Relived PARIS! FRANCE! in Seattle, Washington.
Just when I thought I wouldn't post about PARIS! FRANCE! again, I went and had an oh-so-French day today.
After I returned from France I was waxing nostalgic about the macaroons to Monster and she came across a French bakery and found them. I had to go try them today and then I treated myself to Woody Allen's new film, Midnight in Paris. Internets, if you see this movie you need to know that everything Owen Wilson's character says and thinks about Paris is exactly what I've been saying, thinking, and feeling--and what I've been rambling about ad nauseum. Oh, and in the movie they go to L'Orangerie (see tip #4) and the sight of the room induced an emotional artburst, again. Surprising but sweet.
And as I close out my surprisingly French day, I'll close out my incessant rambling about how much I love PARIS! FRANCE! For now, anyway...
6.12.2011
PARIS! FRANCE! Part IV
Check out Part I, Part II, and Part III of PARIS! FRANCE! wherein I play the part of a power tourist, an emotional and righteous observer of high art, and someone who pretends they know what they are talking about.
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Internets, I think we've come to the final post about my trip to PARIS! FRANCE! This final installment will be a veritable potpurri of random tips and left over pictures to keep you visually interested.
Tip #1: Go to Paris. Simple enough. Just go. Seriously.
Tip #2: Go to Paris in the springtime. To be fair, I've never been to Paris any other time of year, but I can attest to its general fabulousness in the spring. There's a reason people love Pairis in the springtime.
Tip #3: Buy a scarf from a street market and wear it everywhere. Trust me, everyone else is doing it so you should too! Mais, oui!
Tip #4: Go to L'Orangerie. I know I already implored you to do this here, and if that wasn't reason enough here's a handy dandy little trick. If you go to L'Orangerie and buy the combo pass with Musee D'Orsay, you can get in to both AND skip the long line to get into Musee D'Orsay. Awesome.
Tip #5: Make the effort to speak French. Everyone I encountered was very gracious. Of course I was going out of my way to not come across as an ugly American (I wasn't wearing jeans, sneakers, and concealed any other such articles that send out the tourist beacon), but I never came across anyone that was rude or unwilling to help me.
Tip #6: You must must must get yourself a selection of les macarons (small little cookies that aren't anything like American macaroons, they are times infinity better mostly because they don't have coconut in them) and head to Le jardin de Luxembourg. Plop yourself down alongisde La fontaine de Medici and just revel in the moment. It is one I'll never forget. I really can't do it justice, but sitting there enjoying my rose petal macaroon is the most poignantly beautiful moment I've ever experienced.
Tip #7-infinity: There's so much more I could share with you, but I'll stop with this final tip: when you go to Paris (or heck, when you go on any adventure), open yourself up to being profoundly impacted by the expereince. Everything I experienced, from the larger-than-life to the small and simple, they all left an indellible imprint on my heart, mind, and soul. That general appreciation for just being and living in the moment is quite possibly the most significant thing I learned from PARIS! FRANCE!
And because pictures are worth a thousand words, here's a few more thousand for you.
----
Internets, I think we've come to the final post about my trip to PARIS! FRANCE! This final installment will be a veritable potpurri of random tips and left over pictures to keep you visually interested.
Tip #1: Go to Paris. Simple enough. Just go. Seriously.
Tip #2: Go to Paris in the springtime. To be fair, I've never been to Paris any other time of year, but I can attest to its general fabulousness in the spring. There's a reason people love Pairis in the springtime.
Tip #3: Buy a scarf from a street market and wear it everywhere. Trust me, everyone else is doing it so you should too! Mais, oui!
Tip #4: Go to L'Orangerie. I know I already implored you to do this here, and if that wasn't reason enough here's a handy dandy little trick. If you go to L'Orangerie and buy the combo pass with Musee D'Orsay, you can get in to both AND skip the long line to get into Musee D'Orsay. Awesome.
Tip #5: Make the effort to speak French. Everyone I encountered was very gracious. Of course I was going out of my way to not come across as an ugly American (I wasn't wearing jeans, sneakers, and concealed any other such articles that send out the tourist beacon), but I never came across anyone that was rude or unwilling to help me.
