Bastille Day

Given the fact that France was never dependent of any other country, they don’t have an Independence Day. However, the French are known for their revolutionary spirit. Hence, they have Bastille Day, the day when the bourgeoisie took over the city, and the series of events that lead to the beheading of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The following are pics of the events leading to an amazing fireworks show.

Ignore the first pics hehe ....

From France Trip

From France Trip

From France Trip

From France Trip

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From France Trip

From France Trip

From France Trip

From France Trip

Wanderings

Le Marais

For my French writing class I had to choose a Quartier, neighborhood, localized between the 3^rd & 4^th districts; the former is among fancy & expensive districts in Paris. Back in the day, around 17^th century, it was the place to be for anybody that wanted to be somebody: the French noblesse. I chose this nice square: Square Louis XIII. Unlike Luxembourg, there are no flowers here; it’s mainly trees with some grass. And compared to Luxembourg, most of the visitors of the Square are in their late teens.

Pictures also include:

L'Arc de Triomphe

La Tour Eiffel

Le Musee Carnavalet - Paris History

First Excursion

Honfleur, Normandie (Norther-ish France)

Our first trip outside Paris was to the picturesque port-town of Honfleur, northern France. It's in the department of Normandy, tho it's not part of the D-Day landings. The former glory of the town was trade with Canada & England; it's sort of the Boston, in its colonial splendour, of France. (I might just be messing up my US history, though)

In any case, I really liked the drive there. Despite the tiresome 2.5 hrs bus ride, I sat next to a French student, from la Sorbonne, who's among those helping out with the course: Paul. What interesting conversations we had. Topics ranged from the difference & similarities in the school system, to anything I saw on the road. There were also many awkward silences changing from topic to topic. One thing I've noticed about the French is the ease with which they abruptly end conversations, or maybe just the time it takes me to formulate sentences. He’s Asian, and it’s kinda odd to hear him speak French; however, there are PLENTY of Asian individuals in Paris that speak fluent French, there’s a mini China Town not far from the hotel.

Pickpocket Paradise

Musee du Louvre

Our first group excursion was the Louvre. To get there, ~40 individuals took the metro at once. If you know me well, then you'll know I'm not a big fan of travelling in a big pack. I’ve been all over Paris, taking one metro line after another, so I’m pretty acquainted with the system; others aren’t as adventurous as me, though. However, the ride wasn’t too bad; it was only me, my roommate and the French TA in the same wagon. So we got there. The guide was this nice, grandma-like woman that thought the tour was gonna be in English; in the end it helped ‘cause she’d say words in English that weren’t too obvious in French.

The museum is… breathtaking & overwhelming; It’s HUGE! [hehe… that’s what she said] There are so many paintings, sculptures and the like. Yeah, yeah, I’m not the artsy, museum type but with a nice guided tour I can learn quite a lot; otherwise I take pictures of stuff and move on. I don’t do much admiring. So basically, I got a myriad of pictures and now you’ll enjoy the Museum just as I did.

Some interesting info about museums here is that most of them used to be palaces. The building is the Palais du Louvre, and the Palais du Luxembourg became the senat. Old castles become historic places, and so on. Bottom line, Paris is one big museum filled with old buildings and tiny streets and ornate gardens.

PS. One of the french profs said that the Louvre is "pickpocket paradise", as the rest of Paris.

After Lunch

Quartier Latin

After eating that succulent lunch, I embarked on another trip; I didn’t walk though. The metro here is amazing; easy to use and there’s little to no wait; the most I’ve waited is 5 min. I went up to the Quartier Latin, and the metro left me right in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. On a side note, I was advised to look out for them gypsies, pickpocketing and all, but I hadn’t encountered one… until the thought crossed my mind and one approached me. She was like “do you speak English?” I said I did and she showed me this premade card with English writing. I figured she just needed translation, but then I realized she be a gypsy and I was like “so?” And she said “please, my brother…” and I walked away. =]

Going back to Notre Dame, it’s a really nice building. Regardless of the tumult of people inside, it gives this sense of peace and grandeur. You can hear a choir of angels, probably just a tape, but something about it makes your life better and eases your soul.

This Quartier is way too crowded for my taste; it reminds me of NYC, or the image I have of it. There’s people speaking all sorts of languages, and everybody’s all sweaty and there are those lame tour buses everywhere. Despite this, I walked around looking for La Sorbonne. You know me, good ol’ nerd trying to find universities. Like I said before, streets here are weird so it took me a while to find it. In the meantime, however, I found a Starbucks and got this amazing Mangue Passion; mango-infused iced tea… om nom nom nom. I tried to get into the university, but they only let in students. I moved on.

I went to the Pantheon, what an amazing place. It’s a national monument dedicated to the brave men & women that gave their lives for their country. It’s filled with paintings and sculptures of the revolution and the story of martyrs. There’s a crypt where the bodies of the powerful men & women of the revolution lie to rest. I found the Curies. =] There’s also Victor Hugo and Dumas. At the end, and after about 200 steps, I climbed up to the top of the building. The panoramic view of Paris was mesmerizing. What I found interesting is what I take to be the lack of a downtown. Each Arrondissement, or neighborhood/district, has its own town hall and the legislative/judicial/executive branches of the national government are spread all through the center Arrondissements, surrounded by houses.

