Hey everyone! I'd like to
start off with some applauds (as the title indicates):
First, to Sam: thank you so much for replying and commenting! It
makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside - someone other than my family is
reading this! - and it's also very cool that you're interested. Zara is excellent - what a very cool shop
- although i can't bring myself to buy some of the beautiful things in there -
too expensive! (yes, my sense of 'expensive' has been tainted by my life being
spent at Highpoint). Hope you enjoy queensland
- when are you leaving? xx
Second, Nick and Lachy should get honourable mentions for
communication, although neither of you come close to wonderful sam.
Lachy,
Third, to Dad in the future when he sends photos of Jed.
Fourth, to thea: I think you’ve got the
right idea. They have no sense of customer service, so I’m going to memorise
rude phrases and use them when the timing is right. It’s really good being able
to speak the language, non?
Ok. Now that's out of the
way, how was my day?
WELL, most importantly - i
bought the two jackets, and also a parapluie (umbrella) - it's purple, and
cost 12.90 euro. I have been looking for a new one - but of course the
one i liked was 30 euro (black with grey love hearts). So this bright purple one was a bargain in comparison! You could seriously just wear a tshirt under these coats - they're that warm!
ANA JUST DELIVERED FREE CHOCOLATE BISCUITS TO MY DOOR. I LOVE YOU ANA!
Anyway, i'll get into the
how and why aspect of my purchases later.
This morning was a
"sleep in" but my sleep
was really restless - I kept on half-waking up in the middle of the night
worrying about something that I didn’t know what I was worrying about.
I dressed what some may describe as foolishly (*cough*
mum *cough*)– thermals, long sleeved top, new wool grey jumper from Zara. I
didn’t wear a big fat jacket because
(a) on the schedule we were only meant to spend one hour outside
(b) I was going to buy my two jackets at lunchtime, and I didn’t want to have
to carry around 3 big heavy jackets with me.
Turns out, we spent from
9am til 12 outside. And then it started to snow.
It didn’t actually start to snow – it rained
instead. But it was so cold, I felt like it was snowing (yes, I have picked
up mum’s penchant for over-exaggerating).
I just went on the Age
Online – apparently there was a bomb in Paris. I was in the centre of the city all
day. No one told me. :’(
Anyway, in the morning
Sylvia took us to la gare that Manet
famously painted (I think it was manet) and then we walked through the
painfully cold and raining streets of Le Quartier
de La Nouvelle Athenes (yes, French people are arrogant) – it’s essentially
where all these artists lived, really close to each other (Chopin, Georges Sand
etc).
Near the start, we went to a church that i can't remember the name of. After that church, we went to a chocolatier - i took plenty of pictures, but paying a lot of money for chocolate i don't love doesn't suit me. I'm a cadbury person, and this chocolatier was a more elite, more delicious looking Koko Black.
We went to L’Eglise de la Trinité there – which is
a mixture of several architectural styles which they’ve dubbed “eclectique” –
it was designed by someone called Ballu (unsure of spelling) – he was in charge
of re-buidling l’Hotel de Ville after the Revolutionaries burned it (as one is
want to do).
Then we went to la Mason de Talma, a famous actor that
was Napoleon I’s favourite, and the area where Gericault and Delacroix
lived.
Finally we went to L’Eglise de Notre Dame de Lorette,
which was apparently very fashionable at the time to get married in. The
outside was really dirty but the inside was very nice. All these churches we’re
visiting – it gets better as Christmas approaches, they have all these nativity
scenes going on which make it prettier.
Ana borrowed my ipod and listened to it most of the
morning. She needed it to survive ;).
Then we went to La Musée de la Vie Romantique which was
actually George Sand’s old house, Chopin lived there for a while, as well as
another painter. This was nice and warm, and the house was quite charming, so
it wasn’t TOO painful to be in.
Then, finally, Sylvia set us free!
Naturally, as these things go, it also meant that by the time we got off the
Metro to go to Zara on Rue de Rivoli, it
was pouring a monsoon. The rain was almost unbearable, I got absolutely soaked. We went to Ben and Jerries, but
it was shut, and then we went to Zara. I bought my two coats – yey for warmth!
I took off my jacket, and put one of them on. I guess the rain influenced my
decision to buy the umbrella – when it’s pouring, I already wanted to buy a new
one, and then on top of that it was my favourite colour (my favourites are a
strong purple and strong red), and it wasn’t very expensive. Also, I took off
my grey jumper, and with my jacket – no gloves, no scarves, just my new jacket
and me – I was plenty warm as we walked to the next Musée.
A note on French coats: they are far warmer than the ones you get in Australia. My
red coat is a trench coat – in Australia,
it would be a flimsy piece of material. In France, all of their jackets are
lined and lined again – you can wear them without much underneath and be
toasty. I guess because at the moment we are at the start of winter – it can
get much colder – and the Europeans have a great
need for their clothes to be really warm – I imagine they wouldn’t buy a flimsy
coat, it would be a waste of money.
