The first garden was filled mostly with red, yellow, and peach tulips, punctuated with beds of two-tone purple petunias and other shades of violet. We especially loved the pink flowers whose leaves were twisted like a Van Gogh painting. The garden was much larger than we imagined, lined with neat pathways and not-yet-blossoming arbors. Monet's airy pink house with tall green shutters opens out onto the garden. We went inside to discover his unbelievable collection of Japanese prints - lots of Hokusai and Hiroshige. We were especially intrigued by the large number of portrayals of Europeans and Americans by several of the other, somewhat later artists (dating from the time of the opening of Japan), as well as a hilarious bath scene that was strangely evocative of the French obsession with massive nude bathing scenes at the same time (like Ingres' Turkish Baths we studied in my art history class). Monet's studio is covered in replicas of all the works that hung there in 1920, 6 years before his death. Many of them are much earlier, though, and somewhat lesser known -- including several of family members in the garden, somewhat rare instances of paintings with people. The furniture was simple, with a dining room of blue and yellow and a kitchen of blue and white tiles hung with a neat row of copper pots: these rooms, given their view of the garden, made me decide then and there that I urgently need to devise a plan to move to a country cottage in the campagne. It made me realize that as wonderful as it is to live in a city, especially one like Paris, a part of me really does miss the tranquil, open spaces of the country.
With my friend Isabella on the steps of Monet's house
Next we wandered into the second part of the garden, the famous Japanese one. No waterlilies at this time of year, but the oscillating reflections of the trees on the lily pond left no doubt as to Monet's inspiration. There was the little green bridge (actually, several of them), and the weeping willows leaning over the still pond. Perhaps even more impressive than the feeling of being inside one of the Nympheas was the sense of roaming just outside the painting - in what the French would call the hors-cadre. Because the area by the lily pond bears such a striking resemblance to the iconic paintings, in other words, it is strange to stroll around the surroundings that Monet saw but the viewer must always imagine for herself. As Isabella and I stood basking on the sunlit bridge, we were approached by a photographer who had spotted my yellow sweater and our tranquil pose and had snapped shots of us for the newspaper Le Parisien. Quelle chance! We were then interviewed (in French!) about our impressions of the garden, what inspired us to come, etc., for an article in the paper to be published next weekend. I guess the journalists were expecting us to say we just liked pretty flowers or something, because when we launched into a discussion of the light on the water and art history and all that (Isabella is an art history major), they said they were really shocked -- hopefully, we thought, we gave a good impression of young people and Americans!
***
Despite that fact that I'm down to the wire on working on my JP, which is now about the relationship of present Algerian politics to the changing memory of Amirouche Ait Hamouda, a colonel in the FLN during the Algerian War, I'm trying to make the most of Paris at this beautiful time of year. Last night, my friend Paloma invited several CUPA students and several French friends to her host family's gorgeous apartment for a delicious dinner. We watched the sun set over the city from the 8th-floor terrace and then sat down, all together, to heaps of couscous, something-crusted chicken, excesses of delicious cheese and baguette, a fresh Greek salad, and hearty conversation... in French. We ended up spending more than 3 hours at the dinner table, creating that kind of chaleur that only the best kind of food and friends can produce. This was finished off with morsels of extra-dark chocolate.
I also took a break Friday at noon to meet up with my friends Will (whom I know from Morocco) and Erin (whom I know from The Carter Center), who are both studying art history in Florence and came to Paris for a class trip!
Thursday night, I went to a French play at the Theatre du Vieux Colombier called Les Affaires sont les Affaires ("Business is business") by Mirbeau. It was basically about a cynical old businessman named Isidore LeChat who more or less tries to sell off his family for the sake of business advancement, but then ends up losing them all in the end. The actor who played LeChat had really perfected his crazed, sinister laugh, and was absolutely fantastic. It is important not to underestimate how exhausting it is to listen to a 3-hour play in a foreign language, however!
