One Month, Some Macarons, and a Museum!

The past week and a half has been so busy! With classes almost every day, attending the wrong class by accident, and having a quiz and two tests, I haven’t had time to put together a good blog entry. However, that will be remedied now!

Last Wednesday I was able to celebrate my first month in Arras (weird! I know!). And I did so with deliciousness- six macarons (en français) from a swanky little shop in central Arras. They were amazing- even the weird jasmine and rose ones! The pistachio flavored one was my favorite, in case anyone was wondering.

One of the gorgeous hallways in the museum

The courtyard

Some Plague-related Medieval art

For this week’s adventure, Grace and I decided to hit up the local art museum. It was free, which was awesome, and it showcases a lot of really beautiful, varied, and interesting art- double awesome. Cool, cool, cool (sorry, we’ve been watching a lot of Community…). We were expecting to spend about an hour or so in a nice museum with a small collection, maybe some interesting architecture; but in reality, exhaustion kicked in once we got to the third floor.

The floors are split up by time periods: the first floor is Medieval art, the second 15^th-18^th centuries, and the third floor had a mix of 18^th to 20^th centuries (these are all rough guesses stemming from my three art history classes). The coolest thing about the entire museum was truly the fact that most of the art comes from Arras or features Arras in some form.

I had forgotten how morbid Medieval art can be- the Black Plague really influenced their art. There were a lot of skeletons and skulls throughout the first part of the collection; however, there were also a lot of carvings from the ancient walls from the cathedrals in Arras.

An exotic-type bird

We then were able to see the featured exhibit: carriages and coaches from Versailles! This entire exhibit fascinated me. Upon walking into the first room, they had a huge scaled-down diorama of Arras and paintings that featured both carriages and Arras. Then the hall leads to a section that has a miniature carriage used as a selling piece for Louis XIV to help him choose one to buy. There was a piece on the coaches for children. One of these at the exhibit was a coach for Louis-Charles, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Louis XIV on his way to Arras, with his entourage and coach (which is holding his wife, Marie-Thérèse) 

Coaches that functioned as sleighs were apparently really popular in the 18^th century, as there was a room with at least eight or ten of these carriages.

A carriage built for snow!

The literal 8 to 10 foot high carriage, in all of its golden, gaudy glory

 Finally, we got to see the royal carriages of Louis XVIII and Charles X. These were the gaudiest, the grandest, the most gold, and the biggest carriages. Gold, everywhere. Everywhere. The one must have been 8 to 10 feet high, and I’m really not trying to exaggerate. The final coach was much more reserved, as it was made during one of the Republic periods after one of the revolutions that wanted to expel the grandeur and frivolity and disregard of the monarchies of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

The top of the carriage, you can see an "N" for Napoléon

Some detail

The giant but beautiful wheel

The steps to the carriage were even too high to step onto easily

Some Arras porcelain!

One of my favorite paintings in this museum

After the carriage exhibition, we explored the rest of the museum. There were tall paintings, tiny paintings, a lot of porcelain from the Pas-de-Calais region, some clocks and fireplaces and chairs, and almost everything in between. 

My favorite pieces of the entire museum were the ones of actual 18^th century dresses; they were just so gorgeous, and anyone who knows my obsession for the movie Marie Antoinette will understand this sentiment. However, the best part was this display of a dress with a painting featuring a woman wearing the exact same dress. So cool.

A beautiful dress

The painting that features the beautiful dress above

My favorite dress

Another beautiful one, pretty much straight out of a Marie Antoinette movie!

 Some other highlights include the various maritime paintings, a few portraits, and just in general enjoyable pre-20^th century art. Definitely worth a visit if you’re in the Arras area, and definitely worth the ridiculous amount of photos I’m posting on this entry.   

Oh, La, La, Paris!

Not to disappoint, but my travels to Paris weren’t so much “oh, la, la!” as “oh, it is FREEZING! And this crazy weather! Look at that pretty painting! OH! There’s my favorite! Ah, let’s try to speak French to this Parisian… Where do we go now? It’s FORTY-FIVE minutes in the SLEET to our train station and it’s LATE?!” But! It was all a tremendous, fun, awesome success, in my opinion.

Notre Dame!

Our early day started at 9:17 in the morning when we boarded our train to Paris, which is about a 50-minute train ride, so not that bad at all! We then walked the forty-five minutes or so to the Seine, under some rain, some sun, some wind. Once we finally saw the river though, it’s amazing. The river wasn’t actually that pretty Saturday, but once you actually get to the river, you can see so many beautiful things that make up Paris. From our spot near Boulevard de Strasbourg, we could see the top of Notre Dame, the top of the Eiffel Tower, and the beautiful bridges and buildings that run alongside the river.

