Of public transportation, my host family, and poetry.

Here's one of my favorite anecdotes from my time in Paris because it incorporates two things very dear to my heart:

(1) public transportation and
(2) 19th century Romantic poetry, specifically Mon Rêve familier by Paul Verlaine

A year ago I took French 340, an introduction to French literature, which I then TA'd for last semester. I really loved the class and the material we covered. Some of my favorite works we read were the Romantic poems of Verlaine and the first-class enfant terrible Arthur Rimbaud.

My first run-in with Verlaine in Paris was with my friend Théo, the grandson of Nannick, my host mom. Théo was good enough to recite some French poetry to me after dinner one night, and after a moving rendition of Rimbaud's Le Dormeur du Val, began:

"Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et pénétrant
D'une femme inconnue, et que j'aime et qui m'aime..."

It was Mon Rêve familier! If you can speak or read French, just read those lines aloud and let them caress your tongue. Beautiful sonority, delightful to the lips and the ears.

Okay, fast-forward a few days. I'm riding home on the metro, reading some Dostoevsky, when I look up at an advertisement and see:
The entire first stanza of the poem!

How classy are the French? Great Romantic poetry on public transportation.

Orthodoxy in very Catholic France

On Tuesday, I took a day by myself to wander more. My one mission was to wander into the Russian Orthodox church hidden in Nice.

Woah, hold up. A Russian Orthodox church? In France?

Yes. Remember all these evidences of the tie between Russian and France? The Alexander III Bridge in the political heart of Paris, the "Sainte Russie" exposition at the Louvre... Well, here's another one. It turns out there was a sizable migration of quite wealthy Russians to Nice at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution--enough to build a church for them. Quite interesting, no?

The church is quite lovely. It's so colorful, inside and out, which seems to at least fit Nice better than it would fit Paris. Unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures inside. But here's the outside:

Before going in, I just took some time for meditation and wrote for a bit. I like this pace of life.

Old Nice

On Monday, we went downtown to explore Old Nice. As usual, Judy and I dawdled and got separated from the group.

The beautiful old quarter of Nice looks and feels more like Italy than France. The street names are listed in both French and Italian (which is quite ridiculous, really. Place Rossetti and Plassa Rossetti? Definitely near-homophones). The fish fountains? Roman style. The churches, too, look more like what I've seen in photos of Italy than those I visited in Paris.

I feel like I visited Italy without crossing borders or leaning Italian! Quite cool. But really, just not the architectural differences between Old Nice and Paris:

Like night and day!

As we wandered through the old city, enchanted by the terribly romantic Italian feel, we followed the signs up to the hill. We saw the ruins of the old château, which was less-than-exciting, but the view from the top of the hill that overlooks the sea and the city is gorgeous. We also visited the cemetery on the hill. The French-Italian blend of the city was evident here too: people with very French first names (Jean-Baptiste, Claude, Émile) and very Italian last names (Benedetti, Cosetti).

I like Nice, especially that old quarter. Plus, last night we went and got gelato in Old Nice and it was absolutely to die for. There must have been at least fifty flavors to choose from. Beyond the standard Chocolate, Strawberry, Straticelli, and Lemon flavors, there were more exotic things to try like Chocolat piment (chili chocolate), Ginger, Avocado, Lavendar, and Violet.

We're going back tonight.

Nice (rhymes with grease)!

Welcome to paradise.

After our trip through Brittany, Normandy, and the Loire Valley, we flew down to Nice. It is really an ideal beach town. There's a beautiful old quarter, sunny beaches, and the crystal-clear Mediterranean. The weather has been quite perfect, too. My first impression of the city was the perfect weather. Not too humid, not too hot, not too cold. It has been a bit windy the last few days, but beyond that, it's quite wonderful.

On Sunday after church, we visited two museums, the Henri Matisse Museum and the Marc Chagall Museum.

Although the museum was a bit sparse, it was interesting to see the evolution of Matisse's works, from his earliest oil paintings that are quite run-of-the-mill, to his more innovative later painting and sculpture, to the stained glass windows he designed, models of which are in the museum. to his more abstract work, heavily influenced by the time he spent in the Pacific.

