Bienvenidos a Panama

Well…. FSU Movement Exchange is FINALLY in Panama!!!

Today was a perfect way to start the trip. Besides our super early morning wake up, we made it to Panama with absolutely no problems at all!! Driving from the airport to the hostel we passed by Panama Viejo, the first old city before Panama. Pirate Morgan actually burned down Panama Viejo and we saw the old ruins of the Cathedral. After that they, they built Casco Viejo and it became the new old city. We ate a typical Panamanian lunch with rice, chicken, vegetables, and PLATANOS. Man, I missed those.

We dropped off our stuff at Magnolia Inn and toured around Casco Viejo! Tinna, our Move Ex coordinator showed us all of the sites to see. Plaza Catedral, the Cathedral, places to shop and buy souvenirs, beautiful view of the water, marine biology museum, National Theater, and more!! Sarah Mills from Western Michigan met us back in Casco to join our group. SOO excited to have her here! We bonded over apple empanadas and fresh passion fruit juice. Headed back to the Hostel for a break to plan for tomorrow and get ready for dinner!

I had delicious shrimp mac and cheese and then we went on top of a rooftop bar and saw an amazing view of Panama City!

Hi. I’m a tourist.

Tuesday June 10, 2014

Today I felt like a real real tourist. I went on a tourist bus. Yup. It happened. It was kinda nice because it tells you about all the places you pass and such, but it was a nice little nap for me. Buses put me to sleep like no other.

First stop: Park Guell. Everything was designed by Gaudi, go figure, and it looked like a little fairy village. Quality. At the top of the park, you get a nice little view of Barcelona, too.

We hopped back on the bus and took a little tour around.  I fell asleep. I couldn’t help it. But we passed by the water and port, which was absolutely beautiful. We got off the bus in the gothic quarter, walked on La Rambla again and got dinner at this little joint called Pollo Rico. They’re known for their paella so of course we had to get it. When we walked in, I had no idea what we got ourselves into… it was a little diner basically with only bar seats… and kinda on the dirty side, but boy was the service great and the food delicious. Can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess. We walked through a street market on La Rambla and saw a bunch of delicious food and some not so delicious looking raw meat… ew… but the fruit and nuts and olives and everything else looked delicious. We bought some chocolate covered nuts. Good decision. The pops and I also may or may not have gotten a mocha latte from Dunkin Coffee (mind you, not Dunkin’ Donuts!). On our walk back, we came across a wee little protest. We actually were supposed to take a bus back to our hotel, but the protest kept us from getting through. There were a lot of old people marching around and they were actually throwing these little fire cracker things that blew up and made a huge bang… we had no idea what was going on, but ya know. It happens.

So. Much. Gaudi.

Monday June 9, 2014

I had a super pleasant surprise this morning: a fricking fantastic breakfast. And I thought I was gonna miss FIAP breakfasts. This was so much better. Yum. We woke up super early this trip for a bus tour around Barcelona. Our first stop was Cordovinu, a winery that makes cava. It made the first bottle of cava in 1872 and is a huge company today. It exports millions of bottles of cava a year and overall produces 80% white wine and 20% red wine. The winery is found in the town of St.Sadurni, which is the cava capital. We got a little tour of the winery and got a little bus ride through the cave. There were thousands and thousands of bottles in the cave. Every wall was lined with bottles and you could smell the different types of wine as we traveled through. It was pretty awesome. Afterwards, we got to taste a pinot noir and a chardonnay cava. Sure, I like wine, but they also gave us crackers. I think the crackers were my favorite part. 😉 They also had the museum built by the famous architect, Josep Puig I Cadafalch, who also designed the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona.

We hoped back on the bus and got a little ride over to Montserrat, the “serrated mountain” about an hour outside of Barcelona. It was absolutely beautiful. We got dropped off at the top of the mountain where the basilica and monastery can be found. The basilica was originally built in the 1100s, but was destroyed and later rebuilt. The views from on the top of the mountain were absolutely amazing. The pops and I took a bit of a hike and then tried some free samples in the little street market that they have up there. We had some sort of flavored nuts (I’m not sure what they were…) and some of the local type of sweet bread with sugar on top (yam.)

