City Life

It's certainly interesting living in a huge city, but I think I'm already over it. It's rather true when people say Paris is dirty. I know big cities are usually dirty, but it seems worse than other ones I've been in, although my experience is fairly limited. The city also has a broad spectrum of smells. Walking down the street you get a whiff of baking bread, garbage, fresh fruit, dog poop, grilled onions, flowers, homeless man, fresh fish, and then all of that with an overlay of cigarette smoke. The French love dogs but most don't pick up after them so there can be a surprising amount of doggy poo on the sidewalk, and of course there are cigarette butts covering everything. Luckily they wash the sidewalks at night.

Maybe I'll just write once a week, that seems to be my trend so far.

Last Tuesday was the first grève or strike since my arrival, and there's sure to be more. I think one's already set for September 23rd. Since I live by the Place de la Bastille, all the strikes occur or go through here. My dad told me to "Grab my socialist flag and join them!" lol. Of course I ended up being inside all day and missing the entire thing! Oh well, there will be another. Speaking of which, last weekend there was a Communist Party party that was a massive three day concert, but I didn't get to go to any of it.

Friday I took the final for the practicum, which means I get 4.5 units of credit for two weeks of work. Afterwards my friends and I finally went shopping on the Champs-Élysées although we didn't buy much except giant pastries. We were trying to find the tunnel to reach l'Arc de Triomphe but then we looked over at it and realized that all the tourists that had been there were gone, so we thought it must have closed, even though it was still early in the evening. Then all of a sudden there's a military marching band coming down the street and the police have stopped all the cars in the roundabout, an impressive task. So the band marched the the Arc followed by many military members of various branches. We stood and watched for awhile, wondering what was going on, so we asked a policeman and we learned that it was a WWI memorial. Then they played the Star Spangled Banner and La Marseillaise, but by that time traffic had recommenced so it was hard to hear the band and I didn't have my camera on me. But still a fun accidental experience.

Saturday I took a bus to Chartres, a trip organized by ACCENT. We spent one hour in the cathedral with Malcolm Miller, who is the Chartres Cathedral expert. He gave Nixon a tour of it back in the day. With only an hour we focused on reading two stained glass windows and one alcove on the exterior. There are so many meanings behind one stained glass window I don't know how someone could think all of them up and then make it! This photo is above the alter, the top portion has already been renovated, so it's all clean and painted, the bottom is how the rest of (and most) old cathedrals look. It's difficult to remember that they originally weren't just gray stone. It will be so pretty when it's all painted again!


We walked around the cathedral more after the tour and saw the reason for the cathedral's existence, the piece of the Virgin Mary's tunic. It is actually from the first century, so at least the date matches, but it wasn't brought to the cathedral until 876 as a gift from Charles the Bald, so where was it all that time? Sounds like a sketch deal. But regardless, with people making pilgrimages it's been Chartres' money maker for over 1000 years. So of course I took a picture of 2000 year old "potentially worn by the 'virgin' mother of Christ" cloth with a flash because I'm smart like that.


Afterwards we walked around the old town of Chartres which was very cute. It was so nice to be out of Paris in a more rural area and the weather was gorgeous. With the cathedral and town I kept thinking of the Canterbury Tales, but I know that's in England, but still the same time frame and involving pilgrimages. It was a very refreshing day.



Sunday I went to L'Hôtel Nationale des Invalides, which was built by Louis XIV as a veterans hospital and veterans home. Today it still serves as both, but also contains extensive military museums. I saw enough suits of armor, swords, and guns to last me for a while. I also saw a Swastika cookie cutter, which was amusing. Then I went upstairs and passed photos of piles of dead bodies and a man cut in half which removed any humor.

Then I paid my respects to Napoleon Bonaparte, thanking him for Oklahoma and all the other red states. By the way, he could really could use a much bigger casket. *sarcasm* Compensate much?

And a Japanese propaganda poster. . .


But all in all, I enjoyed a lovely lazy day in Paris and checked another monument off my list!


More later, my laptop is dying!

A bientot!
Sarah