Plus, the museum is quite cool, like the Jacquemart-André in Paris, as an architectural work alone. It's quite typical of the buildings in the old quarter of Nice. I love those colors together!
After visiting the Matisse Museum, we went to the Chagall Museum. If the Jacquemart-André was my favorite museum experience in Paris, the Chagall was without question my favorite museum in Nice. There's a large central room with several of Chagall's biblical paintings. Most interesting? Although Chagall was a Russian Jew, he incorporates the cross into his works, like in Chagall's painting of the Creation. Plus, just look at those colors! I'm not going to try to convince you with words--you'll just have to explore Chagall's works for yourself. And if you could get to this museum sometime in your life, it is so infinitely worth the visit. It was perfect for a quiet Sunday afternoon in meditation.

Musée Jacquemart-André and Parc Monceau

Sorry, all. We've got to rewind back to about two weeks ago. I forgot to write a post about my favorite of the prescribed walks we did as part of the study abroad agenda.

The first stop on the walk was my favorite museum and best museum experience in Paris. The Jacquemart-André is a private museum, and thus a little more pricey, but it's worth it. It was actually the private residence of a wealthy bourgeois couple during the second half of the 19th century. The original decor is still up, which is part of what makes the museum so worth the money.

The original, permanent collection of paintings is amazing. There's a whole mini-museum within the museum itself dedicated to Italian Renaissance painting. Beautiful. My two favorite paintings in the permanent collection were Tête de vieillard by Jean-Honoré Fragonard: and Les Pèlerins d'Emmaüs by Rembrandt:
The visit just kept getting better, though. The temporary exhibit of the Spanish Masters, "From El Greco to Dalí," was incredible! Walking in, I hardly knew anything about the Spanish tradition, but fell quite in love with it. Dalí's religious works, like The Ascension of Christ? Incredible:
I was enchanted by Hermen Anglada Camarasa's Feria de Valencia.
Definitely inspired by Gustav Klimt. I like it a lot.

After the uplifting and inspiring museum visit, I headed to Parc Monceau, which I've decided is one of my favorite's in Paris. It's not overrun by tourists like the Tuileries. It's tranquil. There's also a lot of open grassy areas to sit on. We love "non-interdite pelouse," as we have dubbed it. Plus, that quarter of Paris, the 8th Arrondissement, is beautiful. Rue Rembrandt that leads to the park is one of the most architecturally diverse streets I've ever seen. I plan to go back and will throw some photos of it on the blog.

It's late and I can't sleep

Do you ever find that during normal waking hours, you can't find enough things to do with yourself, but then at the moment when sleep should come you remember a thousand things you need to do, the vast majority of which are impossible at such an absurd hour of the night? Here are a few problems I wish I could solve or useful things I could accomplish right now:

(1) Resolve my class schedule for Fall semester, which is an impossibility even during daylight hours; I can't set my final schedule until I find out what class and at what time I will be teaching.

(2) Buy, write, and mail postcards to friends and family.

(3) Settle a housing contract for the coming school year.

(4) I haven't yet heard about my request to work one-on-one with a professor at Cambridge on my chosen interest area. I'll be in Cambridge in less than three weeks. That's a quite scary thought. Back to the books!

(5) Plan a trip for my dad, who will be in France in a week and a half. Hooray!

(6) Return to the Chagall Museum here in Nice.

(7) Finish Hamlet. In fact, I think that's what I'll do right now in an attempt to fall asleep. There's nothing like ghosts and regicide to put one's mind at ease.

The Loire Valley, Episode II

On Friday we visited my favorite castle we saw: Blois. It's for totally nerdy stuff-white-people-like reasons, too. The château is a crash-course in French architecture from the 13th to 16th centuries.


This is the interior of the oldest remaining part of the château was built at the start of the 13th century to hold the Estates General, where the three "estates," the clergy (1), the nobility (2), and everyone else (3) would get together to conference on hot-button issues.

