does it feel like paris?

Have you ever been forced to march around in the cold for an hour and a half? Welcome to my life.

I woke up at 8:06 this morning and made my coffee straight away. I grabbed two of my pain au chocolats and was working by 8:40. I had a lot of work to do today so I knew that I needed to get moving. I started off by reading my pop paper for the zillionth time. I made a few corrections and then emailed it to myself so I'd have it for my 3:30 meeting with Mindy tomorrow. Next up was planning my week. I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. Such a shame I have to be so busy during my last few weeks in Paris. After my depressing planning session, I studied for French for an hour. I made progress, but I kept making mistakes. It's like I've forgotten everything that we've learned this quarter! Maybe I'm just tired.

Then came practicing for my pop presentation. I was able to do it in 10:30 on the nose two times in a row, but I have to speak really quickly to make it in that time. Today during presentations Mindy said that we don't have to play the entire song since we only have ten minutes. She also seemed to be taking very few notes on the presentations. Maybe that's a good sign. I might only play a minute of the video and then move on to the rest of my presentation. We shall see.

After working on my presentation, it was already noon. I had to leave for the Pompidou center at 1:15 so I needed to move towards getting dressed; I needed the break anyway. I did my hair and makeup and then spent an unreasonable amount of time picking an outfit. I finally decided on mom's wool dress (which is waaay too big for me now). I put a long sleeved shirt under the dress, put on a pair of tights under my fleece tights, and wore my black mittens under my thicker tan mittens. I also wore my thick tan hat, black scarf, and coat. I knew that I would still be cold during the excursion, but at least I wouldn't be as cold as I was during the cruise.

Before I left the house, I had just enough time to eat the last of my thanksgiving food while watching some Judge Judy. I'm not sure if I put too much gravy on the plate or what, but the green beans tasted sour. I ate some of them and prayed that they wouldn't make me sick. After lunch I shoved a package of cookies in my purse and left for class. My mittened hands were so big that I couldn't even zip my own purse. The second I got outside my feet were frozen in my boots. I think I could have worn another pair of socks, but I was afraid that my feet wouldn't fit in my boots if I put on another layer. I walked to the metro as fast as I could and took the one to Hôtel de Ville and then the 11 to Rambuteau. I walked to the front of the Pompidou center and saw Christina with Kristina and another girl from my class.

I asked Christina if I could skip next week's field trip to Père Lachaise due to my abnormal phobia against cemeteries. She said of course I could skip it. I then offered to do something else as a substitute and take some pictures to show her as proof. She said that I could pick from my to-do list and do that instead. She also said to email her what I was thinking about doing so that she could make suggestions. I love Christina. What I don't love is the cold. I knew that there was no way that I could take notes with my mittened hands. I was so glad that I wrote my last monument analysis already. Most of the class didn't take notes today either so I didn't feel as bad. It was actually nice to go along without taking notes and just enjoy the lecture.

We started our journey at the Pompidou center. The center was actually build on top of an old parking lot. The area had been declared an unsanitary zone and cleared years before so it wasn't like it destroyed anything. The main problem with the building is that it doesn't fit into the neighborhood. Some people say that it goes along with Haussmann's theory that monuments should have color, but it doesn't look like Paris at all. It does have its own community of artists and tourists that come to perform and hangout in the plaza though almost none of them visit the permanent museum collection (which the building was intended to house). The street performers in the square also harken back to the days when there were jugglers in the square of Notre Dame.

Next we looked at some houses that were destroyed and then rebuilt in a semi-Parisian style. You can definitely tell they aren't like the other houses in the square. Behind those houses we saw low income apartments that had been built. The square is totally lifeless and boring. It used to belong to watchmakers, but now no businesses can survive there; they usually close within the year. You can build a neighborhood, but you can't give it character. There's also a weird clock that has a dragon underneath (earth), a rooster (sky), and a crab (sea) with a man slaying them. The clock hasn't worked since 1980 when it was finished. It's an example of how you can build a monument, but it may not work.

