Le fontaine St. Michel

Wednesday I had to meet Dr. Clark and the other K-Staters at the Fontaine de St. Michel at 1 for our first official K-State cultural/history class. We walked from the Place St. Michel to the Musée du Moyen-Age/ Musée de Cluny. It was really interesting and slightly overwhelming- there’s just so much to see there. The 2 things that stuck out the most for me were les tapisseries de la dame à la licorne and the original têtes des rois from Notre-Dame de Paris. The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries are amazing in their detail and what they represent. There are 6 tapestries in total; 5 represent the five senses individually and the 6th represents ultimately renouncing worldly pleasures for a higher, spiritual purpose. At the time the tapestries were made to show the ideal lady, what she should look like and the fact that she should ultimately serve a higher power and not succumb to worldly temptations (i.e. the 5 senses represented in the tapestries). They are truly amazing in their workmanship and meaning.

Les têtes des rois require a slight history lesson to explain. If you look at the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, there are 28 statues that represent the Kings of Judah and Israel in what is called the Gallery of Kings. In the 13th century when these statues were first added to the cathedral, they quickly became associated with the kings of France and were soon seen as representations of these kings and the French monarchy. Because of this association with the monarchy, the original statues were all torn down and beheaded during the French Revolution and Reign of Terror. During this time the people detested anything even remotely related to the monarchy and destroyed any and all artifacts with royal connotations. After the masses beheaded the statues, they simply threw the pieces into a cellar and buried them. Restoration of Notre-Dame began in 1843, and at the time, none of the original status remained on the façade. The architects put in charge of the restoration simply recreated the statues of the Gallery of Kings, and these 1843 kings are the ones that are seen on Notre-Dame today. In 1977, during some excavation/restoration work in another part of Paris, the cellar where the original heads had been thrown was discovered. Les têtes des rois seen in the Cluny today are those original heads from before the Revolution. The fact that so many of France’s historical sites were destroyed during the Revolution and today are actually reproductions/restorations makes seeing the original heads that much more amazing. All the sites here are amazing, but seeing the legit Middle Ages originals is even better. Another interesting aspect to these heads is the vestiges of paint of some of them. During the Middle Ages, all churches and religious monuments were painted, they were bright and colorful and full of life because religion was such an integral part of life. Looking at all the various monuments and churches today, we just assume they have always been basic stone, but in reality they were colorful, lively edifices. Seeing where there used to be paint, truly realizing the life and importance that was put into these objects, is simply mind boggling.
The point to that long winded history lesson: that’s one of the few stories/bits of information I honestly remember learning my freshman year of high school in my French 1 class. Because it did stick with me, actually seeing those original statue heads was really cool and very interesting for me. The entire Cluny is truly amazing in its displays and vast array of artifacts from the Middle Ages; it’s a definite must see if you’ve got the time while in Paris.

Les tetes des rois


You can kind of see some of the paint on this head...on the cheek where it looks slightly dirty, it's actually the remnants of paint.




After le Musée du Moyen-Age we walked over to the Collège des Bernardins for a bit. The collège was originally built by a chapter of les cistercien, an order of Catholic reform monks, as a center of learning to spread their religious teachings. Today the collège has been converted into a conference center, and it’s free for the public to tour.


The main gallery of le college with a modern art exhibit.

We then made a trek through the rain to l’Institut du Monde Arabe. The institute has an amazing library with anything you could need concerning the Arab world. There’s a terrace on the roof with quite possibly the best view in the whole city of Notre-Dame, so we went up to the roof for some quick pictures. There’s also a great little café on the first floor, which we then visited. Some of the best mint tea ever and absolutely amazing traditional pastries, such as baklava.





Le vue est superbe!


After my incredibly long day with Dr. Clark, I went home for dinner. After dinner Alice showed Nina and me around le Parc des Buttes Chaumont which is literally right across the street from our apartment. C’est très beau!


Les fleurs dans le parc.


You can see Sacre Cour from the cliff in the park...there are some amazing city views from here.




Nina and Alice

Tuesday morning we had to wake up at 7 am (super suck for lazy college students!) for orientation at the Catho. Nina and I live in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, which is up in the northeast of the city. The Catho (Universite Catholique or Catholic University of Paris) where we have classes is in the 6th arrondissement, or the south-centralish area of Paris, next the Jardin du Luxembourg on the left bank of the Seine. (The left bank, or La Rive Gauche, is the area of the city south of the Seine; the right bank, or La Rive Droite, is the area north of the Seine. The left bank tends to be associated with the more artistic side of Paris, historically and even still today, while the right bank has been more business-y, upperclass, traditional historically.) Our commute from the 19th down to the 6th takes roughly 45 minutes, assuming there's no strike going on (which can happen fairly often as we have first hand experience from a few days ago). We spent the majority of Tuesday in various orientations: the city of Paris, safety, homestays, academics. Nina and I got in a bit of shopping and some slight sight seeing along the right bank after the orientations. We had an ISA welcome dinner at 7:30 at un petit restaurant called La Baladin, which was a bit of a challenge to find. It's located off some crazy tiny side street, that not even locals are guaranteed to know, which we found out the hard way when asking directions of the locals did us no good in finding it. Lesson learned for the day: leave more time than you think you'll need to navigate the city, and have a good map with even the smallest street labeled.


A video of our welcome dinner entertainment.



Le vin francais a diner.


Le dessert, tres delicieux!


me and rooms, aka Nina, at the welcome dinner.

After dinner a group of us made a much needed trip to la Tour Eiffel. Elle est tres belle et magnifique! By some feat of magic, we made it back to the metro before it closed. Another important bit of information for living in the city: the metro closes at 12:30 am Sunday-Thursday, and around 2 am Friday-Saturday. Also, make sure there are at least 2 people if you use the metro that late; sometimes it's simply better to take a cab if you're out so late.
(Sorry no pics of the Eiffel Tower yet, I used film there!)

It has officially been one full week since I left Kansas for Paris, France. C'est la fin d'une semaine tres magnifique. I met my roommate Nina at the airport in Chicago last week by crazy luck, so we got thrown into Paris together. We landed at CDG around 9:30 Monday morning and got to our homestay around noon. Sylvie, our hostmom, is really nice and very cool. She's absolutely amazing at putting up with us. She works in film, co-producing movies which is pretty cool. She's fluent in English and really enjoys American culture; a fact that makes life in our homestay a bit easier than other students in homestays have it. She has a 15-year old daughter named Alice. The more I learn about Alice, the more she reminds me of my 15-year old sister at home. It's kinda crazy how much the two of them seem to have in common. Both Sylvie and Alice are really nice and incredibly welcoming.

Nina and I spent Monday afternoon unpacking and sleeping (much needed sleep as I was running on about 20 minutes of uncomortable airplane sleep for the previous 24 hours). We went out to explore a bit when we woke up. We live a few blocks away from this great canal, which we wandered over to for some great first day photo ops. We came back to a tres delicieux dinner of Ratatouille that Sylvie had made for us. (Despite the line from the movie of ratatouille sounding disgusting, it really is a very good, traditional French, dish of simmered vegetables.) One major adjustment factor for American students living in France aside from the language, the French eat dinner around 8 pm. It's really late compared to American eating schedules, and it's always a full family sit down, legit meal; a guaranteed opportunity for families to talk about their days. After dinner Nina and I went to the Champs Elysees and Arc du Triomphe for our first official "famous place" visit..



C'est le chat de notre famille, Sourissette.
Our cat! Her name translates to "Little Mouse" in English.