Palais Today

Another good day started with yet another marvelous breakfast. This one came with Neufchâtel! Also, I ate early enough that, lo and behold, my coffee was still hot. Now that is a rare occasion! I celebrated by almost burning my tongue.

Part of today's breakfast. Note Neufchâtel.

Part of today's breakfast. If it has a leaf, you know it's the good type.

While I did not actually have a class this morning, the idea of missing out on the French class that I'm no longer taking was so disappointing to me that I showed up (I'm still officially enrolled, so it seemed appropriate). After class, we worked in the study room until lunch. Of course, we went to Coeur de Blé. No food picture because a) you've already seen it and it hasn't changed, and b) I was hungry! I had a steaming, delicious, aromatic panini in my hand, and nothing in my stomach, and you want me to stop and take a photo? Sorry, no can do.

Several of us had to head out soon afterwards, because the Art History class was meeting at the Petit Palais. We took the Métro and got out at Concorde. It was such a compellingly cloudy day, with exactly the diffuse light you detest when taking photographs, that I had no choice but to document the experience fully. The alternate version of this story is that the wait between changes of the light is notoriously lengthy at this intersection.

Sideways: Obelisque. Note the little Tour Eiffel poking through in the back. Don't think I don't see you creeping in.

Fine. The notable Parisian Iron-scape deserves its own distant, grey, dreary photo.

Champs Elysées. You can see the Arc de Triomphe at the end of the tunnel, if you have exceptionally good vision or take out your OED magnifying glass.

The "Petit Palais" is not quite as petit as they lead you to believe.

When the very museum itself is a work of art, you know you're in for something good.

Chicago has lions. 'Nuff said.

Rarely does one get to see an empty exhibition hall! You get quite a sense of the grandeur of it.

The class was, of course, fantastic: we headed to the Tuck collection and delved into the curious 18th century tastes, and the shift from Louis XV "Rococo" pleasure/immorality to a far more straight-laced and proper Louis XVI mentality, moving from Boucher to David and profiting from great discussions. I should take a picture of my notes; in and of themselves, these are a work of art.

Everyone was leaving afterwards, so I decided to be friendly and sneak back some other time to explore the museum. Then, after much deliberation halfway down the Champs Elysées, a couple people decided to go to Starbucks and Sephora (that is so Water Tower), a couple went home, and the rest wanted to go to Montmartre for food, so I decided to strike off in my own direction: the Grand Palais. There is a special exhibit on that I heard was fantastic, and that is due to close soon.

Grand Palais, outside the special entrance for l'Exposition. 

I waited for over an hour. Outside. It was one of those unbearable lines where you stand in one place and, every fifteen minutes or so, they let in ten lucky visitors who have been standing in line for two hours. It is also Paris, so it became the sort of line where, packed tight in place as we were, some of my fellow visitors fancied a smoke. Upwind of me. While I had to have a good grumble like any good Parisian should to pass through pleasantries, it was really quite all right. While, in truth, I was unable to feel my frozen fingers by the time I reached the front of the line, my book was so intriguing that I hardly noticed.

Once in the exhibition, I learned both the advantages and disadvantages of going to see an exhibition you know nothing about. It was not what I had expected, and this is coming from someone who had absolutely no expectations. It wasn't even what I didn't expect. I included some samples below.

Yes, weapons. And paint. Welcome to modern art.

"The Bride"

This was cool.

She was creative. I would not deign to call these pieces beautiful, as that would be a terrible affront to aesthetically-appealing artwork, but the exhibit was extraordinary. Her pieces and the ideas behind them were fascinating, even if I found her insane and disagreed with just about every intelligible thing she said. The rooms were laced with videos, documentary-interview-style, that provided a valuable insight into the thought-processes and intentions behind these bizarre creations.

She was, in essence, a depressed über-feminist with a hyper-evolved justice axes and went through a phase in which she created art by placing balloons full of paint on her pieces and shooting them with guns so the colors oozed down, mixed, and generally created a mess and a ruckus. She also designed the Igor Stravinsky Fountain in Paris, right by the Centre Pompidou, which my brother and I adored as children. This definitely won her some respect points in my book.

One final image.

After the exhibition, I walked home, fatigued. I sat at my desk and worked on learning the Stanford Sailing Playbook. At 18h45. That's how you know it's been a long day. So far this week, I have stayed out until 19h20 every day.

I have no dinner food photos, but it was delicious. I cannot for the life of me tell you what one of the items was, but it had curry in it. It may or may not have contained meat. It was, in a sense, a glorified, french-ified veggie burger (that may have been meat), but it tasted great. A fried egg to the side, some tasty green olives, and a fantastic choux-fleurs gratinées that really made the meal. The sauce-infused cauliflower, cheesy and very French, was fantastic. Then, a mélange of cheeses and, fine, a couple more clementines.

After dinner, I went all the way to one of the other students' place in the 9eme (I think?) arrondissement, because he has his own little apartment, just above his host-family's place. It was the single sketchiest entryway I have ever experienced. This was mainly because the electricity was out in the stairway, and partly because, as an old and narrow service stairway, it had seen better days but not much better.

These are the stairs. You don't see them? No, well, neither did I. And I climbed them 8 times.

With flash, it is something like this. To the 7th floor.

Then down the sketchy hallway (watch out for loose cobblestones!)

Past the sketchy door; it's the door to the left.

We hung out there because it was nice, and because who really wants to go down 7 sketchy flights of stairs in the dark at 11pm anyway? Finally, we left because there was a music event at a nearby café that we wanted to go to, but they wouldn't let us in. The claimed there wasn't space and that they were closing soon, but we had a good half hour and we saw several people leave. I don't want to suggest anything, but our group was very obviously American, fulfilling several questionable stereotypes, and the first person the door guard talked to didn't really speak French. Tant mieux, because the Métro closes around 12-12:30, and it was drawing close to midnight. I don't know if the others did something else, because I gladly went home. The joys of 9am classes. Note that it is currently 1:20am. On campus, I would be proud of the amount of sleep I will be getting tonight. My mère d'accueil is a directer of a school and finds that disturbing.