Whelp, Paris is already over, and it did not seem that time was relevant in the city. We tried to jam so many things into four days. At the moment I have been lying in bed all day, I had to give my body some rest and to catch up on a lot of homework, this week is midterms, so our teachers are still expecting assignments and things due. I don’t think my legs have ever been so stiff, we did a lot of walking. No one wanted to miss out on anything so it was a lot of pushing yourself until you literally couldn’t walk anymore.
Tuesday, April 22nd, Day 1
90 or so students piled onto the TGV in Avignon ( within 3 minutes) so that’s a feat in itself and then we sat back and relaxed as we enjoyed the high speed train rocking us to Paris. Then 90 or so students again walked from Gare de Lyon alllll the way to our hotel, which was advertised as a 20 minute walk, and I would say it was about 40 minutes with a duffel bag and backpack. That was when everyone was thinking why did I pack so much. Our hotel was in an amazing location, in the 5th arrondissement and very centrally located. A couple of us decided to go to the eiffel tower and watch the sunset from up top and then go out for some drinks to celebrate our first night here. Even though I’ve already been up, I did not pass up the opportunity to go again, I went up before when I was 16 and with 60 other high schoolers so just what I was interested in was much different.
Wednesday, April 23rd, Day 2
Getting up at 7:30 am after about 6 hours was really really really rough, but also knowing that I was going to be able to see some of my favorite pieces of art in person made it a little easier to rise. We started our day with a morning walk to the louvre ( which I later found out was almost 2 miles away) and from there explored the louvre.
The louvre has been described by many as another form of hell, it is really brilliant with the architecture and the multitude of art within the walls. – To devote 30 seconds to each and ignoring the time taken walking from one work to the next, it would take about thirteen 24 hour days to see the entire collection, that’s not including walking time/eating/bathroom breaks.
I started with a group, but it’s so hard going around with people, so I split up and got myself and audio guide and explored on my own with my sketch book and camera. Another thing I forgot about the louvre the mass amounts of rude tourists and how hot is was. Not good for a hot natured person. Walking through rows and rows and galleries of phenomenal work. I went through the greek sculpture, and of course saw the venus di milo, along many other pieces. There are over 35,000 objects within this collection, so I will not bore you with everything I saw, but I will comment on a couple of my favorites.
I really love greek sculpture, so I spent a good amount of time in there sketching and admiring how wonderful they captured likeness of a human in stone form. Afterwards just wandering through the italian renaissance gallery, of course seeing mona lisa, I somehow got all the way to the tip top front (I got my selfie) and then had to get out of the black pit of people. I think looking back at it now that I like that some museums have a no photography rule, because the amount of people just looking at this painting through a lens was extraordinary. I couldn’t even admire the painting because of all the sweaty chinese tourists pushing and shoving to the front. I went back to a couple of paintings that inspired me when I was in highschool, like ophelia and liberty guides the people. Afterwards we left after about four hours in there and needed some food. It’s so hard on this trip to keep up with everyone because on top of all we have to see and want to see we have other field trips that are required, so I went off with my roommate, Xinli, who is absolutely adorable. Xinli is from China, and a very funny person, we found a good place to eat and I had squid with quinoa and a desert for just under 12 euro and she had some tasty looking duck and potatoes. Some people around us were eating escargot and frog legs, we found a very fun authentic french place. More wandering and stopping in some super fancy chocolate places led us all the way back to hotel where we met up with some other people and decided we wanted to go to Moulin Rouge and Pigalle district, wowza the bus stop we got off on was super shady. I was a little afraid not going to lie, but the sun wasn’t down and we made it up to Sacré-Cœur which is this beautiful church that kinda looks Islamic in origin with big rounded roofs. It’s on top of the hill in montmartre and is the highest point of paris so a really cool view. Montemartre was the area that most of the famous 19th-20th century painters had their studios like Van Gogh, Picasso, Mondrian, Dali to name a few Once climbing the steps up we had to sit on the stairs to rest for a second and this street performer came on and did these amazing tricks on top of a pedestal he was able to change his clothes while spinning a soccer ball, and flip upside down with a soccer ball, all remaining in control, and then while the soccer ball is still spinning he climbs a light pole and does more tricks. He could have been spider man. I’m still in awe after a couple of days. We then climbed down in to the moulin rouge and redlight district, and I’m glad we went but not the best thing in the world to see. Moulin rouge was pretty cool to see but the pigalle area was totally run down with sex shops everywhere. Moulin rogue was founded in 1889 as a caberet, and it still operates as a place to see dancing and was known for the birthplace of the can-can dance. After that we picked up a cheap meal at the monoprix and I had a well deserved rest until the next day.
