More Pictures

Hey there; I have a little more time today so I can actually tell you what some of these pictures are.

Here's Notre Dame de Reims. Reims is the capital of the Champagne region of France. I spent two days there over my Christmas break. Notre Dame de Reims is where almost all of the kings of France were crowned.

 

Here's the Saint Rémy Cathedral. The first king of France (King Clovis) was baptized by Saint Rémy who is burried in this church.

Here's Saint Rémy's tomb inside the church.

Here's the outside of the champagne cellar I visited in Reims. You can see some bottles in the cellar in my last post.

Here's a picture of some arches that were built by the Romans. This is one of the last standing Roman structures in France that has never undergone restauration. This is in Reims as well.

Here's Notre Dame de Reims at night.

After Reims, I went to Dijon which is the capital of the Burgundy region of France. Here's a picture of some random houses in Dijon. I took this because the architecture is so different than Paris.

All of the dukes of Burgundy lived in Dijon. Here's where some of the most important dukes are buried.

Here's one of the oldest churches in Dijon. This church isn't currently used for anything and isn't open for visits. I love it though because even the religious architecture is different in Dijon.

Here's another church in Dijon. My pictures of churches in Dijon aren't great. In Paris, there is usually a large square where cars can't drive and where there are no other buildings. This makes it easy to get far enough away to get a good picture of them. In Dijon, this is not the case. Often, the churches are just in the middle of downtown Dijon, and you can't get great pictures.

This is a picture of an appetizer I had in Dijon. I decided to have a good dinner there because Dijon is pretty well known for its cuisine. This is a millefeuille pastry with mushrooms, escargots (the large grayish blackish blobs), and frog legs. The frog legs are the small white peices of meat. They taste like chicken, but are a little bit tougher. All of this was in a creamy buttery sauce with parsley.

Here's the main course. Obviously, potatoes on the left. And then on the right, the most delicious beef bourgognon I have ever had. For those of you who have not had beef bourgognon, it is a really rich, thick beef stew with onions and mushrooms and such.

Here's the Eiffel Tower on New Year's Eve. Sorry it's sideways.

 

Here's a picture of the inside of La Sainte Chapelle in Paris. This is a church that was built by Saint Louis to house Jesus' crown of thorns. The crown is still displayed the first Friday of every month. Unfortunately I did not know this until the first Friday of my last month in Paris had already passed. But it's also known for its stained glass windows; so here you go...

Here's the outside of La Sainte Chapelle. It's a pretty small place.

Talk to you again soon.

Pictures

Here are some pictures. I'm running short on time but I promise to get more up tomorrow.

 

 

 

Hellooooo

Hey there, again it's been a while. I feel like I say that a lot, but apparently this is my seventeenth post in 24 or so weeks, so I've been doing a lot better than one might think. Anyway, I feel like I am starting to get a better understanding of the French than I first had. I admit, it took me a while to get over the "honey-moon" stage of being in Paris. I don't love Paris or the French any less than I did during that stage, but I feel like I'm gaining a more complete understanding of why things are the way that they are. First of all, I attribute a lot of this understanding to Gertrude Stein's Paris France. I don't think the ending of the book is very well written, and of course the book is kind of dated (it was first published in 1940) but it gives insight into the Parisian psyche that I think still holds true today. Anybody who is planning a trip to Paris or who simply wants to better understand Parisians should read it. It's not long (only 120 or so pages) and is a quick read.

Anyway, I think that Parisians are very logical. They often don't like new things because to them, the old things made sense so why would you try something new that may not work. They are very judgemental, and as a result are very worried about being judged themselves. They pride themselves on their knowledge, particularly of history, and even more particularly of French history. These are just a few observations and unfortunately I am running too short on time to provide examples to support these observations. I will try to remember to give you some examples in my next update, which I hope will be next week.

Now to me; I have finals coming up. I had my last phonetics class today; next Friday I have two final exams, one next Saturday, and my last one on the 21st. Then I come home on the 25th. And let's not forget my birthday on the 23rd. I don't expect you to send gifts, you can just hold onto them until I get home.

It's freezing cold in Paris right now. Today's high was 27 but with the wind it felt like 12, tomorrow we hope to get up to 28. That's according to http://www.weather.com/. Next weekend it might get up to 40 I hear. It doesn't snow much here, but when it does, watch out. The Parisans have no idea what to do when it snows. Yesterday for example, there was maybe 2 inches of accumulated snow on the ground and it caused the buses to run 20 minutes late. Nobody owns a snow shovel (or a shovel at all apparently) so they sweep the snow off of the sidewalk. Everybody throws ice on the sidewalk, and if it gets any colder, or warmer, or darker, or sunnier, or later in the day, they put more on for good measure. It's pretty entertaining coming from Colorado where when you get 2 inches, your reaction is "That's it? Really?"

Anyway, I have to go, I have 18 minutes before the cafeteria stops serving dinner. Adios!

Bonne année!

Here's a link to a video where you can see what I did for New Years in Paris. I'll post my own video and pictures soon.

http://31decembreaparis.com