Louis XII added on to the original structures starting in 1500. By looking at the dormer windows with their ornate, very vertical lines, we can tell that this is late Gothic style.


Only 15 years later, François I's addition to the Blois castle is definitely a break from Gothic architecture. Welcome to the Renaissance, and, seriously, check out that staircase! Nice.
What's most intriguing to me about the Renaissance architecture is their use and twisting of medieval models and symbols. For example:

1. The coquille de Saint-Jacques, or the oyster shell, a symbol of pilgrimages and piety in the medieval times, is reworked on the Renaissance facade of Blois to be the symbol of Venus, who was born in (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) an oyster shell. Think Botticelli's Birth of Venus.
The difference between the Catholic and pagan symbols? The Saint James oyster is convex, and the Venus oyster is concave.
2. These two images:

The first is from the Chartres cathedral, the second from the Renaissance facade at Blois. What's similar? The standing, carved figures with, if you look closely enough, small carved cities above their heads. In the first photo, the six standing figures are saints (actually, apostles to be more specific). The little carved cities over their heads represent the "mansions prepared for them in heaven." In the second, however, the figures are pagan--from Greek mythology, and the carved cities over their heads are topped by Greek temples. I was really struck by this--framing standing statues in this rather specific styles was, I had previously thought, restricted to religious representations of saints. Guess I was wrong!

What does this lead me to? Well, in humanities and in history classes, I've always talked about the Renaissance as a rejection of medieval "darkness" for the splendid wisdom of Antiquity. I think, based on these examples, that such an analysis is not entirely accurate. I don't want to pull the rug out from under centuries of scholars far brighter than I, but at least Renaissance architecture does seem marked in particular ways by not only the models of Antiquity, but by the models of the Middle Ages. In these two specific cases, the Renaissance has re-worked a medieval model with Antiquity in mind... or perhaps vice versa. All the same, to me, these are proofs that there's no such thing as a "clean slate" when it comes to art, architecture, literature, history, etc. You're always going to be plagued by the models of the past, whether consciously or not!

In any case, after the Renaissance period, Blois was inherited by Gaston d'Orléans who wanted to redo the château in the then-fashionable Neoclassical style. Unfortunately for him, his funding was cut off before he could finish the additions. If you look closely at the columns, you'll see that there not all carved. Construction was cut off quite in the middle of the project!

But just compare the Neoclassical architecture to that of the Renaissance, the Gothic period, and the earlier Middle Ages. Cool, huh?

The final château of our tour through the Loire Valley was Chambord, but after all that rambling, all I have the stamina to put up are pictures. Take a gander: We think the roof kind of looked like the architect was really indecisive and didn't know quite what he wanted, so just put up everything he could think of. The result: architectural vomit. But hey, if you can pay for all those towers, be my guest!

The Loire Valley, Episode I

On Thursday and Friday of our week-long bus tour, we visited some of the most famous castles of the beautiful Loire Valley.

Thursday we began at Azay-le-Rideau, which is what we have dubbed "princess-style architecture" to a tee.

It's got a moat, which of course is just for show. The castles of the Loire Valley weren't strategic defensive holds, but rather more like the Bel Air of 16th century France. The château does have a great open-air internal staircase that's good for gazing longingly out of, pining for a distant and inaccessible lover: just the thing good medieval (okay, actually universally speaking, all) love stories are made of.
But all that ooey-gooey romantic stuff made Ryan want to throw himself off a bridge. Wink.
Don't worry, I saved him.

From Azay-le-Rideau we went to Chenonceau, probably the most beautiful château we visited. It was originally built for Diane de Poitiers, the favorite (which, being interpreted, means "mistress") of King Henry II. The part castle is actually a bridge, and its long formal halls, called galeries, stretch out over the water.
From the outside:
And from the inside of the gallery:
Doesn't look like much, especially from within, but this was actually a hospital during the Second World War. Imagine this long hall full of hospital beds, bloodied and bandaged soldiers, and bustling Red Cross nurses.

