London Calling

What. A. Weekend. Good friends, good food, amazing sites, fabulous art. What more do I need? I was in London from Friday until this morning and I can honestly say that it was one of the best weekends of my life. For whatever reason, I absolutely fell in love with the city. It's a mix between what an American city feels like and what a true European city feels like and I think that's why I like it. It combines the two worlds into one dynamic whole.

Where do I even begin? I won't go into every single detail of what I did these past couple of days because I feel like the photos showcase that much better than my words can, but I will go through the gist and some highlights.

Saturday was let's walk all across London and be tourists. Mike and I started out at the Tower of London where we got to see the CROWN JEWELS and then crossed the iconic Tower Bridge to continue our walk along the Thames and see the sites. In typical London fashion, it rained on and off all day but it was truly a welcome break from the heat of southern France. We walked over Millennium Bridge and saw St. Paul's where Diana and Charles got married, and then eventually walked to the London Eye and Big Ben/Houses of Parliament. Talk about icons of London. I took around 600 pictures this week and I would say a solid 200 of them are probably of Big Ben. Other highlights of the day: seeing Westminster Abbey (I stood where Kate stood as she got out of the car! Ah!), 10 Downing Street, and Buckingham Palace to name just a few. I never realized that you can't actually walk to Downing Street. There's a huge blockade to prevent crazies from attacked the prime minister. Who knew! The day began with Starbucks and ended with Chipotle. Two things I cannot get in Toulouse and that I miss very, very much. Well done London.

Sunday's theme was shopping and parks. We began the day by going on the London Eye which was incredible. The weather was perfect which is rare for London and I think I took like 200 pictures just here alone. It's amazing to see London from up in the sky. Then we took a stroll through Kensington Gardens. It's amazing how this beautiful park is in the middle of London. You feel like you're in a different world. It's not like Central Park where you can see the buildings around you. Here I honestly felt like I was in the country. The crisp fall air and colorful leaves also enhanced the beauty of the park. How lame was that last sentence? Whatever. We explored Notting Hill before going to Harrods and grabbing lunch. Notting Hill was great because there was this quirky market on Portobello Road plus I got to see all of the movie locations. If you're ever in London, it's definitely a neighborhood to check out. We had afternoon tea after lunch which was so lovely. Warm, buttery scones, I mean what's not to like? We spent the evening shopping along Oxford St. and then it was time for dinner. The night ended by watching Downton Abbey live. When will I ever be able to do that again? Amazing!

Monday was all about the art. I was solo yesterday so I went to four museums. Started out at the British Museum, where I was the first person in the Parthenon Sculptures gallery. I got to spend a couple of minutes with the Elgin marbles alone which is an experience I will never forget. If you have no idea what I'm talking about you should google the Elgin marbles because they're fascinating both artistically and politically. After seeing the Rosetta Stone (casual), I headed over to the National Gallery. I was freaking out here too for several reasons. First of all, the National Gallery is located on Trafalgar Square, and in Trafalgar Square is the fourth plinth. In case you have no idea what I'm referring to, the fourth plinth was originally constructed to be the base for a monumental sculpture but there wasn't enough money to finish it, so it stood empty for a long time until the city of London decided to use it as a place to display contemporary art. I was also freaking out because I studied the Sainsbury Wing of the museum in class last semester so to finally see it in person was incredible. Final freak out, and this is the big one, was that I got to see with my own eyes Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding. If you don't know anything about this painting you should drop what you're doing and read about it. It's absolutely fascinating and it's an extremely important work in art history. I have been reading or writing about this work for years now so to see it in the flesh was so overwhelming. I stood there for a solid 10 minutes just taking it in. The best was when people would leave the gallery and I could be there alone. I'm such a nerd. The next museum was the National Portrait Gallery to see all of my royal friends in paint form, and then I headed to the Tate Modern. The Tate houses my favorite types of art so I spent a solid chunk of time there, reading all of the didactic text, and slowly making my way through every gallery. On my way to eat the most incredible fish and chips for dinner (I mean I had to, I was in London) I walked over Millennium Bridge and got an amazing view of London at night. I ended my time in London by seeing Les Miserables in the West End. My god. It was the most amazing theatrical experience I have ever had. Top of the list by far.

I apologize for the cheesy title of this post but come on, I had to. And now photos:

Tate Modern

London Eye

London Eye

On the Eye

View from the Eye

Yay for friends!

Kensington Gardens and Palace

Kensington Gardens

The store that was used as a travel bookshop in the movie

The apartment!

Harrods

Alone with the Parthenon Sculptures

So much damage from over-cleaning yet still incredible

Rosetta Stone

National Gallery

Fourth Plinth

London at night

Do you hear the people sing?

Blogger won't let me upload more photos so some of the beginning touristy ones are missing. They're all on facebook so check them out there. Cheers!