Tip #6: You must must must get yourself a selection of les macarons (small little cookies that aren't anything like American macaroons, they are times infinity better mostly because they don't have coconut in them) and head to Le jardin de Luxembourg. Plop yourself down alongisde La fontaine de Medici and just revel in the moment. It is one I'll never forget. I really can't do it justice, but sitting there enjoying my rose petal macaroon is the most poignantly beautiful moment I've ever experienced.
Tip #7-infinity: There's so much more I could share with you, but I'll stop with this final tip: when you go to Paris (or heck, when you go on any adventure), open yourself up to being profoundly impacted by the expereince. Everything I experienced, from the larger-than-life to the small and simple, they all left an indellible imprint on my heart, mind, and soul. That general appreciation for just being and living in the moment is quite possibly the most significant thing I learned from PARIS! FRANCE!
And because pictures are worth a thousand words, here's a few more thousand for you.
 |
| The view of the Eiffel Tower from a Sunday street market. |
 |
| Right before I had the most amazing Steak Frites with "secret green sauce" for which people line up into the street. |
 |
| The Medici Fountain. Romantic. Breathtaking. Beautiful. |
 |
| Where I sat and had my "macaroonasm." |
 |
| One of the many beautful sculptures in the Jardin du Luxembourg. |
6.06.2011
PARIS! FRANCE! Part III!
Check out Part I and Part II of PARIS! FRANCE! wherein I play the part of a power tourist, and an emotional and righteous observer of high art.
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Now we come to Part III, the part I like to call: dusting off your haven't-been-used-in-fifteen-years French skills and making them sing for their supper, or French 101.
I'd say it was about an hour before I landed when it really settled into my mind that "OH CRAP! I AM GOING TO A COUNTRY WHERE ENGLISH ISN'T THE PRIMARY LANGUAGE." Maybe I should have done something to prepare for that. But I had years of French in high school, that would be enough, right? As it turns out I remember and forgot just enough French to be dangerous.
From that moment on the plane until I landed in Seattle a week later, my brain was on overdrive: constantly on trying to remember as many random words, phrases, and pronunciations as I could. Sadly, I never once found the opportunity to talk about hippopotamuses or how I just love "to do the mountain climbing."
I practiced my recall in the shower, in my head during the work conference, even in my sleep. And it helped, sort of. All the French people I was with at the work event said I had a very good accent (plus one for LMNT), but a good accent and small vocabulary can leave you stranded in bilingual limbo--and trust me, it's on par with how Dante described it.
As my confidence built, I used French everywhere I could. And you know me, persistence is my middle name. So, even when the French would recognize me as an American and extend a courtesy to me by responding in English to my garbled attempt at communicating to them in their native tongue, I would continue the conversation in broken French. Because THAT'S WHAT I DO. And there we'd be, speaking each other's languages and somehow making it work. Or not.
The epitome of my foreign language adventure happened when I stopped into a small market for a bite for lunch. When I got there, the place was empty and I took my seat at a table. Within minutes, it had filled up with other lunch and pastry-goers and I knew that I was going to need to share my table with someone. Enter the cutest older French lady, who spoke absolutely no English. We sat together for about a half an hour talking the whole time. My Facebook status update post this encounter summed it up best:
-----
Now we come to Part III, the part I like to call: dusting off your haven't-been-used-in-fifteen-years French skills and making them sing for their supper, or French 101.
I'd say it was about an hour before I landed when it really settled into my mind that "OH CRAP! I AM GOING TO A COUNTRY WHERE ENGLISH ISN'T THE PRIMARY LANGUAGE." Maybe I should have done something to prepare for that. But I had years of French in high school, that would be enough, right? As it turns out I remember and forgot just enough French to be dangerous.
From that moment on the plane until I landed in Seattle a week later, my brain was on overdrive: constantly on trying to remember as many random words, phrases, and pronunciations as I could. Sadly, I never once found the opportunity to talk about hippopotamuses or how I just love "to do the mountain climbing."
