**You will want to read to the end, so you can skip the academic stuff if you would like in the middle**
This day has been packed full. This morning I went out with friend to the Palais Garnier which is an opera house. This is the place that was where the "Phantom of the Opera" was set. The outside was very beautiful and they had unguided tours but it was six euros and I did not want to spend the money on that.
After the quick look around it was back on the metro to Pont Neuf which basically mean the new bridge, but it was built in the 1600's and is the oldest bridge spanning the Seine in Paris. I was nice but there were a whole bunch of gypsies there and the friend I was with had to yell at them to leave him alone, where as I wasn't bothered at all. After walking on to Île de la Cité, which is the larger island in the Seine we tried to find the prison where Marie-Antoinette was held. So we went into the first governmental building we saw on the island and ended up waiting in a security line for a half hour to get it to what was basically the town courthouse. We got so lost and couldn't find the exit and just wandered around the place for a bit. I was cool but we definitely should not have wondered like we did, oops.
After we finally found an exit we rain in to a line full of old people. When you either run into a line of old people or Asians you know that there is an attraction to be seen. And this line happened to be for the place we were looking for La Conciergerie. When we went down to get our free tickets (because of our student passes) we were basically assaulted by old ladies who NEEDED to stay together. It was very confusing. Once inside we had to work quickly in order to see everything and still get back to the campus for class in time. The building was large but the museum was small. So it was easy to see everything we wanted. There were some students speaking perfect English with American accents so we asked the adult that we assumed was with them where they were from and she answered that they were from Hong Kong. That was very confusing because many of them were white. So we gathered that she was not with them because it was very hard to understand what she was saying when she said Hong Kong.
After the very hard to find museum we walked along the Seine and found a crepe place that had amazing crepes. And then it was off to class. We had a presentation and did a shadow activity. After class it was off to another museum this one was much much smaller and was called Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits. It is a museum full of letters and manuscripts of famous people. Such people as Marie and Pierre Curie, Beethoven, Einstein, Kings and Queens of France, Kerouac, Dickens and so many more. I really loved it there. I love primary documents so this was a little slice of heaven for me. I wish that the explanation plaques would have also been in English and maybe a listening device do I knew the story behind the writer or the document itself. I took many pictures and hope to one day use them in my class room.
The class was asked to write about a specific document that they felt connected to, the document I chose was a letter by Marie de Médicis from June 1614.
Just a quick note when I took these notes I knew nothing about this women whose letter struck me as odd.
I first examined the paper its self and in proportion to the other letters round this one the size of the paper was larger than most. This indicated so me that this women had power and/or wealth since she could afford such large paper. However the relatively unused space could mean that she either had little to say or what she was saying couldn't effectively be but in a letter. What attracted me the most to this letter was the fact it looks like in the body of the letter (which has no paragraphs) was written by a student for her composition book. Her signature as well looks like it was signed by a six year old. In this letter it is just her first name and that is an indication to me that this letter was on the more personal side and the receiver of the letter would have been quite close to Marie de Médicis. The only indication that I got from the writing that this was written by an grown women is from the beginning letter.
This letter, after doing some research was written by the Queen of France from 1600 to 1610 with King Henri IV. She was then Regent of France since her son was too young to take over power until 1614. She then becomes head of the King's Council until 1617 when her son took over. So basically she ran France for seven years and in those seven years she wrote this letter. She was later exiled by her son because she well in short became very greedy and power hungry. When she eventually escaped (as they all do) she started a "war" which was ended by her son in her lose. It would be very interesting to know if my character analysis of her is anything like the real her since greed can be thought of as a child like quality in some ways (I want all the things!).
So after that heavy analysis I decided to head off on my own for a little shopping along the Seine by the Notre Dame. They have lovely stands full of posters and used books and all sorts of good stuff. I eventually found a little bit of French heaven in a six story book store called Gilbert Jeune, it was six levels of books along with outside tables full of cheap books. I thought I had found heaven in there. It was wonderful, however I did find a single English book so that was a bit rough but that is also good because they aren't trying to cater to English speakers. This store is meant for the French. So I of course bought some books and set off on my way (after an hour plus) to find some ice cream (my dinner, oops). I wondered around for a good hour and could not find one place that sold ice cream. Eventually I just gave up because I was so tired.
Now there is a reason I am telling you about my boring shopping trip. When I got on the RER/Metro I made sure I got on the right line and I thought it was going the right way, turns out after three stops I was going the wrong way. I became aware of this after the overhead intercom came on in English and said that the metro terminated on the completely wrong side of Paris. At the same moment about twenty-five very loud French students piled in to my car and the RER proceeded to go out quite far to the Paris suburbs. So there I was freaking out that I wasn't going to be able to get back to Paris, alone, surrounded by French students. And let me tell you the Paris burbs are sketchy. It is every industrial and all concrete and abandoned buildings and trains everywhere. I was very confused and praying that my metro pass still worked in zone two (they said it would, but I had no intention of testing it out).
So I rushed off the train to a very large platform that was so confusing and I proceed to ask about three platform workers where the train to Cite U would be. Turns out I had to go all the way down to the ground and go back up on the other side to get to where my train needed to be. So I just kept praying that there would be a train there to pick me up, since it was almost nine I wasn't sure how long the trains ran outside the city. Thankfully I caught a train and then rode it all the way to the other side of Paris before getting off. This whole time I just wanted to find a corner and break down but I didn't, yay me! Once off I bought myself a Kit-Kat (which I just had and it was sorta different, I think it was higher quality chocolate)and then went and bought myself an ice cream cone (finally) at the stand across from the main building.
So all in all it was a very packet and scary day. This day came after yesterday being the day I locked myself out of my room while spending twice as much as I needed to on laundry, well my roommate was gone. So now enjoy some pictures of my day.
Jusqu'à demain
Bisous- Janice
Bisous- Janice
Lesson of the day: Janice does not do the metro by herself.
Palais Garnier
Pont Neuf
La Conciergerie- Main Hall
This was the proclamation from King Louis
The Translation from General de Gaulle from
WWII. Think of him as their Eisenhower.
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