"Enchanted? He-he ha-ha! Who said anything about the castle being enchanted?" -Cogsworth, Beauty and the Beast

Okay, okay, I've been slacking off with the whole blog thing. I've been very busy! This past Saturday I went on a day trip with the Accent program to two chateaux outside Paris. ("Chateau" is French for "castle.") The first, Fontainebleau, was the Royal hunting lodge and home of French kings before Versailles was built by Louis XIV. It was also Napoleon's favorite palace. I liked it just fine, but it wasn't my favorite. The other chateau, Vaux-le-Vicomte, was unbelievably gorgeous. It was much smaller and more charming than Versailles, but still very luxurious, and the gardens were absolutely nuts - just amazing. Vaux-le-Vicomte is the former home of Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's finance minister who was wrongfully imprisoned after being accused of embezzlement. The chateau is now owned by a French family of aristocrats, who alas have no sons of marriageable age. I was quite disappointed to find that out, as I would marry a deformed ogre just for the chance to live there. (They live on the property in a "smaller" building, since the main chateau is open to the public.)
The rest of my week has been filled up with schoolwork, internship applications, and the like. Silly me, I thought my semester here would be stress-free!
My Dad comes on Friday, and I am so excited to see him.
That's pretty much all that's going on right now. I will try to get my Rome pictures up soon.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city. -Anatole Broyard