  

The bus took us back to Placa Catalunya for our next and final tour! Placa Catalunya is a square in Barcelona that divides the old city with the new. The city limits used to end here and there were city walls built up that prevented expansion. In the mid 19^th century, the walls were knocked down and the city expanded. They call the area la champla, meaning expansion, and a lot of the wealthy bourgeoisie families had apartment buildings made. Gaudi and other architects found a lot of work in this area, designing for wealthy families.

So our last tour for the day was la Sagrada Familia. It was designed by Gaudi, but interestingly enough… he wasn’t the first designer and he wasn’t the last. The first architect gave up on the project after having issues with deciding on the materials and Gaudi said he would finish the design, but wanted to make it his own. So he designed this crazy cathedral and because it was so intricate and he knew that he wasn’t going to be alive to see it finished, he spent ten years designing a large model of the building so it could be finished just how he wanted it to be finished. But you’ll never guess… all of his models were destroyed after he died and so we’re left guessing what he imagined for the building. He spent his life building one of the facades of the basilica, the side showing the nativity scene and the birth of Jesus. This side of the building faces east where the sun rises. I think my favorite part of the building is the fact that the biblical scenes are shown on the outside. He chose the three major parts of the bible to show on the outside: the nativity scene, the passion, and the resurrection. He wanted people to be able to come to the church and be able to see the story of the bible without having to go inside. On the inside of the church, he designed it based on nature and colors. Like many of his designs, there are no straight edges and everything is curved. The inside is very, very white and there is beautiful stained glass, so the natural light coming in has a tint as it hits the white walls. It’s absolutely stunning.

 

Since Gaudi’s death, a few other architects have worked on the cathedral, but because Gaudi’s models were destroyed and his drawings didn’t give much detail, they more or less have to guess what Gaudi would have wanted. It’s all very interesting and definitely encompasses a bunch of different architectural styles.

Fun facts about Gaudi: he had blue eyes and was a vegetarian. He had no wives or children and spent all of his time designing buildings. He was very wealthy by the end of his life because he would design for wealthy families and when he died, he gave all his money to La Sagrada Familia. He would often spend nights in La Sagrada Familia and when he didn’t show up to work one day, they went on a hunt for Gaudi and found him in the charity hospital. He had been hit by the tram in Barcelona and because he never wore nice clothing and had a beard, people mistook him for a homeless man. No one stopped to help him at first and then they took him to the charity hospital and did not receive proper treatment. He was hit by the tram on the 7^th of June, 1926 (I think that was the year) and died in the hospital on the 10^th. Pretty darn tragic.

So we returned to the Placa Catalunya and walked down La Rambla, a famous market street. It was more of a souvenir market than anything else, but I found something really exciting… one of those dumb little souvenir license plates, but it had “Adela” written on it. I couldn’t help but get it. I have never, ever once in my life found anything that says anything remotely close to my name on any souvenir. I was beyond excited… I’ll stick it on my wall in my room. We also found Amorino!!! My favorite gelato place in Paris!!

We headed back to the hotel for a little rest and then went out to dinner! We found a cute little tapas restaurant and had some delicious toasted bread, muscles, shrimp, chicken, and my personal favorite, fried eggplant with goat cheese. Most definitely delicious. But now I am absurdly exhausted. Goodnight.

Au Revoir Paris.

Sunday June 8, 2014

Well… That’s that. At 5:30 this morning, I woke up and left the FIAP for the airport. I don’t think it’s hit me yet that this trip is over. I think it’ll hit me on Monday when we’re not hoping on the metro at 10am on route to Studio Harmonique or AADP. This trip has been filled with incredible memories. And as hard as it was and as time consuming it was, I can’t wait to go back and read this blog in a few months (maybe a week or two if I’m really missing Paris) and read about all of the incredible things we did. Every day was packed full of events and we packed so much into these four weeks. Even though we spent four very full weeks in Paris, leaving now, I feel like I still haven’t experienced everything in the city. Paris is filled with history and after four weeks, I’m still not done with this city. That’s pretty remarkable. Okay here’s a little sum up of some random stuff:

Things I’ll miss:

