World, Come at Me Bro!: l'amour et le soleil

I know, it's been a while! But, that isn't because nothing has happened and I have nothing to say, it is because I have been a busy bee with many the tale to tell. In no way can I include it all in this singular post, so I will do my best to recount the highlights: two weeks ago, I went to the Centre Pompidou, the very large modern art museum pictured below, and finally went inside. It was great, a very different vibe from the classy and formal Louvre, but still as artsy and interesting. The best part may have been the staircase on the exterior, where we watched the sunset over Paris. C'était magnifique, ça.

Centre Pompidou

After some proper dance celebrations two weekends ago (celebrating la vie, of course), Charlotte arrived last week for her spring break. Although I went to all my classes (or at least almost all of them), it felt like I was also on spring break, since I got to explore parts of Paris with I had not been to and was also able to re-see some of my favorite parts of Paris. Highlights included: wandering for days in the Marais (one of the oldest parts of Paris where every small street and every building is dripping with history), tasting a lot of macaroons, going to Versailles on Saturday (took at least 150 pics), going up to Montmartre again, seeing Wiley and some of his friends from his program, having a pic-nic at a park I have never been to but will definitely return to, going to the Pantheon and multiple other churches, and celebrating St. Patrick's day at a scottish bar by dancing up a storm. Some background on some of the above: macaroons are like small wafers with amazing fillings that come in more flavors than yogurtland. Versailles is a city just outside of Paris where King Louis XIV decided to build one of the most impressive royal palaces of all time. The gardens behind seem to go on for miles, perfectly pruned and green. It was great to get away from the buildings of Paris and actually see a landscape for once. The Panthéon is an old church that was converted to honor the great thinkers of France's history, with a bit of an emphasis on the French revolution. I don't know how the Catholics feel about the state turning one of their more impressive churches into a place to honor man, not god, but I do know that is is impressive.

The weather was perfect all week (almost 70 degrees), and there were even traces of spring. It was a week full of, as a vendor of crepes told us, l'amour et le soleil. In the coming two weeks I have a mid-term, two dissertations, and an oral exposé. I guess my petit spring break is over, time to return to real life (or whatever you call living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world with the ability to do practically whatever you want, most of the time for free).