a trip to Paris, my love of impressionists

Before jumping into my weekend in Paris, I suppose I should briefly say that everything in Dijon has been going very well. The only downside for this week was that I was once again alone due to the sickness of my host father's mother. It isn't the fact that I didn't get a meal last week (though I do get two this week to make up for it) but that I like being around them and being forced to speak French and to get my ideas across with those whose native tongue is French.

Amy on Friday. Dijon has been gorgeous this past week, so nice in fact
that we were able to have picnics outside and that the fountains are
now running all the time.

My somewhat solitude this past week actually played a part in my trip this weekend as I was accidentally dead-locked into the apartment. My host mother had thought that I was leaving Friday morning and had told someone in the apartment to check the door and dead-bolt it if I hadn't. The person did just so but while I was still in the room. This lead to a bit of hysteria as all packed up I went to open the door and found that it would not open. I won't lie, but my first reaction was definitely to look to the window! Frantically I called Nick, who lives in the apartment above, but he wasn't in the building and didn't have a key. He suggested I call my family and I did seeing as how it qualified as an emergency. Thankfully Madame explained to me that the dead-bolts went both ways and that there was a keyhole from the inside. I'd actually seen this during my hysterics but had put the key in the wrong way. Seeing as how I was able to go to Paris this weekend, I think you can guess that I managed to get out.

I reached the train station with plenty of time to spare but then discovered that my train was delayed by 50 minutes. This was quite annoying but I took out my book and read on a bench to pass the time and thankfully 50 minutes later the train did come. I took the TGV which is the faster of the two trains that go to Paris and after leaving at 19h45ish (7:45PM) I arrived in Paris at around 22h (10PM). Becky was there waiting for me and took me to her home in Montrouge where I met her husband, two kids and also had dinner.

I felt very lucky this whole weekend not to have to worry about a hostel and I want to say that I am very thankful for the hospitality of someone I don't think I've ever really met before.

As for visiting Paris goes, I wasn't supposed to be alone but ended up being so. The others came to Paris Saturday morning but due to getting to the hostel and difficulties using the metro I didn't end up meeting them till about 16h (4PM). This was mostly disappointing because every hour our so I called or texted to try to fix a spot and time to meet but either they were very late (and I don't mean to place any blame) or were across the city from me. Had I known this earlier I think I could have seen a lot more than I did, but I didn't, so I ended up spending a good amount of time at Notre Dame, in the Jardins des Tuileries and at la Tour Eiffel waiting. Unlike at the train station, I did not have a book to read.

I will say that at Notre Dame I discovered the archeological crypts which are not quite under the cathedral but  are directly under the square before it. In the crypts are several scale models of Paris which begin with its inception in the Gallo-Roman times when it was known as Lutèce and up until the modern times. This was pretty cool mostly because it's remarkable how much Paris has changed over time. Not only had it grown in size but in the 19th century much of it was leveled and then rebuilt under the guidance of Baron Haussman so that the winding streets of pre-Revolution France became the wide avenues that are more famous today. Apart from the models the crypts also showed some of the old foundations of Paris that were very cool to see.

Due to the fact that I didn't want to do things without the others I didn't go into the Louvre on Saturday (although I later realized I could have spent several hours there) and I didn't go up la Tour Eiffel  (even though I could have probably done this as well). Naturally by the time I did meet up with everyone it started downpouring.

After an hour in a café and then another hour at la Tour Eiffel (again) I ended up having to back to Montrouge for dinner. I didn't have any difficulties figuring out what lines to take to get back to Montrouge but I did have some difficulties finding out where the buses would stop. In the end I did, but for a while there things were a little shaky. 

Becky's husband Yves very graciously made lapin à la moutarde for dinner. I've never had rabbit before but I really did enjoy it and if the opportunity ever presented itself I would have it again. I will say that there were quite a lot of mushrooms with the meal and I somehow managed to eat everyone one of them. I didn't like them but I was trying to be polite and seeing as how I ate them as fast and as soon as possible it didn't really effect my dining experience.

