November: Paris, Thanksgiving, and Boomwhackers!

I have been procrastinating a bit on this post due to a high volume of things going on around the campus. November was a very busy month and as we wind down to the end of the semester, it's getting rather hectic. It is hard to believe that two weeks from me writing this, I will be once again sitting in Charles de Gaule airport, awaiting my flight home. I am both dreading it and anticipating it with all of my heart.

Paris:
We started off November by taking a group trip to Paris. I won't go into the details of everything we did, as a lot of the things we saw and did were things that I talked about before, like a trip up to the beautiful Montmartre (which, between now four trips to Paris, I have seen by at sunrise, midday, sunset, and night, each being worth its own trip), but we did do plenty of interesting things, albeit I can't remember the order anymore. One of the nights we walked through the Pigale district, which is not far from Montmartre. This is the place of the famous Moulin Rouge, which I had never actually had a chance to see before. Our destination was a very prestigious theatre, where we were going to to see a performance of Moliere's Tartuffe. The Pigale district was an interesting place to walk through to get to a fancy destination-- it is essentially the red-light district of Paris, with strip clubs, sex shops, and scary hobos everywhere. And of course, the Moulin Rouge is the center point of all of the debauchery, being one of the most famous dirty establishments in the world. Eventually, we found our way to the theater, which was actually a very beautiful building. We got a steal on the tickets, being students and going for rush tickets. The play was actually quite, amusing, although at times it was a bit difficult to understand due to the fact that the actors were speaking French from the 17th century in perfect rhyme and rather fast. It was a great experience nonetheless.

Just your average, everyday ballroom

On another day we got the opportunity to take a tour through the Parisian Hotel de Ville-- the city hall. This place played a huge impact on the French revolution, being the site of some famous executions, it was the site of the declaration of the Third Republic, and later, where Charles de Gaule claimed victory in liberating Paris from Nazi oppression. Today, it is the administrative center of Paris, and is where you can expect to be greeted with all the due pomp and circumstance if you ever manage to become the president of a country, in the words of our adorable tour guide. We got to walk through much of the building, seeing ballrooms, feast halls, and some iconic art depicting scenes from the Revolution and depictions of the French ideals.

We also got to go inside of the Pantheon, which is something that I have only ever seen from the outside. Just above the massive columns that support the building, emblazoned in gold lettering, is a dedication that translates roughly to "To the great men, the Fatherland recognizes you." The main floor of the building is what you might imagine- giant vaulted ceilings meant to awe viewers, statues of the glory of France, beautiful paintings, etc. My neck started to hurt after a few minutes for craning it upward so much. Not to be belittling of one of the most famous structures of all time, but in my humble opinion, the grandeur of the Paris Pantheon far surpasses that of the Roman Pantheon, although the history of the latter gives it a pretty solid edge. What was really cool, however, was to go downstairs. The Pantheon today serves as a mausoleum for prestigious Frenchmen. We walked down into the crypt which had beautiful marble walls, floors, and ceiling and were faced with two of the most famous and influential French writers of all time- Voltaire and Rousseau. Both of them, apart from being excellent writers in their own right, contributed heavily to the political thought that made the United States what it is today by introducing the theories that went into our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. We also saw other famous tombs, like those of Alexander Dumas (author of the Three Muskateers, amongst other works), Emile Zola (author of J'accuse, which denounced the condemnation of Dreyfus), Victory Hugo (one of the most famous authors of all time, most known for his piece, Les Miserables), Marie Curie, and dozens of others. It was very humbling to be in the prescence of some of the most influential minds the world has ever seen. This very well might have been the highlight of this trip to Paris for me.

Who knew such a small man needed such a big tomb?

...but then I think about when we went to Les Invalides. This is another one of those things that I have always seen from far away but never actually gone inside. I never knew how much I was missing. The building itself is very impressive, with a massive courtyard leading up to a chateau with a golden dome. It was originally constructed under Louis XIV as a hospital for war veterans (hence the name "the Invalides"). He also commissioned the massive cathedral with the golden dome. In 1840, Napoleon was interred in this cathedral, and today you can see his giant tomb, surrounded by statues of his incredible military, judicial, and administrative accomplishments. The sight is really awe inspiring and makes one think about how much influence one person can have over the course of history. Today, as Les Invalides no longer serves as a military hospital, there are a number of historical museums dedicated to France's military history. There is an excellent WWII museum here that sadly we didn't get a chance to see, but we were really glad we got to check out le Musée de l'Armée which was all about the military glories of France, particularly under Napoleon. They had various officer uniforms, weapons, and these electronic maps that illustrated the events and battle strategies of various important military campaigns. If you're interested in interesting military events, look up the Battle of Austerlitz, which is one of the most impressive and interesting military feats of all time. Unfortunately, we were chased out of the museum before we got a chance to see everything because the museum was closing. It was still one of the most interesting museums I have ever visited.

