Pre-Prague Update

Mardi le 20 février

Had my TD in the morning, which was actually much more interesting than the one last week. Madame gave a very interesting lecture for the first hour and a half on Masaccio’s The Trinity, and then in the last half-hour, one of the French students gave an exposé about the Payment of the Tribute Money, a fresco also by Masaccio. While I haven’t been too impressed by French students’ behavior in lecture class (aka talking while the professor lectures, and not taking any notes), this girl’s exposé was really impressive, especially for a first-year student. At the end, Madame gave her comments, some of which were substantial, others were more grammatical—she corrected the girl’s use of masculine and feminine (so if a 19 year old French student isn’t always right about masculine versus feminine, then there’s hope for the rest of us!), and told her to never begin a sentence with “donc.” I thought it was pretty interesting for a teacher to correct a student’s speaking/use of language…definitely would not happen at Williams.

After TD, I had Atelier, where we learned about “la plupart de” vs “la majeure partie de,” à + infinitive (J’ai passé toute la nuit à lire ce livre stupide), “il s’agit de + infinitive,” and some vocab.

I decided that I needed to do something cultural, so after Atelier I went to Musée d’Orsay. I saw the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist rooms, and went downstairs to see Courbet’s Burial at Ornans, plus some other works by Courbet that we had talked about in TD the week before (it’s pretty cool to hop on a metro, and 15 minutes later to stand in front of a painting that you learned about from slides…). But the Musée was completely packed, so I left after about an hour and a half, deciding to “profiter” of the nice weather, and go for a run.

I practiced, had dinner with the fam, then met up with friends at the Pont des Arts. On the weekends the Pont des Arts is packed with people having picnics and hanging out, and we thought that it might be like that during the week…but we were wrong. It was pretty sketchy, so we walked over to Chatelet, and went to a bar called Café Oz, that some of my French friends had recommended…but it was pretty lame. So we went home.

Mercredi, le 21 février

History of Paris through its Monuments. Had lecture in the morning, which was pretty boring, as usual…the prof just rambles for an hour and a half. After lecture, Darcy and I grabbed lunch, and metro-ed over to Louvre, for the class visit. We learned about the construction of the Louvre, and then saw les Colonnes de Buren (cool striped columns in the Jardin du Palais Royal).

After 2 hours outside, we were pretty freezing, so Darcy and I found a cute tabac near the Louvre, and grabbed some hot chocolate. After warming up, I decided to actually go inside the Louvre, and continue with my goal of seeing every room of the Louvre. I saw the Medieval Objets d’Art (my favorite so far!), a room of Italian sculpture, and the beginning of Italian painting.

It was still sunny outside, so I decided to walk home from the Louvre. It took over an hour, because I decided to explore roads that I’d never been on before, but it wasn’t too cold, and it was nice to become familiar with a new part of the 7^th.

I practiced, and worked on my exposé. It was Ash Wednesday, so my host family went to mass at 8pm, and we ate dinner around 9:45, and I went to bed soon after.

Jeudi, le 22 février

Woke up and went running, then had Atelier, where we learned about entrer dans/sortir de et monter dans/descendre de, lots about comparatives – plus que/de, autant que/de, moins que/de, et aussi que, and when to pronounce the “s” in “plus”.

After Atelier, Darcy & I went to the cute Traiteur Italien to get pasta à emporter, which we ate in the Jardin du Luxembourg. After relaxing in the sun, we went to a café near the Sorbonne to do work until our Impressionism class at 4.

Impressionism class was awful, as usual. The professor is extraordinarily boring, and does not appear to know too much about Impressionism. He was lecturing about Corot, and other pre-Impressionist artists, but he would show slides, and forget the names of the painters, the titles of the images, or the dates…basically he wasn’t really helping himself gain the respect of the students. By the end of the 2 hours, you could barely hear the prof because the students were talking so loudly.

After class I did a little grocery shopping, then came home, practiced, had dinner, and went out. We went to Bar 10, one of my favorites in the 6^th – it’s this cool cellar covered with artsy movie posters, and they serve delicious Sangria. After Le Dix, we went to Cristal. Sadly, le Cristal was not as much fun as usual…mainly because we met creepy 40 year-old French guys who wouldn’t stop talking to us (one thing about bar culture in France I will never understand is the really old French guys trying to hit on 20 year olds…).

Vendredi, le 23 février

Woke up early for my 9am (not 10am, thanks, Sorbonne) Renaissance class. It turned out to be well-worth the early wake-up. The professor is young, smart, and engaging. His lecture was very focused and well organized, and he uses powerpoints (aka doesn’t mumble names, dates, and titles, since they are typed and on the screen). He talked about Brunelleschi, and the Florentine Renaissance, and when he finished his lecture at 11am, it felt like only 30 minutes had passed.

After class I decided to brave the Sorbonne library. I walked in and tried to find a book on Sainte Chapelle that I had been meaning to read…but I got really confused by the whole closed-stacks deal…so I left. I got half-way to the metro station, and decided to really brave my fear of French libraries, so I turned around and went back to the library, filled out a book request form, and got my book (it sounds stupid, but it was a mini-personal triumph)! I ended up reading the book for about 4 hours, and came home at 4:30.

I went running in the Champ de Mars, and on the way home decided to take a different, longer route. While running on Boulevard Garibaldi, I spotted this really sketchy guy who is peripherally friends with some of my French friends… I freaked out, ran in the opposite direction, and decided that Paris is really a small city.

I came home, packed my suitcase for Prague, and had dinner with my host parents. Madame had prepared this amazing pre-departure dinner – delicious salmon, salad, and crème brûlée (because she said I couldn’t leave France without having homemade crème brûlée). Monsieur was slightly unhappy, because he said it wasn’t “vrai” crème brûlée, because Madame’s torch-contraption wasn’t working, and she had to use the oven…

After dinner I went to the fête that Antoine and Vincent organized. My host parents thought I was insane for going out the night before a 10am flight. And they were right…

The fête was in a 3-story bar that they had rented out for the night. The bar was on the top floor, then the next floor down had couches for people to hang out and talk, and the 3^rd story was a dance floor. I talked more with the girls in the group, which was nice (Parisian girls are intimidating!). I also met Antoine’s brother, and another Antoine, who were both really nice. Well it was a really fun night…but I came home at 4:30 am, fell into bed, and woke up at 6:30 to leave for Prague! (Another update on my week in Prague will come soon!).