L'Art

I woke up late. Or messed something up on the Metro.

Probably both.

Either way, it was my second day in Paris, and I was late for my first class.

Me? Late? Shocking, I know (hashtag CPT).

We had to meet at Museé D'Orsay for our French Art & Contemporary class at 9 a.m.

Those of you well versed in calculating CPT know that means I arrived about 9:45 a.m.

But hey, another student arrived at the same time I did, so I don't feel as bad about it.

And now I think I should probably explain how this whole school thing works.

For this program me and some fellow Gators are taking two courses: 

FRE 3324 French in the City: Interaction and Variation 

                                 and

FRE 4956: French Art and Contemporary Culture

For the city course we have a UF professor, but the art course is with an instructor from France. They are very hands-on courses, so we typically only have about one classroom meeting every week for each course. The rest is actually traveling places.

We all have an itinerary that lists each day with the date and some description like this:

French Art & Contemporary Class: visit of Orsay Museum at 9:15 a.m. Meet near the rhinoceros statue, outside the RER station Musée d'Orsay, line C. You gon' need yo map doe. 

OK, I added that last part, but the rest is word for word. 

Most of the students live in pairs with host families, so they live in groups of two (and one of four).
In other words, they have a traveling partner for these Metro trips. 

Me and two other girls do not. 

When we go these places, are only pal is map. 

And he doesn't sing like that one on "Dora the Explorer." 

So every day there's a new place to find and we usually have to meet there at 9 a.m.

It's not that difficult, but it was my first day of that class and second day in France so...

C'était pas évident. 

In fact, another student got so lost on her way there she gave up and took the metro back home.

But we didn't know this happened until later, so we still waited a few more minutes outside the museum and had to wait a little longer after registering.

 I got the chance to sit down. Breathe. Meet the rest of the group. Judge some lady with another tour donning an obnoxious American flag on her T-shirt.

Finally we were inside, and we had to leave our backpacks at the front.
There was a no pictures rule that essentially meant don't let employees see you taking them (if you're the kind of person who likes to ruin historical works of art with flash).

 Our professor gave us these little radio headset thingys to use while he spoke into the master microphone, so he could talk on our little tour of the museum and only the group could hear (which came in handy later when he jokingly threatened to kill these two Asian men who got in the middle of our tour group).

Now, I wasn't there during our previous classes with him, but apparently some students said he spoke super fast French fast and it was difficult to understand him. 

I guess for this reason he spoke in English during the tour.

And it was sort of entertaining.

He doesn't look much older than us and has a thick French acccent. Sometimes he asks us how to translate a word from French to English if he can't remember.

I was hoping he'd speak in French so I could practice, but I can't say I didn't enjoy seeing him make such an effort to speak in another language. I know the feeling. 

Solidarity, man. 

Anyways, that museum is legit. We saw Van Gogh's self portait, Starry Night (Not the most noted one–there are three versions), some great stuff from Monet and of course work from tons of other artists.

In fact, Google "The Magpie." At first I didn't realize how impressive it is until my professor stopped at the painting and started talking about it on our little tour. Those shadows on the snow—wow.

But what stuck with me most was a sculpture.

We stopped and took in the scene. As our professor slowly began telling the story, my eyes opened to what I was actually seeing. 

Count Ugolino dell Gheradesca started out as an Italian nobleman, but he ended up being punished for whatever form of treasonous activty he was involved in. 

Severely punished.

They took him and his four sons and locked them in a tower, leaving them to starve to death.
 (Oh. Do you plan on reading "The Divine Comedy"? Oops. Spoiler Alert).

I didn't realize such a look of anguish could manifest itself in a sculpture. Writhing bodies. Pained faces. It made me feel for them, but I couldn't look away. It was incredibly disturbing, captivating, raw. All at the same time.

It's called Ugolin. It's by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

And it's terrible(ific). 

I do absolutely nothing with art back at UF, so learning about it here of all places—it's amazing.

After that class, it was time to head straight to the next one, but some other students and I stopped at the French sandwich chain Pomme de Pain on our way there.

I ordered a Lyonnais.

Naturally. ;)

Anyways, I got a bottle of Orangina with that. And folks, if you've never had a bottle before, go out and get one (Apparently they sell it in the U.S., but not like they do over here. It's sold like Coke over here).

Let me tell you. Orangina is like orange soda if orange soda actually used oranges.

Sorry Kel, but I love Orangina. It's true.

I do!
I do!
I do!
Oo!

I'm debating making a seperate blog post in the future soley dedicated to all the food I've been eating over here.

Anyways, Next stop after that, Centre Georges Pompidou with our UF professor (I love saying "Centre Georges Pompidou." It just sounds cool).

Those of us with backpacks had to drop them off again and soon a nice old man was guiding us around the place.

Yet again, a painting previously unknown to me just stood out from all of the other more famous ones.

Le Bal Bullier.

You can Google it, but I really think you have to see it in person to get the full effect. I don't know. It was just beautiful. It struck me.

It was a painting of a ball in Paris from 1913. One hundred years ago.

In the painting you see couples dancing arm in arm, warm and cool colors.

I just love a good painting that makes you think. Looking at it you see love—it makes your heart feel heavy.

But I don't know, that's just me. What do you see?

Oh God I shouldn't have referenced Dora earlier. Now I'm obnoxiously asking hypothetical questions to people.

During the tour, our guide took us far up Centre Georges Pompidou and we got a view of the city.

I could see Sacré-Cœur. I could see the beautiful buildings of Paris. I could see the not-as-beautiful construction (just keeping it 100).

Then I caught a glimpse of something as I was turning back around.

No.

Is is it?

Yes.

I did a double take.

La Tour Eiffel.

It was my first time seeing it.











P.S.

Below is a short definition of CPT for those of you unfamiliar with the term.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=CPT&defid=51261