Long Time, No Post...

So it appears that I have gotten worse about updating my blog, not better like I had hoped. This week once again seems to have escaped me, despite my best attempts to get ahead.

Since my last update I have had my first Architecture of Paris visit, gone to the Louvre twice and also visited the Père Lachaise cemetery (something I’ve wanted to do since Mme. Sowar read us a story senior year of high school!). I also went to class (duh!) and tried to get ahead on my homework since I knew I’d be missing classes on Thursday for Yom Kippur. I thought I was on track to be successful, but still somehow managed to not have most of my homework for Thursday done ahead of time. Well I guess I’ll start at the beginning for the interesting stuff.

My architecture visit consisted of visiting Notre Dame, St. Severin (another church) and Hôtel Cluny (a large mansion from the middle ages – now a medieval history museum, I believe). Notre Dame was spectacularly huge as usual and also rather filled with people. We sat in the pews and my professor lectured a little about the capitals and what was early gothic and late gothic and then we walked around the church and she talked some more about vaults and support columns. Then we head over to St. Severin, which was much smaller and I found prettier, because you could actually see details and didn’t feel like part of the masses (no pun/ reference intended). We did get kicked out a little early because they were starting Mass, but got to see some great contrast between “rayonnant” and “flamboyant” gothic styles. Last on the list was Hôtel Cluny and by this time in was starting to rain. So it was just a quick lecture in the courtyard and a quick look at one of the few examples of medieval style gardens, which I found quite pretty and rather modern looking (sadly I don’t think I took a photo).

I’m going to try to combine my two Louvre visits into one, so as not to over bore you with random artifacts. I have now covered the entire basement and first story of the Louvre (I am rather proud of this feat – and look forward to covering the second and third stories in the near future). There is so much more in the Louvre than I could have possibly imagined when I was there 2 years ago. I'm still astounded half the time when I walk into a new room and see everything they have, not to mention how gorgeous the building is in and of itself! Last Friday my trip consisted solely of ancient Egypt, while today I covered what amounted to the ancient Middle East (Babylonia, Syria, Iraq and probably some other areas that I’m now forgetting – My brain has now officially been overly immersed in French, I just tried to spell Iraq the French way and could not figure out why spell-checker didn’t like it) and French sculpture. The French sculpture that was originally intended for gardens and other outdoor areas is kept in what used to be an outdoor courtyard of the Louvre which they covered in a high glass ceiling to keep the effect. My overall impression from these two visits is that the Louvre must have what amounts to these countries’ entire collections of artifacts and I wonder how there could possibly be anything left there or for any other museum. The collections are gigantic and in many cases they have whole parts of walls and what seem like buildings within the Louvre. I can’t even begin to imagine how they got everything there.

I did almost trip over Hammurabi’s Code today while at the Louvre. I was walking along and saw this big black stone and thought to myself, “ok…,” but then there was some big French writing on the wall next to it so I started reading it (it was an extract from what the stone said) and as I started to think that these rules sounded familiar and then I looked at the other wall and in big letters it said Hammurabi and I went “OHHH!” I didn’t even know the Louvre had the stone with Hammurabi’s Code. Sadly my pictures of that didn’t come out as well as I thought, so I will be returning next time just to snap a couple of better photos.

Père Lachaise was pretty amazing as well. It’s a huge cemetery with a fair number of famous people and many more beautiful graves. My walking tour book had a walk specifically for Père Lachaise, so I did that and then went in search of the grave of Abelard and Heloise. They are famous lovers and my French teacher in high school read our class a story about them, which kept the class, at least the girls, after the bell to hear the ending (If you would like to know more click their names… This doesn’t do the story justice like the telling I heard, but I believe it was in French and thus do even less justice than this for most of my readers). Sadly, the grave is currently being restored so it wasn’t the most photogenic of opportunities, but I snapped a couple of photos nonetheless.

I have yet to decide what I am doing with the rest of my weekend. I want to go to Giverny, but I’m not sure if that will end of being this weekend or the weekend after next, it will be quite a long day trip involving a train and a shuttle bus so I want to make sure I have the time and energy for it. Hopefully it will still be beautiful in the fall. Next weekend I am off to Nantes to visit my friend Emily, who is also a Theta back at UPS and studying abroad for the semester! I am quite excited and have already purchased my train tickets for that. Her host family is being very kind and allowing me to stay at their house, so luckily I won’t have to pay for a hotel room as well.

I really will try to update at least once if not twice before then, and definitely once I get back!

Click below for photos:

Louvre (sorry there are some repeats from the last post)
Gothic Architecture and Pere Lachaise