– Croissants
– Sandwiches on baguettes
– Easy metro
– The requirement of at least looking presentable every day. At school, I can get away with wearing a t-shirt and leggings or athletic shorts every single day. It’s another thing having to put on real clothes every day and it actually made me feel way more put together every day.
– Old buildings and new buildings and their nice little mix (Haussman architecture)
– Family dinners at the FIAP. Just sitting and talking with everyone at the end of the day about the most random things. Gonna miss it.
– Dancing with French dancers. The dynamic is different from America. From my observations, French dancers are very concerned with doing something correctly and as well as possible. They push themselves in technique and style. In my college career, I’ve definitely felt more of an emphasis on artistry, rather than technique. And I think the French have figured out a way to find artistry within technique, which I think is something America struggles with a bit
– Studio Harmonique energy. The energy in all of the classes was incredible. No one ever wanted to stop dancing. Wayne always had to tell us to only do the left once, because if he didn’t everyone would keep going around and around, doing the combination as many times as possible. I love that pure energy and joy for dance that you don’t always feel in class.
– Legal drinking. Even though I didn’t drink very much (I really, really didn’t), it was really nice being able to have a glass of wine with dinner or just hanging out at the Eiffel Tower… sometimes I wish America did have less strict laws, mostly because I feel like it would make drinking a more casual event.
– Seine: So beautiful.
– Eiffel Tower (“whoop there it is”). This little guy pops up everywhere in Paris. I swear to god every time I was in a new area, it popped up somewhere and especially when we were least expecting it. And the twinkling at night was pretty spectacular and beautiful. I always loved doing that at night time.
– Art history and all the museums. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s the importance of context information. Knowing what you’re looking at and makes such a big difference.
– Being in a city. I haven’t been in a car in over 4 weeks. That’s pretty crazy. And being surrounded by bustling city streets, crowded metors, and stores and food everywhere… not too bad to me.
– The OU girls. We lucked out. These girls were great and fit in perfectly with our group. Hannah O, Lauren, Devyn, and Camille were amazing and definitely added something to this trip. Wouldn’t have ben the same without them and I can’t believe I wont get to see them every day! Not even in the fall.
– Looking up, looking out, and having fun. The moto.

Things I won’t miss:
– WIFIAP. I don’t think I’ve said “wifi” so many times in my life.
– Stinky metro: Place d’Italie was the stinkiest most disgusting metro stop I have ever been to. And we were there a lot.
– Rain maybe? Didn’t think it was possible for the weather to be more bipolar than it is in Tallahassee, but Paris… you did it. You beat Tallahassee in the bipolar weather category, that’s for sure.
– Ungodly starbucks prices and small coffees: Get me a giant cup of coffee for 3 dollars (not euros) please.
– Paying for water. Didn’t always happen, but always makes me a little sad when it did.

Things Europeans have figured out:
– Including tip and tax in the price. You always know how much you’re going to pay. In the states, I always find myself spending more because it ends up being a few more bucks than the actual price
– Roller skates and razor scooters: such wonderful modes of transportation. Such a shame they went out of style in the US because boy did I have fun with those.

Thanks for the amazing memories, Paris. I’ll miss you dearly.

And on to the next adventure: Some Switzers take on Spain.

Arrived in the airport and spotted my parents right away. Solid. We’re staying at a nice Best Western in Barcelona… but you’ll never guess this… the wifi is worse than the FIAP. Yup. It is. I can’t even get it in my room. At least in the FIAP when I got really lucky I could get it. Nope. Not here. I’ll be spending a little bit of time in the lobby… boo.

Okay. Well, we dropped our bags off, got a little situated and went to an absolutely delicious lunch. We got lots of tapas including mussels, Spanish ham, baby squid, tomato paste and bread, and spicy potatoes (listed from my most favorite to my least favorite). We also got some nice champagne to celebrate our first day here!! Yay. After our super fulfilling lunch, we spent some time walking around our neighborhood!! And just so happened to stumble upon one of Gaudi’s works, Casa Batllo. It’s incredible on the outside and we’re going to go inside one of the days. In my art criticism class fall semester, someone gave a presentation on this apartment building and I’m really excited to see it. The pictures were amazing, so seeing it in real life is going to be so much better. Crazy to think that people actually live there too. Can’t imagine how expensive it is.

