Friday, September 14, 2007 - 12:06 PM
last sunday...
Another beautiful morning (noon) here! Few things can bring me down, despite myself, like a gray day, and few things can buoy my spirit so naturally as sunshines, so I'm glad that I've had plenty of the latter and not so much of the former. Paris likes variety in some matters, but in the realm of weather it's content to be nice and boring-- 75 and mostly sunny every day since I've arrived. Next week it'll be in the 60s, but I don't need to tell you how consistency/gradual change in the weather is not something I'm terribly used to. Chicago weather has all the subtlety of an AK-47.
Another thing that makes me happy is taking pictures, and now that I have a USB cord I can finally share some proper results.
Last Sunday I returned to the marché aux fleurs, because on Sundays it becomes a marché aux oiseaux, and I thought a bird (+ guinea pig/fish/ferret/mouse/rat/animal feed/animal cages/Sno-Cones/okay I lied about the Sno-Cones but I wish it was truth) market would be an excellent subject for a Sunday stroll. And it was, for sure.
Bonjour!
On the way to the market, I stopped at the Hôtel de Ville, the Parisian city hall, a picture of which is featured at the top of this page. Anyone who's in Paris for more than 20 minutes and not blindfolded will notice that France is hosting the Rugby World Cup this year, and Paris (the city government and organizers, if not all the citizens themselves) is really. Really. Excited. There are all kinds of rugby cross-promotions and activities and events going on all the time, unfortunately rather unappreciated and even maligned by the Parisians themselves, who are not so much into watching people pound each other and also not so much into the giant inflatable rugby ball hung under the Eiffel Tower. I understand where they're coming from, and seeing huge advertisements featuring men of hulking proportions, with faces usually resembling something between an onion and the Berlin Wall, covered in dirt and sweat, wearing terribly unfashionable clashing colors... well, it's just not very wine-and-cheese. But I (not being French) think rugby is really cool, and have been trying to learn more about it because I want to go see a game before I leave and I want to be able to follow everything. So, I stopped and hung out at the Hôtel de Ville for a while because they were broadcasting a game between Samoa and South Africa on a huuuuuge screen. The Samoans got royally owned by the South African team, the Springboks, 59-7. Ouch.
Scotland is also hosting some of the games this year, and rather paradoxically that means that a horde of Scots has descended upon Paris to watch some of the games here... I guess for a sense of completion? Let me tell you, "culture clash" does not begin to describe it.
Anyway, in a non-rugby-related continuation of what I was talking about before I distracted myself.... After the marché aux oiseaux I wanted to go see a certain statue of Voltaire. The statue was supposed to be on one side of the Institut de France, which looks like this:
This building (and a couple others around it, I think) houses the five academies that make up this learned society (read: old-world European smart people private club with lots of money to use for good or evil). There's the most famous one, the Académie française (the forty members of which are known as les immortels, which I find a bit silly, but what do I know?), and there's also the Académie des sciences, Académie des beaux-arts (fine arts), Académie des sciences morales a politiques, and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (humanities). The building was gorgeous, which was a good thing because I had to walk all the way around it twice before I found Voltaire, and I wasn't even 100% sure it was him until I came home and looked up a picture of the statue, because there are some lovely flowers covering his name. Sneaky!
To get to the Institut, I crossed Pont Neuf, the oldest of the bridges crossing the Seine (which is funny because the name means "new bridge"), completed in 1607. I took a totally lame picture of the bridge which I will spare you and make an effort to replace at some later time; in the meantime here's the view from the bridge.
And before I go on and tell you about what I've done since Mieka arrived, I need a cup of tea.... ¶
Another thing that makes me happy is taking pictures, and now that I have a USB cord I can finally share some proper results.
Last Sunday I returned to the marché aux fleurs, because on Sundays it becomes a marché aux oiseaux, and I thought a bird (+ guinea pig/fish/ferret/mouse/rat/animal feed/animal cages/Sno-Cones/okay I lied about the Sno-Cones but I wish it was truth) market would be an excellent subject for a Sunday stroll. And it was, for sure.
Bonjour!
On the way to the market, I stopped at the Hôtel de Ville, the Parisian city hall, a picture of which is featured at the top of this page. Anyone who's in Paris for more than 20 minutes and not blindfolded will notice that France is hosting the Rugby World Cup this year, and Paris (the city government and organizers, if not all the citizens themselves) is really. Really. Excited. There are all kinds of rugby cross-promotions and activities and events going on all the time, unfortunately rather unappreciated and even maligned by the Parisians themselves, who are not so much into watching people pound each other and also not so much into the giant inflatable rugby ball hung under the Eiffel Tower. I understand where they're coming from, and seeing huge advertisements featuring men of hulking proportions, with faces usually resembling something between an onion and the Berlin Wall, covered in dirt and sweat, wearing terribly unfashionable clashing colors... well, it's just not very wine-and-cheese. But I (not being French) think rugby is really cool, and have been trying to learn more about it because I want to go see a game before I leave and I want to be able to follow everything. So, I stopped and hung out at the Hôtel de Ville for a while because they were broadcasting a game between Samoa and South Africa on a huuuuuge screen. The Samoans got royally owned by the South African team, the Springboks, 59-7. Ouch.
Scotland is also hosting some of the games this year, and rather paradoxically that means that a horde of Scots has descended upon Paris to watch some of the games here... I guess for a sense of completion? Let me tell you, "culture clash" does not begin to describe it.
Anyway, in a non-rugby-related continuation of what I was talking about before I distracted myself.... After the marché aux oiseaux I wanted to go see a certain statue of Voltaire. The statue was supposed to be on one side of the Institut de France, which looks like this:
This building (and a couple others around it, I think) houses the five academies that make up this learned society (read: old-world European smart people private club with lots of money to use for good or evil). There's the most famous one, the Académie française (the forty members of which are known as les immortels, which I find a bit silly, but what do I know?), and there's also the Académie des sciences, Académie des beaux-arts (fine arts), Académie des sciences morales a politiques, and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (humanities). The building was gorgeous, which was a good thing because I had to walk all the way around it twice before I found Voltaire, and I wasn't even 100% sure it was him until I came home and looked up a picture of the statue, because there are some lovely flowers covering his name. Sneaky!
To get to the Institut, I crossed Pont Neuf, the oldest of the bridges crossing the Seine (which is funny because the name means "new bridge"), completed in 1607. I took a totally lame picture of the bridge which I will spare you and make an effort to replace at some later time; in the meantime here's the view from the bridge.
And before I go on and tell you about what I've done since Mieka arrived, I need a cup of tea.... ¶