Thursday, March 19, 2009

Vive la Greve (a D100 practice run)

Today was Black Thursday in Paris-- the day of the strike! In Paris today, thousands of people marched the streets; they were either striking something, protesting something else, or joining in the rowdy fun. I had already experienced "la grève" (the strike) here in Paris when my roommates and I accidentally found ourselves marching along with University of Paris researchers and professors who were on strike. This was the first week of February. The same strike is still going on, and a handful of BC students here on a different program have had barely any classes in the past two months. Today's strike(s), though, were entirely different. 

This afternoon, I was actually about to take a nap when I convinced myself to take a peek at what was happening literally one block away from our apartment and enjoy the lovely Paris 60 degree springtime. After gawking for five minutes at the parade of countless different causes and groups, I ran back to my apartment to grab dad's camera. The following are some of the cool shots I got of la grève and of the city on my long walk. (I also had fun making some of them b&w-- artsy, I know.)


Across the street from our apartment: Chez Janou, a very very yummy, cute, pricey bistro

S.O.S. Racism

30,000 Deportations Each Year

"Civil disobedience is the enduring right of every citizen..." - Gandhi
"The school remains the only patrimony of the poor."


Place de la Bastille (where the Bastille once stood), background - Bastille Opera
-there is a tall fence around the Bastille monument that those people all climbed to get up there... after all that effort, they looked more like they were sunbathing to me than protesting anything.

Boulevard Henri IV

View of Pont Marie


Not sure what this building is, but it's next to Notre Dame


View of Hotel de Ville from Pont Notre Dame

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

March-- thus far, and coming up

I have been living in Paris now for exactly five weeks and one day. Now that I am really settled in the apartment and have settled schedules for exams and papers, I'm starting to plan and look forward to weekend trips!


PRAGUE:

This past weekend, I flew to Prague to spend the weekend with Mom and Dad. I had high expectations for the city since everyone I talked to had described Prague as "magical," "amazing," and "beautiful," and I'm glad to say that despite less-than-perfect weather, the trip lived up to these expectations. On arriving, we went on a walking tour of New Town, Old Town, and the Jewish quarter, ending on the famous Charles Bridge. That evening we had dinner with my friend from Sunny Hills, Natalie, whom I hadn't seen since after high school graduation. We ate at a Czech restaurant called U Flecku (sp?); most notable about the meal was the aperitif that Dad tried which apparently tasted "like Christmas," (lost on me), and the two-man tuba and accordion band in some sort of Czech military attire. 




Natalie has been studying in Prague since the beginning of January. She claims to be enjoying herself there, although she describes the Czechs as "rude, sometimes awful people." Although I didn't have any stand-out bad experiences with Czechs, I did get the impression that Parisians are friendlier, and that is saying a lot. 




The next day we explored the castle, which literally sat one staircase above our apartment building. My poor Singaporean mother was freezing in the wind on the top of the hill, but we all enjoyed ourselves as we soaked in the architecture and tried to keep Czech history straight. That night was probably the highlight of the trip for me. We went to the opera and saw Verdi's La Traviata. We sat in a box close to the stage and thankfully there were subtitles (both Czech and English) so we could follow the story. 



A couple sidenotes on Prague: 
1) If you are a Gehry fan, be sure to catch a glimpse of his building there, called Fred & Ginger because they are two buildings that look like they're dancing with each other. 
2) The city is easily walkable-- I loved walking from place to place instead of taking the tram or the metro.
3) If you're not sure about sauerkraut, duck, or pork neck (and you're not vegetarian) go for the sausage!! It's served pretty much everywhere and is usually served with some good mustard and horseradish.


PLANS FOR THE REST OF MARCH:

March 13-15: My friend John is visiting Paris from Venice. We'll visit Les Deux Magots, the cafe where French philosophes once hung out, and I'll probably drag him to Sainte-Chappelle since I haven't gotten to see it yet. The weather is supposed to be good so maybe we'll try velib, the public bike system in Paris. There are stations at least every 300 meters within the city where you can take out a bike, ride it to your destination, and leave it at a new station (provided there are open spots at your destination). At 1 Euro for a day pass and 5 Euro for a week pass, velib is really cheap! I'm hoping that instead of buying a metro pass in April (since anyway, I will be out of Paris for ten days travelling during spring break), I will use velib as my main mode of transportation. 

March 21: Freddy arrives for his spring break! A couple weeks ago I was having a terrible day because I had my wallet stolen out of my bag at my school. I lost 100 Euros in cash, my atm and credit cards, my parents' credit card information, and pictures of friends and family that I had never scanned. That afternoon, as I was talking to Freddy on skype when he sent me a pdf and told me to read it. Thinking that I wasn't going to see him until this summer, I was so surprised and ecstatic when the pdf was flight information for his trip to Paris in March! He had been keeping it a secret since November but decided to tell me to cheer me up on a terrible day. It was a good idea since I wouldn't have been able to plan the following if I hadn't known he was visiting....

March 26-29: Barcelona! Freddy and I are going to Barcelona for the last weekend of his trip along with some friends from my program here in Paris. I am so excited to see Barcelona as I have seen countless pictures from others who have studied/visited there and it looks beautiful and architecturally really interesting! I can't wait to shoot hundreds of pictures of all the Gaudi stuff. 

Next post will be coming soon -- photos I've taken in Paris while trying to learn how to use Dad's D100.