I got relegated to the second van, which only ended up going to Avignon. I was disappointed, but Miles (who also got shafted into this van) and I made the best of it. After a short 30-minute drive from Lacoste, we arrived at the ramparts of Avignon, which are incredibly well-preserved and very cool looking. We parked at E’LeClerc and the group split up from there. Miles, Ashley, and I went into E’LeClerc (the Wal Mart of France, in case you forgot) so Miles could buy some new shoelaces.

Once Miles had his laces, we walked from E’LeClerc through the ramparts and into town. It was early enough that stores were just starting to open for the day, so we made our first trip to the art store, where Ashley bought some supplies. Along the way, I quickly noticed the large number of homeless people in the city. There were probably more per capita here than in Barcelona or Marseille. We then proceeded toward the historic district, and took note of a Vietnamese restaurant we passed along the way, thinking to return there for lunch. By the time we reached the main drag through historic Avignon, I really had to go to the restroom. We went to the office of tourism and asked if they had a bathroom (grabbing some brochures for our Treasures of Provence journals along the way). They directed us to a public toilet in the garden behind the office.

The garden, though pretty from afar, was rather disjointed and strange up close. We took some photos anyway, and I found the public toilet. I immediately wished I hadn’t. There was merde everywhere and the toilet was full of garbage. Needless to say, I did not go to the bathroom here. Finally I gave in and snuck into a hotel to use their bathroom. With that problem solved, we were able to move on and start scoping out the city’s historic sites. As we walked down the street, we were quickly distracted by the many shopping opportunities, including Zara and H&M. I made some very good purchases and H&M (a new hoodie and and a 2 euro shirt) and also ended up with two comic books from a newstand.

Finally, we made our way to Avignon’s chief site, the Papal Palace. We were prepared to go inside, but the fee was rather steep, so we made due with photographing the outside of the building and other interesting buildings in the area. We also were able to go up behind the palace, where we could see a magnificent view of Avignon and its surroundings. It was mercifully sunny, but very windy, to the point where I could hardly hold my camera still when taking pictures. After viewing the scenery, we found a strange little park built around a Gallo-Roman grotto-like structure. As with many of the other Roman ruins in France, we were able to just climb all over this ancient building.

After taking quite a few photos, we found our way back to the main street and started moving toward lunch. But first, we had to go into FNAC (the French FYE, only not a rip off) and back to H&M so that I could get one more shirt that Miles forgot to tell me about when we first went in. We were going to stop in one of the small shoe boutiques for Ashley, but the one she had in mind was closed for lunch, so we went back to the Vietnamese place and had a delicious and inexpensive meal. I was so happy to not have bland food! Following lunch, we only had about an hour left. Miles had wanted to visit a certain art museum, but we were out of time, so we settled for the museum’s gift shop and lobby displays. We made it back to the car with about 20 minutes to spare, so we went back into E’LeClerc and got some school supplies for much cheaper than

we would have at the school boutique. All in all, it was a very leisurely and enjoyable trip.

Saturday, in addition to being Valentine’s Day, was Miles’ birthday, and we decided we would go to Bonnieux that evening with a group of about 9 people to get a nice dinner and some drinks. Bonnieux is a town of about 2,000 people (seems huge compared to Lacoste), and it’s ‘walking distance’ across the valley. I put that in quotes because, while the distance isn’t that great, the wind, the cold, the hills, and the dark all combine to make it seem unbearable. We decided to brave it and left Lacoste at about 6:30 pm. When we arrived in Bonnieux sometime close to 8pm, almost every open restaurant told us they couldn’t seat our party. We were on the verge of despair, thinking that not only would we not be able to celebrate Miles’ birthday in Bonnieux, but we would all go to bed hungry, until McArthur discovered an open pizza restaurant. We had to sit in the bar for awhile, but we finally got a table and some delicious pizzas. Pizzas in France all seem to be served personal size, but they’re very crispy and come with pretty exotic and interesting ingredients. The highlight, in my opinion, however was the hot pepper they gave us to put on the pizza. Two flavorful meals in as many days made me very happy. After we ate and had some drinks (some more than others), we started walking home sometime between 11:30 and midnight. The walk home was cold, but the stars were absolutely beautiful. It reminded me of our trip to Wyoming when I was little…like really being able to look into space. We even saw some shooting stars. Nevertheless when I finally made it back to Lacoste (Miles and I got about 20 minutes ahead of everyone else), I was pretty excited to get into my PJs and jump into my warm(ish) bed.