Thursday, April 24th, Day 3
Woke up and quickly went to Musee D’orsay, which is my favorite museum, beautifully set up in a old train station, and holds mainly work from 1848-1915, and holds the famous gallery of impressionist and post impressionist masterpieces by the masters of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, and Van Gogh…. and I think a little piece of myself is still back in the Van Gogh Exhibit, it was a wonderful massive exhibit called Van Gogh / Artaud. The Man Suicided by Society. I saw so many wonderful, fabulous pieces, Starry night over Rhone was my main favorite, I like it even more than the official Starry Night. We were not able to take photographs inside the d’orsay, which looking back allowed me to really sit and have to take it all in because I knew I would not be able to take a picture to view it later. I sat for about 30 minutes sketching and making acquaintance with a man from Israel whom was “master thief” he was stealing pictures of the gallery exhibit. He was quite funny until he got a little cocky and tried getting another picture and was caught, he had to delete all of his stolen goods. I was the better thief and got one quick picture on my iphone. Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, the exhibition will comprise some forty paintings, a selection of van Gogh’s drawings and letters, together with graphic works by the poet-illustrator, which made for quite an interesting deal of different works, they showed all of his self portraits lined up next to each other to see the comparison, and then it winded around to his landscapes, portraits of others, and some of his study drawings which I loved to see how he worked with pencil and other material. I throughly enjoyed this exhibit. After an hour or so i wandered out and up to the impressionist’s and enjoyed the splendor of degas, monet, and so many others.
After the D’orsay, with my class we went across the river to musee d orangerie to visit Monet’s famous Water Lilies and downstairs to some fun pieces of Picasso and Matisse. WAIT there is more, later that night we went on a fabulous seine river ride, where of course it rained towards the end and it was fine and dandy ( little did I know I had gotten pick pocketed on the tour, whelp there goes my wallet) but you win some and you lose some. It was a wonderful ride and we were off after that to go to a bar and play some darts until the wee morning hours.
FRIDAY, april 25th day 4
Musee Du Pompidou, which is the modern art museum, just the building is amazing, all the piping and what normally is covered is out in the open, along with the escalators. So getting is was a treat. We had thought that this was to be free, but only for french students, yet somehow our sweet professor who is very german got us in the museum, all 60 of us for free and we were able to wander again. Picasso PICASSO and even more matisse, I made a point to really spend time with them, and sketch from them. We did the gallery pretty quickly, I’m going to have to come back, but I’m not a massive fan of the super modern conceptual things, and made it a mission to find the Laduree ( which is a famous macaroon place on the Champs Elysees. It was so classy, but we had our desserts, some had (tea) and I had the best decaf coffee a girl could ask for. Before I knew it I had to part the group and ( I got a little lost) but I survived to go to my next field trip, which was a cool bookmaking gallery full of artists books. After that I leave and go shopping in the college area, we find a brandy melville (OMG) and it was the biggest one I have been in I had to get one dress. I was so desperately tired that I called it an early night and wandered back to the sweet hotel home latin with my monoprix dinner and sat in bed and watched les miserables and was content to just lay there.
LAST DAY, Saturday April 26th
Our last day, was probably the roughest, it was very rainy and the days of staying up were really catching up with us. We went to the big flea market, which was a little over hyped on the outsides of this market was a really ghetto fabulous market vendor and on the inside were so many winding different antique shops. We went through the markets, the boys loved it so much it was almost a little funny, so they stayed behind as we found more places to SHOP. Hannah knew of a cool store called Pull & Bear so we set our eyes to this sweet woman who had a million shopping bags and didn’t speak a lick of english. My french saved the day, we were able to hold a conversation for 15 minutes and she walked us all the way to the store. We shopped a little more, and then had to make our way back to leave Paris and make the long journey to Lacoste where we got in around 12 midnight. The hike up with our bags was not fun, at all. I don’t think I have ever slept so well in my life.
So that’s my novel, thanks for reading.
Amanda
penley travels 