November 4th

November 4th:

Today was much more exciting than yesterday. We started the day planning to go into the city for the band to play in the streets, hoping to make a little money. On the way into the city we got a call from Anne saying that it was too cold for Emil to play, though. Instead, Joy and I got breakfast at "Paul", which is apparently a chain, but fully decent none the less. After breakfast we wandered in the direction of school, stopped and chatted in the bar/cafe that they all frequent, and Joy went to class and I went off to be a tourist.

I was considering doing one of the walking tours in the Fodor's guide book, but quickly scratched that idea and picked what I wanted to see out of the tour. The first stop was Eglise delaMadeleine, a church that took nearly a century to build because they couldn't decide what to do with it. At one point it was going to be a monument in memory of Napoleon's victory in Russia - but then he failed and that plan was scrached. However, some of the basic foundations were already laid for a classical building, so the outside is surrounded by large formal columns. Next on my little tour was a walk through the edges of Jardin des Tuileries which was full of playful dogs being walked, and on to "Union Central des Artes Decoratifs." Or, that was the plan. That portion of the exhibit was closed until 2006 however, and instead I saw a clothing exhibit and a jewelry exhibit. The clothing was a mix of very old coats and jackets on display with very strange modern clothing. The jewelry had a room full of very old and ornate jewelry and a room of bizaarly wonderful modern jewelry, much of which didn't look as if it was meant to be worn. Then I went to the "Bibliotheque Nationale Richelieu" which is home to rotating photography exhibits. The exhibit that is there now is black and white photos by Santiago Saldago, whose work I believe I have seen before at some point. The were beautiful black and white compositions with amazing depth and detail, and mostly documenting poverty. There were a few nature shots, but most of the exhibit was people in rural or run down cities throughout the world. There was also a room of people attempting to stop gushing oil fields in Kuwait and a room of pictures of hundreds and hundreds of people in a Brazilian gold mine. Moving and beautiful! Downstairs was a strange modern art room.

After Joy's class, I met her and various others at her bar, then we went to dinner with two British classmates, James and Bet. After a lively dinner we went to see a one-woman play. It was in french, which none of us understood much of, but was fantastic because of the woman's use of her body. She was able to assumùe completely different personas on a moment's notice. After the play we went to a bar across the street, and then back to the houseboat, which sadly was very noisey late into the night. Ah well, more sleep tonight, hopefully.