Last night I didn't set an alarm, but instead went to bed at 10:30. I knew that I'd wake up at about eight or at latest 8:30. I wasn't surprised one bit when I woke up at 8:02 on the nose. I knew that I had a lot of work to do today so I wasted no time getting myself up and going. I heated up my pain au chocolat (a revelation that I should have done a long time ago), made my sugar coffee, and went straight to my desk. I started off by reading a NY Times article about the modern architecture in Paris. It was interesting, but not noteworthy. Next up was an hour of studying for pop. I started off by outlining the lecture on pop (I will never get sick of learning about suprême ntm) before starting to outline the lecture on Québécois artists. Next up was practicing my pop presentation. I was able to do the entire presentation in ten minutes, 30 seconds!! The first try didn't go so well, but the second and third tries worked out perfectly after a quick break to do some yoga breathing exercises. I also looked up Petula Clark's page on Wikipedia so I'd be prepared for the Q and A portion of the presentation.
Next I....hmmm what was next. Oh yeah, I studied for French. I started off by finishing my review of chapter 13's vocabulary about injuries and the body before studying the conjugations for the subjunctive quiz on Tuesday. I surprised myself by getting all but two conjugations right!!!!! I'm amazing. I even started to cheer and dance around a little bit while I was studying. Maybe I'm less amazing and more crazy. That can be determined later. I finished that and then started reviewing chapter 9. I was on the first page of chapter 10 when my alarm rang. I had resorted (ha) to eating some nutella to quell my growling stomach during my studying. I figured that I'd make myself an extra large bowl of soup and take a break for a minute. I only had two things left to do and all day to do them. I made the soup and ate it while watching a Netflix documentary about the Beatle's secretary. It was actually fascinating and I ended up tearing myself away from it to work on my pop paper. I was disappointed that the stuff that was supposed to thicken my soup ended up as a clear blob at the bottom of my bowl. The soup already looks (and kinda tastes) like dirty dishwater, and that little fact didn't help things. Lunch should be better tomorrow.
I worked on my pop essay in bed as a little break from the seriousness of my desk. My paper is actually really coming along. I'm quite proud of myself. It just took some tweaking, but the paper is much more polished now. It was still early when I finished the paper so I thought that I'd have an adventure. I looked over my notebook of places to go and decided that I'd finally venture to see Serge Gainsbourg's house like Bird has been bothering me to do. I put on my fleece tights under my black jeans, two sweaters, a pair of socks, both pairs of gloves, a hat, scarf, and jacket and wrote down the directions before hitting the road.
It was cold outside, but I was nice and toasty due to all the clothing that I was wearing. I saw two strong policemen literally dragging a homeless man out of the station by both arms. I didn't want to look. I was just about to walk through an open metro gate when it suddenly closed. I was forced to use one of my tickets. I love that I can say "forced to pay for the metro" and be completely serious about it. I'm so glad that fate made me use a ticket. There was a row of metro police standing on the stairs before the platform. I showed one my ticket (which I now realize only had a small smearing of purple ink on it), she inspected both sides, and sent me on my way. Phew. That was a close one. I got off the metro at Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre and started my determined walk. As I was walking on the Pont du Carousel I realized how often I power walk through amazing places (like the Louvre) while I'm living my daily life. I never really slow down to admire these places. I slowed my pace a bit and made sure to look around. The Seine looked even grayer than normal just to thank me for my efforts.
Finding Serge's house was fairly easy. It's in a nice district right behind the Louvre on a street filled with antique art dealers. You can't go inside the courtyard or anything. I just took a few pictures of the outside with all of its graffiti and left. I didn't want to waste a perfectly good trip out there so I figured that I'd walk a little ways along the Seine. I was walking along when I saw a building that said "Beaux-Arts" in the window. I walked over and figured out that it was a free museum. The building is some kind of abandoned art gallery. There were bas reliefs lining the ceilings and massive paintings of religious scenes lining the walls. The ceiling was even a barrel arch. I went upstairs and started to look around. Mostly some weird sculptures, a nature themed curio cabinet, and some multi medias that were based on paper towels with naked people glued into the scenes printed on the towels. The floor was filled with this strange, eery noise that I finally tracked down to a back room. I figured that it was just a movie playing and popped my head in. It was actually two guys jamming out on synthesizers. It was so cool. I took a video to document my experience. It was like they were playing for an audience of one...or no one. Totally creepy and cool all at the same time.
I went downstairs and could still hear the music. It mingled with people chatting and sounds from another work. I looked at some paintings that were very realistic but were of strange objects (a beach towel with a crumpled up piece of paper) and some artistic videos. There were also some large sculptures. One was made of only pieces of metal that were formed to make the online of a boat. Upstairs in another section was this huge cartoon strip on a book of paper bigger than I am. I liked the museum, but I see why it's not listed online.
I was only in the museum for a minute before leaving. It wasn't very large. I started to walk along the Seine again and figured that I'd just hop on the metro when I got tired/it got dark. I quickly made it to Pont Neuf and then knew that I'd hit Notre Dame eventually so I just kept walking. I was quite warm in all of my clothing and it was actually a nice day. Not too many people outside at all. I got to Notre Dame and then figured that I'd just keep walking. I was only about half an hour from home. The thought occurred to me to go find my special present for Elizabeth (that will go unnamed. Sorry, kiddo) because I know they sell them in that area. I went into a shop that advertised that they have them, but they were just cheap tourist knockoffs and the shop owner made me feel uncomfortable. I will just have to find something else for her. The thought then popped into my head to get ice cream. The street was almost completely empty. Definitely not tourist filled like last time. I went over to the street where Berthillon is but the door was closed. It was technically open, but at the last second I changed my mind. I kept seeing people with treats from a patisserie so I went to the one across the street. I looked at my selection, but just decided to get bread. It was a whole euro (c'est très cher!) and not very good. It was ice cold and very chewy. Good thing I won't be going there anytime soon.
I knew exactly where I was, and could have just gone home but I figured that I'd keep wandering. I turned around and saw the Eiffel Tower behind Notre Dame in the distance. What a classic Parisian landscape. I then went to the Institut du Monde Arabe because I had seen some sculptures in the plaza when I drove by it with Caroline. The sculptures weren't interesting, but since I was in the area I figured that I'd walk through the sculpture garden on the way home. I was really enjoying my afternoon stroll, but it was filled with a tinge of sadness. I just thought that I didn't know when I'd be able to take that walk again. I've been here for so long, and it's so easy to just think "I have plenty of time to come back here/do this/go there" but now I don't have that luxury. What if I never get to walk through the sculpture garden again?
I finally got to the Austerlitz bridge and walked home. I immediately got to work studying for histories. After that was done I took a shower and then got into bed to continue to watch about Freda the secretary. I also went on buzzfeed and found this little gem:
1. I knew exactly what it said without looking up any words 2. The translation below the picture translated "attaque" as "address". I knew that was wrong without even looking it up. Je parle français!
I finally bought my first Christmas presents! I got mom two pairs of flats from Old Navy online. You know you've been living in Europe when you're happy that an online company will actually take your card.
Ugh, it's time to go to bed.
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