I practiced my recall in the shower, in my head during the work conference, even in my sleep. And it helped, sort of. All the French people I was with at the work event said I had a very good accent (plus one for LMNT), but a good accent and small vocabulary can leave you stranded in bilingual limbo--and trust me, it's on par with how Dante described it.
As my confidence built, I used French everywhere I could. And you know me, persistence is my middle name. So, even when the French would recognize me as an American and extend a courtesy to me by responding in English to my garbled attempt at communicating to them in their native tongue, I would continue the conversation in broken French. Because THAT'S WHAT I DO. And there we'd be, speaking each other's languages and somehow making it work. Or not.
The epitome of my foreign language adventure happened when I stopped into a small market for a bite for lunch. When I got there, the place was empty and I took my seat at a table. Within minutes, it had filled up with other lunch and pastry-goers and I knew that I was going to need to share my table with someone. Enter the cutest older French lady, who spoke absolutely no English. We sat together for about a half an hour talking the whole time. My Facebook status update post this encounter summed it up best:
Just had an absolutely lovely conversation with an adorably lovely, older, French, non-English speaking woman sharing a table with me in a crowded cafe. I have no idea what we talked about.
5.30.2011
Six-Word Sunday: May 29, 2011
The best weekends have three days.
I'm taking a break from my stories about PARIS! FRANCE! to say almost nothing (except maybe PARIS! FRANCE!) delights me as much as the three-day weekend. Well, there's the four-day Thanksgiving weekend which is nothing if not pee-your-pants exciting.
And a little daytrip out to the islands with friends at their beach house is pretty much perfect. Especially when you get home Sunday night and realize it's not really a school night. Yeehaw and giddyup!
I'm taking a break from my stories about PARIS! FRANCE! to say almost nothing (except maybe PARIS! FRANCE!) delights me as much as the three-day weekend. Well, there's the four-day Thanksgiving weekend which is nothing if not pee-your-pants exciting.
And a little daytrip out to the islands with friends at their beach house is pretty much perfect. Especially when you get home Sunday night and realize it's not really a school night. Yeehaw and giddyup!
5.24.2011
PARIS! FRANCE! Part II!
Whenever I travel, my favorite thing to do is to go for a run and explore the area. In fact, it's something that I crave. In 2011 alone I've run in some pretty darn cool places: through the Magic Kingdom at Disney World, around Central Park in Manhattan, up Heartbreak Hill in Boston, and now I can add Paris to that list.
There's something about seeing a place in the early morning light, before it shakes the sleep off and starts to stir, and when that place is Paris it's an order of magnitude more amazing. Let's just say when you start your day with a run up the Champs de Mars and around the Eiffel Tower, it's bound to be a pretty good day.
And it only gets better when you follow that run with a trip to the Musee de l'Orangerie. It came recommended to me by FCA and it was amazing. L'Orangerie was Claude Monet's gift to Paris. Simple. Peaceful. Breathtaking. There are some amazing pieces in the permanent collection downstairs--I minored in Art in college, so I can totally geek out over art, especially the Impressionists. But as amazing as some of those pieces were (Renoir, Matisse, Cezanne), nothing prepared me for the power of The Water Lilies. It wasn't just the paintings themselves, but the entire experience. Two naturally lit beautiful white rooms with four larger than life paintings. I was overwhelmed. Monet, himself, actually painted these pieces. Every single stroke. I sat down on one of the benches in the center of the room to soak it all in and that's when the music started playing. It, like the paintings, was very simple. It started softly and then began to swell. It was impossible for me to not get caught up in it. Even thinking about it now, I'm overcome with emotion. It was a sensory beauty that I've never known. It was so powerful--I was so overwhelmed by the beauty I was moved to tears. I sat there for a very long time, just *being* there.
As I left, I paused in the vestibule, exhaled a deep breath and thought if I lived here, this is definitely where I'd come to find peace and solace and reconnect with myself. When I got home to Seattle, I actually read the museum guide and was so delighted to read that was Monet's intent:
To coin my own little phrase, I'm going to call what happened to me in l'Orangerie my "emotional artburst," and little did I know that was only a precursor for what was waiting for me the next day at Musee d'Orsay (suddenly the retelling of my grand adventure has lost its chronological edge and has taken a turn toward the thematic. What does this mean? I'm feeling particularly verbose about my time in PARIS! FRANCE! The good news, there's going to be a lot more than just Part II. Today's theme: "When LMNT went for a run and then wept openly about art").