We walked around the area and made our way back to the hotel for a hot sec and then headed out again for more exploring!! We walked all the way to the Placa de Catalunya. It’s a beautiful square in the middle of Barcelona with birds everywhere, a fountain, and amazing buildings surrounding it. We kept going, ran into an artists market and saw some beautiful jewelry and did some window-shopping in nearby stores. We made our way down some of the side streets, which was awesome because there were no houses and the little buildings on the sides were very adorable. We also ran into the Palau de la Musica Catalana, which has a beautiful façade. We were on a hunt for the Arc de Triomf of Barcelona. I thought it was pretty fitting to see another one after being in Paris. Paris’s Arc is definitely much bigger, but Barcelona’s is pretty darn magnificent as well. It has a walkway leading up to it that’s lined with beautiful palm trees and interestingly enough, the lamp posts are pretty darn awesome. At the end of the walkway, is the Parc de la Ciutadella. We didn’t spend too much time, but from what I saw, it reminded me of the parks in Paris, where everyone just goes there to sit out and relax underneath the trees. There was a pretty impressive fountain as well and a building called the Castell Dels Tres Dragons. Still gotta figure out what that one is all about.

We walked back to the area where we were before and grabbed some sandwiches and little pizzas to bring back for a light dinner. Unfortunately, the pizzas kinda died a little and the cheese sank to the bottom, but we managed to salvage them the best we could. Oh and we got a chocolate croissant from the little bakery. Aaaah I thought my days of chocolate croissants were over. So ecstatic.

And the Real Last Day.

Saturday June 7, 2014

So the FIAP got super crowded and we discovered that making the sacrifice and waking up early for breakfast is greatly worth it for a much more pleasant experience. So we started off our last day (ahh) with an early and delicious last FIAP breakfasts. I’m going to miss those croissants oh so much. Honestly, the FIAP had some of the best croissants we had during our trip. Mad props, FIAPY. After breakfast, we made one last stop to our neighborhood market area and got some lovely souvenirs (AKA goodies and pastries and bread things) for our families. We met up with some other peeps and I got to check off another thing on my list: the catacombs.

The catacombs are found underneath Paris and exist basically because Paris ran out of room to bury everyone. So in the 1800s (sometime then, I don’t remember exactly the dates) they dug up all the bones and such and stuck them in these underground passages. They thought it would be even better to arrange them in pretty cool designs like hearts and crosses. I thought it was really awesome at first and creepy and all that good stuff until you think about the fact that all of these skulls belonged to people at one time… People who probably never expected to have their skulls loaded up and shoved down under Paris to exist as a tourist attraction. It was really awesome to see and it was definitely interesting, but I just hope that never happens to my body. (I would for sure still recommend going though. Just an interesting thought)

 

We landed ourselves back at the FIAP for the last lunch. I can’t say I’ll particularly miss the FIAP food, but I can say that they had the best dining hall type food I’ve ever had. But I don’t think anyone likes dining hall food for more than 4 weeks. After lunch we went over to a park that has a pretty darn large waterfall. I ended up just kinda plopping in some grass and almost taking a nap, but I made myself get up and walk over to the waterfall and it was definitely worth it. It’s in this big cave in the park and the water rushes down one side and floats its way into the little lake. Parisians definitely love their parks. There were people everywhere just sitting and eating, drinking, laughing, talking. And the park was really massive. We walked around for a while, but definitely didn’t see it all. In the middle of the lake, there was a huge hill with a gazebo on top. I didn’t end up going up, but it was pretty magical.

Unfortunately, we had to head back and finish packing and get ready for our last meal as a group. We went to a restaurant over by the Louvre for our absurdly delicious last super. The service was great, the food was great, the company was great. (Only downside… it was super toasty in that restaurant and just about everything I ordered was hot. I was sweating up a storm). For the first course: onion soup. How could I not order it. And it was super tasty. The bread inside was a little crispy on the crust and soft and soaked with soup on the inside. There was the perfect amount of cheese and onion. Solid pick. For the main course: beef and vegetables wrapped in a pastry. It was basically a pot pie but oh so much better. One of the waiters popped open the top on Hannah O’s pastry and it was magical. The steam exploded out. It was actually great because it was so hot that I had to take my time eating it and I am definitely good at eating super fast. Oh but it was fantastic. And for dessert: crème brulee. Mmmm all that sugary goodness. Okay, enough about food. Can’t believe that was our last dinner. We accomplished so much as a group and the dynamic was perfect. We got tons and tons of pictures afterwards and had a few goodbyes. I don’t like goodbyes.

