Grandeur and Hilarity

I think I'm going to go a bit light on the site seeing today since it's pretty cold out today, about 4°C in comparison to the 16°+ we were getting in Cannes. However, today I had my placement test at the Sorbonne and I got placed in Intermediate, which is what I was going for, although I could have dealt with whatever situation.

Also today, our baggage arrived from Cannes. I forget if I mentioned it but we could only bring a carry-on on the TGV when we came to Paris. So no more mixing and matching two shirts and one pair of jeans for me haha. Also my mail cames, so I got the cable for my camera, so there'll be a few pictures to follow.

I only have a picture of my room at the moment, but I'll try to take a few of the apartment building and stuff so you can get a better idea of my living situation. I like my room a lot, although I could deal with a little bit more closet space. I can only really use one of the doors in the closet, so 4 shelves.


That picture doesn't really do it justice, but I like it, and the bed is comfortable.



I think I mentioned that right as you step out of my apartment you're greeted with an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower, so here's a quick look at that.

Sunday I went to see where the AIFS office was but on my way I checked out the Panthéon. It's gigantic as you can see below. I didn't go inside due to the entrance fee, but just seeing it from the outside is impressive





After a bit more meandering I took the metro all the way out to La Grande Arche de la Défense. It was one of the first monuments we visited last time I was here, but it too is amazing just because of its scale.


l'Arche from the escalator from the metro.


l'Arche


Underneath the Arche.


One of my personal favorites from that area, the gigantic thumb.


One last tidbit, this group of tweens-through-teens spent the entire time I was there (and probably a bunch of time before and after) raving to some house music...youth, haha.

When I got back to my neighborhood the sun was just setting, so here's one last view of the Eiffel Tower.

And to top it all off I have a video for you from my wanderings in the area near le Centre Pompidou. While its sad to see homeless people, the SDFs as they're called here (Sans Domicile Fixe), street performers are a much different breed. There isn't necessarily a way to tell if they really need the money or they do it purely for the fun and some extra cash, but you find plenty here. Plus, I don't know many homeless people with guitar amplifiers. So anyways here's a look at a disco-ing man I found Sunday. Hopefully, I'll have more eventually.

Paris!

So, I'm finally in Paris. It's pretty awesome, I must say. I've been here since Saturday and I've seen a bunch of the monuments, but I haven't really been actively touring. Also, unfortunately I don't have a way to get photos off of my camera, until I get the cable in the mail. Hopefully, that'll be soon, I have a decent amount to get off, but also I haven't been taking too many just because I have nothing to do with them, plus I'll be here for so long I'll have plenty of time to take photos.

We transfered by train Saturday. It was a pretty long ride, but I slept for part of it, watched The Office on my laptop for a while, ate, and played games, so it wasn't that bad. Papuna (my housemate) and I checked out l'Arc de Triumph that night then we had dinner with our host mother, lady. Later I went out with Cao and Adam for a beer.

The house I'm staying at is pretty nice. There's a lot of space and I got the bigger of the two rooms, with a double bed. There's a ton of closet space, but I don't really get to use any of it, just 4 small shelves.. with no way to hang anything. Also, unfortunately I don't have Internet here, so when I get done typing this, I'll probably go use the Wi-Fi at McDonalds... McDonalds.

The house is in the 16e Arrondissement and is right by the Trocadéro, within walking distance of l'Arc de Triumph, and has a perfect view of la Tour Eiffel. There's also a grocery store (actually like 3) nearby, which is good so I can do some food shopping so I don't have to spend a million dollars eating out every night, although it'd be nice.

As it turns out, I don't have anything to do starting like Friday (or Thursday?) through the following Friday or maybe even Monday. I think I'm going to try to get to Germany, or maybe elsewhere. When I get on the Internet, I'll look up tickets and see what's viable.

Hopefully I get the camera cable soon so I can update with some photos.

Saint-Paul de Vence & le Fondation Maeght

Wednesday we had our second, and final, planned/included excursion for Cannes. I was really looking forward to it, but as it turned out it wasn't my favorite at all. The saving grace was le Fondation Maeght, a museum featuring Modern and Contemporary art.

The bus ride was kinda long feeling, and fairly boring but was made hilarious when Cao found two opened, potentially (although probably not) used, condoms when she folded down her tray table. Nonetheless, we arrived after our journey. The major draw of Saint-Paul is the old medieval city on a hill. Unfortunately, we've already been to Eze and then we checked out the Roman fortress at Ile Sainte Marguerite, so this was pretty boring.



Don't get my wrong, the place was awesome and picturesque, but you can only walk through so many, near identical, cobblestone streets before it gets old, and apparently that number isn't very many. One thing I really enjoyed there was an olive oil store. The little shop had an awesome array of olive oils, vinaigrettes, and tapenades. I got one garlic and basil tapenade to eat while I'm here, plus I got my parents a tomato vinaigrette and an olive spread. I hope they enjoy it.





