Monday:
I went into town with Susan, Sandrine and a few other Mettrayennes to see Twilight (I know, I was kind of like, "What, Angie's going to see Twilight?" too). However, despite the fact that I didn't really like the movie, it was nice to hang out and go into town-- it got me out of the house, anyway. And the movie had a few unintentionally funny moments-- during a scene that was supposed to be highly romantic, they were playing an Iron and Wine song in the background that is decidedly not a love song. I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. When we came back we went for a walk around the fields together before everyone went home, which was nice. We were originally going to take the dog with us, but Catherine had taken him to work (it was kind of nerve-wracking for a second, though: I came home and the crate was open and empty, so I thought I hadn't shut it properly and he'd escaped...). A pleasant day.
Tuesday:
I spent the morning taking walks with Darwin in order to keep him distracted from eating my feet while I was trying to read or do work on the computer. Later in the afternoon, I met up with one of my friends from the Iowa Young Writers' Studio, Fanny, who happens to be in Tours studying French at the same time as me by some strange twist of fate. We walked around town, saw some of the highlights like the little record store and a chocolate shop that sells sweets in the shape of cell phones and flowers, and I almost but didn't quite get us lost at least twice. She came over for dinner as well, where Darwin tried repeatedly to eat her feet despite the walks he'd had that morning and spending the afternoon playing in the gardens Catherine was working in. We had raclette, which hopefully was good enough to make up for his behavior. All in all, a nice day.
Wednesday:
I woke up with the beginnings of the cough that still hasn't left, and very nearly missed my train to Paris after Darwin decided he really didn't want to come back inside when we let him out to pee. Luckily my car was right next to the stairway from the main part of the station-- I got on and the train left literally one minute later. Sophie met me at the station again, and after picking up Elisabeth, we went to the Rodin Museum. Rodin, if you're not familiar with him, was the sculptor who made the Thinker as well as the Gates of Hell. The museum was quite beautiful-- it had very much the feeling of an old house (which makes sense, since I think that's just what the museum used to be), which made it very intimate and personal at the same time as being extraordinarily beautiful. In the afternoon, we went to the theater to see 'Le Malade Imaginaire.' I could get the general idea of what was going on, but the specifics were difficult for me to follow. The audience would laugh at times and I would have no idea what was supposed to be funny. But there was about an equal number of times that I got the humor, so I guess it all balances out in the end.
For dinner, we had a fondue, but not a fondue with cheese-- we had a pot with hot sunflower oil, and we'd dip pieces of meat and vegetables in to cook. It was very good.
Thursday:
I got up at around eight-thirty and read for about an hour before going out to meet one of my friends from Tours who happened to be in Paris at the same time on the Champs-Elysees. I got there at around ten and sent him a few texts to figure out a place to meet up while I walked around a bit. I ended up doing an entire circuit of the Champs-Elysees as well as a few of the side streets before he messaged me back to say that he'd gotten up late and wouldn't arrive for another half hour. It was cold outside, and I was sick, and in Paris, so what's the logical response?
Go to Starbucks, of course.
So I wasted a pleasant half hour with a grande chai and a chocolate chip muffin, and took pictures with my crane.
After another fifteen minutes' worth of telephone tag, Armand and I finally met up and we did another full circuit of the Champs-Elysees and went into a few stores. I found a copy of Good Omens in French but didn't buy it, which I'm regretting. I mentioned the Starbucks stop to Armand and he decided we were going there again since he'd never had Starbucks coffee before. Evidently I got him addicted, because he got a second coffee, a venti, after he'd finished up with the first. We took some more pictures of ourselves drinking coffee and then said goodbye (he had to get ready to leave that evening).
After Armand left, I walked through the Tuileries (which are pretty in a skeletal sort of way in the winter) to get to the Louvre. The Louvre, which is overwhelmingly huge from the outside, is even more overwhelmingly huge from the inside. I decided to skip the popular stuff and picked a gallery that I thought would be quieter (Ancient Mesopotamia) to look at more thoroughly. I think that was definitely the way to go-- even that collection was simply breathtaking. It brought back memories of ninth and tenth grade history, where we'd learn about how this or that collision of culture or religion brought on these or those changes in art-- things I knew, but had never really seen for myself. And in a room of art from ancient Iran, there was an incredible case of pottery with designs that could have been found on Pueblo pottery in New Mexico. It's incredible how symbols repeat themselves, all across the globe. We really aren't as different as we want to believe we are.
