Class, Centre Pompidou, et Montmarte

Paris at night - as viewed from Montmarte/Sacre-Coeur

At the Centre Pompidou - "London Bridge" by Matisse (fauvism)

The group riding the glass covered escalators of the Pompidou Center!

Centre Pompidou - Museum of Modern Art - making a little modern art myself!

• Our three hours of class this morning began by talking and writing with a partner about our weekends (after our professor switched up the seating arrangment of course). After we went over these things together as a group, we got our tests back from Friday. We worked once again with our partners to help correct our mistakes - and boy were there a lot of them! We spent a lot of time conversing today and also did some more dictation. I can still see my language skills improving every day! Though I have found my professor very difficult to understand. See, they talk quite quickly here, but our prof even more so! And its even harder when she is speaking to me directly for some reason..maybe its the "put on the spot" feeling..I'm not sure! I'm still learning!
• After class was finished, Jayna, Corey, Andrew, and myself spent awhile in the school's cafeteria working on homework while eating lunch. I had a ham and cheese panini..mmm yummy! Eventually we peeled ourselves away from our worksheets and caught a Metro to a different part of the city. After meandering some Parisian streets for awhile we finally stumbled upon Centre Pompidou - Museum for Modern Art. Built in the 70's, basically "inside out," Centre Pompidou brought lots of controversy. Now, people love it. There are always people gathered in the large square in front of the building, street performers, students, day dreamers, you name it! It is a really fun place, even before you get into the museum!
• We met our guide for the day and headed on into this spectacular building! After taking glass covered escalators to the top floor to see the spectacular view, we walked around the fifth floor seeing some of the world's greatest modern works of art. This was such a fun visit for me; it was one of those visits that made my Art History class that I took last semester so much more worth it! We saw works by Matisse, Delauny, Picasso, Braque, and many more! I was amazed to see such awesome works of art that I had previously only seen in my textbooks! Ask anyone, I had a giant smile on my face the entire time! (I think I had enough excitement for our whole group combined!) Sadly though, it cost more to go see the special Kandinsky exhibit on the top floor!
• After our awesome museum visit, a few of us headed to Notre Dame, taking a bit of a detour on foot on the way (which is always an adventure in this city!) On our way, we got ice cream and crepes...Mmmm! We then toured Notre Dame and then planned to go to The Crypt, but alas, the doors close at 5:30, we go there at 6pm! So then a few of us made our way back to Centre Pompidou, seeing as I was still in search of a photography book or two. The store in that place is amazing! I ended up buying two different books for about 30 Euro. One is photos of Paris and the other is a worldwide photography book that I plan to take hints from in my journalism photo work!
• Back at home, we shared a meal with our host family, which was once again amazingly delicious and the conversation was full of laughs! My host dad doesn't speak much English, which is forcing me (in a good way of course!) to work even harder on my French! After supper, I sat down with him to show him a lot of my photos..which I currently have over 2000 total from this month! He likes to tease me about my sunglasses pictures, but I can tell that he likes them!
• Then after supper, I met up with Andrew and Corey and we went to Montmarte to see the Paris sky at night - it was incredible! Now that it is almost 1 am, I'm going to head to bed to anticipate our last day of 6 hours of class!