I'm down to nine days left in the City of Light. But let's not dwell on that; I'm trying to follow the advice of this new piece of street art on the sidewalk a couple blocks from my apartment:
Sciences Po Gala
This past Friday was the annual Sciences Po Gala, aka prom for the grad students at Sciences Po. This extremely fancy event took place in the Wagram Room, where none other than Edith Piaf and Duke Ellington once performed, and began with a formal dinner for all of the graduating students.
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| la Salle Wagram |
Since Sciences Po is the most elite of all the universities in France and has produced a huge number of politicians, it is tradition for the school to call upon those famous alumni to appear at events throughout the year, including this one. Before dinner we listened to three graduation-style speeches from the President of Sciences Po, former Foreign Minister Pierre Moscovici, and former Prime Minister Alain Juppé. I quite enjoyed their remarks, which (from what I can now recall several days later) were a mixture of "way to go, you're so elite" and "serve your country with what you've been taught during your time." The President also made an amusing comment about how perhaps some of us there that night were looking for our princes, haha.
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| first course: a huge slab of foie gras. très délicieux! |
I thoroughly enjoyed the ensuing dinner, which included foie gras (above) and some sort of fish that was divine. (The menu said the fish was "Barramundi," and none of us knew what that was, which led to a conversation about how no one ever understands menus in France. I've just checked, and apparently Barramundi is a type of sea bass. Mmm.) I also enjoyed dinner because it was multi-lingual: I was at a table with people from Germany, Portugal, Brazil, Morocco, and Chile, so I got to listen to French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese! I also enjoyed observing the fashion of the other female students. There was quite a range, and I am pleased to say that I fit right in:
After dinner we had about an hour to drink champagne, eat little pastries, and schmooze with the honored guests, who were probably part of 200+ selfies over the course of the evening. I was part of several with the former Foreign Minister and with Sciences Po President Frédéric Mion, who I just learned made Vanity Fair's Best Dressed list in 2013. Only in Paris would an academic make that kind of list!!!
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| me and my friend with President Mion |
The party officially continued until 5 a.m., but being the older student that I am, I only made it until 3:00 before I went home. :) It was a great way to close out the year, and I was actually the only American law student to go, which made it all the more international feeling.
Belleville + Le Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
I've been trying to use my suddenly unlimited amount of free time to see a few other parts of the city that I had not yet visited. My bucket list (for this "first part of Paris," as Hemingway would say) is mostly comprised of favorite places and experiences that I want to do one more time, but there are a few new things on there too. I checked off two of these items yesterday by trekking out to the 19th and 20th arrondisements (which means that I've now been to all 20!!!).
Belleville is essentially a cultural hodgepodge that used to favor African immigrants and now is mostly Chinese. I've mostly heard about it as a place for street art. I didn't have anything in particular to see, so I decided to just get off the metro at the Belleville stop since it wasn't too far away from the park I wanted to see. It was a pretty unremarkable area - lots of Chinese stuff, yes, but nothing else of note. I was glad that my route to the park took me past the one piece of art that I've seen a number of times on social media:
It's a bit hard to see, but underneath that blackboard there's a piece of scaffolding with a mannequin on it; I think he's meant to look like he's just finished painting that. The phrase "il faut se méfier des mots" means "one must distrust words." Not sure what that's referring to, but I've seen this a lot.
It was about a 12-minute walk from there to the southern entrance of the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, which I'd heard was lovely and had great views of the city. I'm really glad that I trekked out there to see it. (And trek I did - it's about 40 minutes from where I live.) It's a bit like Central Park, or the Bois de Boulogne, in that it has several distinct areas. And it's pretty big - I didn't see the whole park, but the part I did see took me probably an hour to circumnavigate. It only took me a few minutes to find a view of the Eiffel Tower, but I spent about 30 minutes feeling turned around because I couldn't see the basilica of Sacré Coeur atop Montmartre. I finally found it when I got to the top of the hill with the temple on it (below).
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| This is a model of the temple of the Sybil in (ancient?) Rome |
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| the view of Montmartre from the temple of the Sybil |
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| one of several waterfalls! (this is quite tall) |
This was Easter, and there were lots of people in the park - including many, many groups on the hillsides having a picnic. :) This is one of the things I will miss most.
Two Other Random Pictures
There are a few metro stations in Paris that are really unique. I'll see if I can get pictures of them before I leave, but here's one: the Arts et Metiers station on line 11. It looks like the inside of a copper submarine!
(The other unique metro stations are: Concorde (line 12 platform, because it has the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen written in tile on its walls), Franklin D. Roosevelt (line 1, because it's mostly black and gold), Bastille (line 5, because the outline of the original foundation of the famous Bastille prison is marked on the platform), Gare de Lyon (line 14, because on the way into the station when going towards Olympiades you pass by windows with jungle plants and animals), and Tuileries (line 1, because it has pictures of flowers and other stuff on the wall).
After the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, I made my way back into the center of the city and walked around the Marais for a while. There were lots of people around the Pompidou Center (as always), and the fountains have been turned on, so I shot the photo below. I love the juxtaposition of the modern art in the fountain with the mural on the wall and the very old church behind.
Versailles, Volume 3
Today I went back to Versailles for the third and final time of this "first part of Paris." The palace isn't open on Monday, but the gardens are, and that's what I wanted to see. I thought the gardens were stunning when I first saw them back in October and were still pretty impressive in January, so I was anxious to see them in April when things would be in bloom.
I have to admit I was underwhelmed. It didn't help that today was cloudy, but there don't appear to be any flowers in the gardens of Versailles! It looked exactly as it did in January except that the trees had leaves and the grass was a more vibrant shade of green. And perhaps because the palace was closed today, the fountains were all off, and all of the parts of the garden that had previously been closed off were still closed. :( It's a shame because there were still a solid number of people there!
Still, I enjoyed walking around, and I got to see a family of ducklings and a SNAIL. (When was the last time any of you saw an actual snail?!)
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| It's hard to see, but there are lanterns hanging in the greenery. This would be lovely at night! |
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| swans on the Grand Canal |
My subsequent wanderings around Paris this afternoon took me to the BMV, my favorite department store. I worked my way up through six floors and particularly enjoyed looking at the kitchen appliances, some of which I will be coming back to purchase next year for my apartment in London! Who wouldn't want these?!
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| a raclette maker, as I have previously described. the spatulas go in the middle to melt the cheese! |
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| fondue. |
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| seriously, I want a crepe maker! |
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