Class Got Cancelled

My Feet Hurt

So TR we’re supposed to have French 130 – Cathedrals’ History, a class which I’m NOT looking forward to. In any case, today it got cancelled. I had two choices; I could stay in and relax, or walk around. Du-uh, I chose the latter. I decided to visit the Jardin de Luxembourg, a park a couple of miles away from the hotel. I was supposed to take the Goblin’s Avenue. Unfortunately, Parisian streets are rather … crooked; very few are actually straight from end to end, and most change names every time they meet another street. Needless to say, I got lost. Luckily I have this handy dandy map, which eventually helped me get to the garden. Here’s my journey. Ches!

Jardin de Luxembourg

At last, I arrived to the garden. It’s a pretty neat place. There are tons and tons of chairs all over the place; one can easily chill there unnoticed and reflect about life. There were people jogging, couples being couples, individuals reading, old people taking naps & people just taking the sun. I really liked it, Imma go read there soon, but next time I’ll take the metro. =] On my way out, I visited the Musee du Luxenbourg. The exhibit was

FILIPPO ET FILIPPINO LIPPI -- LA RENAISSANCE À PRATO.

It was nice, very religious. Couldn't get pics, though. The castle-like building seen from the garden is the Palais de Luxembourg, where the french senat is.

Missing Sandwich

oi. I'm here, in Paris. What has happened so far? I slept 30 min on the flight to Philly and finished reading Animal Farm; why were the animals so retarded?... gotta give props to pigs tho, taking advantage of the lack of memory span of the rest. In any case, I got to Philly, starving! My retarded ass didn't think of packing snacks (ie. Salty Nuts, cookies, a sandwhich), and I wasn't gonna give them more money than I already had. There, I bought a plate of yummy potatoes, rice and salad with an extra sandwhich for the 7 hr flight to Paris. This second flight was... interesting.

It was one of those 3-row planes [2-4-2 seaters]. I was on the aisle of the first 2 seats, surrounded by hick-ish, Caucasian individuals (they sounded like Paula Green, from the food network... tho I hate her, it was funny to hear them talk); Sarah, cute girl sitting next to me, would say "momma" & "papa". I say cute, 'cause when the lights went out to sleep she curled on her seat and hugged her teddy bear; yeah, cute no? =] However, she busted out a bible and started reading and taking notes... I wasn't looking directly, just out of the corner of my eye. Don't get me wrong tho, got nothing against them, they were nice.

One cool thing about this plane was that they had video on demand, that is individual screens where you choose what you want to see. Here's what I chose:

1- Grand Torino -- Amazing movie. I hadn't seen an Eastwood movie, not a big Western fan, but this one was pretty good [sad to say it was better than most of the films I saw at the festival].

2- Bride Wars -- Yeah, I chose that BAD movie. Hathaway is good looking, but her performance, with Hudson, was LAME. I liked 27 Dresses better. Yeah, I saw that one too; Heigl is good looking.

3- The Big Bang Theory -- It was an alrite episode of the show, good show btw.

4- The New Adventures of Old Christine -- Funny episode of another funny show.

5- Valkyrie -- Amazing movie; however, I didn't get a chance to finish it. Since my retarded ass chose Bride Wars, I ran out of time by the end of the flight. I got to the point where they implemented Operation Valkyrie, but don't know the resolution of the film.

As you might assume, I didn't sleep all flight. yup. But I had a blast watching movies/shows, minus BW.

So we got to Paris. The airport was intense! They have this odd looking escalators that diagonally transverse a ring-shaped building. One interesting thing about the French govt is the ... trust? they have on immigrants. Border patrol didn't give a rat's ass about us; walk up to them, hand over passport, get a stamp, move on. Compared to American border patrol, in specific the LAX one that ask you your life story before letting you in, the French are pretty chill.

Next, baggage claim. Like usual, it always takes a life time for me to get my luggage, even tho I only had 1 checked this time. After the usual freak out about them having lost it, it has happened to me, I saw it. Usually I use luggage with easy-to-spot colors, taking into account my ... condition, or with identifiable ribbons. This time, however, mother gave me a brownish-green-that-is-possibly-mustardish-brown suit case; I was scared I wouldn't recognize it. =[

Then, take a taxi. EXPENSIVE! I was supposed to take this cheap shuttle, but I made my reservation too late, and even if they accepted it they'd only wait 30 mins for the passenger before they take off. TRAFFIC! Mispronounced words, I tried to sorta start a conversation with the driver and I said "Est-ce qu'il pleure en juillet?" and it's "Est-ce qu'il pleut en juillet?" [cry vs. rain] He was like, "il pleut?.. de l'eau?" I realized he didn't understand me, so I went all Salvie on him and represented rain with my hands [you know, palms down wiggle your fingers], before I realized I asked if it CRIED instead of RAINED. I corrected myself and he said something I didn't quite understand! ha. He DID, however, complemented my French. =]

So we get to Place d'Italie, where the hotel is, and I check in. TINY ASS ROOM! Hopefully you'll see from pics, but it's tinier than what pics show! Took a shower, in an awkward shower, then set off to explore. There's this neat mall right behind the hotel, I bought my first baguette sandwich with a tartellete framboises.. om nom nom nom. Met my roomie, pretty chill guy. Took a nap; overslept; rushed to enroll for the fall. Had a meeting, then had another baguette; I did it myself. yay! [it didn't satisfy my appetite, but fuck it! Imma leave a la francaises!]

It was a fun day.

--Sergio

PS: Remember that sandwich I bought in Philly? Well they served a meal in the flight to Paris so I saved it for later. When I was waiting for my luggage, I realized I had left it in the plane. =[