Le 15ème Arrondissement et Parc André Citroën

Yesterday Cao and I made a brief foray into the 15th. We first stopped off to see the creations of Gustav Eiffel. We admired the Tour Eiffel from a distance (90° counterclockwise from the angle I usually see it at) it looks the same. Then we saw a (large) miniature of his (probably) second most famous monument, The Statue of Liberty. As you probably know our statue was a gift from the French after our Revolutionary War. Anyways, there's a shrunken version of it on a small chunk of land in the middle of the Seine between the 15th and 16th. The area is a bit interesting because there were a bunch of tower buildings in the area, which you usually don't associate with Paris. They try pretty hard to keep them out of the city but clearly there are a few. A bunch of them are pretty ugly but there were some cool mirrored glass ones.






After the Statue of Liberty we went to check out the Parc André Citroën. We heard there was some modern stuff going on there. From what I heard I was expecting large contemporary sculptures, there weren't any. However, I really liked the park. There were some paths with trees (starting to bloom) but what I liked the most was a big open field. There are a bunch of parks in Paris to add a bit of green to the city, but most are filled with trees and small paths. There aren't as many wide open spaces, so it was nice to be there for a change. And I guess because of the space there were a bunch of little kids running around or riding bikes and scooters.






It was actually pretty warm yesterday, so a park was a good choice. This week is supposed to be really nice, so I'm excited for the good weather. I also liked seeing some ducks. It was funny because there weren't lakes or ponds around. There were a bunch of fountains, most of them not filled at the time, but there were ducks walking around on the grass and hanging out with pigeons.

This photo came out really cool I think. All the light reflecting off the mirrored glass really blew out the color. It doesn't even look like a photo really.


The French really hate their president. "If it's a joke, it isn't funny" And although it kinda looks like "raton" was drawn in on the computer it was actually written on the wall. I don't exactly get it because raton is a derogatory term for Muslim Algerians. He was born in France of Hungarian descent..who knows?

Kaley Visits Me!

So as you may know I had a visit last week from my wonderful girlfriend :-)

She came in on two Friday morning's ago and stayed until last Friday. We had a ton of fun, doing both touristy and non-touristy things, plus we had a bunch of good meals.

One of the first things we did was go on a small picnic on a rowboat. We brought some cheese, bread, and strawberries out on the water and had a nice picnic on lac inferior dan le Bois de Bologne. After the picnic we walked back through the bois (wood). I've heard that supposedly the wood becomes a red light district, and we found a tree that might suggest that.





It was fun to go back into tourist mode again too. We saw both l'Arc de Triumph and la Grande Arche, which I think I've posted pictures of before, but just in case here are a few more.




Another day we saw Place de la Concorde, the Tuleries, and the outside of the Louvre. We went back to go inside and see the art a few days later, but by the time we got there the first day it was too late and the museum was closing.







We took a trip up to Montmartre, and saw Sacre Coeur among other things in the area, including a quick visit to Musée de l'Eroticism, where we saw some very interesting things.





When we visited the Louvre, we saw tons of stuff including Greek sculpture and pottery, paintings from several countries, as well as Egyptian and Roman works, among many others. Plus we saw quite a few well known works like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory.






We saw the Panthéon at day and night and pictures from both times came out good, or really cool at least.




One of the main attractions of the visit was of course, the Eiffel Tower. We took a ton of pictures with the digital camera, plus Kaley took two rolls of film with both of her cameras for her final project for photo class. She also let me borrow one of her cameras and I took a roll of film, which I'm looking forward to seeing when the photos get developed. Among the pictures we took some cute couply and kissy pictures, so be warned, sweetness will occur below!






The final hoorah of the visit was a HUGE (huge) dinner with everyone at Nos Ancestres de Gaulois. The place was fairly expensive, but the food was very good, and in insane quantities. It started off with unlimited wine from a barrel, and an assortment of bread and a HUGE (read: huge) basket of veggies to make salad from. The next part was a buffet of sausages and other meat and grain items. The 'main dish' was a meat kebab skewer. We all shared beef, lamb, and duck, the duck was amazing. Then came the huge cheese plater!







By the time the cheese plater came around everyone was sickeningly full, but we pressed on and ate a ton of the plate. We finished it all with a variety of desserts. One was a lemon chill, chocolate moose, and several others basically all delicious, the flon however, was not my thing.






So all in all, I would say it was one of my favorite weeks that I've been here. We saw a ton of stuff, did a ton of things, and ate lots of good food. The one bad part is now I'm missing home a bit more than I had been, but I'll get back in the swing of things around here. I am however looking forward to Spring Break and my 5-day weekend when I'm going to Italy.

Sorry for the semi-infrequent updates, I'll try to get going with more stuff so I can keep myself busy.

Le 1er Arrondissement

Yesterday I spent a bit of time in the Premier Arrondissement with Cao then with Adam and her house-mate also. First Cao and I went to the mall at Les Halles and walked around for a bit. We spent a few minutes in FNAC looking around and playing with the computers. They had a MacBook Air, so thin..


Then we spent a few minutes in the area around l'église Saint-Eustache. It's a pretty impressive church and has an interesting fountain in front of it, not to mention a sculpture of a hand and head. I know we visited it when I came my senior year with school, but it was fun to go back again.






Today Cao and I spent some time in the Asian district of the city. We found a ton of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants and a buffet that looks really good, especially for the price. This coming week I think I'll be back there at least once for a meal or two.