Salut mes amis! Today was an absolutely perfect spring day in Paris. I had a good day working at La Cuisine, I had some gelato for dessert at lunch, and I'm going to Provence tomorrow with my Sweet Briar Program! My host mom is cooking something in the kitchen and it smells gooooooooooood. In short, ma vie est bonne. I hope you don't read my blog and think I am an obnoxious ray of sunshine kind of happy, but with the weather being so nice and the fact that I'M IN PARIS, I find it hard not to be looking on the bright side of things(literally). I'll check back in with my endorphin levels when it's time for my oral exposes in a few weeks. But for now, I'm a bit behind posting about my monuments class, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to catch up!
About two weeks ago, we went to the Musee Carnavalet in the Marais. It is a museum dedicated to Parisian history, and Parisian artifacts housed in an old "hotel" or noble mansion. It was really interesting, and I plan to go back and take my time instead of rushing from cool object to fascinating painting and back again!
First room in Carnavalet. It houses old street signs that marked stores in Paris (a butcher would have a pig or a cow sign hanging above his door for example).
Original door from Hotel de Ville(aka city hall)
Painting of St. Genevieve, the Patron saint of Paris. Hotel de Ville is in the background.
Carving of the Bastille Prison from one of the stones from the Bastille! Angry Parisians stormed the prison on July 14, 1789 and started the French Revolution.
Painting of the first public fountain in Paris in the Les Halles market area. Our professor talked about this fountain in class for about 30 minutes....
Bassinet for baby Napoleon III. Now that's fancy! The cradle is meant to be a boat rowed by angels. A woman representing Paris is holding a crown, and the eagle at the bow represents the empire.
Art Nouveau!!
As many of you know, J'ADORE peacocks! I love their coloring, and their feathers. I even dressed up as a peacock for my first grade "living zoo" project.
Art Nouveau fire place
I really like this painting. A girl lounging about with a good book. Looks pretty nice to me, although I prefer sweatpants to 19th century dresses....
Tomorrow I'll be waking up at the crack of dawn (approximately 5:30am) to make it to the Gare de Lyon at 6:30am for our 7am train to Provence. I'm excited and the weather forecast is sunny and mid 70s. I'm sure there will be more happy posts after this weekend!
Bisous,
Allison
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