The not-so-pretty Seine

We then walked some more to get to the Musée d’Orsay – our goal for the day! Along the way we stopped at a bridge that was sporting several different locks. I’m not sure how many of you have heard of this little phenomenon, but basically lovers write their initials on padlocks, lock them onto the bridges, and then throw the locks in the river, thus, everlasting love. Here’s an article to check out if you want to know where I got the information from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lovelocks-return-to-the-bridges-of-paris-2293506.html. Despite the controversy these bridges across the world have brought up, I found it to be a gorgeous spot for some photography, and also a place to be heckled out of 20 euro for a charity (I hope).

Lover's Locks Bridge

Once we arrived at the museum (free for us French university students!), we finally got to explore the art that Grace and I absolutely adore, the Impressionists. We decided to not leave any painting unseen, and so we started on the first floor and made our way up to the very high up 5^th floor to see as much art as we could bear. And, just a side note here, besides the fact that this is a museum filled with gorgeous works of art, the museum itself is a history lesson and a piece of art. It used to be a central train station in Paris, that instead of being bulldozed down to make room for some more development (like we love to do in the States), it was renovated into a modern art museum, and I found it absolutely gorgeous.

One of my favorite parts of the museum, you can kind of see the Louvre by the peoples' heads.

 Some highlights from the days art exploration: Grace was able to see her favorite paintings ever, Manet’s Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass (Déjeuner sur l’herbe), Phoebe reveled in Degas’s dancers, and I got to see my favorite Van Gogh Painting, Stars over the Rhone. All in all, a very successful endeavor at the Musée d’Orsay!

The beginning of the benediction ceremony

Lunch came next, at a little café next to the museum where we all got to enjoy some nourishment to make up for all of our walking and exploring so far in the day. It was very good, I had a tomato and mozerella salad with bread and pressed lemon juice!

We then decided to head over to the Île de la Cité to see Notre Dame and any other sites that were in between the museum and the church. Once we arrived there, after experiencing more rain, sun, and wind, we realized that it is the 850-year anniversary of the cathedral’s birth, and there was a band inside playing and a benediction ceremony starting at 5 p.m., so it was extremely crowded. 

The inside of Notre Dame

The bell Jean-Marie

Notre Dame

We pushed through the crowds inside so Phoebe could see the church for the first time ever, and it was worth it to see the display of the church’s bells and the inside of the awe-inspiring, timeless Notre Dame.

More Seine

The back of Notre Dame, with another Lock Bridge

The Hotel de Ville

Street-made crepes were our next goal, and we succeeded and finding some right outside the cathedral. We then walked around the back and enjoyed the view of Notre Dame from the river, as well as a rainbow that celebrated the day’s crazy weather, and some sleet.

L'Arc du Ciel!

We decided then to start to make our way back to the train station, as it was at least a 45-minute walk away and we had a very loose idea of where we were going. On the way though we stopped to admire the Hotel de Ville and then continued on our way while it began to get dark and sleet pretty consistently. Finally, we found the train station where we huddled in the cold to await our delayed train back to Arras.

In addition to our Paris-filled day, it also happened to be the night of my roommate Nerea’s birthday party, which also celebrated Carnival, so of course it was a costume party. I decided to go as a pirate! But the party also featured a karate master, a cowboy, a cop, and Roman!

I bet you didn’t realize that the Spanish LMFAO was in Arras last night, huh?

Theme of the Week: SNOW!

So this past week has been relatively uneventful: we had class, we watched some Modern Family, we bought groceries and cooked our dinners, we’re still adjusting to the French life, etc., etc.

However! Last Monday I commented on how it was snowing, and I figured it would just be a dusting or so, I always thought/was told that the Paris/northern France regions didn’t really get snow in the winter, it was just cloudy, gloomy, cold, and rainy. How wrong was I. We actually got about two or so inches last Monday night, then another inch or so Friday night, and then another inch or so Sunday!

Some pictures of it snowing from my room

There are a few differences in how the French handle snow and how Americans handle snow, though, that must be addressed. First off, we still had school. Which is fine! I expect to always have class, even at Washington College. The difference, however, is that NOTHING is shoveled. It’s very interesting trying to get around a campus that has iced-over snow sidewalks and footpaths and streets and whatnot. The other aspect to this too is that some of the streets in the towns aren’t plowed, or are merely plowed in the middle of the street (this is due to the fact that cars park half on the sidewalk and half on the street). The sidewalks around the towns are shoveled either, unless the people who own the house in front of the sidewalk shovel it themselves. It’s been manageable, I don’t mean to complain, but it can be very cumbersome as we walk everywhere, every day, and sometimes with heavy grocery bags. But, I will end my rant there!

