Illiers Combray

My weekend was very relaxing, and I did very little, but the past few days have been pretty busy. I've gone to a few monuments and museums with Lauren, and a field trip with my program. Waking up early seems to be the new trend these past few days, and will continue to be so throughout the weekend. On Saturday Lauren and I visited l'Arc de Triomphe, which Napoleon built to commemorate all his successes throughout Europe.

[Here is myself in front of the Arc, but across the street]


[A man painting the Arc. I always thought coming to Paris to study and practice painting would be so romantic and cliche]


The next afternoon, Lauren and I went to the Jewish Quarter of Paris per our homework. While we were there we visited a Holocaust remembrance museum. Since we are quite close to Notre Dame, we stopped by to see this magnificent gothic cathedral. One of two we would see this week.

[Pictures of french children who were deported into holocaust camps; this is just about 1/6th of the room. This is from the museum which was quite moving and full of information. Lauren is in the picture too]


[Notre Dame]


[Myself and the cathedral]


[Lovely Parisian trees behind Notre Dame. This time of day is my favorite]


Today I went with my class to Chartres and Illiers Combray. In Chartres we visited one of the oldest, if not the oldest, gothic cathedral in Europe. It has tremendous history of being destroyed and rebuilt. What makes it so important to french history is that is houses "the Virgin Mary's Vail." Although, the fabric that they have dates into the 1st centuary, it cannot be the real virgin's vail. But it has survived all the revolutions and wars that tore the cathedral down. The part of the cathedral that was displaying the vail was under construction, so I did not get to see it. The front of the cathedral was under construction too, so that was disappointing.

[Chartres's Cathedral]


[My lunchtime begger in Chartres]


Our next stop down the line was Illiers Combray. This town was the home to Marcel Proust's great aunt, and I think his grandmother too. We visited the gardens he spent a lot of time in and the house his aunt lived in, that he stayed in as well, which was converted to a museum in his honor. One of the three courses I'm taking here in Paris is a class that focuses on two translated parts of Marcel Prousts 4000 page novel.


[This is essentially a 19th centuary laundrymat]


[Myself against the French countryside]


And that catches me up to today. Tomorrow is class, and Friday I make my way with seven other classmates to Amsterdam! Look out!

My Home

[This is where I'm staying]

Settling in

So I've been in Paris for two weeks now. Still familiarizing myself with the city and it's customs. There are many things that I thought were natural conveniences that even France would have, but things have definitely been different. The couple Lauren and I are staying with have been absolutely wonderful. They are very helpful and accommodating, and just want us to feel at home as part of the family.

This last week has been pretty low key. I haven't been taking as many photos as I would like, but I don't want to look too much like a tourist. I've been eating out with and enjoying friends, as well as having delicious home made dinners nightly with Lucile and Gille.

Other than our field trip to Fontainebleau, I've been staying in Paris wandering with Lauren and going out. Mostly relaxing, eating, and going to class.

[Outside our friends' flat and before we had phones. We had to wait till they looked out the window to see that we were there in order to let us in. We waited on the street and ate bread and cheese for 15 minutes before we were discovered. This is a good example of what most building's look like in Paris. All apartments in the city are beautiful 5 or 6 story buildings with lovely architecture and iron railings around window balconies]


[After we made it inside and had dinner. This is my housemate Lauren, and a classmate Justin]


[From our busstop, this is a photo of the church that is across the street from where we meet for classes. Saint-Germain des Pres]


[Inside our classroom. My instructor Will for our conversation class, and some classmates]


[A Parisian street not far from where we take our classes]


[Moufftard; a street where we've gone a few times to drink]


[metro]


On October 16th, my class went to Fontainebleau, France. It was a 40 minute train ride south of Paris. We visited The Royal Château de Fontainebleau where Kings and Emperors of France had made residence at one point or another. It was here, in the staircase entering the palace that Napoleon Bonaparte bid farewell to his old guard before going into exile in 1814. Francis I, King Henri II & IV, and Marie Antoinette were among the people who lived here temporarily. Leonardo da Vinci had visited the château at one point as well. They also had a modern art exhibit throughout the palace. I was really confused until it was explained to me. There was some weird stuff sitting in apartments and staircases. But overall it was very beautiful and quite fascinating.