Sunday, I once again got up bright and early to go on another trip I signed up for. This one went to Ile-sur-la-Sorgue and Saint-Remy-en-Provence/Glanum. Thankfully, I got to go to the destinations I planned for this time. Miles had elected not to go on this trip, but Jamie did (mostly to see Glanum). Our first stop was at Ile-sur-la-Sorgue, which is famed for its antique market. It is a town on an island in the middle of the Sorgue river, which is fed by a cave spring, meaning the water is always a beautiful blue. Due to the rains we’ve been having, the waters were high and wild, which made for an interesting aesthetic. This particular day, however, was quite pleasant. It wasn’t raining, snowing, or windy.

We went through the first section of the market rather quickly, mostly in search of so

mething to drink. After picking up some sodas at a gas station, we looked more closely at the wares being sold. There was a lot of junk and a lot of food, but once in awhile we saw something interesting. It wasn’t until venturing further into the market that we realized some of the stores themselves were open, and that the market is HUGE. We spent about three hours just looking around with a brief stop for some delicious banana-chocolate crepes at a cute little creperie. I ended up buying a nice souvenir for my mom and an awesomely bad French 1980s comic book.

We left Il-sur-la-Sorgue at 12:30. Another group of students left earlier to go back to Lacoste since they did not plan to go to Saint-Remy and Glanum, so it was just me, Jamie, Jamie White, Claudia, Norma, and Daves. It was pretty nice having such a small group, since not very much coordination or strict planning was required. We got to Saint-Remy at about 1pm and were hungry for lunch by the time we arrived. Daves parked and left us to explore the charming medieval town for an hour and a half. Most things were closed since it was Sunday, so Jamie and I settled for sitting outside at a cafe. We had a very nice waiter who was very interested in and excited about America (especially Miami) and wanted to practice his English on us. Actually, he was the second person to tell us how much he loved America that day. The first was at the book store where I bought my comic book. He was also extremely interested in America and seemed to be particularly interested in New York, Miami, and the west coast. It was cool to me to have two regular French guys in two different towns completely shatter the “French people hate Americans” stereotype all in one day. We spent almost the entire time at the cafe, where Jamie had carbonarra and I had spaghetti bolognaise. Both meals were delicious, and the carbonarra was served in the traditional way with a raw egg poured right on top.

After lunch we headed up to the top of the hill behind Saint-Remy, where Glanum and the institution where Vincent Van Gogh was hospitalized and did many of his most famous works are located. We had the option to visit either site, but Jamie White, Jamie, Claudia, and I all chose to go to Glanum. Norma and Daves decided they didn’t want quite so much hiking, so they went to the Van Gogh exhibit.

Glanum is one of the best-preserved Roman sites in the world, and it was defin

itely one of the coolest places I have ever been. The site is huge, and visitors are able to simply climb all over everything (apart from a few things which are specifically blocked off). We took the opportunity to explore the entire site, and we were even able to look down into an underground area that is currently being excavated. We touched columns and sculptures, picked up a few pieces of rocks, hunted for treasure, and all in all enjoyed every minute of it. My favorite part was being able to see the complex and advanced drainage system, as well as the remnants of the baths. The cliffs and forests surrounding the town were also quite enjoyable. We spent at least two hours exploring Glanum before finally returning to the gift shop, purchasing a few souvenirs, and heading back to Lacoste.

Today, we had another class field trip. This one took us to Fontaine de Vaucluse, which is the source of the Sorgue river. Remember, the Sorgue? (It’s the river that Ile-sur-la-Sorgue is in the middle of). So, our trip was to the town where the spring that is the source of the Sorgue is located. We arrived at about 9:30am and the group split up after a short orientation from Daves. I walked around with Jamie and the painting professor, Craig Drennen. We went to the old (11th century?) Romaesque cathedral first. It was too dark to photograph, but interesting nonetheless. The cathedral also housed the 6th century sarcophagus of the bishop credited with slaying the dragon that supposedly inhabited the spring.  The Gauls and Romans believed that a benevolent dragon lived at the spring and protected the town and granted

wishes. They threw gold coins into the ‘wishing well’ and were all in all very happy having a dragon. However, when Christianity came along, they needed to do away with such pagan beliefs, so they made dragons evil and made their heroes (e.g. Saint George) slay them in legend. Pre-Christianity, dragons were pretty popular in France, so nowadays, you see a lot of sculpture and architecture in the name of old Saint George.