The majority of us made one last stop at the Eiffel Tower to see it twinkle for the last time. It was the perfect ending to the perfect trip and it all came full circle. One of the first things we did was see the Eiffel Tower sparkle at 10pm and that’s how we ended our trip. Couldn’t have asked for a better way to end all this craziness.

The Almost Last Day.

Friday June 6, 2014

Today was the first day of “lasts.” Even though it wasn’t exactly our last day… it was our last day of classes! We had a late morning, so I woke up early to beat the crowd for breakfast and went back to the park in our neighborhood. I finally checked off one of the last things I really wanted to do before I left Paris: sit in a park and read. It sounds simple, but there’s so much to do here, I didn’t feel like I took my time and relaxed very much. So this morning was the cherry on top to this study abroad program. I walked around the park a bit and sat on a few benches until I found the perfect one over looking the warder and right in the sun. I was just sitting there reading when the black swans and their babies, who I saw the first week we were here, came waddling up to me. The babies got so big! I was amazed!! They grew up a bit!! That definitely made me realize that this really wasn’t just a vacation. This was four weeks; just enough time for little baby swans to grow up a bit. It was perfect. It was also nice just sitting in Paris and watching the people go by. I don’t know how much time I spent reading and/or people watching but it was the perfect start to the day.

I met up with others and left for our last class at Studio Harmonique. I had Wayne Byars for our last class and it was perfect. The most perfect class to have as a last class. The pianist was incredible and Wayne was great as always. The pianist played Harry Potter during the fondu combination and I just about died a little. Even better… he played “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Mis for adagio. Now that got me. I was shacking a little. I love these classes that reaffirm why I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s days like today and classes like that that make me so happy I can follow my dreams and not regret it. I got a little gushy… but life’s too beautiful to not be doing something you love. Sitting in that park, having that perfect last ballet class, and realizing that I just spent four weeks in Paris reminded me of how lucky and thankful I am to be doing everything that I love. Even if my path changes in the future, I’m really thankful for what I have now. (So thanks mom and dad if you’re reading this) 🙂

After class, I got my last ham and cheese sandwich on a baguette in Paris (most likely). Man, am I going to miss that bread. I think the bread was most definitely one of my favorite parts of Paris. I really like food… and bread might be my favorite category in the food realm, so this month has been perfect in that regard. We got back to the FIAP just in time for our last meeting together!! We all had to present our photo essays from the trip! Some of them were so creative and definitely had us cracking up! Just to name some: chairs, selfies, graffiti art, Jamie’s drawings, love in Paris, cats in Paris, Jasper the travel buddy in Paris, details that you may not have noticed, panoramas and 360 views, windows and doors, and I think I’m forgetting a few but that’s the gist. It was really fun to look back to the beginning of this trip and remember all the things we’ve done and all the places we’ve been. We’ve definitely done a lot in our four weeks here. Accomplished a lot.

We had our last FIAP dinner today. Wow. I’ll even miss our little family dinners every night in the little corner of the FIAP cafeteria… After dinner, a bunch of us headed over to the Pont Neuf area for a river cruise!! This was one thing left on my checklist as well, but I knew I wanted to do it one of the last days. I think it was a great “last” kind of thing to do. The river is absolutely beautiful and you get to pass all of the big attractions in Paris, so it was a perfect little sum up of Paris. I also had a lot of fun waving to people on the bridges. I was a little too amused, but hey, it was fun. We also went at the perfect time. We got to watch the sunset on the Seine and watch the Eiffel Tower twinkle from afar. After the tour, we landed ourselves in the Latin Quarter, walked around for a bit, got our most likely last crepes and headed home. Like I said… today felt like our last day. It definitely feels like this trip has come to an end. But one more day left. One more.

The Last Crazy Day.