One of the funniest things that happened in Paris was one the second or third night we were there. Hayley, Taylor, and I decided that we wanted to eat dinner at Pizza Hut, which we are all obsessed with back in the United States. For Hayley and I, it is one of the things that we miss most about back home, as it is part of our weekend traditions. We wanted to do this in Paris, as it is the only city in France that boasts one of the establishments and we wanted to compare and also have a little slice of home (get it? Like a pizza slice?) after a few months abroad. While in the states Pizza Hut is kind of a shitty fast-food kind of pizza joint, in Paris it was incredibly fancy. In fact, of all of the restaurants that we visited while we were in Paris, none of them were quite as high society as this place. All of the French people we saw there were really dressed up, the waiters were wearing suits and ties, and the food was really expensive. Man was it worth it! Even though it wasn't quite the same as back home, it was a least a somewhat American style pizza, and made us smile. Whats more, they actually had fountain pop! Fountain pop! Here in France, they don't really have it-- it's all in glass bottles. While at first this was interesting, the result is that if you ever want to have a soda with your pizza, you have to spend like $4.50 for one bottle, making it not so affordable for us poor college kids. But man, having unlimited soda for a short time almost brought tears to our eyes.

For one of the dinners, we went as a group to have a nice three course dinner at a pretty fancy Parisian restaurants. For the first time over the course of three trips to France, I found escargot on a menu. One would think with the steryotype that we have of the French, that they would be all over the place, but not so! While it may come as a shock to the skeptics back home, I got a platter of six escargot. I was nervous about them at first, but after I figured out how to work them out of their shells, it was a little easier. They didn't taste bad (they had some garlic butter sauce smeared all over them), but man did they feel weird going down! I didn't mind them, but I might decide to have that be a once in a lifetime experience. I was one of only two people in our group brave enough to try one, though!

On our last day of Paris, our group split up. It was our free day to do and see whatever we wanted. Some people went out of Paris to see things in the surrounding towns, some went sightseeing. Hayley, Taylor, and I decide that we wanted to take our last day to be like the Parisians; that is to say, do nothing all day. We walked around the city for a while, just looking around. We spent two hours just sitting on the banks of the Seine. We checked out the small stands set up on the streets along the river, searching for interesting books, talking with people and haggling. We took a Parisian lunch for two hours. It was very relaxing and very refreshing. In the past, I had almost rushed too much in Paris to be able to really enjoy what the city is in and of itself. This day was probably the best we had there, despite it being really cold.

Thanksgiving:

This is how we do it back home, isn't it?

At first, we were really sad to be away from home for Thanksgiving. After three and a half months of sketchy cafeteria food, the thought of having turkey, potatoes, etc. and having the company of our families made us miss home a lot. The people at the the College must know this, so they prepared a really nice Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans. They spent the whole day preparing. They made long feast-style tables, decorated the cafeteria, and made a ton of food. The funny thing is that the French don't really know a whole lot about what Thanksgiving actually is. All they really know is that it has something to do with Native Americans. Then, when they think that, they think about Cowboys and Indians. So, all of us got dressed up for our fancy dinner, walked down the cafeteria and are greeted by a bunch of French people in cowboy hats. Happy Thanksgiving! The decorations were all really weird, too. They had little miniature saloons that said "Gold Rush Casino and Saloon," tomahawks and walk-in Teepees. When they rolled out the turkey, it had sparklers in it, which burned out after about ten seconds. The food wasn't quite the fare that one would have back home, but it was still a welcome diversion from the day-to-day stuff we eat and it was a really cute try on the part of the staff. We didn't have the heart to tell them that there were no cowboys at the first Thanksgiving.

Boomwhackers:
Last night, we walked through Cannes to the other side of town, where we went to see a percussion performance by a group called Percossa. They are a group of guys from the Netherlands who put on a show using all sorts of percussion-- from drums of all sorts to their own bodies. It was a super high-energy show full of lots of really good humor, even though they never spoke a word. One of the things they did was to use Boomwhackers (these little tubes that are cut to different sizes to produce different pitches) to create music. Here is a short clip I found on youtube of the guys using this part of the show: click here , although it was a little bit more interesting when they did it for us.

The Home Stretch:
As I mentioned at the start of the post, we now have exactly two weeks left in France. I often find myself asking where all the time went. It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting on the beach in Cannes thinking about how we still have almost four whole months left. Sadly, while we should be out enjoying our last few days in France, we are inside writing papers and cramming for finals. For our study abroad seminar, we have a huge dissertation we have to write. Hayley and I are working together to write about the elitism and egalitarianism of the French educational system. We also have final exams to study for for our Art History and French Society courses. And on top of it all, we have a theater performance in less than a week, and one of the guys that is in all of the scenes Hayley and I are in does not have most of his lines memorized. Talk about a stress load! On the bright side, we were told that we will get a video copy of the play a couple of months after we get back, so everyone will get a chance to laugh at us. Despite all of the work we have to do, we are still very excited to come back home. It is a very bittersweet kind of feeling. We don't want to leave, but we are excited to get back home.