I finished up Mesopotamia with about another forty-five minutes to spare before closing, so I decided to sprint across the galleries to make it to the North America/Oceania/Africa gallery (even then, I found the combination somewhat strange), just to see what was there. I got there with about twenty minutes to look-- it was a pretty small gallery, though, so I saw everything, even if I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have preferred. There was a sign at the front explaining how this was the Louvre's attempt to elevate "primitive art" to its proper place in the cultural canon. It was clear from the wording that they're not quite there yet (what do we mean with this word, primitive? Are people who can carve gigantic heads from stone and erect them without cranes primitive?).
In any case, I got to take a self portrait with one of the Easter Island heads, so I guess I can't complain.
When I came home, we made our own sushi for dinner and served it on one of those wooden boats. I took pictures of it with my crane. A lovely arrangement, as well as delicious.
Friday:
I got up early-ish again to go to the Picasso Museum. My bus stopped inexplicably about halfway there and everyone was ordered off, so I had to walk about thirty extra minutes in order to get there. Added to that, I got slightly lost twice by misleading signs, but it was in the Marais, so it wasn't a terrible place to get lost. Very old and very pretty, and rainbow flags all over the place since it's more or less the Castro of Paris. I felt very welcome. By the time I got to the museum, I could only spend about half an hour there because I'd already made plans with Sophie to meet up for lunch on the Champs-Elysees. It's a fairly small museum, so I sprinted and saw more or less everything, but I know I didn't have the time to appreciate it. Even the glimpse was wonderful, though. I'm not complaining.
I walked back to the Hotel de Ville to take the metro over to meet Sophie and Elisabeth. We went to a little restaurant that was famous for its carpaccio. So of course, I ordered the risotto, because I make that much sense.
After lunch, Elisabeth and I went to the Musee de Cluny, which is a museum of artifacts from the Middle Ages. The most famous piece of the museum's collection are the tapestries of the Lady with the Unicorn-- if you do an image search on Google, you'll recognise it immediately. In person they're simply stunning; you really appreciate the hours and care the artist(s) must have put into creating all of them. All the fine detail, from the little flowers in the background to the folds in the Lady's dress to the unicorn's reflection in the mirror... The rest of the museum was wonderful as well, of course. It was just that the tapestries made the biggest impression. But then again, the Lady with the Unicorn is a hard act to follow.
After that, we went to a bookstore just across the street, where Elisabeth managed to read an entire manga in the time I spent looking around (she reads fast, in my defense). I found a French translation of a Portuguese novel that looked interesting, as well as translations of the Sandman comics. Unfortunately, the latter were far too expensive for me, but the first wasn't.
We had cheese soufflet for dinner and then went out for a ride on one of the Bateau-Mouches (little flat boats on the Seine, mostly for tourists). It was cold and it's kind of the off-season (I say kind of because there's still a good number of French tourists on winter vacation right now), so we had the boat mostly to ourselves. We went past the Louvre, the Musee d'Orsay, and the Eiffel Tower, among other monuments. I tried to take pictures, but my camera doesn't function well in the dark to start with, and the motion of the boat made it even worse. I gave up after a couple of tries.
After the ride, we met up with my cousin Mathieu and then headed out to John's house in the country. We got in around twelve-thirty and didn't get to bed until one.
Saturday:
A quiet day. I spent most of it reading. I think it might not be too much of an exaggeration to say that I spent all of it reading. In the few moments I wasn't reading, I went out into the garden, made a few calls, and baked scones. They didn't turn out terribly, but they didn't turn out brilliantly, either.
Sunday:
Another quiet day. I really didn't feel well at all, especially since I barely slept the night before given that I woke up every half hour from being unable to breathe, and again spent most of the time reading. We went out to a local fromagerie in the morning and made acquaintance with some of the goats. There were eight-day old kids (the goat kind) that were absolutely precious. I tried to take pictures but for some reason my flash seems to be on the fritz and only a few of them came out. We bought some of the cheese and had it at lunch-- I think I'd be hard-pressed to come up with I time I had better goat cheese.
We also went out to a local market by the river. We caught it at the end, so there wasn't much to see, but it was nice all the same.
On the way back into Paris, there was so much traffic that for a while we were worried that I was going to miss my train, but luckily we got to the station with a good twenty minutes to spare. By this point I was so exhausted and out of it that it took all my concentration not to fall asleep on the train so that I wouldn't miss my stop. I was planning on going to bed as soon as I got home, but I'd misunderstood that they'd waited for me to start the dinner party. By some miracle, I stayed awake long enough to eat a little bit, and then Catherine finally ordered me to bed when I refused the cheese course (yep, I was feeling that terrible, that I refused a French cheese course). I slept, and now I'm feeling not much better but at least not as tired.
I'm leaving for Toulouse tomorrow provided that the doctor says I don't have anything contagious/serious, so there'll be more on that next week. And later this afternoon/evening I'll post pictures from Paris. I didn't take quite as many this time as the last and most of them are of food, but it's something.
Ciao!
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