After the cathedral, we wanted to visit the Petrarch museum. His house is located in the town and we were all three excited to see it. Unfortunately, the museum was closed, but we did get to walk along the Sorgue, which was particularly wild in this area and even more blue than at Ile-sur-la-Sorgue. In fact, behind the Petrarch museum, there was a whitewater kayaking course. Following a bit of confusion, we found our way up to the spring itself, where there were all sorts of rocks and cliffs to climb on. Near the spring, the river was at its very roughest, but the spring itself was as calm as can be, and impossibly deep. The cliffs all around were dotted with caves, and the scenery was to die for.

We walked back down into town, with a stop at the tourism office for some brochures, and realized we had a bit of time left, so Jamie, Craig, and I stopped in a cafe for a quick snack. It was the perfect end to my favorite Treasures of Provence field trip thus far.

France Part 5

This is probably the closest margin of time between entries EVER! So, if you haven’t seen my Lyon entry (France Part 4) be sure to read that one too.

After returning from Lyon, we had a field trip in Treasures of Provence the next morning. This one took us to the Musee d’Archaeologie in Apt. Apt is a town we’ve become familiar with, as it is our destination for running errands and enjoying the open-air markets on Saturday mornings. However, we haven’t really looked at it much in its historical context until now. Apt is actually quite an extensive site dating back to the Gauls and Romans, and quite a lot of artifacts have been found there. The museum has a large collection of these, but unfortunately is not open to the public due to funding and theft issues. We were lucky enough to get a look at what few parts of the collection are not stored away.

As we wandered through the museum, there were a few displays, but most of the larger items were strewn rather haphazardly. There were boxes and crates everywhere with the capitals of Roman columns and stelae sticking out. It was a somewhat surreal experience to see all these things ‘displayed’ in such a bizarre fashion. My particular favorite item in the museum was a stelae carved by a former slave of Rome thanking the god Mercury for granting him his freedom. The text on it (and many of the other stelae) was so well-preserved! It really helped to humanize the people of the Roman Empire.

Perhaps the highlight of the visit was venturing underneath the museum (more Roman ruins underground!) to see the remains of Apt’s theater. Although this was not nearly as extensive or impressive as the underground ruins in Barcelona, it was still unexpected and very cool to see.

Wednesday also featured a field trip, this time to our maintenance man, Jean-Pierre’s mosaic studio in nearby Casaneuve. Casaneuve is even smaller than Lacoste, but Jean-Pierre (in addition to being our maintenance man and a world-renowned mosaicist) is the town’s mayor. He has done mosaics for the likes of U2, Sandra Bullock, and Carnegie Hall, so getting to see his studio was quite a treat.

We were greeted at the studio by his friendly (but filthy) sheepdog Pomme (Apple in English). She helped Jean-Pierre show us around the studio. He explained his process and showed us his wide variety of works, from Roman-style images to figures to pop-art. His tiles are mostly gathered from Roman sites in Provence, so essentially he is recreating Roman mosaics with the same materials they would have used.

Following the tour of the studio, he invited us to his house, which was small but incredible. Here, he served us tea and chocolate croissants and showed us the many artifacts he has collected from Roman sites. These ranged from coins to axe heads to belt buckles and even a fully intact human skull. He let us handle most of them, which was quite the rare opportunity.  After visiting with him for a bit, it was time to return to Lacoste for lunch.

After lunch, I had quite a bit of free time, so I decided to explore the area around the town. I went into some caves down by the lavoirs (where the residents of Lacoste would have washed their clothes in the days before running water). I also went to the cemetery and just enjoyed the peace and quiet and the beautiful weather. After trekking back up the hill into town, I decided to go up to the Chateau de Sade.

I explored it quite a bit (probably more than is allowed) and also went into the woods behind it overlooking one of the quarries. As I was peering over quite a steep cliff, a man jumped out from behind a rock and said “Hi, I’m Gabriel!” Needless to say, I jumped out of my skin and nearly fell off the cliff. I told him he had scared me and he apologized and wandered off. Very strange. I took a different road down from the chateau than the one I took up, and it turned out to be a bit treacherous, but my Doc Martens and I managed. I was just happy the weather was nice enough for me to go exploring and take some good photos.

The rest of the weekend was a huge series of events all its own, deserving of a separate post which I will add sometime tomorrow or Tuesday.