The next day we had many more definite plans and met up at the Louvre at 9h30. Despite the fact that the woman selling tickets did not want to give us free admittance for being students, with our ID cards to a French institution she was forced to do so. Le Louvre itself is a massive museum and it's quite common knowledge that it would literally take days to see every single exhibit. In addition to being huge it is also quite confusing to get around barring the pieces everyone wants to see: La Joconde (The Mona Lisa), Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo. I had been to le Louvre once before four years ago and had already seen these three pieces but several of the others hadn't so we were obliged to see it. I personally find La Joconde interesting but not enough to warrant the swarm of tourists constantly around it.

One really incredible thing about Le Louvre is that it has so many pieces of art that are truly ancient. We were all amazed when we would sometimes stop to look at busts or statues and realize that they date to the year 22 or before. I noted in my post about the Chateaux de la Loire that we really don't make anything to last these days, and being inside le Louvre drove this point home further.

Becky had told me that the Rosetta Stone was in the Mesopotamian portion of Le Louvre (it was for one month in 1972 in Le Louvre but for over 200 years has resided in the British Museum) and I really wanted to see it but had significant difficulties getting to this portion of the museum. In the process of getting there I did walk through a wing dedicated to Egyptian antiquities and though I didn't see the Rosetta Stone I did see very many stones with hieroglyphics on them. For this portion of the museum I was also alone because the others wanted to see items that weren't on my priority list.

Egyptian Artifacts from the Louvre

We left the museum at around noon though I could have spent far more time inside (and will!). The others had planned to meet up with Michelle's friends who I had briefly met on Saturday but because they were meeting up at Notre Dame and planning to see many things I had seen before I decided to head to the Musée d’Orsay to see other things.

The Musée d’Orsay is without a doubt my favorite museum of those I've visited. I appreciate Le Louvre for its paintings, sculptures and antiquities but something about the Musée d’Orsay gives me a combined sensation of bliss and intellectual stimulation. I also truly prefer the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists to the older and much more traditional art presented in the Louvre. One floor of the d'Orsay was actually undergoing renovations and as a result of this the Impressonists were temporarily reorganized so that they were on the main floor. This was actually very cool because, as the museum noted, it allowed for new connections between artists to be made. Regardless of the reorganization there was nothing quite like walking into a room and seeing a Monet or a Degas right before my eyes. I had seen most of the paintings before but I forgot little details in between seeing it in person and seeing it on a print.

What affected me even more than the works by Monet, Manet, Degas and Cezanne were the Van Goghs. I don't really remember seeing the Van Goghs the first time around but I think this visit will really stick with me. I don't think I'd ever truly realized how bright and vibrant the colors were. After spending time in le Louvre where the paintings are much darker and even after seeing some pastels in d'Orsay I was really awed by the strength of the colors and the strokes of the paint brush. The sight of such beautiful works combined with the knowledge of how unappreciated and unrecognized he was in life and his subsequent suicide truly had an impact on me.

The Passion Flower at the Gate based off of a passage from
Tennyson's Maud. I have no photos from d'Orsay because they
were not allowed but also no picture of mine could ever compare
to the actuality.

At d'Orsay there was also an exhibit on Pre-Raphaelite artists most of whom were British. The art as a whole dates to the Victorian Age and though the paintings were lovely what I was most fascinated with were the photographs. Many of the photographers at the time attempted to illustrate parts of books or poems in the way that painters would but instead of showing events they showed emotion. I thought the concept of this was really brilliant and that the execution was also marvelous. One photographer in particular, Julia Margaret Cameron used a technique of focusing that was very different from other photographers of her time. Today we are able to take photos with a much more rapid shutter speed but Cameron and her contemporaries were forced to take longer exposures. For some this made portraits quite difficult but the slightly out of of focus images or the somewhat blurry photographs that she took actually added something to her images and really allowed for some emotional resonance. When I saw her first photo of the exhibit I knew almost immediately that I wanted to buy a book of her photos (and I did!).

Altogether and largely thanks to the hospitality of Becky and her family and then the wonder of the Musée d’Orsay I very much enjoyed my trip to Paris.