Instead of a cumulative update on the day-to-day happenings since my last blog post, which would make me sound like a regular Betty Crocker (involving lots of laundry, language lessons, changing weather--no more sunshine :( --cooking, playing dress-up, and knitting), I've decided to write pretty much only about this past weekend.
I do this mostly because everything else has been overshadowed by this weekend, which was a completely unanticipated jolt of happiness and adventure. I'll post pictures soon, but for now: a verbal update.
The family planned on going into central Paris this last Saturday because the father had a meeting and his parents live there, so the rest of us were going to hang out with the kids' grandpa while the dad had his meeting. So we walked around Le Marais near Bastille until we meet back up with the dad and go to a couple shops. Those of you who know me well know I pretty much hate shopping and only do it if I have something that I need in mind. Going to those shops, though, had a two-fold effect: I both felt completely unstylish and wished that I had enough disposable income to be able to afford going shopping. I don't know what exactly is at work in those Parisian shops, but the force is strong with them. After that, we walked through the square where Victor Hugo's house was, so we went through (it was almost closing time, but we got in a good half hour).
After that, we went back to the grandparents' house, were just shooting the breeze, having champagne for no reason in particular, when the mom points out something in the newspaper called Nuit Blanche that's going on in Paris that night. Turns out, it's an all-night city-wide modern art exhibit/festival. The paper had a map and listed some of the exhibits and the mom suggested I just stay the night in town at the grandparents' house and go to this Nuit Blanche. Of course, I was game. So the grandpa outfits me with a proper city map, some metro tickets, relevant addresses and phone numbers, keys to the house (so I could get back in at whatever wee hour I ended up returning), and at 20h00, I embark onto my solo nighttime art-venture with thousands of other people. And before you get freaked out about the fact that I was out alone in Paris in the middle of the night, there were tons of people everywhere. It was an all-night festival. free-for-all. And I didn't get hassled by anyone the entire night (although I was close by when some poor, scantily-clad young ladies unable to get hold of a taxi were getting hassled by every man on the street--they literally stopped in there cars, rolled down their windows, and just sat there waiting for a response from the girls).
Something about the completely undetermined opportunity to wander around a new city just makes me overjoyed, so I was pretty excited. My first stop was L'Hotel de Ville and apparently that was everyone else's first stop too. I waited in line for two hours to get in to see three exhibits. And it started raining. And I hadn't dressed for this nighttime adventure, so I was in sandals and pretty cold, but still... There was an awesome exhibit at L'Hotel where an artist named Motoi Yamamoto was using a bottle of salt to design a labyrinth on the ground of this huge room. It was fascinating to watch him working on the overwhelmingly huge project one small piece at a time. There was also a video exhibit where an artist had a close up shot of a jar of water projected on a screen and he would inject or drop different substances into it, which resulted in cool designs and patterns. The other exhibit at L'Hotel was a huge colored balloon piece where audience members had to interact with the bundle of balloons to make it into different shapes and colors.
Next, I walked to the cathedral of Notre Dame to see it lit up at night. It was magnificent (although the downside of seeing it at night is that the stained glass windows don't show up) and I got to walk through the inside as well. From there, I walked to another church called Saint Severin. I went inside because I heard organ music. I'm a sucker for organ music in a Gothic church. The inside of the church was lit by a green light and all the pews were removed and replaced with a path down the middle of the church made up of scented candle wax crucifix nails (some of which apparently smelled like blood, though I couldn't find one). It was a full sensory experience. Apparently, you were supposed to take a wax nail and put it on an incense burner to fill the room with the different smells until the nails were all gone. While I was there I got talking to a group of locals and they invited me to go to some of the exhibits with them since they kind of had a plan of attack. I decided to go along and we went next to the Pantheon where there were a few life-size figures positioned on and around the buildings around the square. There was also a wooden construction being made by an artist named Johann Le Guillerm. He was using 3-metre long 2x4s to create a dome without using any glue, wood, nails, or fasteners of any kind.