Luckily, the Fondation Maeght made the trip worth while. There was a decent amount of art, scultures and paintings, by modern and contemporary artists like Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, and Valerio Adami who I really enjoyed. There was only one of his paintings on display "The Bedroom Scene" I believe it was called, but it was awesome I thought. He uses really thick deliberate lines and solid bold colors which really caught me. I also really liked Giacometti's sculptures. The Miró Labyrinth was kinda cool but very very weird.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the musée because they charged you to take them. Papuna took probably 100+ so maybe I'll bum a few good ones from him soon and post them.


Also: I'd appreciate any comments from anyone who happens to read my stuff. It'd just nice to hear from everyone. I thought it was automatic that anyone could comment, but I just realized it wasn't the other day and changed that. You don't need a Blogger account or anything just put your name in if you would so I know who it is. Thanks!

Panoramas

I have three panoramas to show you. Two from Monaco and one from Nice. Hope you like them.

Ile Sainte Marguerite

Tuesday we headed to Ile Sainte Marguerite, which you may know of because of "The Man in the Iron Mask," it's the island where the prison was. We took a ferry to the island which is just off the coast of Cannes in the Mediterranean. The boat ride was a lot of fun and fairly short.



We only had about three hours on the island, so we basically headed directly to the fortress to check it out. It was definitely one of my favorite things I've done so far. Seeing the other old cities (Eze and Saint Paul de Vence, which you'll see soon) was fun, but fairly repetitive. The fortress was so much more fun because it was basically just us in the whole area and we were able to get on some of the walls of the fortress and climb around. That kind of hands-on physical exploring is by far my favorite.





I thought originally that the fortress was from the dark ages, but it turns out that it was actually from about the 4th century B.C. which is way cool to see, and climb all over. We went into the actual museum, which is of the prison and you also get to walk around part of a Roman cistern.




We spent the rest of our time hanging out by the dock. There was something relaxing about sitting watching the flow of the sea and seeing a seagull (or maybe an albatross) fight to fly into the headwind. The ride back on the ferry was just as fun. I haven't been on a boat for a long time and besides the fortress, I really liked being out on the water.

Nice

Monday I escaped to Nice with Cao, Alix, and Adam by train. It's awesome how cheap traveling within France seems to be. It was less than 10€ round trip. At first I didn't like it so much. We were basically wandering around aimlessly without finding much of interest. It mainly just seemed like a city, kinda dirty, with dog poop all over the place haha.





The first cool thing we found was an antique book shop. There were tons of awesome old books. They had tons of stuff, literature, dictionaries, philosophy, maps etc. I found one little treasure though. Plus I know Kaley actually asked a question about this, so I hope she enjoys the photo below.



Finally we found some interesting stuff. We found le Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, the Acropolis and a really cool statue. We didn't go in anything because of the assumed cost and time restrictions but it was good to finally start find some stuff to see.






Then we finished up the trip with a walk up a huge hill to an old château. There wasn't much of it left, but the view was awesome. There were the ruins of an old church and part of the château. The main attraction for us was a huge rope jungle gym and the view. Check out the pictures below.

Monaco & Eze

Saturday we had a planned excursion to Monaco and Eze. I was partially bummed at first because Alix, Adam, and Cao were going to Italy instead and that would have been a ton of fun. However, as it turns out Monaco is fking awesome. To start the place had absolutely beautiful scenery. Beyond that, its clear that it is mostly for 'the other half.' Driving around the streets the majority of the cars were Mercedes', Porsche's, Maserati's, etc. Plus I saw a few Ferrari's parked plus two Bently's and an Aston Martin. Defintely the kind of place I wouldn't mind living once I make several million. I've heard that there's an income minimum to live there.












We started out our day near the palace and walked down into the city. Down in the city we sat and had coffee. The weather was perfect and it was just calm and relaxing. Then we headed back up another hill to the Monte-Carlo casino. The place opulent and had awesome architecture. We went in but didn't gamble. I thought about playing a slot machine, but you had to put in 5€ to play, so I didn't bother wasting it. Around the casino was were the majority of the nice cars were parked. I definitely wouldn't mind owning a Ferrari.

















After we walked back up the huge hill to the palace we had a scheduled trip into la Musée océanographique de Monaco. The museum part was okay had some interesting stuff to look at, mostly whale skeletons and other old whaling and boating memorabilia. The real treat of the place was the aquarium. It was really sweet and a lot of fun to check out all the fish. I haven't been to an aquarium since the days of cub scouts when we stayed over at the Camden Aquarium.


Yellow Submarine!




On the way back to Cannes, we briefly stopped in an old village called Eze. We went to a perfume factory tour. That wasn't exactly the highlight of the trip haha. While people were still milling around the store, I went with a few people to check out the old medival village up the hill. It was this awesome old castle-like village built on a hill. At the top there were some awesome views. It made the stop off at Eze well worth it.