Arriving in Paris

Arriving in Paris- Thursday Jan. 28^th 2010

Today is the day I leave for Paris! I woke up today early to get ready and go to the school and figure out my flight situation- not to mention I had an Italian test to study for, that I barely got to study last night. I got to the school 10 minutes early only to find no one in the office. The test in Italian today was fairly easy- I am kinda glad I didn’t spend too many hours studying for it. We did an extensive review before the test that was similar to the test- which helped out a lot. In sketching and drawing we went to the Duomo to sketch the interior. My drawing was going very well for about an hour until one of the professors came up to the bench I was sitting at and critiqued my work. He spent the next hour showing me how to draw in perspective. After messing up about 5-6 times, he finally finished with a drawing that didn’t look complete at all- literally a sketch, that seemed similar to mine. I’m just hoping that the reason why he spent so much time drawing in my sketchbook was because he thought I had potential- at least that’s what id like to think. He seemed very interesting in my drawing- and out of the 80+ students in the room, he spent almost half of the class talking to me… After sketching and drawing I went to see Carla about my flight problems- and after getting ahold of someone finally at a reservation office for Ryan Air I was able to pay for the flight schedule change and finally confirm the flights and print my boarding passes!

In History of Italian Art we went to Santa Croce, where we were given headsets in order to hear Rocky better. The inside of Santa Croce is enormous- with over 200 tombs, the church is dedicated to St. Francis. Michelangelo, Giotto, Dante, and many more historical figures were buried here. We learned about the meaning behind the church, the architecture, relics, statues, and some of the artwork and frescoes appearing on the walls inside- stuff that intrigues me very mich and I could go on and on taking about it… but doing so would take too long. Perhaps one of the most interesting facts I learned was the fact that St. Francis never wanted any artwork, statues, or stained glass windows in the church because the house of God should be concerned as a religious space were one should pray in total isolation from materiality- one trait that defines a true Franciscan in the medieval ages. However, when you go into the church it is full of these material relics and symbols- which they began acquiring only 70 years after St. Francis passed away. Interesting to me at least… the marble façade was added in the 19^th century.

Today was the first official day of Urban Design. Prof. Ponsi spent most of the class talking about his projects and watercolor paintings he did… which is okay, but I found it unnecessary for the subject matter. Plus, I was too excited for Paris. When studio came around, I was only able to stay for a few minutes before I had to leave to meet up with Colin and Bryce at the Duomo to go to the train station to leave for Paris. I grabbed a slice of pizza on the way there, met up with them and left shortly for the train station.

The train ride to Pisa was an hour and a half long- we got to Pisa around 5:00. I slept most of the ride- in fact, I slept most of the travel on the way to Paris. Hahaha (I was tired from staying up late studying and getting ready for Paris) We met up with the three ID girls who were going with us: Katie, Katie, and Rachel, who I found out soon were very nice and organized- they were very prepared for the trip (Bryce and I felt like the tag-alongs). The flight from Pisa to Paris was okay… we flew from Ryan Air- which isn’t the best airline in the world- but its cheap so I cant complain. My ears popped a lot, and I got a splitting headache but I slept most of the flight, so it was all good. I read “The Lost Symbol” on the plane and on the train. When we got to Paris we had to take a bus to downtown Paris which was about an hour and ten minutes. Tickets were 14 euros one way. Around midnight we arrived to Paris where we had to buy tickets for the metro (which we got lost finding haha) to our hotel. We finally got to our hotel around 1:00 in the morning- it was a small room with one bed for the three of us- me, Bryce, and Colin. We agreed that one person would sleep on the floor everynight- hey, that’s the price you have to pay when you book a cheap hotel for 2 people and take three. Regardless, it was good enough for us and we weren’t ever going to be their. Shortly after we arrived to our hotel we left to get food- we were all starving from all the traveling. We food a Chinese restaurant about 10 minutes away that was still open. They didn’t speak any English- and only Rachel knew some French, so we had to rely on her for a lot of translations. Food in Paris is actually quite expensive- at least more expensive than Florence. But I reckon we found the least expensive restaurant around that was still open- out of the 10+ menus we checked, most meals seemed to be over 20 euros. We got Chinese for 10, that’s good enough for me. It wasn’t the greatest food in the world, but I was satisfied.

Tonight I experienced a fraction of Paris, if that. The streets are a lot wider than Florence, there are by far a lot more places to see and stuff to do- with both modern and classical architecture. The city is still dense, regardless- just like most of Europe. We bought some European beer on the way back, and celebrated just before we went to sleep.. I already knew this was going to be the best weekend of my life… and we’ve only been here for a couple hours.