On Thursday during the day, I met up for lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens with a French girl named Paule who lived with my friend Helen-Marie's family in Detroit for a year and is now in school just across the street from the Sorbonne. Then, after my Arabic class, I went to volunteer for the first time for a nonprofit called Solid Ascension that offers after-school help to students from less privileged backgrounds. The session I went to, to help with English, was at metro Stalingrad, though I felt more like I was in Tangier than in the USSR. Paris neighborhoods are so separated by race and ethnic background (mostly the white people live inside the city and everyone else lives in the banlieues), but this was an example of a neighborhood within Paris that had more kebab stands and Cameroonian grocery stores than white Frenchmen. I helped a British volunteer discuss with the 7 or 8 eighth-graders a TV episode they'd watched in English. They also all wanted to ask me how much a pair of Nike Jordans costs in the U.S. and, being from New York, how close my relationship was to Rihanna and Fifty Cent.
***
And now, at last, my epic adventures with Jenna Devine and company. This now two weeks ago. There were a lot of highlights of this trip. First off, Jenna and her sister Amanda and I spent their first afternoon here drifting around the banks of the Seine and up to Montmartre (always a crowd pleaser), where we successfully evaded the men who try to tie your fingers with "bracelets" thus preventing you from going anywhere until you pay them. It was the first Sunday of Lent, so when we went inside Sacre Coeur there was a mass, which sounds great in French, echoing in the sanctuary. The next day, Monday, we brought sandwiches from my favorite boulangerie by CUPA to the Luxembourg, where there are little green chairs everywhere for your enjoyment. Then we hit the Orangerie, the museum in the Tuileries that houses a lot of Monet's waterlilies as well as a good collection of Renoir and other impressionist-era masters. This was followed by tea time at the celebrated macaroon parlor Laduree in the Printemps department store (where we pretended to be in the market for $500 sunglasses). At Laduree, I had a silver pot of tea that contained some absurdly tasty combination of cassis, lemon, orange, rose, and other wonders. This was accompanied by a sandwich of pink rose petal-flavored macaroons, topped with a real red petal. Inside there were fresh raspberries and cream. It's hard to describe an experience this decadently delicious. For dinner, Jenna and Amanda came to dine with the count and countess, and got to experience the joys of toasted croissants with camembert, and a pot of rhubarb for dessert.
My pastry of choice at Laduree
The following day, I met the girls at the Musée D'Orsay on my lunch break, and we explored everything from Degas's pastels to massive pieces by Toulouse-Lautrec to Van Gogh to Manet's Dejeuner sur l'Herbe (Lunch on the Grass). As my art history professor Nicolas likes to say, "Manet n'est pas impressionite. Manet.... c'est Manet." I'm headed back to the Orsay this week with my class, so more on my favorite pieces then! On Wednesday, we had unbelievable luck: we scored last-minute student rush tickets to an opera by Janacek called Katja Kabanova at the Garnier. Fifteen minutes later, we were mixing with the swanky 11-euros-a-coupe de champagne crowd in the front row of the opera! It really pays to be under 26 here... for 25 euros I could hear the conductor breathing (really), while a quick glance to my neighbor showed that he paid 140 euros for the same experience! The rather depressing opera (what else is new) was set in a very dreary Eastern European apartment building and involved drowning, but we couldn't follow what on earth was going on with the people stepping in and out of a big chest of drawers; the music, however, was wonderful.
On Thursday, the girls' last day, we caught a morning train to Versailles. We strolled regally through the rooms of the chateau, sure to take note of the door in Marie Antoinette's bedroom through which she escaped when the peasants got too antsy. There was also a special exhibit on about thrones around the world and through time, from African chiefs to Napoleon to papal chariots. It was sort of odd to see medieval Japanese thrones in the Hall of Mirrors, but why not?! After a marathon attempt to down hot chocolate (actually just melted chocolate bars) inside the chateau, we ventured outside to the gardens. The flowers were not out yet, but that meant we had some parts all to ourselves! We had last dinner together for many months at Le Clos Bourguignon, a very authentic (I say this because it was recommended by my host dad) French restaurant just down the street from my building. When they say "charcuterie" they don't mean nice little cold cuts - they mean every tasty nob of meat (or gelatin?!) that comes on the animal. Hearty portions of chicken and potatoes were also involved.
And bidding a sad farewell to Jenna, I headed to Belgium.
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