Thursday June 5, 2014

Today was another busy day to add to our list. We started the morning with a master class in the Isadora Duncan technique with Barbara Kane. The class was absolutely fantastic. I felt like a little fairy nymph the entire time!! We were told to pretend we were deer running through a forest, hoping over streams. There’s no possible way you can’t have fun with that. It was an absolute blast. I knew that Isadora was influenced a lot by Greek art and I could definitely feel that in her technique. It was all very light and airy. We even go to dance with scarves and make little dress wraps with them!! So fun. At the end of class, we all picked a picture or drawing of Isadora or one of her steps and split up into groups. We then made up a little choreography based off of the photo. It really was so much fun. Great class!!

After class, we had lunchies (I got a sandwich yum) and then lecture! The majority of our lecture was on Josephine Baker. Josephine Baker was an American who moved to Paris for more work opportunities. She was a huge hit in the 1920s and while she was growing up and living in the US, there was a lot of racism and segregation. She actually dropped out of school at age 12 and lived on the streets, performing and such. Someone discovered her and she was soon offered a position in an all black company that was moving to Paris. So at age 19, in 1925, she hoped on a plane to Paris in hopes of “finding freedom in Europe” (which I find very ironic). In France, there was no segregation- she could go anywhere, eat anywhere, sit anywhere she wanted. She had a very opportunistic personality and was a huge hit. She basically became a hit overnight. She’s famous for her banana dance, which she did everywhere. When she did tour in the US, she refused to perform for segregated audiences. She married a French man and became a US citizen and helped the French during WWII. She volunteered to be a spy for France, so when she was performing in other areas, she could spy on the Germans, who would never expect her to be interested in what was going on in the war. She was rewarded for her efforts and was very famous in the French world. When she died, her funeral service was held in the Madeline, where the French statesman and such would usually hold their funeral services. So she was definitely a big deal.

After lecture, we went on a walking tour around the area!! First stop… seeing the restaurants where all the artists like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Monet, and many others would sit, drink, eat, and discuss their art! We walked over to a littler area where there is a plaque honoring Josephine Baker. There’s a restaurant right by it that serves Josephine Baker drinks!! They were nonalcoholic drinks with passion fruit, mango, and coconut. Tasted exactly like a mango lassi. Joyce and Rick treated us to them, which was very, very sweet and much appreciated. We also went to the Madeline and found a lovely surprise inside the church!! There was a choir singing inside and it was absolutely beautiful. It was nice to just sit for a little and listen to them sing. The Madeline was beautiful as well and had a bunch of flowers outside that smelled delicious.

 

After the walking tour, we went over to this little square area that has been decorated kind of recently with these black and white striped columns!! I thought it was awesome. Only down side… there were screaming children running around and playing everywhere. Joyce wanted us to have a photo shoot there and a few groups got to go, but after awhile it just got too hard to do because there were so many people. So we moved over to a little park area right behind it and a few more groups took photos. Some of us headed back to the FIAP just in time for dinner!!

After dinner, Gillian and I went over to the pont neuf and went for a little walk on the love lock bridge! We saw a bunch of couples putting their locks on and tossing their keys into the river. We spent a lot more time there just looking at all the locks and such and the sun was beginning to set so it was really pleasant. We went over to the Louvre again just to see it again and the sun was definitely setting at this point so the sky was pink and a bunch of beautiful colors. We took a lot of pictures. It was great. We plopped over to McDonalds to get wifi, buuuut it wasn’t working and I was slightly disappointed. Afterwards, we walked along the Seine for a little bit, discovered a little band playing down next to it and that a lot of people just go to the river at night to sit and drink with their friends. That sounds really pleasant and I might try to do it either Friday or Saturday night because only a few more days in Paris!! Aahh!!

Title (optional) + More sculptures on sculptures

Wednesday June 4, 2014

Three more days in Paris. Ah.

Today we went back to the Menagerie for Martin Kravitz class. I think he was happy to see us!! When he got there, he came over to us and said “you came back!!” and he was talking to us a bit about where we were from and how we liked Paris. I loved his class again today. The windows were open and I guess there’s a bakery nearby because I could smell croissants the whole time… Not sure how I felt about that when I was dancing but I was definitely hungry during class!! I love how Martin’s class is very technical, but allowed you take a lot of artistic liberties. I didn’t find myself struggling to find the balance between technique and artistry as much during his class, which is definitely something I struggle with at home. He’s also really amusing and a great teacher. Definitely did a good job pushing us to our limits.