In front of the castle we found Snow White's wishing well, which I sang to. No answer. Dang it.

After visiting Chenonceau, we were off to Amboise, which unfortunately there are no photos of--I left Judy's camera on the bus. Oops. Instead, here's a list of cool things about Amboise:

1. Leonardo da Vinci is buried in the chapel at Amboise. He spent the last three years of his life living and working in this part of France, and asked to be buried at the château.
2. This brings me to the second important thing about the château: it supposedly figures, as does Signore da Vinci, in the horribly historically inaccurate but terribly romantic Ever After. Yep, Henri II, who the film is supposed to be about, was born the year da Vinci died rather than learning the ways of love from the Italian innovator as the film shows. Henri also did not marry a peasant, but rather Catherine de Médicis, the cold but very fertile Italian queen who mothered three successive French kings (François II, Charles IX, and Henri III) and one French Queen, the famous Reine Margot of Alexander Dumas' novel and wife of Henri IV, the bearded ex-protestant king who, according to legend, said, "Paris vaut bien une messe" ("Paris is well worth a mass"), abandoning his protestant faith to get the very Catholic throne. (Sorry for the lengthy aside on French history. Back to Ever After) Henri II, if you remember, built Chenonceau for his mistress Diane de Poitiers, who as the proportions of the château indicate, had a bigger place in Henri's heart than his royal wife.

Angers, Langeais, and Tours

On Wednesday the 2nd of June, our group headed south to the town of Angers, the site of a medieval-fortress-and-sometimes-royal-residence.

Quite honestly, this fortified castle doesn't really whip me into a verbal frenzy. The coolest part of our visit to the Angers castle was actually a medieval tapestry depicting the Apocalypse housed in what was once some Duke's quarters. The tapestries were terribly dense in symbolism and numerology, just like the Revelation itself. I would have been hopelessly lost and bored without the audio guide. With narration, however, bits and pieces of meaning were unveiled and unraveled (a little pun; no tapestries were harmed in the making of this sentence).

Even if much of the complex images and symbolism of the tapestry still remains a mystery to me, the work is remarkable simply for its size and skillful artistry. The simple fact that so many panels have survived the last six centuries is incredible!

From Angers, we drove on to Langeais (which actually rhyms with Angers, both pronounced (l)an-zhay). This castle is historically significant for the region of Brittany; it was here that Anne of Brittany married the French king Charles VIII, making Brittany part of France, where before it had been independently governed. In the castle, there was actually a movie + scene with (kind of creepy) wax figures that told the story of the marriage, which was for political reasons actually quiet a secret affair.

After our tour of the château, we lined up for a group photo. Want to see the really attractive people I'm with?

From there it was on to Tours, where we ate dinner and spent the night. Our dinner that night was particularly good. For desert, we ate a strawberry-basil concoction with orange cream. Who would have thought to put basil with fruit? Thank you, France, for making me think outside my culinary box. Yum, yum, yum.

Mont St-Michel & St-Malo

The first day of June in Brittany dawned rainy and quite cold for the season. The clouds and misty rain were welcome, nevertheless. Rain is the regional norm and seemed to shroud the famous Mont St-Michel in mystery, which aura is well-deserved with its 14 centuries of history.

When the tide comes in, or at least before the construction of the roadway that now leads to the Mont St-Michel, it's an island, but a peninsula at low tide. The mount is a great defensive location and thus a hold in many wars, especially in the Hundred Years' War in the 14th and 15th centuries. Its original significance was, however, religious. The Bishop Aubert dreamed a dream in which the Archangel Michael instructed him to build a church atop the mount, which was finished in 709. The church grew progressively larger, and eventually became an abbey. In the Middle Ages, many pilgrims of all social classes came to visit the Mont Saint-Michel. The monks lived a quiet, secluded life at the very top of the mount, the nobility lodged in the quarters just below the monks', and the masses further towards the base of the mount, a perfect reflection of the social and political hierarchy of the times.