Where was I, oh yes, Musee d'O-Oh-my-goodness-rsay. Okay, to say I was excited to go here is a slight understatement. When minoring in Art one takes their fair share of Art History courses. If any of you ever had Art History, you know what I'm talking about when I remember the always darkened classroom, with dual slide projectors advancing you through the different movements: Baroque, Renaissance, Realism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Futurism, Pop, etc. And slide tests, ugh, slide tests. Painstakingly memorizing the hundreds of works flashed before you in class, the name of the work, the artist, the date, the style, and how you can distinguish that work from others. At the time it was so very tedious and sometimes I had problems telling Gauguin apart from Cezanne (except when Gauguin moved to the islands and assumed a more cubist approach, or was that Cezanne, or Matisse? See?). Well, when I set foot in d'Orsay all those images, the whirring sounds of the projectors, all those facts memorized came flooding back to me. And let me tell you, the slide you memorize is absolutely no match for seeing the real thing. So many of the paintings I had studied, had memorized for the lines, the colors, the subjects, were lining these walls, just inches away. The colors are so much more vibrant, the brushstrokes so much more passionate, the pieces so much more powerful.
D'Orsay is home to a number of Degas' ballerinas (so lovely), more of Monet's notable non-water lily works (you know, the ones you leaned for your slide tests on the Impressionists), and my favorite artist (and my second favorite painting of all-time) Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette. To see this piece in real life was absolutely amazing. I could have stared at it for hours. It was so beautiful it brought me to tears, again. Internets, I'm not sure if you know what I'm talking about, or if I'm just some sappy art nerd (possibly both), but being surrounded by all of these works from the masters deeply touched my soul. I can recreate the feeling in my mind, but it starts to take on the feeling of slides being projected in my mind, a really good rendition but nothing like experiencing it in real life.
When I go to an art exhibit I like to take my time and absorb the energy from each piece; I want to attempt to see and feel what the artist saw and felt. And as I made my way through the museum, it became very clear to me that everyone has their own way of appreciating the art. This really played itself out as I was losing myself in a Toulouse-Lautrec--I've never even liked his work all that much (think Can-Can dancers at the Moulin Rouge), but I was transfixed by one of his grand pieces. It was a canvas that was roughly 12 feet by 12 feet. There I am, just amazed, mouth agape, and working on redefining myself as someone who might actually be okay with Toulouse-Lautrec, when a couple I had seen earlier do a light-speed walk through of the Monet room, blaze in front of me. The young woman stopped for a nanosecond, looked the piece up and down and said, "That's kind of cool." The guy she was with, who had already moved into the other room, asked,"What is?" And she responded, "Oh, just some big painting." I clutched my heart and made an audible gasp for air and then talked myself down out of hysterics. Even though I'm quite convinced that I was winning the award for "most impacted by the 'big paintings,'" I had to remind myself that there is no right or wrong way to experience art (even though deep down I'm pretty sure I was doing it the right way). Plus, the faster they moved out of there, the faster I could go back to being completely absorbed in the art and my emotional artbursts.
There's something about seeing a place in the early morning light, before it shakes the sleep off and starts to stir, and when that place is Paris it's an order of magnitude more amazing. Let's just say when you start your day with a run up the Champs de Mars and around the Eiffel Tower, it's bound to be a pretty good day.
And it only gets better when you follow that run with a trip to the Musee de l'Orangerie. It came recommended to me by FCA and it was amazing. L'Orangerie was Claude Monet's gift to Paris. Simple. Peaceful. Breathtaking. There are some amazing pieces in the permanent collection downstairs--I minored in Art in college, so I can totally geek out over art, especially the Impressionists. But as amazing as some of those pieces were (Renoir, Matisse, Cezanne), nothing prepared me for the power of The Water Lilies. It wasn't just the paintings themselves, but the entire experience. Two naturally lit beautiful white rooms with four larger than life paintings. I was overwhelmed. Monet, himself, actually painted these pieces. Every single stroke. I sat down on one of the benches in the center of the room to soak it all in and that's when the music started playing. It, like the paintings, was very simple. It started softly and then began to swell. It was impossible for me to not get caught up in it. Even thinking about it now, I'm overcome with emotion. It was a sensory beauty that I've never known. It was so powerful--I was so overwhelmed by the beauty I was moved to tears. I sat there for a very long time, just *being* there.