Mmmm after class (because we were starving) we went to a little bakery and I got a salmon panini. Ahhh so delicious. We then went over to the Marais area to find a little market. It was pouring so we didn’t know if it was going to be open or not but it was!! It was pretty small with just a few vendors but I got one of the most delicious figs I’ve ever had in my life. As you can tell, I love my food. Most definitely my favorite part of traveling. For sure. We plopped into a starbucks for a little bit to get some quality wifi. Because WIFIAP is just not cutting it right now… I think that’s the only thing I’m excited to go home for… working wifi. I didn’t realize how depended I was on it, but I’ve been out of good wifi for a bit too long.

Anywhoo… we headed back to the FIAP and met up with everyone to go to the Rodin Museum!!

The Rodin Museum is housed in the building where Rodin used to live. It was a government building that they allowed him and others including Isadora Duncan and Camille Claudet lived in. Rodin donated his works to the government if they agreed to make the mansion into a museum. And they did!! This was definitely one of my favorite museums we’ve been to. It was laid out in a really efficient way that allowed us to see everything in a natural progression. We started outside and saw the thinker!! My Favorite!! When I was here a few years ago, my dad and I couldn’t stop calling it The Stinker. I know its bad… but I just can’t stop picturing him on a toilet contemplating his life. It just works too perfectly. And then just a little bit a ways away, there was a toilet sculpted and just chilling there. Naturally…this occurred. Had to be done.

There was also one sculpture that was scarily similar to Beyonce’s dance for Single Ladies. So there’s that. There was also one that was the Torso of Adele! 🙂 Fun stuff. Rodin also did some painting and was alive during the impressionist period. There were a few of his paintings in the museum and I loved them!!

One of our assignments at the Rodin was to compare Rodin with Bourdelle. I know when I was at the Bourdelle museum, I was a lot more interested in the facial expressions of the statues. At Rodin, however, it was all about the body. Rodin has a great way of showing movement. Most of his statues of the full body were about movement and showing an action. We saw Gates of Hell, which was entirely made up of mini sculptures that seemed to be moving. Pretty impressive… A lot of his sculptures were also done in marble, while pretty much all of Bourdelle’s were bronze. The two different materials give off such a different feel. Most of the ones outside at the Rodin Museum were in bronze, which I think works really well with the trees and gardens. A lot of the sculptures inside were done in marble. The marble sculptures definitely feel more fragile and soft, while the bronze are a little bit more powerful and hard edged. I actually don’t really have a preference. I like both, but I think they give off very different messages. Oh and inside the house, I saw a sculpture that Bourdelle did of Rodin. Rodin had a massive beard. Or at least Bourdelle wanted to accentuate that little detail cause boy did he have a beard.

I think my favorite sculpture of Rodin’s was Eve (1883). She’s covering herself and hiding her face and looks very, very vulnerable. There’s something about it that’s just very graceful and beautiful. We also saw Rodin’s other famous works like The Kiss and The Cathedral. Both really, really beautiful.

^^ Eve

^^The Kiss

My favorite sculpture in the museum was actually The Waltz (1893) by Camille Claudel. When people first started dancing the waltz, it was extremely scandalous. With the closer embrace and the woman’s flowing skirt, it was definitely more risqué than the previous social dance forms. I think Camille definitely grasped that in this piece. She showed the passion and tenderness of the embrace and made me, as a viewer, feel like I was intruding on a really special moment between the two. The way their necks are curled around each other and the way they’re holding each other is very intimate and quite loving indeed. The movement of her long skirt is absolutely beautiful as well. You can definitely tell that the couple is in motion, dancing around the floor like they’re off in their own little world. Super romantic and gushy. Gross.

And one more thing about the museum. The gardens were beautiful!!! The flowers and roses around were magnificent. And it had been raining all day and thankfully stopped just in time for us to go to the museum so when we got there, the flowers still had little water droplets on them. And they smelled so delicious. Pictures don’t do them justice.