Montpellier

Apologies for not posting this sooner! On Saturday I went with Ayse to Montpellier! It's a two-hour train ride away, close to the Mediterranean. This was my first time experiencing European train travel and it was great! The trains are much bigger and more comfortable than Amtrak, and yet they're cheaper! Go figure. We got to Montpellier and set out to find some coffee and a snack. The city is very different from Toulouse. There's an above ground tram system that runs throughout the city. It's really colorful and futuristic looking which is a weird contrast with all of the old buildings. I also felt like I was going to be killed by one of the trams because I had no idea where or when they would appear.

Tram

Place de la Comédie

After refueling with some coffee, we set out to find the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre. When we got there it was of course closed for lunch. I'll never understand that phenomenon in France. We decided to then head over to a garden with a château d'eau, a fancy name for a water tower, though it's not really a water tower so much as a fancy gazebo over some sort of reservoir type thing. It started raining while we were over there and we struggled to take pictures and hold our umbrellas at the same time but luckily it passed. While in the garden we also got to see the Triumphal Arch of Montpellier, dedicated to Louis XIV, of course.

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre

Château d'eau

Arch

As we continued to explore the city we came across another church, or what we thought was a church. From the outside it looked like your average gothic church, albeit a bit smaller than usual, but on the inside it had been transformed into a contemporary art gallery. It was amazing! The artist had created a giant web of black string soaring from the ceiling all the way down to the ground. In the center of the nave, four white dresses hung as if they were floating in the web. It was really beautiful. We headed to the Musée Fabre next to see a retrospective of Paul Signac. The show was incredible. I always love a retrospective of one artist because it really always you to see how their style changed over time and learn more about their life and artistic choices. After that it was lunch time! We ate at this cute little restaurant in the park next to the museum.

Outside of the church turned gallery

After lunch, and stopping inside the Cathédrale once it opened, we decided to go see the Mediterranean. While the city of Montpellier isn't located directly on the sea, it's possible to get to the beach via trams and buses, at least according to the map in the tourist office of Montpellier. However, as we unfortunately discovered, the bus drops you 30 minutes from the beach and we decided that with the unpredictable weather it wasn't worth the trek. Two hours wasted trying to get to the damn water. Oh well. Makes for an amusing travel story I guess (This is what I kept telling myself at least).

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre

The organ reminded me of Beauty and the Beast for some reason

The closest we got

When we headed back to the city we grabbed dinner on the Place de la Comédie, the main plaza in Montpellier. Before heading to the train station I stopped and grabbed a crêpe sucre to go from one of the many crepe stands in Montpellier (For some reason Toulouse doesn't have many crêpe stands on the street but Montpellier had a ton). There's something different about walking around a French city at night while eating a crêpe. I can't really explain the feeling, but it's something everyone should do at least once in their life. We headed back to the train station, got on our massive double-decker train (Ian be jealous) and headed back to Toulouse. It was a lovely day!

Opera Comédie at night

Ayse et moi

Late night crepe

And in case you were wondering, next week is vacation so I'll be in London from Friday-Tuesday and then Paris from Wednesday-Sunday. And the weekend after that I'm going to Brussels! What is my life?

Gravity

Last night I went with Ayse to a special "avant-premiere" (advanced screening) of the new movie Gravity. It actually comes out in France next week. I had no idea why there was a special screening last night when I bought the tickets but we had nothing to do and we love movies so we went. The theater that we were in is probably the size of my high school auditorium and so much nicer. Plush red seats and actual stadium seating. It was heaven. As we sat down, I noticed that there were a bunch of people standing at the front of the theater taking pictures and videos and instead of the usual commercials before the previews there was a montage of the International Space Station and other space vehicles and equipment. Finally before the movie started, a man started speaking to the audience, explaining that this was a special screening put on by CNES, the equivalent of NASA in France and that at the end of the movie there would be a Q&A with a bunch of people from CNES who hold various positions in the "Houston" of France, which just so happens to be Toulouse!

Needless to say I was both freaking and geeking out because I LOVE SPACE. Are you guys really surprised that I'm this much of a nerd? It's one of those weird fascinations of mine. If I was even remotely good at physics I totally would have become an astronaut. Hopefully I'll make enough money in the art world that I can buy my way up to space. I would seriously do it.

The movie was amazing. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney were flawless. It was the perfect amount of drama and action. At the end, five or so people from CNES got up and started answering questions. Naturally the first one that anyone asked was what was real and what wasn't. Pretty much the entire premise for the movie was impossible but the way that they depicted space and the different structures like the ISS was very accurate. After some more questions, they turned the tables and started asking trivia questions to the audience. After the first one, the man sitting next to me told me the answer because he apparently worked for CNES. So cool! In fact, we were surrounded by guys who worked there and it was so much fun to watch them get a kick out of watching the film and hearing people talk about space. Gotta love nerds.