This is what the street/sidewalk looks like on campus

And what it looks like on the street where I live!

Regardless of how… annoying the un-shoveled streets are, when it snows in Arras it is very gorgeous and I have greatly enjoyed cozying it up in my warm bed and watching it outside of my window while enjoying a movie or a book or the internet!

 Here are some photos of my school, for those of you who are curious!

La bibliothèque (The library)

The Lettres et Arts/Histoire et Géographie building, where I have most of my classes

In other news, I have my first bit of homework (noooooo!!!) and two of my classes were cancelled today due to the professor being absent. However, we have class tomorrow (our day off) to make up for not having two classes last Friday (absent prof… noticing a theme yet?), which is a bummer. But, ah well, c’est la vie!

French Dinners and International Friends

There's this course at l'Université d'Artois that all international/Erasmus students must take and can get credit for called French Language Exploration (FLE). As there are only six of us new international students, there are only six of us in the class! Me, Phoebe, and Grace are in it together, and also our new Romanian friends Razvan and Marianna and our Italian friend Angela! (I think I mentioned them before, but if not, now everyone knows!!) 

So Grace, Phoebe and I decided to host a little dinner at Grace's apartment after our class, which is on Monday nights from 5:15 to 7:15, and tonight was the first night and it was a success!! This morning the three of us went to LeClerc to buy the ingredients- chicken, bread, lemon, garlic, green beans, and a dessert (I already had some potatoes and Grace had some carrots so we decided to use those too!). Then between our 3:00 class and the 5:15 class we cooked the chicken and cut up the vegetables, and once class was over we went back to her apartment (in the snow!) to finish cooking and eat! I would have to say it was a major success- Razvan kept commenting on how good the potatoes were and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves, and we plan to do it again, so yeah, by those standards I would say our first French dinner (à la style peasant, we believe) was a definite success!

The preparations!

The end result!

The gang!

Angela nomming on some dessert!

Here are the six of us from the other night! In order from left to right: Marianna, Phoebe, Grace, Razvan, and me! And then in the front of us is Angela!!

Also, I want to show off some of my new friends! I don't have a picture of Susanna and Anan, my other roommates, but I do have some photos of everyone else!

Me and Steffy- she is my Spanish mother in France!! And also one of my roommates

Me, Nerea (a roomie as well!), Estrella, and Irene (who was the birthday girl in this photo!)!

Oh, and for those of you wondering, we also had some white wine with our dinner, because, you know, it's a FRENCH dinner! Then we walked home in the cold but gorgeous snow : ]

Some photos (finally!)!

Hi everyone!

So it is the end of the first academic week here in Arras, and I probably only went to about half of my classes! Apparently, though, for those of you who just gasped at the fact that we skipped classes, it is okay for international students to do so. This is due to the fact that we only received our schedules Monday morning, then we have to arrange it to fit properly, and also because we had to do a lot of administrative work finished to be registered and properly accepted here in Arras!

So, I will do a minor break-down of the past few days:

Tuesday I went to class- Intro to the History of Medieval Literature- at 9:30 am, then met with my friends, Grace and Phoebe, to go talk to our advisor, Betty, before our class at 1:00 pm (13h military time!). Our professor was super nice but explained to us that this class is not really ideal for international students, and after sitting there for two and a half hours of the 3 and a half hour class, we decided he was right! Then we had our Réunion with the other 3 new international students this semester and the International Relations department at the university. They made us watch this movie and a powerpoint, both of which were not really helpful, but then we got to mingle and talk and it was a lot of fun. There are two Romanian students - a girl and a boy- and an Italian girl named Angela. Marianna and Razvan (the Romanians) love to speak English, so we speak English, and Angela knows absolutely no English, so we speak French haha. But! Grace and I plan to teach her at least some English/American slang, which she loves, and she will hopefully teach us some Italian too! We all went out to the bar later for a casual drink, which was fun because we all got to talk for an hour or so and get to know each other better.

Wednesday I had no classes, so I really didn't do much besides watch TV and hang out with Grace.