As I left, I paused in the vestibule, exhaled a deep breath and thought if I lived here, this is definitely where I'd come to find peace and solace and reconnect with myself. When I got home to Seattle, I actually read the museum guide and was so delighted to read that was Monet's intent:
When he donated The Water Lilies to France right after the First World War, Monet wanted to give Parisians a peaceful haven by inviting them to contemplate the infinite before painted nature: "Nerves overwrought by work would relax there just like the relaxing example of those stagnant waters, and for whomever inhabited it, this room would offer asylum for peaceful meditation amidst a flowery aquarium..."Amazing.
To coin my own little phrase, I'm going to call what happened to me in l'Orangerie my "emotional artburst," and little did I know that was only a precursor for what was waiting for me the next day at Musee d'Orsay (suddenly the retelling of my grand adventure has lost its chronological edge and has taken a turn toward the thematic. What does this mean? I'm feeling particularly verbose about my time in PARIS! FRANCE! The good news, there's going to be a lot more than just Part II. Today's theme: "When LMNT went for a run and then wept openly about art").
Where was I, oh yes, Musee d'O-Oh-my-goodness-rsay. Okay, to say I was excited to go here is a slight understatement. When minoring in Art one takes their fair share of Art History courses. If any of you ever had Art History, you know what I'm talking about when I remember the always darkened classroom, with dual slide projectors advancing you through the different movements: Baroque, Renaissance, Realism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Cubism, Futurism, Pop, etc. And slide tests, ugh, slide tests. Painstakingly memorizing the hundreds of works flashed before you in class, the name of the work, the artist, the date, the style, and how you can distinguish that work from others. At the time it was so very tedious and sometimes I had problems telling Gauguin apart from Cezanne (except when Gauguin moved to the islands and assumed a more cubist approach, or was that Cezanne, or Matisse? See?). Well, when I set foot in d'Orsay all those images, the whirring sounds of the projectors, all those facts memorized came flooding back to me. And let me tell you, the slide you memorize is absolutely no match for seeing the real thing. So many of the paintings I had studied, had memorized for the lines, the colors, the subjects, were lining these walls, just inches away. The colors are so much more vibrant, the brushstrokes so much more passionate, the pieces so much more powerful.
D'Orsay is home to a number of Degas' ballerinas (so lovely), more of Monet's notable non-water lily works (you know, the ones you leaned for your slide tests on the Impressionists), and my favorite artist (and my second favorite painting of all-time) Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette. To see this piece in real life was absolutely amazing. I could have stared at it for hours. It was so beautiful it brought me to tears, again. Internets, I'm not sure if you know what I'm talking about, or if I'm just some sappy art nerd (possibly both), but being surrounded by all of these works from the masters deeply touched my soul. I can recreate the feeling in my mind, but it starts to take on the feeling of slides being projected in my mind, a really good rendition but nothing like experiencing it in real life.
When I go to an art exhibit I like to take my time and absorb the energy from each piece; I want to attempt to see and feel what the artist saw and felt. And as I made my way through the museum, it became very clear to me that everyone has their own way of appreciating the art. This really played itself out as I was losing myself in a Toulouse-Lautrec--I've never even liked his work all that much (think Can-Can dancers at the Moulin Rouge), but I was transfixed by one of his grand pieces. It was a canvas that was roughly 12 feet by 12 feet. There I am, just amazed, mouth agape, and working on redefining myself as someone who might actually be okay with Toulouse-Lautrec, when a couple I had seen earlier do a light-speed walk through of the Monet room, blaze in front of me. The young woman stopped for a nanosecond, looked the piece up and down and said, "That's kind of cool." The guy she was with, who had already moved into the other room, asked,"What is?" And she responded, "Oh, just some big painting." I clutched my heart and made an audible gasp for air and then talked myself down out of hysterics. Even though I'm quite convinced that I was winning the award for "most impacted by the 'big paintings,'" I had to remind myself that there is no right or wrong way to experience art (even though deep down I'm pretty sure I was doing it the right way). Plus, the faster they moved out of there, the faster I could go back to being completely absorbed in the art and my emotional artbursts.
