Blonde and Abroad: The Tales of a SoCal Girl Living la Vie Parisienne: Spring Time is Starting to Arrive in Paris!

Spring time is starting to arrive in Paris: flowers are starting to blossom, parisians are beginning to exhibit the new spring fashion trends, the weather is getting nicer and warmer, and.... the swarms of tourists are slowly beginning to come and take over.

This past month has been filled with periods of great fun and cultural experiences, coupled with hours in my room reading books, writing papers, and preparing for oral presentations. To give you an example of what I mean:

-Last Monday, I presented an analysis of a excerpt from Henri Michaux's "A Barbarian in Asia," (A French surrealist writer from the 1930s-- let's just say it took me a while to figure out what he was saying) to my class and professor at the Sorbonne; at the end of the presentation, my professor told me that it was so complete that it was a bit too long;

-Last Thursday, I had an in-class timed written assignment analyzing a WWI French government propaganda poster;

-This Monday, I will turn in my 5 page research paper on the French-German alliance and its role on the European Union for my EU class;

-Next Wednesday, I have another oral presentation at the Sorbonne on Calixthe Beyala's "Femme Nue, Femme Noire," for my Francophone, Feminist Literature Class;

-Friday, I finish my 8 week internship and will dine with my real family right afterwards!

- Combine that all with: 16 hours of class, 16 hours at my internship, 6-7 hours of exercise a week, and spending an hour every night at the dinner table with my host family (happily, I might add), not to mention all of my commutes. Let's just say, I don't sleep much and do a lot of homework in the metro.

As you can see, I have been extremely busy academically-wise, but I have been doing a decent job of balancing all of this work with trying to see Paris. Fortunately, my work load will ease up a bit in April, when my mother is here for 3 weeks and the weather begins to be quite lovely.

This being said, below are photos I took from some of my outings in Paris, and the other blog post for this week also highlights this amazing weekend I spent with my host family in Normandy.

Tuesday (March 17th)

My program offered us a free-guided tour of Hotel de Ville, the Paris's mayor's residence and office in the Marais, and given that a tour of this place is hard to come by (not to mention free), I skipped a class at the Sorbonne to make us of this priceless offer. Below are photos taken from the tour, and I highly recommend viewing the interior for those of you coming to Paris in April!

HOTEL DE VILLE:

For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hôtel_de_Ville,_Paris

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The Lecture and Dance Hall

A closer look at some of the detail

The ceiling

Another close-up of another ceiling in another room

The exterior

After my visit there, I decided to spend the afternoon around the Marais and enjoy the warm weather!

Notre Dame

Notre Dame's Exterior

A Little Alley in the Marais

While walking in the Marais, I stumpled upon this high-end patisserie shop, looked
at the desserts in the window and decided to buy and try one!

As I learned, this patisserie shop, "Aux Merveilleux de Fred" specializes
in baking and selling "Merveilleux," a little French pastry that is composed of
sugar, eggs, flour, and a very light meringue creme. Pictured above is the
White Chocalate Speculoos Flavor, and it was so light and small
that it was all gone in 2 bites!

I met my good friend Aaron here (Place de Vosges) for lunch.
We decided to try the Marais' world-renowned falafel joint, l'As du
Falafel, and we just couldn't get over the fact that we could casually
meet in Paris, in the Marais, at the Place de Vosges, to eat a great
falafel for lunch.

Le Musée Cognacq-Jay
This museum is home of the art collector and business man, Ernest Cognacq, who collected French masterpieces from the 18th century at the turn of the 20th century. Earlier this year, the museum was completely refurbished, and it gave a "carte blanche" to Christian Delocroix, the famed fashion designer and allowed him to restyle and redecorate the museum however he wanted. Thus, as you will see, he completely changed the museums, adding old with the new, clothes with art, and bringing the 21st century to the 18th.
For more information: http://www.museecognacqjay.paris.fr/

Wednesday (April 18th)

I decided to meet one of my languages partners at the Musée de la Vie Romantique in Montmarte, and below are photos taken from George Sands' old home.