France Part 4

Boy, I am really falling behind in keeping this thing updated. This is partially due to being busy and partially due to the fact that the internet keeps going out in Lacoste. Either way, there’s finally a new update! Hooray!

This past weekend, I went to Lyon with the other students from Le Corbusier. Most of them are architects, but there are a few outcasts. Namely, me, Miles (Art History), Jamie (Historic Preservation), and Whitney (Metals and Jewelry). Architects or not, most of us are getting pretty tired of and disillusioned with Le Corbusier, but nevertheless, we were happy to take a weekend trip to Lyon.

We left at about 8:30 Friday morning and drove for 3 hours (plus an hour-long stop at a rest area for no apparent reason) to arrive at our first destination: La Tourette, a Dominican Monastery built by Le Corbusier, where we planned to spend our first night. We took 3 vans full of students, so not quite as sophisticated a journey as our charter bus to Barcelona, but I did get in the best van, driven by Professor Daves (not Dave) Rossell.  He had me, Jamie, and Miles to ‘entertain’ him throughout the drive, along with 5 other equally insane students, but he was an amazingly good sport.

We were going to see another Le Corbusier site along the way to La Tourette, but it was an outdoor site and the weather was so bad, we ended up having to skip it. At this point it was freezing rain, FREEZING being the operative term. As a result, we were about 3 hours early when we arrived at La Tourette, but the Friar didn’t seem to mind and took us on a tour of the building. The outside of the building was…well…concrete. And concrete against a cold grey sky is just not that pretty or interesting to look at. The inside of the monastery, despite being terribly cold, was pretty interesting. It wasn’t until we got the tour, however, that we realized that the monastery is not currently being used because it is undergoing rennovations. So, we were going to spend the night in a building that not even the Dominican monks were living in because of the rennovations. Very interesting indeed. Anyway, we were shown the parts of the building that were not being rennovated. The dining room had quite an incredible installation art piece in it, with cups, plates, and silverware suspended from the ceiling to give them the appearance of floating in space. I’m not sure what the artist was trying to get across, but it was cool nonetheless. My favorite part of the monastery was the chapel, which is pretty hard to describe. It was a huge, eerily lit space with a large white stone altar. It included a crypt underneath, which could be seen from the seating area. If I had any modeling ability, I would DEFINITELY make a level for a game based on this chapel. Unfortunately none of these things photographed well, and as I said, I have trouble describing them, so I recommend researching La Tourette if you’re interested.

After the tour, which took quite awhile, the freezing rain had become heavy, wet snow which quickly coated the ground.  We were given keys and shown to our cells, which were deliberately made to be as wide as a 6 ft. tall man with his arms completely extended horizontally and as tall as the same man with an arm completely extended vertically. This is Le Corbusier’s ‘Modular Man’ proportioning system and he uses it in most of his buildings. In other words everything is that size or multiples of that size. It’s actually not really his idea since it’s based of the Fibonacci Sequence, which has obviously been around a lot longer. But, anyway, we were given free time until dinner which consisted mostly of naps or reading in our cells, which were quite chilly. According to my alarm clock thermometer, mine was 59 degrees. Jamie’s was colder because her little radiator wasn’t working.

We had dinner with the monks and employees of the monastery down in their makeshift dining room, which was significantly warmer. Dinner consisted of a salad, a fish casserole, fruits, yogurt, cheese, and plenty of wine. It was actually pretty good, although I was so hungry at that point, anything would have seemed good. Miles, Jamie, and I sat with Melissa, Leigh, Isaac, and our visiting scholar, Norma Evanson. She is an expert on Le Corbusier and actually met him when he was working in India. I like her because she likes to talk about what an arrogant asshole he was. Most students either don’t like her or just don’t understand her though, because she’s 80 years old and very very very quiet. Even if you say hello to her, the odds of her responding are about 50/50. She’s shy and reserved and strange. However, she did come out of her shell at dinner and told us about working in the underwear department of a store when she was 15 and wondering how women ever got big enough to wear XXL panties, which ‘would have been baggy on a rhinocerous’.

After dinner, most people (myself included) cleaned up and went to bed. The next morning, we were thankfully not snowed in. The snow had turned back into rain. We had breakfast with the monks, which was just cereal, bread, and REAL ORANGE JUICE!!!!!!! Oh, how I’ve missed real orange juice. We visited the information desk/gift shop, and on the way back to the vans, Jamie slipped and fell in the mud, which sucked considering it just made her more miserable in the wet and cold.