5.23.2011
PARIS! FRANCE! Part I!
Oh, Internets! France is so French; French and fabulous--the art, the history, the architecture, the macaroons. Le sigh.
We walked our way down the Champs-Elysees, through Place de la Concorde and le Jardin des Tuileries, outside of the Louvre, along the Seine to Notre Dame where we happened upon the FESTIVAL OF BREAD! and finally stumbled our way down a quaint little alley into a nice little spot for dinner.
After dinner we took the Metro back to our area of town, which was quite near the Eiffel Tower. The French do a lot of things really well: architecture, art, pastries, but perhaps the most lovely is the lighting of their monuments; the Eiffel Tower is no exception.
We made our way back to the hotel and I crashed. The next two days were going to be full of solo adventure, I needed to rest up in preparation for PARIS! FRANCE! Part II! The part where I run, eat, drink, cry a little, and fall in love with the city.
Being there was a dream come true and so much of what I had dreamed was really true: there are cafes everywhere (on every corner like Starbucks here in Seattle, only in France it’s charming), Sundays are all about going to mass and then heading to one of the many public gardens or parks with your family, people honestly wear scarves and blue and white striped shirts, you can’t walk down the street without seeing someone with a baguette in hand (or in a lot of cases in the basket of their bicycle), mopeds and scooters are the preferred mode of transportation, and the wine, chocolate and pastries are even better than they say. Oh, and I think everyone smokes, and I never thought I'd say this, but they smoke in such an elegantly French way, even the teenagers. And you want to say, "Kids, stop sucking on the cancer stick," but they're just being French, they can't help it. Kind of like the North American tourists who don't know any French can't help the fact that they think the best way to translate English into French is by saying their English phrases louder and slower, "DO. YOU. HAVE. ANY. BREAD?"... "BREAD?"... "BREAD?" Maybe the French are smoking just to calm their nerves after being yelled at by tourists all day long.
How about we jump in to LMNT’s adventure in PARIS! FRANCE!?
The objective of the adventure: to just *be* in Paris--no pressure. To do whatever I want, whenever I want, looking cute, and not waste any of my precious time waiting in line for a tourist trap (more on this later), unless it was whatever I wanted to do at that point in time.
Work wrapped up on Friday afternoon and I arrived with a handful of colleagues in PARIS! FRANCE! The rest of the weekend was going to be about me achieving my objective alone, but Friday I was completely down with kicking off my adventure by playing power tourist with coworkers. As good little power tourists do we hopped on the Metro and went straight to the Arc d'Triomphe. And can I just say that when you climb the stairs from that station. BAM! There it is!
After dinner we took the Metro back to our area of town, which was quite near the Eiffel Tower. The French do a lot of things really well: architecture, art, pastries, but perhaps the most lovely is the lighting of their monuments; the Eiffel Tower is no exception.
We made our way back to the hotel and I crashed. The next two days were going to be full of solo adventure, I needed to rest up in preparation for PARIS! FRANCE! Part II! The part where I run, eat, drink, cry a little, and fall in love with the city.
5.22.2011
Six-word Sunday: May 22, 2011
Returned from PARIS! a changed LMNT.
Internets, believe me I know that I've left you hanging for over a week now. I've been organizing my thoughts, recovering from jet lag, and thinking so much about my future. It's time to get it all out of my head and onto the page here. Take your seat and buckle up, I've got lots in store for you.
Internets, believe me I know that I've left you hanging for over a week now. I've been organizing my thoughts, recovering from jet lag, and thinking so much about my future. It's time to get it all out of my head and onto the page here. Take your seat and buckle up, I've got lots in store for you.
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