After I bought my coats
(and ana found this really cute short red one which she bought), we went to Starbucks. I got a hot chocolate with
caramel (Chocolat Viennois Caramel), and we were warm and cuddled up on the
couches drinking. I drank mine a tad too fast – felt a bit of a
chocolate-overdose, but that subsided quickly enough. A French lady – even
though her boyfriend / husband protested against her asking us, saying it’s
rude – asked us whether we were leaving – ‘vous partez?’ Amanda didn’t
understand her, but I was like “non, pas maintenant, peut-etre nous allons
rester un quart d’heure.” She was a bit annoyed – I think she wanted the
couches. Well, we were there first! There was also an old couple who looked at
us weirdly – apparently they sat down in Amanda’s seat when she went to get her
coffee, and ana was like “c’est reservé” but then she didn’t understand and ana
tried to speak to her in English (which she understood a little better) but in
the end she probably only got the hint from body language – anyway, they kept
looking at us. It’s not like we were there long after we finished, and it’s
normal in Starbucks for people to stay for a long time. Deal with it.
Then we went to Christian Lacroix: Histoire de Mode
exhibition near the Louvre, in the Arts
Decoratifs museum. It was a bit of a walk – we passed this strip where all
of these asian men were standing, looking completely lost – they looked like
your typical middle-aged businessmen/tourists, they were just standing there,
not doing anything. I also think I want to buy a big fat “université de paris” tourist jumper – like the Melbourne
Uni ones. I know it’s corny, but they’re so comfy and so good to wear around
the house.
Anyway, we were kinda disappointed
with the Christian Lacroix exhibition. For our presentation, Ana and I are
going to do an analysis of how fashion has developed over the years – at the
beginning of the 19th century it was still very much the aristocracy
and the queen setting what is fashionable, and fashion lasting for a while –
people getting dresses made to fit etc. Then by the end of it – near the end of
the Second Empire – they’d invented shops. So
clothes were being fabriqué en série and
clothing “sizes” were invented making people paranoid about their shape, and
the bourgeoisie and most concerning the prostitutes / lower class could dress
in a similar way to the aristocrats/bourgeoisie, so haute couture developed, and fashion
“seasons” became shorter and shorter. The lower classes didn’t have one dress
for summer one for winter anymore – they could afford to buy clothes which made
them look richer than they were.
So, because of this presentation,
Ana and I had to go to the exhibition. On the website, it said that the
exhibition covered “from the 1800s to today” so we thought it would be
relevant. Most of the 19th century stuff was a handful of paintings
– and they weren’t even part of the Christian Lacroix exhibition! We went
around trying to find relevant things in the section that was not Christian
Lacroix – some weirdo security lady yelled at me for not putting my bags down
in the cloak room, when the security guard when he checked them didn’t mention
anything, neither did the people checking my tickets. She kept on saying what I
finally realized was “moins un” – which meant the level bellow ground level. I
had no idea what that word was – and she didn’t even explain “the level below
le rez-de-chausée” to me. Then she started to speak in English, and her English
was much worse than my French, and
I’m told her I understood French pretty
well, and she just ignored me and kept on speaking to me in her terrible English! Grr very annoyed. I’m
going to look up how to say in a really snotty way that your English is
terrible, lets speak in French, memorise it and use it with these Francais.
Seriously. If someone tells you they understand everything you’re saying except
one word, why speak in English if you don’t even know the word in English.
So I pretended to go down the stairs and just went around the other side to
meet Ana up.
We went into the bookshop for a
bit, but the books that were relevant were 30 euro and we’d rather spend the
money elsewhere. Ana tried to take photos of the book’s content, but the
security guard kept on looking at her, so I went up and pretended we were
looking through the books to decide which one to buy.
Then we decided since we paid for the entry we may as well see the Christian
Lacroix exhibition. Amanda came with us – she’s really into fashion, and spent
the whole time ana and I spent mucking around on a fruitless voyage looking at
the embroidery on these haute couture clothes. It was very pretty – although
most of the clothes were from collections from years and years ago – ana and I
covered it in about 15 minutes. Some of the big skirts were amazing. But again, I’m not interested in fashion.
It was nice to walk through a museum without being lectured for 20 minutes on
each aspect, most of which you’re not interested in.
Then we all went home on the metro. It was still raining, but my beautiful
coat kept me warm (I wore the grey one). There was a nice-looking guy whose
appearance reminded me of Wilson
from House on the metro who kept
smiling at me… I smiled at him back and kept my gaze averted.
We then came back to CIEP,
and we have another class on the Impressionists tonight before going to Musée D’Orsay tomorrow and then walking in a place the Impressionists lived. At
least that will be bearable – I already know a lot about the impressionists
from PEGS Art History classes so it will all be familiar and I won’t need to
concentrate hard, and a museum is warm.
I promise I shall take
plenty of pictures dad.
On a final note: I know we’ve all been extolling the virtues of the metro. It is a good system for a city
that is so large. However, I do have one complaint: the trains actually move
pretty slowly. Most days, although it depends where we are in Paris, it takes us about an hour to get home.
Move faster damned trains. I think
it’s because the carriages are rather old.
On a second final note: those painfully long metro trips pass much
quicker when I’m listening to my ipod. Go
ipod go!
Now that I’ve had chocolate
biscuits, I’m just waiting for dinner at 7 (it’s 6.03 at this second). Sylvia
said it is “au self” – I bloody well hope so! All of the three-course served meals
are really quite terrible. At least when it’s au self you can help yourself to
as much salad as you want, you have a choice of dishes, etc. They sometimes
even have tubes of ketchup! It’s never as good as tomato sauce, but it’s better
tasting than the ketchup I remember trying in Greece.
My love to all, and a final
reminder to send me photos of jed.
Bye!