[The front of the Chateau]



[Grand entrance hall]


[Modern art]


[Marie Antoinette's private chamber]


[Napoleon slept here]


[Statue]


[Myself in front of the Chateau]


Next weekend I'm going to Amsterdam with a group of classmates so expect more pictures soon!

la Tour Eiffel

Yesterday Lauren and I went to the Eiffel Tower. We meant to hit up most of the touristy sites, but the Eiffel tower took all the time we had. I guess since I'm going to be here for a while, I don't need to see everything right away. Last night we went out with a large part of the group, which was cool. There was an Australian bar that had a large number of English speaking people which was nice for a change. Later we went to another English speaking bar. I'm getting better at my french, but it's nice to have someone really understand me for once!

[moi]


[from below]


[looking down at the same spot where the picture right above was taken, zoomed in]


[My housemate Lauren and me at the top!]


[With some girls from the program at the Australian bar]


[Route 66 bar - how American!]

Two weeks

So it's been a little while since I left Washington on September 25th, but I'm finally getting this up and started. Since leaving two weeks ago, I landed in London's Heathrow Airport and immediately up north to stay with Michelle for about five days. Traveling from PDX to Stockton-on-Tees took about 23hours from start to finish. It took me about 3 days to get over my jet lag!



The first real day in northern England, Michelle and her friends Angela and Rachel took me to Newcastle to visit with and go out with three more of their friends. We wandered Newcastle a bit, had lunch and visited Newcastle's castle as well as a contemporary art museum; both of witch were great.

[On the top of Newcastle's Castle]


[We went out later that night in Newcastle.]




On the following Monday, Michelle, Angela and Rachel took me to York. It was like no other place I've been before. The streets are so small and lead you all over the place. I would get lost so fast if I didn't have Michelle to guide me. There was a lot of shopping, and the city was very well kept. We went to York's Castle, and Michelle and I went to York's Minister.

[On York's Castle]


We climbed the Minister's tower, which was a lot harder than I originally thought. The woman selling us our ticket looked at us very gravely and said "are you sure?"

[Half way up the tower. We had to walk along part of a roof to get to the second half of the staircase. Behind me is the tower I was trying to get to the top of. I know you can't see all of it. I wish I would have gotten a better picture.]


We later had tea at Betty's



And we went back to Michelle's for dinner where the girls made Shepard's Pie. The rest of my time with Michelle consisted of Durham and Middlesbro. Durham was lovely. We went to the cathedral in Durham which was the most beautiful church I've seen..so far.

[We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but here is it's outside]


Part of the first Harry Potter was filmed in one of the corridors I walked through at the cathedral.

[cobblestone!]


On Wednesday, October 1st, I went back south to London to see Clare before going to Paris. It was lovely to be able to visit with her, and very kind for her and her family to let me stay. Clare was very busy getting ready to move to Manchester. We went to a contemporary art museum in London; Tate Modern. It was large, but quite interesting. Friday afternoon, Clare and I went for burgers at a gourmet burger place. The first and last burger I've had since leaving home.




Saturday morning, I left Clare's for my early Coach which would take me to Paris! I arrived in Paris at 5:30pm-ish and took their underground to my home stay. It's at 10 rue de la Procession in the 15eme district of Paris. The family I'm with has five sons, the youngest of whom has moved out last summer. I assume since their house was empty is why they wanted to take in foreign students. They are Lucile and Gille and a very lovely couple. They speak English, but in order to better learn the language, we use French only. Except when we really don't understand, and it's something they really want us to know. We have our own rooms, and the internet. Many of the other students in the program can't say the same, so I feel very fortunate. From the balcony out side of Lauren and my bedrooms, we can see the top of the Eiffel Tower. I didn't think much of it at first, but the fact that we can see it is incredible. It's really only visible from right near to it, and we are almost two miles away in a second floor flat.

[my room]


[Eiffel Tower from my balcony. Poor quality I'm sorry. It was hard to get the photo at night.]


Most of the past week has been just settling in. We've finished our first week of classes, and have gone on one class field trip. Our class is closer into the center of Paris across from Saint Germain des Pres. Classes have been ok, but I have a feeling that they will be terribly slow moving and almost painful; from the way that lectures seem to be structured. on October 8th, I met up with Aunt Kandy and Brent who too were in Paris. It was great to see them while abroad. Their trip seemed to be going well. We had dinner and visited till midnight.




Yesterday October 9th, our class had a field trip to Paris's Opera, Paris's Passages and dinner at Chartier. It was a long, but neat day running around Paris.

[Opera'a ceiling (I might put a video look at the Opera on my YouTube)]


[one of the 7 passages we saw]


[The resturant Charteir where all 27 of us ate dinner]



And that catches me up to today!!! Today Lauren and I are going all around Paris to get more familiar with the city, and get all the tourist stuff out of the way. More to come!

À bientôt!