The Brilliance of Dali

Bonsoir,

I finally made it to the Espace Salvador Dali and I have to say WOW. The man may have been a bit crazy, but really what artist isn't? He was a great artist. I love going to museums that are dedicated to one artist. You get a much better feel for who they were as a person and not just a random piece of their work here or there. Don't get me wrong, I will thoroughly enjoy going to the bigger museums, but the small ones are quite nice, definitely not as crowded.

Anyway, the Dali museum did not have many of his more popular paintings, but there were many of his sculptures and quite a few pieces of art. Again I am amazed at how much I learned. There are many artists who use the same symbols throughout their art and with Dali his favorite symbols were clocks and elephants. Dali was fascinated with time and the fluidity of it, hence one of his most famous works the The Persistence of Memory (It is the painting of the melting clocks). Here is a picture of one of his sculptures that is similar to one of the images in the painting.
You can see the rest of my pictures in my album. I found it so interesting how he incorporated these symbols into his art as well as taking many different images and combining them to make a bigger picture.

Okay the Salvador Dali lecture is over now. On to happier times! We kicked Irish ass this weekend. One more game and it is onto the Championship game. I cannot believe it. I really want USC to stomp all over this bruins this weekend. After we win this game I never want to hear another bruin crow about their 8 year win streak again (He who shall not be named but rhymes with mad...lol).

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to Christmas. It has not gotten all that cold here in Paris. I am not sure how much I am looking forward to the cold, but I do hope that it snows while I am here.

To all of you in school good luck with your end of the semester papers and exams. I hope that you are not too stressed. Remember you can get through it. Keep saying this to yourselves "If Cara can do it so can I!"

Have a great week and always remember:

Continuer à combattre! Battre le bruins!

Thanksgiving heureux!

Happy Turkey Day!

First of all I have to say that I am kind of jealous of you all who get to have a wonderful Thanksgiving meal today. I am not saying that I will necessarily miss the turkey, but I will miss all of the side dishes. So have an extra portion for me! It is almost the Christmas season and I am looking forward to hearing Christmas carols in French.

So today I went to the Picasso museum. I was going to go earlier this week and actually went and it was closed, then it was raining yesterday so I finally made it today. I have to say that he was a brilliant artist, although I found the style strange. One of the things that I learned was that Picasso was a sculpture as well as a painter. Here are some of my impressions from going through the museum:

1.) The art that was not cubist/post-cubist (Blue and Rose Period mostly) is fairly ordinary, but the features of his people are exaggerated. Their hands or feet are extremely large or their noses are very big. I was reminded a bit of some of the criticisms of Michaelangelo is that the features of his females are very manly and too large and defined to fit with the female form. (BTW, I am guessing that most of my comparisons in art will be to Michaelangelo as he is my favorite and I know his work the best).

2.) As he moves from one style to another I got the feeling that he was tying to portray all angles of the subjects. In many of his paintings you see front and the side on the same painting. Almost like wanted to put depict a three dimensional object onto a 2-dimensional canvas as best as possible.

3.) Finally before I bore you to death and you fall asleep (Lie to me and tell me it was the turkey!) I would not have wanted Picasso to paint my portrait. There were some pieces of art there that said they were of a person, but I just could not see it. Those of course were the true cubist pictures, there were some very interesting ones, but others were just strange.

Since I am such an art fan I hope that you don't mind me waxing poetic about it. I am truly awed by what artists can create.

Anyway, barring any major rain storms I will be going to Versailles this weekend to see the Palace of the Sun King (Louis XIV). I will also be up all night listening to USC beat Notre Dame. GO TROJANS!!

Again I hope that all is well with you. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving and before I sign out here is what I am thankful for this year:

My family
My friends
Graduating
Being able to travel
My health
My cat
New adventures.

Until next time...

Continuer à combattre! Battre les Irlandais!

When in Rome...er Paris

Bonjour,

So I finally when out to a bar/club last night. It was great. It was an Irish pub not too far from my apartment. They had a dance floor so I spent most of my time dancing. I was serenaded to such hits as Chumbawumba's "I get knocked down", I really wish that song would go away. They played other good songs as well, some I knew and some I did not. All of the songs that they played were in English, so I will have to try and find a true French bar next time. One thing that I have to say that I missed was true R&B/Rap music to dance to. I am not sure if it was just this bar or if all the dance clubs are like this, but the dancing was much tamer than the clubs in the US. Not so much dry humping going on. The music seemed to be much mellower as well. They did play some Biggie, Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, but they also played U2 (Tribute to Ireland) and the Eurythmics, it was a good mix, just not quite what I am used to.