We then drove to our next destination, the airport/train station outside of Lyon, which was very cool looking and built by some famous architect I’ve never heard of. As cool-looking as it was, I did not feel the need to spend an hour there. I just wanted to get to Lyon. Nevertheless, we ate our little bag lunches and somehow managed to kill an hour taking artistic looking pictures and browsing the airport newstands. I still haven’t gotten used to seeing skin magazines just hanging out next to Better Homes and Gardens.

After that excrutiating hour, we FINALLY drove into Lyon. And got lost. Well, Brett got lost. And refused to let Daves help him find the hotel. So another excrutiating hour(+?) was spent driving round and round Lyon. We got settled in our hotel rooms and were asked to wait another half an hour, then come down to the lobby and let Daves give us an orientation speech about Lyon and recommend sites to see. At this point, Miles and I were very frustrated because we were quickly losing time in our only day in Lyon proper, prompting Miles (who rarely curses) to say “Let’s get the fuck out of here” when the orientation finally ended.

The weather was STILL freezing rain, so it was pretty miserable outside. Nevertheless, we were determined to see some of Lyon’s sites. We started to make our way from the hotel to the Gallo-Roman ruins, and stopped along the way by two gothic cathedrals. One was closed, but we enjoyed the sculpture around the outside. The other was open, but it was pretty standard as far as Gothic cathedrals go…somehow, I’m getting used to them. We took quite a hike from the last cathedral up a hill to the Gallo-Roman ruins, which aren’t ruined at all. The two main features were theaters, which were both incredibly intact, even down to some mosaic work on the orchestra. There were some buildings behind the theaters, which we also explored. They just let you walk all over the theaters, into the buildings, on the walls, anywhere you want to go. In America, that stuff would be surrounded by armed guards and lasers. It was very cool.

From the ruins, we went to the basilica, which can be seen from just about anywhere in Lyon. It’s four massive towers make it look like an upsidedown elephant. So, remember how I said I was used to Gothic cathedrals? Nothing could have prepared me for this one. It was astonishing to the point that it just completely defies description. Everything was so ornate and beautiful and awe-inspiring…I particularly liked the stained glass, which was quite a bit more varied and unique than most of the other stained glass I’ve seen. We only got to spend a few minutes here, however, because the Saturday evening service was about to start. I can’t even imagine attending church service at a place like this, but apparently a lot of the Lyonnais people do.

After the basilica, we decided to take the metro back down toward the hotel. We wanted to go to the mall in Lyon, but first we wanted to warm up and dry off in the hotel. The metro was extremely nice and well-organized, and a day-pass for it was quite cheap. We got off the metro at Place Bellacour, the largest square in France, which features a very cool statue of Louis XIV, a ferris wheel, and is surrounded by high fashion shops. We walked a bit through the fashion district, which I enjoyed even though I probably couldn’t have even entered the stores the way I was dressed. We then grabbed a bit of street food to hold us over until dinner (we learned from Spain that we shouldn’t expect to eat until 8pm or so) and headed back to the metro and finally, the hotel.

At the hotel, we changed into PJs to let our clothes dry out and watched a French series called La Vie est a Nous, and we got pretty into it. After the show ended, we got dressed again and decided to return to Place Bellacour to one of the bouchons we saw nearby for dinner. By this point, it was snowing again, albeit lightly. A bouchon is a special type of restaurant in Lyon where you pay one lump sum for a three-course meal in the Lyonnais tradition. My dinner consisted of a Lyonnais salad (veal feet, beef muzzle, and lentils), hot sausage and potatoes, and dark chocolate mousse. It was all so good! They also brought us fried something (I think it was tripe) for free, but none of us cared much for it. After that filling dinner, we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and decided to head up to the mall, which was open until 11 pm. When we got there, however, we realized that although the mall itself was open, the stores were not. Either way, we got to see another cool part of town before finally heading back to the hotel. Once again back at the hotel, we changed out of our wet clothes and watched the Italian version of Dancing With the Stars, which was way more interesting than its American counterpart.

