Photos (Enfin)

So not much to add from last time but I wanted to put up a couple of pictures. I'm still waiting for a few from Biarritz and from the Opera from Glennis, but I'll post them eventually. This is the Basilica of St Denis.

For our final activity today we took a boat along the Seine and finally saw the small Statue of Liberty:

See some of you soon!

Presque la fin

So I have less than a week now...I admit I'm used to semesters going by really quickly, but I feel like this one takes the cake. I'll be pretty sad to leave France, but also really happy to get back to the States. I miss sloppy, careless American food and making money. I'm really excited to start my summer job because some Russian team scooped my project while I was abroad and I'll theoretically get to pick up an entirely new one. Oh yeah, I don't have any photos today; I've been too lazy to upload them. I took my last scary exam today, which was for Medieval Art. I thought it went ok until I saw in my notes that illustrations are precious arts and stained glass is not. Oh well; I bet it didn't go too badly. I did really well on the bio exam for my second bio class, and I think the exam for the Arabic Literature class went ok too. Now I've just got Grammar tomorrow and then I'll be done. However between then and Monday I need to get ready to go, which will be tough. I still want to see at least four things in Paris, buy lots of stuff and do all my packing. And since there's a weight limit on the plane, I may end up needing to send things back to the States too. So basically packing needs to be figured out Friday. I'm not even worried about the exam tomorrow; I'm just worried about all the crap I have to do afterwards. Anyways, the last week: not much to say because everything was wrapping up and I was studying a lot. We did a visit to the St Denis Basilica, the first piece of Gothic art, on Saturday, and then ate at a great couscous place. Unfortunately there aren't a ton of exciting things going on now that it's almost over, but I promise to do a big philosophical essay at the end, maybe when I'm back in the States. I hope everyone's enjoying their vacations!

Nancy et Metz

So I took my bio exam on Friday and it didn't go super well. I probably only studied 3-4 hours, so it's not a huge surprise. There was also an equation that I definitely should have memorized but didn't. Oh well; we'll see what happens. Friday night I watched the best French movie I've ever seen, "J'ai toujours rêvé d'être un gangster", "I've always dreamed of being a gangster" in English. It's four separate stories of people who really want to accomplish a small crime, but utterly fail. It starts out beautifully with one of the main characters getting out of his car with a pantyhose mask on and walking into a pole. Then yesterday the group visited Nancy and Metz, two towns in eastern France. In Metz, we saw a really cool Gothic cathedral, with some of the windows done by Chagall. I got a book on him from my cousin after graduating from high school and now I'm running into his stuff everywhere. He also did the ceiling of the main opera house in Paris. Here's one set of windows:

And here's a shot of the front of the cathedral:

Wandering around Metz we also spotted some gardens, so I took a photo for ma mère. Happy Mother's Day!

Before getting to Metz, we got a small surprise: Thermopolis, a French spa and swimming pool type resort. The thing about pools in France is guys can't wear trunks. Wendy tried to explain it to me as a hygienic concern, which I guess makes sense. In any case, all the guys ended up wearing "slips de bain", Speedos, or as I called them, "Man panties". So that was a little awkward, but overall it was a cool place. They had this whirlpool thing on the outside of the pool where you could just get pushed around by the current. There were also three saunas: one in which you sweat a lot, one in which you can barely see or breathe because of the mint-flavored steam (remember that episode of Friends?), and then one which was so hot I felt like my face was melting like that guy in Raiders of the Last Ark. Anyways, overall it was pretty cool and now I just have two weeks left here. So little time...Again, good luck on finals!

Biarritz

So I was going to wait to post this until I got a good wave picture from Glennis, but she's taking too long. I should also definitely be studying for my final exam in Gene to Protein, but I just don't have the willpower right now. Paris is gorgeous right now and I'm kind of sad I have to leave in a little over two weeks. But anyways, Biarritz. So as soon as we got back from Greece, Glennis and I had to get our things together for a train to Biarritz the next morning. Biarritz is in the southwest of France, really close to the border with Spain. It has the nicest beaches I have ever seen. Huge waves and always sunny, at least while we were there. Here's a picture:

We got probably the best room in the entire budget hotel, except that my bed broke whenever I sat on it. Clearly I've put on a little weightt during my stay in France. I ended up just putting my mattress on the floor most of the time. Besides hanging out at the beach, we also went to a casino. So my first gambling experience in a casino happened in French. It was pretty cool, and I had Glennis and Alexa there to stop me from losing all my money. I ended up turning 25 euros into 70 euros and then losing it all. After a quick consultation with my advisors, I decided to put another 20 euros in to win back what I had lost. In the end, I was up 7.50 euros in 2 hours of Blackjack. Very sad, but at least I didn't lose anything. In any case, Biarritz was awesome and my only regret was that we didn't get the chance to visit the chocolate museum there. There were definitely some interesting sites, though:

So we found this square with trees full of umbrellas. No idea why.

We also found a pool inhabited by vacuum cleaner flamingos. Again, no idea why.
Unfortunately we made a huge mistake and expected that we could pick up our tickets from the ticket office an hour before our night train back to Paris. Glennis really couldn't handle it, so I took a picture of her shame:

We ended up having to buy new tickets on the train, but we did manage to get the "couchettes", which are compartments with beds. So I actually ended up sleeping pretty well. When we got back to Paris, it was time to study for a paper on the Virgin and Child of the St-Chapelle, a really cool ivory sculpture. Not too much has gone on this week, things are wrapping up. And as I said before, Paris is gorgeous. Once I'm done with the exam tomorrow, I'll probably finally check out a museum again: either the Musée de l'Orangerie (lots of Impressionist works) or back to the Musée Rodin, to which the Camille Claudel collection has temporarily returned. We've got a mystery trip to Nancy and Metz this Saturday, so I'll be posting on that soon enough. Good luck on finals!

La Grèce

So I'm back from Greece and Biarritz and there are so many things to talk about that I already know I'm going to forget most of them. I feel kind of vain posting almost nothing but photos of me, but Glennis is incredible at taking jumping photos. Anyways, Greece: so we got into Athens two Monday mornings ago, checked out the Acropolis and a beach. The next day Glennis and I went to Delphi which was awesome, and took a bunch of photos. We got someone there to take a fighting picture of us in front of an old stadium.


After checking out the stadium, a theater and the temple of Apollo, we visited the temple of Athena.

While we were there, Glennis somehow managed to get a picture of me exactly in the middle of a back flip. Sorry I don't know how to rotate photos, but the temple of Athena is slightly to the left of me and the temple of Apollo is tiny but visible to the up-right of me.
The next day we headed for Mykonos, a small Greek island famous for its beaches. They were really nice, but I didn't really take any good shots of them. I think Friday four of us went to Delos, a very close island, and checked out some ruins. One of the things I really liked in Greece was the fact that a lot of the tourist signs were in Greek, then French, then English. Apparently English isn't the second language everywhere. We climbed up to the highest point of the island where it was wicked windy and took jumping photos where we tried to make it look like we were jumping off the cliff. Sidney did not approve...
Then Sunday was Greek Easter, so we helped the hostel prepare a feast, which included lamb. Most of us helped spit-roast the lamb. The acropolis is just to the right of my head in this photo, one of the few pieces of evidence that I am capable of multi-tasking.

We got back to Paris Monday night, and then Glennis and I hustled to get ready to leave for Biarritz, in the south-west of France, the next morning. I will post on that soon.