Ah, Rome. I just got back yesterday morning. It was a lot of fun! I must admit, though, I’m slightly relieved to be back in a country where I can communicate in the native tongue. Going to Italy was the first time I had been in a country where I did not understand ANYTHING anyone was saying. It was a lesson in perspective, that’s for sure!
Anyway, here’s what I did:
My friends and I spent the night at Paris’ Orly airport on Friday night, because our flight left at 6 am on Saturday morning, and we didn’t feel like dealing with cabs at 3:30 in the morning. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best night’s sleep.
So, we got on our flight, which was great and cheap (yay Easyjet!), and landed in Rome at about 8 a.m. I met up with my good friend Madi at the Termini train station, and she took me to her apartment to drop my stuff off.
My first experience with Italians was watching two girls getting arrested on the bus. All of a sudden there was a scuffle, and this undercover cop pulled out handcuffs and cuffed these two girls who looked about 15. Of course, I had no idea what was going on since I can’t speak Italian. It was fun in a very scary way.
Madi lives literally across the street from the Vatican. You open her window and you are staring at St. Peter’s Basilica. It was pretty cool. There are always cops stationed outside her window, guarding this one entrance to the Vatican, and Madi is friends with all of them. It’s so funny – she leans out her window and has 30-minute conversations with them. Oh, Mads.
After dropping off my stuff, we walked all over Rome. I saw the Colosseum and the Forum (so cool and so OLD), the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. The Trevi Fountain was amazing! So gorgeous, except there were just so many people around it, it was kind of hard to relax. They also have the most annoying vendors in Rome. They come up to you and literally stand in front of your face and hold up what they are selling until you walk away or yell at them. That kind of put me in a bad mood. And I’m not sure if I can say I actually saw the Spanish Steps – I’m pretty sure I just saw the hundreds of people sitting on them. Kind of a disappointment, but no matter.
OH! Crazy coincidence – while I was at the Colosseum, I ran into two girls from high school at two different times. It was so weird! I hadn’t talked to or seen them in at least two and a half years, and there they were in Rome! One of them even has a class with one of my sorority sisters (Hannah) in London. I thought my head was going to explode.
That evening, I had dinner with one of my other sorority sisters (Nooners) and her two roommates and Madi. It was fine, except we ordered fried fish for the second course and they brought out entire fish that had just been dipped in batter and fried whole, eyeballs and all. Whoops! Remember that if you go to Europe – only order seafood if you don’t mind your dinner staring at you.
Well, while we’re on food, let’s talk about the gelato. It is an explosion of flavor in your mouth, pretty much. Aaaah so good. I ate it twice a day, which was bad for the waistline but pretty fantastic for the soul. My favorite flavor was Crema, and it was like this lemon cream flavor…aaah. And gelaterias were everywhere – I decided they are the Italian version of the crepe. Okay, that’s enough.
After dinner we walked around Campo de Fiori which is this crazy piazza at night with lots of bars and people just go stand out in the middle and hang out in this giant square. It was kind of like high school football games where everyone just stood around in that big parking lot next to the football field, except without the sport and with lots more alcohol.
Sunday morning was truly serendipitous. I got up early to go to Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. I was planning on going to the 10:30 Mass, but when I got to St. Peter’s Square, it was full of thousands upon thousands of people. I looked up at the steps of the Basilica, and lo and behold, the Pope was up there! It turns out it was a canonization mass for four new saints, and it had just started. So, I made my way over to the middle and I got to attend a Mass said by the Pope. It was one of the coolest moments – the ceremony was so beautiful and it was so cool to see the big guy himself! (He’s actually pretty small.) The Mass was in Latin, except for the readings, which were done in different languages because the saints were from all over the world. One of them was done in English, which was neat – I felt welcome! The best part was the singing – it was the most beautiful singing I have ever heard in my entire life. (I started crying; it was that good.) And at the sign of peace, oh my gosh, it was so cool. (For the non-Catholics, it’s the part of the Mass where everyone turns to one another and wishes each other peace.) Everyone in the square turned to each other and was saying “Peace be with you” in their own language, and there were people from all over the world there. I mean, imagine people saying “Peace” in Spanish, French, Italian, German, English, Russian, Chinese…It was so moving, I just, oh I wish you all could have been there! It is truly something I will never forget.
The rest of Sunday pretty much paled in comparison to the morning. Madi and I were going to go to Perugia, a small town two hours outside of Rome, because they had a chocolate festival that day, where the whole town celebrated chocolate making. Sadly, by the time I was done with Mass, the next train to Perugia would have been too late for the festival. So, instead, we walked around Rome and tried to find something to do, since I had pretty much seen everything and I was going to the Vatican and such the next day with my friends from Paris. We decided to try and find a movie theater. We walked all over and finally found one with “Little Miss Sunshine,” which we both really wanted to see. So we bought our tickets, and they guy at the counter was like, “You want two together?” And we said, “No, no, we want to pay separately.” He kept asking us if we were sure and we said yes, of course. (Only, he was talking in Italian and we were talking in English, and even though we clearly did not speak Italian, he refused to stop.) So we bought our separate tickets and went in and sat down. Once we got in the movie theater, we sat down and after a couple minutes the man behind us was like, “You realize this movie is all in Italian? It’s okay, you learn, you learn.” Yeah, right. Crap. Can someone please explain why they would not change the title of the movie into Italian if it is, in fact, shown dubbed in Italian? Or at least mark somewhere that said movie is not the original version? So then we had to go communicate in sign language that we needed a refund, and the man only yelled at us in Italian and shook his head. We then tried to sell our tickets to people in line, but, guess what? They have assigned seating in Italian movie theaters. What the…? All of a sudden, the man’s puzzled look when we asked for separate tickets made sense. Thus, no one wanted to buy our tickets because I was in C4 and Madi was in F11, and no one goes to the movies by themselves. I was feeling pretty down on Italy at this point. The rest of the night is scarcely worth mentioning – defeated by life, we slunk back to Madi’s apartment and ate takeout spaghetti.
The next day was much, much better. I met up with my friends from Paris (who stayed at a hostel), and we went to St. Peter’s Basilica (which I hadn’t actually been in at that point). It was absolutely breathtaking, even after the zillion churches I have visited in France. The Pieta was in there, which I think is one of the most beautiful sculptures ever. It was really interesting, because I eavesdropped on a tour guide as he was talking about it. If you look at, Jesus is actually about half the size of Mary, which doesn’t really make sense, until you realize that Michelangelo wasn’t sculpting Mary holding her dead son. The sculpture is actually of a vision Mary had, when she was holding Jesus as a child on her lap, and she envisioned his death on the cross and holding him then. Therefore, Jesus is actually child size, and Mary’s look of serenity is actually her accepting what is to come, not actually experiencing it. Does that make sense? It did at the time.
After St. Peter’s, we got in line for an hour to go to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican Museum was not at all what I expected, but in a good way. It was absolutely gigantic! It actually reminded me a little of the Louvre, because it had all different kinds of collections – ancient sculpture, Egyptian treasures, paintings, tapestries, modern art, etc. Pretty amazing. It was frustrating though, because there was tour group after tour group and they would stop in the middle of the hallway and block everyone. (There was also really only one way to go through the museum, so they couldn’t be avoided.) Oh well. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful beautiful beautiful. The one annoying part was that the guards in the chapel tried to get the hundreds of people in it to be silent by clapping their hands and saying “Shhhh” really loudly. A bit counterintuitive if you ask me, since they were actually louder and more obnoxious than the murmur of the crowd.
After the Vatican and such, we just wandered around the city and finished up with dinner in Piazza Navona, the city’s most beautiful piazza. Lovely!
We got on a plane yesterday morning, and here I am back in Paris. A great weekend, all in all.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. - e e cummings