The mount is very unique architecturally. Building on a rock in the middle of the ocean makes for some interesting innovations. I won't delve into that here, but rather throw up some pictures for your enjoyment:




Particularly cool in the architecture department was the abbey church at the very summit of the mount. The back half of the church, that is, the nave and transept, are in the Romanesque style of the 10th to 12th centuries, but the choir is in the flamboyant Gothic style of the 15th century. The juxtaposition was very cool. Thanks again to Dr. Hurlbut. In the first photo, you can see the very Gothic choir with its vertical lines that draw the eye upward, but then in the second, along the sides, the Romanesque columns seem heavier, darker.

Also worth mention (by which I mean a photo) is the abbey's cloister, where monks circulated, cultivated, and (of course) prayed, all in earnest contemplation of divinity:

Pretty, no?

From Mont St-Michel, we drove to St-Malo, the site of some old fortresses along the Brittany coast. We mucked around in the sand and tide pools, climbed on some rocks, and up snails and shells. I felt very much the 7 year old that I am at heart.




Like I said, the fact that the day was overcast, cooler, and a bit misty just added to the mystical feel of the sites we saw. I felt a bit like the Celtic druids that lived in Brittany centuries upon centuries ago, wandering around, hood up.

Bayeux, Omaha Beach, and Saint-Lô

On Monday the 31st, a week ago, our group set out for a five-day bus tour around Normandy, Brittany, and the Loire Valley. It was quite an adventure and involved (no surprises here) lots of good food.

Our first stop was Bayeux, home to the famous (or "famous" if you're a student of medieval French history) Bayeux Tapestry. The extraordinarily long tapestry was commissioned by the Bishop of Bayeux, Odon, to celebrate the victory of his half-brother who has gone down in history as William the Conqueror. The tapestry is basically a glorified comic strip of the year 1066 in the Anglo-Norman world: King Edward dies, Harold is sent to inform William (known to his contemporaries as le Bâtard because of his illegitimate birth) that the English throne is his, but double-crossing Harold declares himself king of England which William does not appreciate. This of course provokes the famous Battle of Hastings, which illustration occupies a sizable part of the tapestry, and in which Harold's army is crushed and he himself is killed by a splinter to the eye (also illustrated on the tapestry. Nothing like a gory comic strip, no?) and William wins back his right English throne.

The next part of the story, not illustrated on the tapestry, is the part where the backwards English are "cultured" by the French-speaking Normans, and the English language as we know it today is born. The 1066 invasion is the reason our Germanic mother tongue is so heavily influenced by Latin, by way of Old French. It's also the reason we have two words for things like "cow" and "steak," the first of Germanic origin and the second from French. The peasants who tended the "cows" spoke a Germanic tongue, and the conquering nobility under the francophone William ate "steak."

That's probably a whole load of medieval history that's less-than-exciting for the readership, so here's a picture of the tapestry as a consolation prize:


After leaving Bayeux, we headed to coast of what we call the English Channel, but is known in French as La Manche (literally, "the sleeve") to the site of the allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June, 1944. The museum and plot at Omaha beach were gifted to the United States by France. It's a wonderful place, but bring your tissues; even my cold soul shed a tear or two. The visit was truly a moving experience.



What touched me the most is the verdant beauty of the site today, where 66 years ago it was a bloody battle scene. The lawns, trees, bushes, shrubs, and flowers grow in soil bloodied by war. It was me a testament to rebirth. What was once a place of violence and death is now a place of peace and meditation. I feel that it is a sacred place well-worth the visit, even for those with no interest in military history. This is our heritage.

In total contrast was the next battleground we visited, the ruins of Nazi bunkers about 15 minutes West of the American Cemetery at Normandy. The hilltop was pockmarked by 66 year old shell fire. We were able to explore some of the remains of German pillboxes and crawl around in the old cement bunkers. I am thankful to be (a) a woman and (b) a civilian. War is a crazy, crazy thing.

All in all, I enjoyed the sites we visited. 1066 to 1944, two invasions in opposite directions. That's some nice historical circularity, no?