We walked around the gift shop a bit and thankfully made it back in time for dinner at the FIAP! Today might have been one of my favorite days. I loved class today and the museum was really pleasant and enjoyable. So sad this trip is coming to an end. Wish it didn’t have to.

Sculptures on sculptures on sculptures.

Tuesday June 3, 2014

Our first stop of the day: Musee Bourdelle. It’s Bourdelle’s apartment/workspace turned museum. They recreated his work studio so when we were there we kinda got a feel for what his studio was like while he worked. A lot of people weren’t too impressed with the museum, but I actually really like it!! His statues were shown both in gardens and regular exhibits with white walls. I really loved seeing the statues in the gardens, especially when they were tucked away in some bushes. They looked a lot more natural and liked they belonged there rather than against plain white walls. The facial expressions on a lot of the statues really impressed me. With sculpting, I’m sure it is much more difficult to add details, but Bourdelle really was able to capture emotion without a lot of detail. Slight changes in the eyes or mouth completely changed what I thought about the sculpture or at least the emotion I was getting out of it. Some of them looked sad, others looked angry, and I only found one that looked really happy. I kept make up scenarios in my head about the people in the sculptures like what they were doing and why they looked like they did. Ohhh and while we were there, an alarm went off and we all had to leave. Thankfully we were allowed back in but we still have no idea why they went off!

^^Beethoven                                                 ^^Soldier Without Legs

While we were at the museum, our grad student was able to show a dance in the grand hall!! It was awesome! They had a few rehearsals over the weekend and got to perform it at the museum today. It was beautiful. And definitely an awesome experience for her. Nice resume builder that’s for sure!

After the Bourdelle museum, we parted ways and some of us headed over to Studio Harmonique for ballet class with Wayne Byars. I loved it. Definitely the best ballet class I’ve had since I’ve been here. He really promoted big movement and ease of movement, but I wish I could understand French! I feel like he gave a lot of really awesome corrections that would have been good for me to apply to my dancing. That’s the one downfall of studying abroad when you don’t know the language… but he said some things in English so I definitely still got a lot of out of the class as well. I really love the energy in Studio Harmonique. I feel like it promotes healthy competition. It seems like everyone pushes each other in their individuality and artistry and I’m loving that!!

We headed back to the FIAP to do some laundry and then dinner! It was a really quiet night here at the FIAP… I actually ended up packing…. Going crazy!!!

Ad of the day!!

The start of the last week.

Monday June 2, 2014

Today went by so fast! What the heck… how did that happen… We started off the morning with a good ole lecture, recapping on the Centre Pompidou and the artwork we saw there. Then we headed off to the Menagerie for a contemporary class! Only a few of us had been to the Menagerie for class and I was a little nervous because apparently they weren’t super welcoming. Or at least as welcoming as the other studios… according to the few people who were there. But it was actualy no problem at all!! I actually felt very welcomed! Our teacher, Martin Kratz, was very sweet and spoke to us in both English and French. And all of the students in the class were very nice as well!! I loved the class. It reminded me a bit of Gerri Houlihan’s class at school, but with a little bit of a twist. Definitely had some Limon influence and we did a fun combination towards the end of class that was an accumulation of some of the things we had been working on in class. It was a two-hour class, but it definitely didn’t feel that long! I definitely want to try to take his class again sometime this week!

We had a long break after lunch, so Hannah and I wanted to go to the Petit Palais for their Paris in 1900s exhibit. We thought it would be perfect and have just enough time for it. Buuut… when we got there, it was closed. We saw a sign that said it was closed on Mondays 😦 So we’re gonna try to go another day! Instead we just walked along the Chemps Elysees and then came back to the FIAP before our next lecture.

We discussed more of our experiences at Centre Pompidou and some people gave their lectures on Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Aaron Copland. All of these Americans spent some time in Paris and some of them were part of the “Lost Generation.” F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway were good friends and went on some quality drinking escapades together that F. Scott’s wife didn’t approve of. Fun facts of the day.

After lecture was dinner and then we went to a little area a few metro stops away for a photo shoot!! It was a lot of fun. We went to the river where a bunch of rocks are lined up. I think it’ll make for some really awesome photos!! And then we may or may not have gotten gelato afterwards… 🙂