After a quick breakfast at the hotel Sunday morning, we loaded up the vans and headed for Firminy, our final Le Corbusier destination of the trip. Firminy-Vert is one of Le Corbusier’s only urban planning projects that was ever actually enacted. Firminy is a mining town that had a population explosion in the 19th century. By the 20th century, it was poverty stricken and suffering from horrible housing conditions. In the 50’s, Le Corbusier was asked to try to help remedy the situation. He did so by building a Unite d’Habitation, almost identical to the one from Marseille. He also designed a church, a stadium, and a cultural center. Unfortunately, the plan was largely unsuccessful…none of the buildings are used for their intended purposes except the Unite, which is filled to about half occupancy. Much like the monastery and the Unite in Marseille, the buildings were cold and leaky and in need of rennovation. I think this was probably what most surprised/disappointed me about Le Corbusier’s designs. They are all concrete and have such an image of stability and endurance, yet when you visit them, you find them in rather horrible condition. As we waited to leave Firminy, Miles and Stephen played soccer with some French tweens and got their butts beat. It was fun to see them interacting with the kids though…them trying to speak French and the French kids trying to speak English. It was definitely the most fun we had in Firminy.

We left Firminy and headed back to Lacoste, taking a rural road that led us through a place that I can only describe as Narnia. The ground was covered in snow and massive forests of pine trees lined the hills and mountains, their branches heavy with snow. We could see these forests and the Alps and the tiny towns and homes set into them all covered in snow like something out of a children’s book. It was so beautiful, and I’m really glad we went that way in spite of the winding roads. The last 45 minutes of the drive were spent singing various songs that all or most people in the car could remember the words to. It started out with just 90’s pop/rock, but we ended up adding in some Queen, Van Morrison, and a showtune or two. Daves seemed to genuinely enjoy it and he kept bringing it up to me later in the week, which I thought was both hillarious and awesome. As we drove back into the Luberon, the weather finally cleared up, and the next morning we woke up to the first blue sky we’d seen in weeks.

I have a lot more to update about, including 2 field trips during the week, a trip to Avignon, and a trip I’m taking tomorrow to Saint-Remy-en-Provence and Glanum. So keep an eye out for two more entries before Wednesday, when I leave for Paris.

Barcelona Interlude

This has taken some time, but I’ve been pretty busy since I got back from Barcelona late Sunday night. Now I have to think about how I could ever possibly manage to narrow Barcelona down into a blog post.

First, I guess I should mention our field trip to the Ochre Quarry in Rousillon, which was the Monday before we left for Barcelona. It was interesting to see the way they collected and processed ochre in the area before the industry died. I particularly liked seeing inside the processing area and all the old equipment that was used there. Our trip to the quarry was followed by a short visit to the town of Rousillon itself, whose main point of interest is that all the buildings are red-orange-ish since they are made of ochre-enriched stones. The views of the ochre canyon from the town were also very cool. Unfortunately, the weather for the trip was horrible, and I was sick, so I didn’t quite get the experience out of it that I might have otherwise.

Now, time to completely overshadow Rousillon with BARCELONA, which I intend to go back to as soon as possible. We got on the bus at 8am Wednesday morning and rode for about 5 and a half hours with stops every two hours. We saw a not so pretty area of France…that is until we got to the Pyrenees. It started when I could see the Mediterannean outside my window, which made me pay a little more attention. I then looked out the front of the bus and saw a huge snow-covered mountain that just looked absolutely spectacular. Then on the opposite side of the bus, I saw the wind turbines up against the mountain range. Everyone kept trying to take photographs, but it was just too hard from the bus. Fortunately, we soon stopped at a rest stop, and in spite of the unappetizing and overpriced food, we were able to get some good pictures.

About an hour after we left the rest stop, we pulled up to our hotel right in downtown Barcelona. Driving into Barcelona was overwhelming- in terms of area, it’s much much bigger than I imagined. It also definitely has a gritty side to it, but I kind of expected that. We arrived at our hotel, which was extremely nice and conveniently located. After getting settled in, we wandered around for a bit and explored the immediate area, which included a number of restaurants and stores. We were quick to notice how inexpensive most of the clothing stores were and definitely started keeping some in mind for later. One of the architecture professors, who used to live in Paris, told us later that Spain is the best place in Europe to buy clothes because it’s so cheap. Following about 45 minutes of exploring, we returned to the hotel to meet up with the professors and go on the first of many school-organized trips. This one was to the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The walk to the museum was very short, and when we got there, we were surprised to see that the courtyard in front of the museum had become a sort of make-shift skate park. Not only was this not punished by the museum, it was encouraged! I thought that was a neat idea. The building itself was very modernist with whitewashed walls and a lot of steel. It had nice flow and was overall pretty effective as a gallery space. The art itself, however, was not my favorite. At least not on the first floor in the permanent collection. It was all very disturbing, and a lot of it was videos that were aimed at making the viewer uncomfortable. I guess I just really didn’t get a lot of it. The second floor, on the other hand, featured an exhibition by Joan Rabascall. His art is from the 60’s-80’s and is all about the criticism of mass-media, objectification, and consumerism. His pieces spoke to me, particularly his video montage about the Munich Olympics projected onto a massive billowing Olympic flag. I got a lot out of this exhibition and will definitely pursue my interest in Rabascall in the future.