Q&A

Also on my way home I saw this on the bus:

Excuse me, WHAT.

Adventures in Albi

On Saturday morning, we left bright and early for a day trip to Albi! The city is located to the Northwest of Toulouse and is known for being the birthplace of Toulouse Lautrec. We got there around 10:00 and started exploring the city. The first thing we saw was the massive Cathédrale Sainte Cécile d'Albi. It's the largest church made out of bricks in the world. You can pretty much see it no matter where you are in the city. Before going inside the giant cathedral, we walked around through the town, exploring both an outdoor and indoor market, and then stumbling upon a beautiful, quiet cloister next to a smaller church.

Sainte Cécile

Market

Cloister

At 11:30 we headed over to Sainte Cécile. You may be wondering why I know exactly what time we went over there.. All of the touristic locations in Albi are closed (at least on a Saturday) from 12:00 - 2:00 so we wanted to go inside before lunch. The inside of the church is the complete opposite of the outside. It was painted from top to bottom which made it both beautiful and overwhelming. Most gothic churches were completely painted during their heyday but over the years, the paint has disappeared through various means. It's striking to see a cathedral that looks like it did when it was built. This particular church also has a MASSIVE organ on one end. Of all of the churches I have been to so far in France (and that is a lot of churches) this one was by far the most incredible organ I have ever seen. Not only was it huge but it was so ornate and beautiful as well. I would've loved to hear it be played.

Sainte Cécile

Sainte Cécile

Sainte Cécile

Sainte Cécile

The organ!

Sainte Cécile

Sainte Cécile

Sainte Cécile

We had lunch at a delicious brasserie next to the church. In case anyone is curious: Onion quiche, grilled chicken and frites, fondant au chocolat, and a hot chocolate to top it all off. Wow that was franglais. Anyway, after lunch we headed over to the Toulouse Lautrec Museum which is housed in the Palais de Berbie - a massive brick palace. It was beautiful on the outside and the artwork on the inside didn't disappoint either. The collection really showcased the breadth of Toulouse Lautrec's work. I never realized how diverse of an artist he was. He started out creating very realistic paintings of horses and then ended up becoming famous for his posters for the Moulin Rouge. I was in art history heaven. I was also geeking out because I got to see the real-life versions of a bunch of works that I had used in my classes in the Trout Gallery last year. Once we finished inside the museum, we went out back to the incredible gardens behind the palace. It was right on the river so we had great views of the city.

Toulouse Lautrec Museum

Palais de Berbie

View from the garden

The garden

The view across the river

Sarah, Kathleen, et moi

Albi!

After taking one too many photos in the garden we walked over to one of the bridges that crosses the river, took some more pictures of beautiful Albi and headed back to Toulouse. While it was a wee bit cold in the morning (hey I'm not complaining it was too warm here for too long) it was a fantastic day and I can't wait for more adventures to come!

And in case anyone was wondering what I did this week: Opera Thursday night with Dickinson and class. That's pretty much it. The Opera was incredible!

Manon at the Théâtre du Capitole

Un Château & Un Cidre

The past few days have been truly wonderful. I won't recap everything, just the best parts.

Saturday night I was lucky enough to go with Kathleen to her host mom's 40th birthday party. She had rented out a chateau right outside of Toulouse for the evening and it did not disappoint. The house/mansion/castle/whatever you want to call it was absolutely beautiful inside and outside. Of course Kathleen and I took a ton of pictures. I mean, how many times do you get to go a party in a chateau? It was a bit awkward in the beginning because all of the guests were either much older or much younger than us. Plus we aren't quite fluent in French yet so nobody really wanted to talk to us. But it was fine! We had a great time exploring the chateau and the grounds and eating all of the delicious food that Kathleen's host prepared BY HERSELF. I am in awe of this woman. She made appetizers, an entree, dessert, and cocktails for over 100 people. So impressive. After dinner the party really began and we danced the night away (cheesy phrasing but I'm not apologizing) to mostly American music of the 80s. No complaints from me. Kathleen and I knew all of the words to basically every song and I think the French people were at first confused and then decided to embrace us. We even learned the French equivalent of the electric slide. No idea what it was called but it was so much fun! As the night progressed, the children started to fall asleep all over the chateau which was adorable. We continued to dance to the music of Grease and ABBA (because ya know they go together) for a while and eventually got home around 3:00am. Pretty sure it's the latest I have ever stayed up. Because I'm cool. Remember that time I was grumpy after prom and went up to my room to sleep? I wasn't even (that) grumpy on Saturday! Progress!