Mmm…I just had a delicious dinner. We had these sautéed mushrooms called “Septs” or something like that for dinner. They were really big and really delicious and apparently they are “le roi de champignons” (the king of mushrooms). We had them with an omelette and then we had grapes and this delicious cheese called Mont d’Or, which was like a combination between brie and butter (that sounds nasty, come to think of it, but it was so good, and not at all smelly.)
Jean-Claude was over for dinner, which means I really got to practice my French because he loves to talk politics with me. We talked about everything from D-Day to Monicagate (“Mo-neeka Lee-ween-skee”) to September 11. Apparently, Jean Claude is enamored with Rudy Giuliani – every time he comes over he somehow manages to work the former mayor into the conversation. Cracks me up.
Anyway, that’s not why I’m writing. I just have a jewel too good to pass up:
I have found the best home-stay story ever. My friend Ronnie, who goes to AU, is staying with a single older woman like me, except Ronnie is a boy, making it slightly more awkward. This lady, Monique, is 68 (she informed him) and her favorite past time is tanning – she is a permanent shade of orange. (Ronnie is allowed one shelf in the medicine cabinet; the rest are filled with every type of bronzer known to man, he informed me.) My favorite FAVORITE part of this story is that Ronnie can not use his house key – he has to knock on the front door, because Monique informed him that she likes to do gymnastics in the living room in her “petites culottes” – underwear. So, if you are ever having a bad day, you can just think of my poor friend Ronnie walking in on 68-year-old Monique turning cartwheels in the living room in her underwear.

There you have it. Compelling and rich.

Next weekend: Roma!

"You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what's so wonderful about it is that the past and the present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden." -Allan Ginsburg

Last night in Paris was something called La Nuit Blanche. It's basically a modern art showcase that the mayor's office puts on, and it is so cool! Basically, everyone stays up all night, and different quarters of the city stay open (museums, restaurants, churches, etc.) All around the city there are art installations and exhibits, music concerts, acting showcases, and so on, that go on all night! The metro stays open and there are free buses that take you from one quarter of the city to another. This is the fifth year Paris has done it now, and it was amazing. My friends and I stayed out all night and wandered around the city.
In the church of St. Eustache, there was this huge sculpture of a crown of thorns made out of barbed wire, and this guy was putting on an organ concert - it was really creepy organ music and combined with the imposing size of the church, it was really powerful. In the Tuileries gardens, they had sculptures made out of snow, and they set up an ice skating rink with speed skaters going around and around it. At le Petit Palais, they had this electricity installation thing going on, so the light kept pulsating over and over, making the building look really cool - it was crazy. Across the street at le Grand Palais, they had this installation this guy did with thousands and thousands of pieces of candy, and it was supposed to be "living art" where everyone was supposed to participate and take a piece of candy. (They actually have the same thing at the Dallas Museum of Art, so it was neat to think the artist made it all the way over to Paris!) They lit up the big obelisk in the Place de la Concorde with a blue light. Anyway, the city was just chock full of crazy off-the-wall stuff like that, and even though I don't understand a lot of modern art, it was so neat to participate in!

“The supreme moments of travel are born of beauty and strangeness in equal parts; the first panders to the senses, the second to mind.” –Robert Bryant