After the museum, we had the afternoon and evening to ourselves. We spent this time getting oriented to the area around our hotel. Jamie, Miles, and I also scoped out a restaurant to try. It was this first night we discovered that Spaniards don’t start dinner until 8:30 at night.  We went to a reasonably-priced tapas restaurant and tried a number of things, most of which I still can’t identify. It was all good though. Not outstanding, but good. After dinner, we hung out for a little bit before going to bed. I almost forgot to mention that the main language in Barcelona is not Spanish. It’s Catalan, which is quite a bit different. Not many people spoke English, which didn’t give us too much difficulty, but it was definitely a little bit alienating. Luckily, most people did speak Spanish, so Jamie was able to help us in most situations.

Thursday morning, we got up, enjoyed the free continental breakfast, and left for the (school-organized trip to) Sagrada Familia. This is the IMMENSE cathedral that Gaudi began building in the late 1800’s. Gaudi died in 1926, but the cathedral isn’t slated to be complete until 2036. The scope of this thing is unbelievable, and the detail is mind boggling. It’s truly impossible to describe. I took dozens of photos just of this one building. We got to explore the inside and even scale the spires, which took us high above the city. To get down from the spires, we had to walk a down nerve-wrackingly narrow spiral staircase that seemed never-ending. Inside and outside the building, there are workers constantly working to continue the building’s construction. It reminded me a lot of a modern day Pillars of the Earth.

After the Sagrada Familia, we ate lunch at the park near the cathedral’s front facade. At this point, the rain sta

rted, and basically didn’t stop for our entire trip. We then walked to another Gaudi building (and another school-organized trip), the Casa Mila. It took us awhile to find it because we didn’t have a very good map yet, but we finally arrived (albeit 15 minutes late). This building was much more museum-like, featuring period furniture from the late 19th/early 20th century. A museum about Gaudi’s work was located in the attic, which was somewhat creepy to me. It is composed almost entirely of parabolic arches and it’s dark and eerily lit, making it seem almost nightmarish. The museum was interesting, however, and I enjoyed looking at models of Gaudi’s projects. The highlight of this building, though, was definitely the roof. With its weird sculptural chimneys and undulating surface, it reminded me of being in a Dr. Seuss novel.

We were pretty tired from walking after Casa Mila, but Jamie, Miles, and I decided to stop by Casa Batllo (Gaudi’s dragon building), which was on the way back to the hotel. As much as we wanted to go inside, the price of admission was pretty expensive, even for students. Nevertheless, we spent quite awhile admiring the outside, which is made to look like the scales and skeleton of a blue dragon/serpent. That night, we ate dinner with about 15 other students at another tapas place. This place was more expensive, but less tasty than the other place. Although some of the architecture students decided to find a club to go to, a lot of us decided to go to back to the hotel and relax.

The next morning, we went to the Contemporary Center of Catalonian Culture (school-organized). None of the exhibits had anything to do with Catalonian culture. They had a really overwhelming exhibit about urbanism in China, but it was a bit much for me. I find China interesting, but the way the exhibit was laid out and the things that were shown really didn’t do it for me at all. We did a bit of shopping before going on another school-organized trip to the Pavillion Mies Van Der Rhoe. This was a LONG WALK. As for the Pavillion, I freely admit that I just didn’t get it. I probably needed to have known more about Mies Van Der Rhoe to really appreciate it. Anyway, I didn’t regret the trip, because it took us to a very cool area of the city which we broke off from the group and explored. We got to see the Placa d’Espanya, which is a square with an awesome fountain in the middle of it. We also got to walk up to the Palau Barcelona (Barcelona Palace) which is yet another amazingly detailed and beautiful building surrounded by sculptures. We thought about going into the Palau, but did not want to pay the admission since we planned to go to the Joan Miro museum.