Thursday came with four classes- ugh- starting at 8h30! They were interesting, though I'm thinking I'm going to switch out of the one class because it includes some creative writing, which is not my cup of tea. At all. Especially in French. Then our tutor, Louis, took us for a tour of Arras (while we also took care of some administrative business, but who's shocked about that), which was AWESOME. The town has a lot of its old buildings from the Middle Ages, including a really pretty church. It also has this big... en français it is a "Place" but it's this large area with buildings lined to form a huge open square between them, where during the week cars can park but on Wednesday and Saturday mornings apparently there is a huge open market there too. It's gorgeous, with cobblestone streets and these tall buildings and another huge church- I will have photos up about this next Wednesday or Thursday!!

Grace spent the night last night because this morning we had to meet Louis to get our French bank accounts at 9h/am, which was easy and fine and now I have a French bank account! Grace and I then came back to my apartment and napped until 2:30 when we then had lunch and went to LeClerc (the local awesome grocery store) and parted ways until tomorrow!

I definitely feel a lot better about being here, and time is going slightly faster, but I still have more adjustment to achieve before I really feel at home here. However, I love my apartment, my roommates, and the town, so it definitely it achievable.

Some interesting things that I've discovered about France so far: to get one thing done, it is necessary to do three other things beforehand. For example, Grace hasn't had internet yet. To get internet, she needs a telephone. To get a telephone, she needs a bank account. To get a bank account, she needs her passport, her apartment contract, and a social security payment thing. So, we are up to the bank account step, and now she needs a phone! Another example of this is that to get a phone you need a bank account, but you need a bank account to get a phone! So Louis let us use his phone number to get our bank accounts today.

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore, everyone. But, it is still fun here.

Now, for some photos!!

My room key! I absolutely adore the fact that it is an old-time key!

View from my window

My bed! (WAC and Maryland representing, as you can see)

Our kitchen

My detached shower head...

My food cabinet stacked with the essentials: tea, Nutella, and pasta!

Bonjour, Arras!

After an uncomfortable, delayed 5-hour plane ride from D.C. to Iceland, and then another delayed, uncomfortable 3-hour plane ride from Iceland to Paris, and then a 5-hour wait on a 35 minute train to Arras, I have made it to the town! With all 119 pounds in tow!

I am living in a three-story townhouse with two girls from Spain, a girl from Peru, and another girl from China. It's actually quite interesting, because our conversations go from Spanish to French to English (I obviously only take part in the last leg of that conversation journey) and sometimes it's a little difficult to keep up with. But, the girls are all really nice and they've helped me immensely the past day and the Spanish is kind of fun to try to figure out, so these are all definitely good things to my stay so far.

My room is actually huge, it's bigger than the one I was living in at Washington College with my roommate. I have a double bed, a lounge chair, two tables, a kitchen chair, a wardrobe and a nightstand, which is all very nice. Two windows look out onto the noisy street, and there's a little garden out back. We also have two bathrooms which is an added bonus since there are five of us, they're just situated on the third and first floors so the late-night pitch-black trips are sometimes a little dangerous.

It's funny that I'm talking like I've been here for more than just a little over 24 hours, because it feels like I've been here forever. For some reason time is kind of ticking by slowly, and it's probably because I do miss home and so it's just playing a little game with me until my classes get underway and I find my France-sea legs.

Classes did actually start today, our first real day in Arras, but I didn't go to mine because I didn't find out my classes until around 11:00 am, and my Monday class was already over. However, I do have two classes tomorrow, one from 9:30 am to 10:30 am, and then another from 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm (UGH). They're only once a week though so the three and a half hour class maybe won't be that hard. At WAC the longest class I've had has been 2 hours and thirty minutes, so this is definitely a change.

Arras is a beautiful town from what I've seen so far, and it is actually rather large. I've only really explored the eastern part where my apartment and the school and the grocery store (it's actually a really cool grocery store) are located, but I think the town center is really pretty. Wednesday we don't have classes, so we plan to explore, and I'm excited to see what the rest of the town looks like.

Back to the suitcases...

So I have pretty much two more days at home, and of course I don't start packing until about an hour ago. I hate packing, and I'm terrible at it, just ask my parents, my brothers, my suite mates, and anyone who has helped me move in and out of college before. Overpacking is pretty much my super power. And so, what does a superwoman do when she's limited to two fifty pound suitcases?! She tries not to panic, that's what she does haha.

We're in the final countdown now though. Phoebe, Grace, and I have (finally) received our visas, we have our housing arrangements, and our flight takes off from D.C. Saturday at 7:40 pm! Or, 19h40, since I also have to get used to military time! And then our France adventure begins!!!