Oh, this weekend! How is it possible that each one gets better and better? I went to Normandy and Brittany with the Accent Center. (Translation: 40 students and one annoying chaperone on a charter bus.) To be honest, I wasn’t that excited about going beforehand, but it was one of the best weekends I’ve ever had. We left Paris really early on Friday morning. Our first stop was the Peace Memorial/Museum in Caen, as a sort of introduction to D-Day before we went to the landing beaches. The Peace Museum, ironically enough, was all about war – not really my cup of tea, but all I could think of was how much my Dad would like it! It did, however, put D-Day in perspective, since I didn’t really know that much about it beforehand. I realized how absolutely terrifying it must have been – I’m pretty sure I would have started crying and refused to get out of the boat and go on the beach, were I in that situation. After visiting the museum, we got back on the bus and drove to the American cemetery, which overlooks Omaha Beach, one of the major landing beaches on D-Day.
The American cemetery (which is actually American territory, donated to us by France) was very pretty, but very similar to Arlington National Cemetery in DC (lots of white crosses, etc.) It was neat how it overlooked Omaha Beach, though. I’m sure it is very moving for people with relatives who are either buried there or participated in D-Day. So, that was Normandy.
After the D-Day stuff, things got fun. We drove to Saint Malo, this tiny town in Brittany right on the coast. Oh, how I adore Saint Malo! It was unlike any place I’ve ever been. It is a medieval town surrounded by ramparts (big walls). It’s chock-full of quaint, twisty streets, and lots of anchor memorabilia! (An anchor is my sorority’s symbol, for those who don’t know…) I could go on and on about how much I love the town – it is so beautiful, because it is right on the beach, and you can basically walk all the way around the town on the ramparts which give you a fabulous view.
Anyway, we found out that they ran out of room at the hotel where all the Accent students were supposed to stay, so the AU students were told we would be staying in a different hotel around the corner. (There were several different universities participating in this trip through Accent, and there were seven of us from AU.) We totally lucked out! Our hotel was so nice – the rooms were really big (for a French hotel) and it was really clean and modern, with a fabulous breakfast in the morning!
So, we were given free time once we got to St. Malo. We (the AU students) went to a market around the corner from our hotel and bought bottles of wine, then went on the beach and watched the sunset and enjoyed the wine. It was sublime – one of those one-of-a-kind moments which nevertheless happen so often here! After a long time on the beach and a lot of wine, we went to a seafood restaurant, one of about fifteen on a single street. The Brittany region is known for their seafood and their galettes (buckwheat crepes filled with anything you can imagine.)
The next day, we went to Dinan, another medieval town, even tinier than St. Malo. It was so cool! There was this one really picturesque street lined with beautiful old buildings and shops – honestly, I felt like I was on a movie set. It was so quaint! We lunched in Dinan, then headed back to Saint Malo to play. When we got back, we walked around the village and did some shopping (again, lots of anchor stuff – I was in heaven!). After shopping, my friends and I went back to the beach and walked over to this island called Le Grand Bé. It’s a very, very tiny island, and when the tide is low you can walk on a narrow pathway from the beach at St. Malo over to it, but you have to be really careful to watch the tide, because it comes in so fast that you can get stranded! (Apparently this happened a couple of years ago to a few Accent students and they had to be rescued by the Coastguard.) Anyway, this island is really cool because you can climb it and get a great view of the ocean and St. Malo. Also, the author Chateaubriand is buried at the tippy top. (He was born in St. Malo and he requested to be buried on Le Grand Bé because he wanted to be “between the ocean and the heavens.” Honestly, his final resting place is as beautiful as he made it sound.) There were wild blackberries on the island, too, that we picked and ate – so cool.
That night, we went out to dinner in St. Malo and went and bought wine (it’s exciting to be legal!) and went to the ramparts. We drank the wine and listened to the ocean and talked nonsense and it was amazing. We then tried to go to a karaoke bar and were quite pissed off when they told us the machine was broken. (I’m pretty sure they just didn’t want to hear a bunch of tipsy Americans singing Journey’s Greatest Hits.) We ended up going to the other hotel where the rest of the Accent students were staying, because it had a bar with (gasp!) a bartender who loved Americans. It was a great night.
The next day we got up horrifically early and left St. Malo (tear) to go and visit Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel was, in a word, unreal. If you don’t know what it is, you must look at pictures on the Internet, but basically it’s an island with a huge beautiful monastery at the top. The site dates back until something like the 700s, and it is one of the most beautiful places ever! My only complaint was that I didn’t get to spend enough time there – we had to take a guided tour of the monastery which lasted an hour, and then they only gave us half an hour for lunch. It was pretty sad – the tour was interesting enough I guess, but I would have much rather have had time to explore it myself. There’s also a village on the island that surrounds the monastery, and we only had time to walk through it on our way back to the bus. Sad day. But, all in all, I’m so glad I at least got to see it, because it is truly magnificent.
Here are some cool things about Mont St. Michel, though, to prove to you that I do actually learn things here and that I do more than just drink a lot of wine:
-The Mont St. Michel was built after the archangel Michael appeared to the Bishop of Avranches (a nearby town) three times in a dream, asking him to construct a pilgrimage site on the top of the island. The first two times, the bishop figured it was just a dream and not a vision, but in the third dream, Saint Michael directed a beam of light at the skull of the bishop. When the bishop woke up, he could feel a hole under the skin on his skull where the beam of light had been pointed. The bishop took the hint, and a grotto for the veneration of St. Michael was built on top of the island shortly thereafter.
(They actually still have the skull of the bishop with the hole in it, in a museum in Avranches.)
-In the Middle Ages, Mont St. Michel was a huge pilgrimage site – people would leave their homes and their families and travel on foot for months and months just to have a chance to worship there. Over hundreds of years it grew in size to become a giant Benedictine monastery.
-Mont St. Michel is really only an island when the tide comes in, but it comes in so fast that pilgrims used to say it came at “the speed of a galloping horse.” (It really only moves at about two miles per hour. However, if you were a pilgrim walking to the island, you’d have to time your walk exactly right to avoid drowning. Even then, when the tide is out, the island is surrounded by quicksand, which apparently actually is deadly. I thought it might just suck your leg under a little, no big deal, but if you step in it you can actually be swallowed whole and suffocate. Fun. Needless to say, I stuck to the paved footpath!)
Anyway, after Mont St. Michel, we got back on the bus and made the six hour drive back to Paris. I’m so sad the weekend is over!