After taking photographs of the Palau and views of the city from the Palau (which is elevated enough that you can get a really nice overview of Barcelona), we took a short, rather pretty walk to the Fundacion Joan Miro (essentially a Joan Miro museum). I’ve recently discovered that Miro is one of my favorite artists, and this museum was probably one of the things I enjoyed most in Barcelona. His work is so unique and original…as Andre Breton said, “He’s the most surrealist of us all.” Seeing his paintings and sculptures in person was just an incredibly powerful and moving experience for me.

After the Miro museum, Jamie and I took the metro back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner. We also did a little bit of shopping near the hotel. Miles wanted to find a Basque restaurant, but we had some trouble locating one due to the language barrier, so we ended up at the Chinese restaurant across the street. It was surprisingly delicious! And for four people, the total ended up being about $30. They also gave us bracelets and free shots of…something…(I have no idea what it was) at the end. Once again, we turned in early.

Saturday morning, we had a school-organized trip to the Palau de la Musica Catalana. This is an amazing building constructed in the early 20th century during a time of Catalan revival. The outside and inside were both incredibly ornate and overwhelmingly beautiful. I particularly enjoyed the sculpture inside the music hall itself, but unfortunately we were only allowed to photograph the outside of the building. I bought a postcard of the inside, but it disappeared and I am really unhappy about it. After the Palau, we went shopping for awhile and enjoyed exploring all the European fashion. Personally, so far, I have been much more impressed by Spanish fashion than by that of the French.

When we finished shopping, we found we were pretty near to Barcelona’s Triumphal Arch, so we decided to go check it out. It was very cool, in a complex with the hall of justice (no idea what its actual name is) and a neat park. Upon exploring the park, we discovered an awesome fountain called the Cascades. It was definitely my favorite fountain in Barcelona. From there, we took the metro to the Gothic District, which is probably one of Barcelona’s most famous areas. It’s all confused narrow streets and (surprise) Gothic architecture. We attempted to go to the Barcelona Cathedral, but it was crowded and overpriced. Instead, we went to the Roman history museum, which allows visitors to go underground and explore the Roman city that Barcelona was built on top of. This was INCREDIBLE. I never thought I would see part of Ancient Rome in such a humanizing and well-preserved manner. Once again, no photos allowed, and none of the postcards really did it justice. So, if you have any reason to be in Barcelona, GO TO THIS MUSEUM. After that, we took the metro back to the hotel, and after a nap, Jamie and I went to dinner at what appeared to be a Spanish chain restaurant. It was a little pricey, but the paella and Catalan sausage were delicious. The beers were also double-sized, which I appreciated.

That night, we attempted to go out, but it was rainy and no one could decide on a place to go. This ended with one of the students (whose name I won’t mention) breaking the stairs in a super-chic bar. The others stayed out, but at that point, Jamie and I decided to buy a six-pack and some candy at one of the convenience stores and go back to the hotel to watch weird Spanish music videos.

Sunday morning, we went on a school-organized trip to the Picasso Museum in the Gothic District. It did not contain any of his best works, it was extremely crowded, and there were people there to force you to travel through the museum in a certain way. I HATED it and could not have been happier to leave. We had the rest of the day free, so we found another Gothic cathedral that was free to go in, the Eglesia St. Maria del Mar. We wanted to do some more shopping, but most of the stores were closed. We ended up at the “Book and Coin” market, which is a crazy open-air market in a really weird non-foreign-friendly part of town. There were a surprising number of comic stands in the market, and overall, it was a lot of fun to explore. I wanted to find souvenirs, but ended up just getting an old book to transfer my Treasures of Provence journal into. After the Book and Coin market, we only had about an hour before the bus left, so we just hung out in the immediate area of the hotel.

The ride home was uneventful, and we got back to Lacoste at about 11pm, where we were greeted by the Mistral. It blew all week, stopped yesterday, and started again today. It’s just as piercing and cold and irritating as the books described it. My week has been uneventful, besides hanging out with Claire, Dalton, and Jamie night before last and a short visit to the De Sade last night. Tomorrow morning, we leave for Lyon, so I will try to make that update a little more prompt than this one was.

For more photos, I recommend going to my Facebook albums. There are a bunch from all of my travels thus far, so go have a look.

Barcelona 1

Barcelona 2

Barcelona 3