Château Thégras

Cheesin at the château

Monday was another great day. I have decided that it's my favorite day of the week (proof that France is bizarre because I like Mondays here) because I have my favorite class at le Mirail from 10:30 - 12:30 and then I'm done for the day. I always go my favorite café for lunch after class. This time, I read the latest Entertainment Weekly that Stephgirl had sent me (thanks mom!) while enjoying my delicious food. For dessert I had a piece of chocolate cake with caramel sauce. There are no words. During lunch I decided that since I go to Flower's (the name of the café) every Monday, I am going to try every dessert on the menu before repeating. So far I have had the tarte au citron, crumble aux pommes, banoffee cake, and then the chocolate cake. Nomnomnom. After lunch I went on a tour of Toulouse with my good friend Flat Stanley for my cousin Kerry's 2nd grade class (Shout out to Ker!). We went to all of my favorite places and stopped along the way so I could run some errands. It was a gorgeous day in Toulouse yesterday. It was sunny and breezy and finally felt like fall. I came home to drop off some stuff then went to the post office and took Stanley to the Garonne. While we were there, I grabbed a cider (cidre in french - so difficult to pronounce, damn the re ending) from this little café next to the river and finished my magazine. While I was sitting there I overhead this lovely older British man speaking English to someone so when I finished my drink I went over to say hi. There's some sort of kinship between English speakers in foreign countries. His name was Dave and he comes to Toulouse every year for a couple of days and explores the region. He takes French class back in England which I was so impressed by. He also just came back from a hike in the Pyrénées after hip surgery. I'd say Dave was a cool guy. All in all, it was quite an excellent day. I could go for another cider now that I think about it.

Flat Stanley goes to le Capitole!

Mmm cider

Also shout out to everyone I saw on Facetime this weekend! Hope you all had fun at Ian's game. Wish I could have been there with you! Love and miss you all!

One Month

That's how long I have now been in France. Well technically one month and one day. HOLY CRAP. How is that even possible? I know that everyone always says that it flies by, but I never expected it to go this quickly. It feels like yesterday that I was getting off the plane in Toulouse in a panic about meeting my host mom. It's freaky. Instead of recapping the week, which mostly consisted of me being mildly confused in class, here are some observations about life in France thus far:

On public transportation, whether it's the bus or the metro, everyone always offers their seat to elderly folks. Everyone also always says bonjour and au revoir to the bus driver. Now, I don't know if this makes me a bitch or a New Yorker but I don't think I will ever be able to give up my seat on the bus. If I am lucky enough to secure a seat, then I am sitting and staying. Sorry. I can get on board with being friendly to bus drivers, after all that doesn't really involve my own comfort being affected, but the seat thing, I don't know.

A confused bus

The myth that the French are smelly is true. I didn't want to believe in the stereotype, but alas, it is indeed a reality. I have never encountered as much BO as I have in this past month. I have smelled stinky hockey equipment and gross volleyball knee pads for years but nothing quite compares to being trapped in a moving vehicle with strangers who haven't showered in days. Deodorant is a thing people, come on.

Restaurants are completely different here too. For one thing, the customer is no longer king. It's not the job of the waiter to make sure you're satisfied for the duration of your meal. You need to be proactive about getting your waiter to take your order and give you the check. I mean I understand why this is the way that it is. People here can sit and stay in a restaurant as long as you like. You will never be ushered out after your meal so that the next group can come in. At least I haven't seen that happen. Plus the tip is built in to the price of your meal so waiters don't have to work hard to get a good tip. They know what they're making.

The French are much more energy efficient than we are in the states. Short showers (or no showers - see above) are the norm, it's rare that a family has a washer AND a dryer, and everyone walks or bikes or takes public transportation to get from point A to point B. It's not even like they're trying to be green, it's just a different way of life that happens to help the planet as well.

Conversations around the dinner table also turn in to conversations about school work. At least in my house, the parents are constantly on top of Simon about what work he did today and how much more he has to do tonight and how he could do it better and how he is just an utter failure. I'm exaggerating of course but the constant awareness of how important homework is is very different to how it is in the US. It also has to do with the way that the French parent versus how Americans parent. In France, children are told that they can't do something versus in the US where it's all about building confidence and telling your kids that they can achieve anything. The French are much more realistic. And it's not just me saying this, there have been books written about it. It's super interesting.

Wine and bread are food groups. They accompany every dinner, and sometimes lunch. Bread is at every single meal without fail. Around dinner time, I always see people carrying home baguettes to accompany their food. It's lovely. Both my eyes and stomach enjoy this habit. Cheese is also a staple and counts as a dessert. Hey, I'm not complaining.

American movies, television, and music are extremely popular here. I guess it's true that entertainment is the number one export of the United States. Sure there are French shows and movies, but the American ones are way more popular. Disney movies also hold the same value in cultural knowledge as they do in the US. I have spent multiple evenings with my host family singing songs from the Lion King and Aristocats after dinner.

I've learned so much in just this one month both about France and about myself, and I am so excited to keep on learning and experiencing new things.

My street!