I met some interesting people as well. There was a promotion going on and anyone who wore/was a fan of the New Zealand Rubgy team All Blacks got in free, so there were quite a few New Zealanders there with their team colors on (Can you guess what color?). I also met one guy who was born in the US but has been living in Europe for 19 years. It was nice to have a conversation with someone whose accent you recognize and who can help translate. I finally got to ask someone about where to get my hair done. I know it may not seem that big of a deal, but it is...lol.

So overall, my first foray into the Parisian nightlife was good and I highly recommend it. This week, I am going to visit a few museums and then take a day trip to either Versailles or Chartres. I will make sure to take lots of pictures and update when I come back.

Finally to my boys...GO TROJANS. We have yet again won the Pac-10 and are on our way to the Rose Bowl at the least. Now we only have two more big games and I hope I will be able to at least listen to them.

Until next time. I miss you all.

Au revoir

Continuer à combattre! Battre les Irlandais!

Alive and Well

Hey all,

Sorry it has been so long. I have had a great time here in Paris. This past week has been mostly just wandering around my neighborhood. Not much site seeing. I have been to the Sacre Coeur a few times...Have I mentioned that I love Gothic Cathedrals? Anyway, the rest of my time has been getting lost in the streets of Paris and finding my way home. Always fun.

Last weekend I had a great adventure when I went into the Catacombs under Paris. There are about 186 miles of tunnels under Paris and I went through maybe 3 miles of it. The Catacombs are a burial place in Paris. In the 18th Century thousands of bones from different cemeteries around Paris were relocated to the Catacombs. Now when you go down there you can see thousands of skulls and bones along the walls about 6 feet deep and 4-5 feet high. It is really interesting. If any of you come to Paris I would recommend it. One of the things that I noticed is that most of the bones that you see are skulls and leg and arm bones, may the rest were in there but I could not see them. Anyway onto more interesting and uplifting thoughts...

I hope to start traveling outside of Paris soon. I want to go to Versailles, and the regions of Bourgogne, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and Champagne-Ardenne. I cannot wait to see the countryside and to explore the rest of France and drink the wine of course! I am also chomping at the bit to get back to Italy.

Check my photo album for new pictures.

I will try to update more often from now on.

Until next time...

Le continuer à combattre et a battu les ours!!

How can I like Notre Dame?

Hi again,

Well I have seen the majority of the major sites here in Paris and I have to say wow. I still have to fully explore them, but I have seen them. Here are some of my impressions:

1) The Eiffel Tower is shorter than I thought it would be.
2) The Arc de Triomphe is bigger and in my opinion more impressive.
3) I love Gothic cathedrals, even if that does include the Notre Dame

Yesterday I went to see the Eiffel Tower and then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees. The Champs Elysees is a huge boulevard that has many shops along either side and goes from the Arc to the Concord Plaza. It is really a beautiful walk and about halfway down are the Grand and Petite Palaces. As I was walking down the sidewalk I came upon the Disney store. Now for those of you who don't know I have this thing for Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Of course I had to go into the store and see if they had anything dopey in there. Of course they did and do you know what they call him here? SIMPELET...I think that is brilliant and I know what I am buying myself for Christmas. I have a Dopey from Italy and soon one from France, I think that will be what I collect. My mom collects dolls from different countries, I will collect Dopeys.

After leaving the store I walked through a park and went to see the Louvre. The building is absolutely huge, unfortunately it is closed on Tuesdays so I could only see the outside. I can see why people say you could stay in there for months and still not see everything. I will have to see if they have a pass that I can get so that I can go and try to see everything. I am very excited about that. I am more excited to see the art than I was to see the Eiffel Tower, but that is just me. An the Louvre is only one of many museums here for me to see. I may need longer than 3 months!

After walking around for almost 5 hours yesterday I went home and fell asleep and missed going out for Halloween. Very sad if you ask me.

Today I got up and went to see the Notre Dame. I love Gothic cathedrals, they are so beautiful and interesting. I went in and it cot to see all of the different chapels and stained glass (See my photo album for pictures). Unlike the cathedral in Prague, which was not being actively used, the Notre Dame was warm. The only sad thing was that I did not see Quasi. I did not go up the towers maybe next time. It is 422 steps up, I will have to work up to that before I tackle it.

So back to my title, while the cathedral is beautiful I think that it is a shame that a school, especially a rival school, had to steal the name...and then have the nerve to call themselves the fighting Irish. Just goes to show how smart they are. Well since the cathedral was here first I am okay with it. It is just a good thing that there is no ucla here otherwise I would have to boycott it!

I will be uploading more pictures soon so look for them.

Have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

Au Revoir

CONTINUER À COMBATTRE et BATTRE L'IRLANDAIS