25 July 2008

day 26: marais quarter et musée de l’orangerie

Today was our last meeting with Dominique as we made our way around La Marais. (In English, this means marshland.) This area was at one point a marshland, a chic hip place where the aristocracy lived, and also home to a large Jewish community. We went to four hôtel particulier (Wiki defines as "an urban 'private house' of a grand sort.") and the Place de Vosges. I don't remember all the names of the places where famous influential people lived, but I tried to get pictures of everything. I had a little technical difficulty with my camera where it thought my 2.0 GB Memorystick was almost full, despite having only taken about 10 pictures... I only discovered this after taking 10 pictures but I didn't want to delete those by reformatting my memory card so I had to shoot the rest of the day in the lowest quality and also delete some other pictures. (I wanted to take pictures of everything at the Orangerie... I even tried to. But that's for later.) From about 9:30 to 12, we were led around the Marais by Dominique
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Place de Vosges
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Place de Vosges
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Dominique telling us about the famous people who lived in Place de Vosges
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Hotel de Sully
ingres' muse
Ingres' muse for his famous painting of the girl with the jug
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I forget the name of this place :( Does anyone remember?
kids playing soccer in a basketball court
A group of boys playing soccer on a basketball court.
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A Medieval building that sounded like "seance"
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Shoah Memorial
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Ex-Hotel Particulier, Current Court of Appeals

Vicky and I decided to skip on the Museum of Judaeism (which apparently was awesome... dang it) to visit the Musee de L'Orangerie. First though, we had lunch at a little cafe right by the St Paul metro stop. Three of us had amazing burgers with egg, bacon, lettuce, pickles, cheese, onions and tomatoes. It was so delicious I can still make myself hungry by thinking about it, hehe. Anyway then we went to the Orangerie which was, in short, incredible. It's like a smaller, more pointed Musee D'Orsay (also an amazing museum) but this is definitely one of my favorites. I am such a sucker for impressionism. I definitely lost myself in "Les Nympheas," Monet's lilies. The pamphlet describes them as "a gift from Claude Monet to the French State...they hang in two oval rooms as requested by the artist." It's simply breathtaking. There's natural light that filters in through the ceilings and through a mesh so the light comes in, but isn't too harsh. I probably could've stayed there for an hour just staring.

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Oval Room 1

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Oval Room 2

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The rest of the museum features the collections of Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume. "Open to the public since 1984, the collection displays two seminal periods in French art. Impressionism is represented by exceptional paintings by Renoir and Cezanne; early modern art and the return to a degree of Classicism, typical of the period between the two wars, are illustrated by masterpieces by Modigliani, Le Douanier Rousseau, Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Utrillo, and Soutine" (L'Orangerie Pamphlet). I wanted to take pictures of everything. I wasn't familiar Utrillo, Soutine, or Laurencin but I'm glad I got to see some of their work. Just to warn you, my Photobucket Album has gotten really bulky because of the many, many pictures I uploaded... I've picked a few of my favorites for this entry but it'll be difficult to narrow down.


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Last night, most of our group--everyone who was feeling healthy and didn't feel like she had work to catch up on--got together and spent an evening by the Seine. It was awesome. Never before has there been such group congealing and mish mashing and complete break down of our little cliques!

24 July 2008

days 24 & 25: mmw midterm & musée de carnavalet

Dates: Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 and Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Most of Wednesday afternoon was dedicated to studying for the MMW Mid Term on Thursday. I don't really feel confident about the exam because I was pretty brain dead. I didn't even stay up late the night before, I just felt so exhausted and somewhat discouraged from the previous exam. It was just a matter of a slight discrepancy between my own expectations based on how much I thought I knew and how much I was able to show my knowledge on a test. In any case, after that we still had a full lecture, a visit to the Musee de Carnavalet (Museum of Paris) and dinner at night. We were lucky enough to have a few hours in between the Museum and the dinner to recuperate so I made it through the day, easily.

The Museum is in the Marais district, an area that I've stumbled upon a few times before, mostly to visit the Place de Vosges. After learning about the area in Sawyer's lecture, it makes sense that the modest, unassuming (yet still classically Parisien and classically beautiful) exterior of the Museum would house a panoply of 16th century (and on) paintings. It's not just the paintings that it has, it's the way that the Museum is organized. It takes you through the chambers of old aristocrats / royalty and dots the walls with chronologically relevant (OK the chronology is an assumption on my part) paintings. Unfortunately the sections that were the most relevant to the period that we were studying, Roman Period and Medieval, were closed for renovation... But we got a good glimpse of some artifacts, paintings, and busts all from the 12th century and on. More pictures when I have the chance to update...

After that I elected to head back and got some rest. I took a two hour nap that felt deceptively short. I did wake up refreshed though, so that's what counts. We gathered for dinner and hopped on the tram to take the 13 one stop. Dinner was pretty good, but not one of the best. The appetizer seemed like pickled vegetables and I ate some of the tomatoes with the bread but couldn't get it all down. The main dish seemed like a hamburger patty / steak-esque meat with cheese and bacon on top paired with frites. The dessert was the best though! Mountainberry tart... Everyone had charming little blackish blue smiles by the end. We headed back. A few of us wanted to go out as our days in Paris are quickly dwindling... Instead we watched Toy Story. After it ended though, some boy were hungry and we decided to head to St. Michel for some shwarma, crepes, and ice cream. We sat in front of Notre Dame just chatting and eating our food, enjoying the beauty of Notre Dame by evening. I'd say it was a great day.

23 July 2008

day 23: musée du quai branly

Date: Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008

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We walked past this nifty looking museum while trudging home from fireworks on Bastille Day (it looks cooler at night and this isn't a good picture of the main entrance.) It's a museum that features art from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas. There's an impressive collection, and the architecture and overall design of the interior is really nifty. But I will admit that it was difficult for me to enjoy at first because of the lighting inside. Granted, everything looked really cool in the low lighting and artistic glass cases (and the seemingly messy yet ultimately teleological floor plan) but it gave me quite a headache, as each exhibit was lit by several small lights, and those lights would reflect off the glass panes from adjacent exhibits, and yet most of the museum was not well light. (It was mostly dark and only the exhibits were lit with those small lights.) After I toughened up a bit, it got easier. I was a little confused because I wasn't sure what I was looking at (I should've invested in one of those audio guides! They weren't as cool as the touchscreen-GPS ones at the Louvre though.) but it was interesting. There were some interactive exhibits that gave information in English, which was helpful.

What was rather exciting though, was seeing the Crystal Skull. (One of the many out there.) We weren't supposed to take pictures inside the museum, but I really couldn't resist...

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We finished walking through the main floor exhibits rather quickly as we weren't sure what we were looking at (except general African, Asian, American, and Oceanic art) so we explored their temporary exhibits (very interesting section and again, very artistically designed) as well as the nifty multimedia area. There was a cool interactive television screen where we think we saw Onka from Papua New Guinea. (He's the main character in an MMW1 video we all had to watch.)

We took the C on the RER to get to the Museum and it was really nice. The trains on the C are double decker and most of it isn't underground. Thanks to the RER-C, I've discovered that I still have lots left to discover--more importantly, I have somewhere to start. Hopefully this weekend I can explore the area around the RER stop Javel and make a trip to the wonderful Georges Pompidou Center, too.

21 July 2008

days 21 & 22: regression!

Dates: Sunday, July 20th, 2008 to Monday, July 21st, 2008

I did nothing worth blogging about but I feel obligated to anyway, as a testament to my laziness. I watched an entire season of Project Runway, did more shopping, and fully recuperated from post-MidTerm tiredness. Good news is, my allergies are getting much better.