Next we went through a small passageway typical of the old neighborhood that lead to a street that a man in Amelie was named after (something with a Q). I think it was the diamond sellers street. It was also a street for heroin dealers. Next up was seeing the location of where John Locke created his tavern to run his ponzi scheme out of. The scheme was so bad that people actually committed suicide due to financial ruin. After that sad stop, we saw a sculpture at the Norwegian (or was it Finnish?) heritage center. Christina didn't know the meaning behind it, but it was super cool. It was a concrete wall with body parts that were painted black sticking out of large fissures. Most of the figures were pregnant, and there were no faces. Creepyily cool.

Next was seeing the spot in Le Miserables where the little boy was shot down from the top of a barricade. I didn't know that Victor Hugo was such a proponent for old Paris. He was responsible for the Roman ruins being preserved instead of being turned into a bus depot. We then saw another church that I think is Saint-Merri that's near the Pompidou center. It was dedicated to a monk who had lived in the wilderness and became famous for being able to cure stomach problems. The building has a painting with Saint Lawrence that was given to the church by Louis 14th. The painting is supposed to be a valuable object that connects to the thieves who might get in trouble for stealing it.

Next up was the street on the other side of the church where two of the most famous Italian writers lived. Dante went to the Sorbonne as well as an Italian writer (whose name I don't remember, but it started with a "b") who was born on the street.

Next up was Saint-Jacques Tower. Remember a long time ago when I went searching for the kilo store and instead found a large tower? I think I uploaded a picture of it? Well it was actually Saint-Jacques Tower. The street we were standing on framed the tower beautifully. The church was actually dedicated to the neighborhood by the butchers guild. It was only saved because a bullet maker figured out that the tower height of 33 meters was perfect for dropping balls of lead into a water bucket below so that they'd turn out perfectly formed. During the trip, Christina kept making mention of things that I shouldn't see/that she was sorry for telling me/and to stand back from crypts. She told me not to go to the park at the base of the tower because there's a mass grave for Commune fighters in the park. The other kids must have been very confused.

Next we saw a church with a dome that looked centered but actually wasn't. The street we were on (which I think was Rambuteau) was created by Haussmann who believed that monuments should be in the center of boulevards as a focal point. The street looks like it lines up with the dome, but the street actually makes a turn to go around the monument while the structure itself is a weird angle. Haussmann forced architects to make weird buildings due to his obsession with focal points.

Next was...hmmm what was next. Oh yeah. We saw the plaque that commemorates the exact spot where Henri IV was stabbed to death in his carriage. The street was originally only four meters wide, and bad traffic allowed the murder to walk straight to his carriage that was stuck in the narrow passageway. The monument was actually supposed to make the Parisians feel better after the gloom of WWI. What a strange way to feel better. While standing there, I had this sense that I was standing on hallowed ground. I feel admire Henri IV and I appreciated being there. The man in the shoe store across the street seemed confused as to why we were standing there at all. He kept giving our group the side eye.

Next was the Fontaine of the Innocents. Christian apologized to me again before telling the class about the cemetery of the innocents. It was an all faiths cemetery that had mass graves. Bodies would go into the mass pits and be covered with dirt and quick lime. During a flood, bodies from the mass graves washed into the basements of the nearby buildings. The bodies were then placed in the catacombs, the fountain of the innocents moved from the corner of the square, and the cemetery destroyed. So unsanitary, and to think that the mass graves were right next to Les Halles!

Next up was what is left of "Les Halles." The old food market that used to be the center of the community is now a huge underground mall and major metro and RER transfer. We were all excited to go into the warmth of the mall, and had no problem being paraded down several escalators to the "center" of the mall. The center is supposed to be where the center of Les Halles was. The mall tries to make it effort to make the behemoth feel like Paris by putting up blue street signs on the corners. It doesn't feel like Paris at all. Christina says that she lives nearby and never goes to the mall for any of her needs despite its many functions (it has an Olympic swimming pool, music archives, a nursery). It's just not a community center anymore.

