First snow

Today was the first snow in Paris! This is our garden from inside the salon.



Margaret and I woke up early to go to our Biology exam, and were SO excited about the snow that we forgot about the stress of dissecting an unknown bête for a few hours for 30% of our grade.
This is the view from the top floor of our biology building. The tall building to the left is part of our science university, Paris 6. To the right you can see the Pantheon in the distance. Usually you can see the Eiffel tower, too, and Saint Sulpice and Notre Dame.

After our exam we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens on our way to Reid Hall.


The snow stayed the purest in the Garden; all of the statues and trees were laced with snow.

The courtyard at Reid Hall was equally as pretty.


Someone had made mini snowmen on one of the tables outside!





It snowed allll day. This is a shot of the Christmas trees outside of the Luxembourg Palace, which is now home to the Senate.

Rouen

On the 5th of December we took the TGV from Gare Saint Lazare out to Rouen for the day. We started our tour at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen. Apparently something like 80% of Cathedrals in France are named "Notre-Dame."


The tower on the right is called La Tour de Beurre or the Butter Tower, because it was built in part with funds that citizens payed for the permission to eat butter that was forbade during Lent. At first I was confused by why people would pay when Lent is just 40 days, but then I went to lunch. Butter in this area of France is really, really good.


Monet chilled there for a little while, and painted the Cathedrale from basically the same point of view, but at all different times of day/weather. It was fun to see two of Monet's subjects, Gare Saint Lazare and the Cathédrale de Rouen in one day.






There were Christmas shops set up all around the Cathedral, with this band playing out front. Despite the creepy clown, it was festive and pretty adorable.


The interior was so beautiful. If you look closely, you can see that the door leads to the Bibliothèque. I guess a Cathedral is a sufficient foyer . . .


These statues of prophets lined one side of the cathedral.


The sun came out for a little bit, and we got to see the beautiful shadows cast by the stained glass windows.


Next we headed to what we thought was just a small courtyard. Turns out that this was a mass grave during times of plague.

They would pile the old bones into the space between the inside and outside walls, which were engraved with sculls and various bones.


The streets were small and winding, lined with old buildings that were more than slightly crooked, and everything was all decked out for Christmas!


This little statue was on a fountain attached to a church. Now I see where the Parisian men get it, apparently peeing in public is not only deeply ingrained in French history, but also endorsed by religion. Parfait.


As it turns out, Jean d'Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen. This Church is constructed on the site where she is believed to have been executed.




The blue and white flag is for Jean d'Arc.



After walking around and going to lunch, we headed to the Musée des Beaux Arts, which had a nice collection of Impressionists, as well as some pretty gruesome Géricault studies for Le radeau de la Méduse. My favorite thing in the museum was the stairwell, which was painted with seemingly haphazard orange lines. But, when you looked at their reflection in the rounded mirror, the lines became a perfect bulls-eye.

Week-end à Barcelone

Thanksgiving weekend, Margaret, Mayra, Anne and I headed south to Barcelona.



Our first stop on Saturday morning was Casa Milà (or La Pedrera, which means The Quarry in Catalan), one of the apartments designed by Gaudí. The facade is curvy and other-worldly, with balcony railings fashioned out of twisted, ribbon-like metal.


We climbed up and toured one of the apartments that is now a museum. Most all of the rooms (except the maid's room) had big windows that let in lots of natural light, and every room was decorated with furniture and appliances from the beginning of the 20th century. At the top you can walk around the rooftop terrace, which has amazing views of the city.



These crazy shapes hide stairwells, vents, and chimneys.



Comme d'hab, I loved the details like this mélange of paint on one of the walls.



Next we headed to a covered market of the main street, Las Ramblas, called Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria. This graffitied wall was just outside the back of the market.


Inside there were rows and rows of stands bursting with fresh fruits, vegetables, bread, cheese, meat, and fish.


We picked up a loaf of this bread (so good), some grapes, apples, cheese, and champagne, and had a picnic by the Mediterranean for lunch.


And there was seemingly every kind of chocolate/ candy imaginable!


We stopped to eat our picnic and enjoy the sun (!!) on this pier at the Olympic Port.





Next we headed up to Sagrada Família, Gaudi's (still unfinished) cathedral. Warning: I'm obsessed. Lots of pictures to follow.


FYI none of these are edited. The sky was really just that blue.





The exterior is decked out with so many sculptures, its like playing real-life eye-spy. We even found escargot!



The inside is monumental, with beautiful stained glass windows.







The windows were all different shapes, projecting beautiful shadows everywhere.



The stone was such a beautiful color, especially in the afternoon light.



Next we headed up to Gaudí's Parc Guel to watch the sunset. It's on top of a huge hill and has great views of the city and the Mediterranean. I took this shot of Mayra and Margaret when we were riding the escalator up the last part of the climb.




This curvy balcony is also a bench that goes all the way around a large terrace area of the park. The surface was a mozaic of lots of different colorful ceramics.



The dusk looked like an illustration from Grandfather Twilight!







Sunset at Parc Guel was definitely a highlight. We climbed up as high as we could and had panoramic views of the whole city!




The next day, as we were winding our way to the Picasso Museum, we stumbled upon a Christmas Market.

It was so busy, and bursting with red and green.


Mistletoe!


The market was such a great and random surprise. Bilan: Barcelone, je t'aime.