From there we went to a light exhibit in a gymnasium and another light exhibit on top of a mall next to the Tour Montparnasse. There we met a Canadian girl who I talked to her quite a lot, and we ended up taking her along with us too. Next we went to a smaller exhibit where you would stand on a pad that would measure your movement and heartbeat and translate that into a digital rendering of a tree. The trees of everyone who participated were kept to make a forest of gnarly digital trees with heartbeats. By now, it was 02h00 and I was starting to get tired and my feet were starting to hurt, but there was still at least one exhibit I wanted to make it to before I called it a night. The rest of the group wanted to go the other way, so we parted and I started walking up to the Gare d'Austerlitz. There was an AWESOME exhibit underneath the train tracks there by a guy named Pablo Valbuena who set up lights and some kind of clicker/sound mechanism at each of the track's columns. He would set the lights to go off at varying intervals to make it seem like they were whooshing past you first slowly, then more quickly, then all at once. You had to walk maybe 200m to get out of the exhibit, so it was a cool experience.
That was the last exhibit I went to. It was about 03h30 or 04h00 and my feet were KILLING me. I had blisters the size of quarters on both my feet, but all the buses (at least the ones I needed) had shut down long ago, so I still had to walk back home (still 3km away). I was still seriously debating going to one more exhibit--John Baldessari had a light exhibit by the Seine. About halfway there, I gave up though. I had to get off my feet or I just wouldn't make it home at all. I ended up getting back to the house at 05h00 and into bed at 05h30, got up that morning at 09h30, breakfasted with and thanked my hosts, was equipped with MORE metro passes, then went to church (more on that in a bit). After church, I decided to go to the Eiffel Tower, which was close by, to sit for a bit and figure out if there was anywhere else I wanted to try to go to before heading back to Fontainebleau (if my feet would hold up). I decided to go across the way to the Trocadero on my way to the metro stop and got some lovely pictures. I then hopped onto the metro (after helping--IN FRENCH!--a little old Chinese man who needed directions to the Opera stop) to Bastille because I still hadn't actually seen it yet, but once off the metro, I got distracted by a farmers market and walked some more. Then I stopped back at the square outside Victor Hugo's house to eat my little bread-and-cheese lunch in the park there, where it turns out a 12-piece string ensemble is playing music in one of the square's corridors. From there, I walked back to the metro and get onto the train Fontainebleau, then had to walk from the train station back home because there was a flea market going on in the centre of town (which I also got distracted by and got some wonderful free clothes).
What did I tell you? You can't make this stuff up. I'd say I had died and gone to heaven, but my complete inability to find a metro, bus, bike or otherwise (almost purely from being distracted by "just walking a little ways to this or that, then finding a ride") when my poor feet badly needed one, made it feel more like Dante's Inferno at times. The thing that was bringing me such earthly joy was also my source of punishment. Between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, I figured out that I walked about 20km, 16km of which was between 20h00 and 05h30 Saturday night. Today, I'm paying for it. The blisters have subsided, but I might have a case of tendinitis in both Achilles from compensating for the blisters.
Oh well. I'll take it.
Back to the church front, though: I've not yet found anywhere to go regularly. I visited an Eglise Reformee my second week here, but the service is in French, so I'm not quite ready for that yet. I was excited to find an English-speaking Scottish Presbyterian church in Paris last week, but it ended up not being what I expected at all (although the pastor was utterly and undeniably Scottish, as advertised). And this last Sunday, I went to the American Church in Paris (also English-speaking). It's a fairly large, diverse church in a beeee-yootiful building and has been in Paris for 200 years apparently, but is still not really what I'm looking for as far as the preaching goes. And I'll admit I was a bit thrown by the stained glass windows which displayed images of Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, and John Knox alongside the likes of St. Christopher, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Genevieve, St. Francis of Assisi, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The plan for next week is to visit an English-speaking Anglican church here in Fontainebleau. I'll let you know how it goes. And I'll keep you all posted on the rest of my adventures.
Also, the food diaries continue. More pastry going on this time and the parents have notified me that my food experiences will be broadened into liquor experiences soon:
My first (and second) legitimate Champagne
A delicious little pistachio and cherry cake provided by my language teacher
Squid
Crepe au sucre et citron
More cheese (I really should take note of all the different kinds)
Gateau Battu (So. Delicious. And apparently there's a "brotherhood" dedicated to it's existence.)
Monsieur Croque (a fancy way of saying grilled ham and cheese)
Whole fish that I had to de-bone (first time ever. Yay life skills!)
There was more food, but it's late now and I've forgotten.
With l'amour de la ville, ice packs, and ibuprofen,
DaniRae