Next was seeing a statue called "écouter." It's a huge stone head lying on its side with a hand cupped near its ear. We also saw what was left of a palace. We were near the Louvre, and I guess it was where Marie de Medici went after her husband died (something about her and her husband). The only thing that's left of the original palace is this long spike on the top that looks like a weathervane. Marie's astrologer used to chart the stars from there everyday so he could do Marie's horoscope.

Our last stop was Saint-Eustache. The building is actually lopsided on one side so that it wouldn't disturb Les Halles vendors that had been there for generations. Christina said that many famous people visited that church because it was near the Louvre. Louis 14th took his first communion there and Le Brun and Le Notre visited there. I think Christina said that Bach's mother was buried there, but don't quote me. We then saw a large painting/sculpture (it was a painted bas-relief actually) that was dedicated to the Les Halles workers. The work had the phrase "de des fruits et des legumes du coeur de Paris" at the bottom. Next was seeing a triptych by an artist who was dying of AIDS. The church was one of the first churches with a soup kitchen and was also one of the first to do AIDS outreach. They wanted people to come into the embrace of the church no matter how they got sick. The piece was really touching because it showed (very abstractly) the image of a loving god unlike the angry god depicted at Sacré Coeur.

The next thing we saw was where Colbert was buried. Christina made the sweeping sign with her hands to tell me to stay back so that I wouldn't be near his body. It was a huge blue box with a statue of Colbert praying on it with the statue of charity on one side and a statue of a figure I was too far away to hear about on the other side. I can't believe that I was near the body of the famous Colbert. Holy crap. We then saw a painting about Saint-Eustache right before he was to be martyred. He was out on a hunting trip one day. He was about to shoot a deer when he saw a glowing cross between its antlers and it started to speak to him. He went home and he and his family converted. At the next public ceremony it was obvious that he was no longer pagan. He was then martyred along with his entire family by being roasted in a bronze bull. Our last stop was seeing the bas-reliefs of fruits and vegetables around the doorway. The church is very much in connection with what used to be in the neighborhood, and Christina said that the priests are very in tune with the neighborhood population.

After class, Nico and I took the metro from evil Châtelet back to Accent. He was really nice and fun to talk to. It was a nice break from my normal lobo solitario act. We got to school ten minutes early and I spent most of my spare time eating my cookies and reading a Cracked article.

We'll skip through the presentations until the very end of class. Mindy told us that she's thinking about changing the format for the final. It's going to be comprehensive (my heart sank when I heard this. It's exactly what I was afraid of) and she might give us potential essay questions ahead of time. This means that we'd have to prepare that number of essays and she'd expect a better essay out of us. She also might include definitions and/or multiple choice. All I could do in class to keep from crying was to try to stop thinking about it.

I walked home slowly, and began to immediately cried when I got upstairs. I can't handle this right now.

I studied for histories for an hour. I kept getting distracted due to my earlier freak out session and only managed to work through one lecture. I took way too many notes on it, but I just couldn't seem to focus.

I then wrote an email to Christina suggesting options for me to do next week. I also wrote in my activities journal. I just figured out that I've seen one of the churches a thousand times, but I kept calling it Sainte Geneviève's. I noted the mistake, and then figured out that I had accidentally put Atelier Brancusi in the wrong arrondissement making me think that it was different than the one I visited on Monday. I made that notation and then saw an email from Caroline. She said that she has been really busy so she hasn't found a date for us to go to the circus. She wants to meet for lunch on Wednesday to say out goodbyes. I told her that I'd email her Monday if I can find room in my schedule for it. She also asked me if I was keeping warm, and told me to come over and borrow sweaters and coats if I was cold. I'm sad already.

I then took me shower and spent some time online shopping for mom's Christmas presents. Now I might just go to bed. Tomorrow will probably be terrible. I'm not looking forward to talking to Mindy. Remind me to pack extra tissues.