A Parisian Weekend

Ok ok I'm back! I miss one day and y'all go crazy. Anyhoo, this entry will probably be a little on the long side, since I've got two full days to describe, so be warned. Let's see...

Saturday: A fairly slow day, which was fine with me because I'm still a bit jet-lagged. In the afternoon, Brigitte took me to the organic market and left me to do some shopping for my lunches and the dinners I'll make on my own. I was supposed to find my own way back to the apartment, although I was completely disoriented as soon as I stepped out of the market and was immediately lost. So I basically wandered around for fifteen minutes until I figured out where the main commercial street was, and from there I was able to figure out how to get back to the apartment. I'm pretty sure I walked in a huge circle, but oh well. I also have the awkward problem of being unable to let myself into the apartment, because I still can't figure out how to open the stupid front door. Brigitte even gave me "lessons," but I still can't really open it. To clarify, this isn't just a twist and push American lock, it requires two full 360-degree turns and then you have to push the key in further and pull down, while holding the doorknob, and then twist a little to open the door. Eek. So I will probably spend the rest of the semester holding the doorbell down until Charles wakes up and lets me in. Excellent. So that was the main excursion for the day, and then after dinner (a thin pasta/rice noodle with a yogurt-tomato sauce, mixed vegetables, bread, cheese, and soy yogurt with the Maine blueberry jam I bought the family for dessert) I had my very first Parisian evening out! I went to a "spectacle" with a couple that are friends with Brigitte because they are hosting an exchange student, Paola, a 24 year old business student from Mexico. She was the cutest! We instantly became friends as soon as she leaned over on the métro, and said to me, in French, with tons of French people around, "What do you think of all this French food? They put cheese...on everything! I don't get it at all." Too cute, too cute. So we took the 6 train again, with my favorite view, and then when we exited the station, here is where we ended up:

Livin' la rêve.

It was perfect timing, actually, because we got there just as the Eiffel Tower was sparkling! Eeeeee!! Sadly, my photo didn't come out too well, so I took the one above after the lights stopped. Paola also took this (very dark) one of me:

I swear I'm in this photo.

So as it turns out, the "spectacle" was actually a dance show. It was a super crowded theater, the place was quite literally packed, and as it turns out, for good reason - the show was so much fun! I don't know many dance terms, so excusez-moi, but it was basically a mix of ballet-ish dance with hip-hop, techno, and acrobatics/athletic, uh, stuff. Ok here's a video I found that does a much better job of explaining the show:

The guy on the bicycle was crazy, he even jumped through the stairs in the crowd, and at one point they took a volunteer from the audience and he laid on the stage and the bicyclist jumped all around and over him. The contortionist girl was freaaaaky, you can see a bit of her act in the video towards the end, she reminded me and Paola of a spider because she would crawl across the stage but with her limbs all flipped over and backwards, gross but cool I suppose. So the show was really fun, and even the building itself was amazing because there was a hallway leading to the theater that just had a super up-close view of the Eiffel Tower the entire time. The family I was with were wonderful as well, and all in all it was definitely a great first night out!

Sunday: Today was far busier than yesterday. Brigitte and I woke up early this morning to meet a friend of hers at the Centre Pompidou:

Ugliest building in Paris?

The silver tubes on the outside of the building are actually the escalators, which was nice because you got the most incredible views of the city:

Creepin' on Brigitte and her friend, Natasha, in the inside of one of the escalators.

We went to see an exhibition that was... interesting, to say the least. It was on the history of modern dance, so it went from the Isadora Duncan years in the early 1900s all the way up to all the weird things people are doing today and calling it dancing. The early period exhibit was interesting enough, although I knew I was in for a weird experience as soon as we got to the first room, which featured a guy on the floor slowly moving his body limb by limb and rolling around the room. Hmm. The exhibit basically got weirder and weirder after that, although they did do a nice job presenting everything, putting videos and pictures side by side with sculptures and paintings. After the 1920s rooms, the exhibit mainly focused on "machinery" dancing (using sculpture and metalworks to make dances) and all sorts of strange interpretative dance, which basically consisted of videos of naked women writhing on the floor in paint or oil, naked women dipping their bodies in paint and pressing them against the walls to make imprints, or naked women walking in gardens with shirtless men dancing around them wearing gauzy skirts. And yes, I paid 10 euro for this. After the exhibit, we went next door to a free modern art exhibition, which also featured lots of weird paintings and lots of nudity, although these painters favored the males instead of the females.

Me in front of one of the outdoor pieces, cold and happy.

Hi, Brigitte!

After all that art, we still had some time left before we were to meet Brigitte's parents. Brigitte decided to walk back to the 15ème instead of taking the métro, and even though it was freezing out and I didn't have a hat or gloves and feared turning into a giant hive in the middle of the 1ère (sup cold urticaria), I walked with her because I wanted to see Paris! Here are some of the photos I took in the 1ère as we walked (also, a quick sidenote about the blog - you can click on the photos to make them bigger so you can see them better!):

The back of the Louvre.

This is actually the entrance to a métro station!

Underneath the Louvre, the inverse of the pyramid.

Front of the Louvre.

Bye for now, 1ère!

So after all that walking, we stopped at the apartment to have a quick tea and pick up some things (Brigitte)/regain feeling in our legs (Rachel). It was then off to Brigitte's parents' apartment, only a three minute walk. She had the cutest parents! They were so nice and kept complimenting everything about me (I'll take it). We did another Epiphany celebration, because her parents are very Catholic and wanted to eat a galette des rois with Brigitte. Her father ended up winning the prize, and since he was 'king' he got to choose a queen, which was me (I'm a lucky lady), and I wore the crown and we toasted with champagne:

 

Brigitte et ses parents.

And therein ends my busy first weekend in Paris! Tomorrow I officially begin orientation, hopefully the Center is close to the métro stop, otherwise I will be quite the lost American girl. I also have a small cold which I am hoping will go away by tomorrow. It's time for dinner, so bye for now!!

x R.