Art Deco and more turkey

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On Friday, I went on our second-to-last architecture tour. It was freezing and I forgot my scarf, but it was pretty cool. We are on the modern art and art deco time period, so we walked around the 7th to see everything that was built up around the turn of the century. I must say, I am more of a fan of art deco than modern art. The architects were so creative and the buildings are so much more interesting than those of just a few years later. One of the coolest one was the first building we saw on our walk from the Eiffel Tower. It is a building by Lavirotte and it is pretty sweet. None of the levels are the same and none of it is symmetrical, but is still really pleasing to the eye. There was also an apartment building with stone printed with flowers and another one with crazy blue stained glass windows.

After the tour, a bunch of us headed over to the Jewish quarter and got falafel. Some of the girls had never even heard of this lovely place. I enjoy spreading the falafel love and they swore we got karma points for it. After lunch we went to the Musee Carnavalet in order to whittle down my list of required experiences before I leave. It was decent, but I fear I am becoming unreceptive to old things. That sounds weird, but I can only do so much "that's HOW old?" At four Devon and I met up with Brad, Nick, and Erik at the Musee de l'Orangerie. It used to house orange trees, but now it is the home of Monet's huge waterlilies (les Nympheas) among other impressionist and 19th-20th century paintings. This was wonderful. It fulfilled a life-long dream of mine: to see these paintings. Yay! They were incredible...Devon just posted her pictures, so I was able to steal some of them for you all to see. I needed evidence before I could write about them.

This afternoon I had my second Thanksgiving dinner. It was cooked by my friend Devon and I must say I was quite impressed. She had the works and it stuffed me silly. Her host mom's friend was also at dinner and that was pretty interesting. There was none of that American light discussion. It wasn't immediately heavy stuff, but I was asked questions that would seem awkward in English. "Are your classes easy? Is your language level very weak? Why do you not yet know your career? (to Devon) Do you think this crust is not good? I think it isn't. These rolls are surprisingly good because I would have baked them longer. What do you think?" Anyway, it was fun to talk to another French person. Oh wait, excuse me. She wasn't French. She was from Luxembourg. That was pointed out even before we moved from aperitifs to the dinner table. She was nice, though, and she talked enough that I didn't feel like I was expected to fill the conversation. It was definitely an engaging lunch.

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Photos

Les nympheas
Erik, Brad, and I in front of the waterlilies!

Comments

[lauren]

you are a french person
hello abbey, i think you may be morphing into a french person. a really funny french person though. that is all. L