Busy, busy, busy...

I'm such a slacker on this whole blog-update deal; my apologies everyone. But I've actually been doing quite a bit in the past week(s)! Last Wednesday, I went to the Centre Pompidou, where I had my Contemporary Art "class." I may have said this before, but I am going to use the term "class" loosely here because it's moreso just going to a museum/gallery, looking at the art, the "professor" asking if we have any questions, and then heading out for the day. Not that I have any complaints, because I love doing that sort of thing, but I was just under the impression that the class would have more structure to it. Anyway, like I was saying, we went to the Pompidou to look at the modern-contemporary collection, which I absolutely love- I even managed to see a few of my favorite American abstract expressionists :)

Kandinsky

Oh, Marcel Duchamp...

Pollock<3

I found a set of Barnett Newman lithographs. Do you know how excited this made me? Granted, they're not as good as his actual works, but still...BARNETT NEWMAN.

Rothko<3

El Anatsui- I remember writing an essay on him for my Contemporary African Art midterm- oh the memories...

Friday, I visited l'Orangerie for the first time (shoutout to GP). OH MY GOD IT WAS AMAZING! Monet's Nympheas are absolutely beautiful, and I didn't know that there were two rooms of them (one room to show the daytime-version, one room for the nighttime-version). I think I sat in the rooms for about 40 minutes just staring at the canvases. See for yourselves:

I then went to visit the rest of the museum, which is a cute little museum that includes the works of some Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, like Renoir, Cezanne, Rousseau, etc. And I now have a newfound appreciation for the painter Maurice Utrillo and a continued indifference for Chaim Soutine.

Weekend=Loire Valley (so special it will get its own post- soon)

Monday was class in the afternoon at the Louvre (which has become a regular occurrence), and Tuesday, I had a bit of free time after my morning class (where we just watch French/English movies?), so I visited Sainte Chapelle, which is something I've been wanting to do since before I got here, but I just got the chance to do it now since it was such a nice day! And this chapel, built under the orders of Saint Louis to house relics from the Passion, is absolutely amazing! The walls are non-existant; instead, stained-glass fills the windows with stories from the Old and New Testaments.

(It's hard to get a full shot of everything because the ceiling of the chapel is so tall)

And Friday, I finally got to go up the Eiffel Tower (it's not like I haven't been here for two months or anything...) While a bunch of us originally planned to climb the 704 stairs to the second level (not the very top, but the one below it), we changed our minds and figured we should go to the very top by way of elevator- my leg muscles and feet were thanking me for that decision :)

And after, we headed over to Le Marais (the Jewish quarter in Paris) for an inexpensive lunch of falafel- and it was delicious :) And apparently Lenny Kravitz thinks so too?

Things aren't going to slow down too much, either. Spring Break- which is 2 weeks here :) - starts next Friday- I'll be in Germany for 8 days with my brother and I think I'm going to the south of France for the second part. School will continue to chug along, then some friends are coming to visit during the third/fourth weel of May (whaddup Michelle and Potus?). Then I'm going to Italy to visit my Art History girls (and Vinny) in Rome during the first week of June, and I don't have too much time here after that. I'm really trying to figure out where all the time goes, because it's rushing by a lot faster than I thought it would...