Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

 Bones--everything my biology class is about. Officially titled "Apes and Human Evolution," much of the class is spent looking at old, moldy fossils and ape skeletons. I just wrote a paper comparing gibbon skeletons to human ones.

My professor is a gentleman by the name of Russ Tuttle, and if you are anyone in the anthropology world, you know him. He taught the scientist that found Lucy, for example. And you know those footprints they found in Tanzania that are millions of years old, showing bipedalism (the Laetoli track)? He did all the work, while Mary Leakey handled the media. At one point, I was reading a scientific paper by him for homework while he was sitting behind me in the same room--it felt a little surreal. Anyway, this man knows his stuff. And being in a class of 10 people, we can't hide.

He's got a pretty weird sense of humor. For example, he showed a top-down view of an ape and human torso, with the head removed so you could see the skeleton. He labeled one "Monkey," and the other "Carmelite Nun, circa 1850" (a reference to the opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, in case you didn't know).

Every Friday is an excursion to somewhere related to our class. This Friday we went to the Museum national d'Histoire naturelle--the Museum of Natural History. Far from being just a Parisian version of the Field Museum, it contains the second oldest zoo in the world, started by Napoleon. So we spent the morning observing orungatan behavior.

Professor Tuttle is in red

I guess Napoleon was scared of apes

Then we moved on to the Gallery of Comparative Anatomy--a huge hall full of skeletons. I have never seen so many bones in my life. It was also full of screaming Parisian elementary students, who had to be constantly reminded "Ne touche pas!"

Then we moved to the Grande Gallerie de l'Evolution, where I was tickled to see a diorama of animals that looked exactly like a model of Noah's Ark.

The whole excursion was done by noon. After eating lunch in the park outside, my entire class (all 10 of us) walked over to the Isle Saint Louis for Berthillon ice cream.

Regina was trying to look like a pig

The other group was acting normally

Moi avec Berthillon

 Then, one member of the group said, "I'm going to the Catacombs this afternoon, if anyone wants to come."

Now, I had been planning to go to the Catacombs by myself, but now I'm glad I went with five other people. I would have been too freaked out. In around 1795, Paris decided to move the bodies from several cemeteries deep underground and reverently pile up the bones and label them with quotations about death. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but when they say bones, they mean it. There were miles and miles of underground tunnels, all lined with neatly piled bones and skulls. The creepiest part was the winding staircase 60 meters down, and then a long seemingly-never-ending walk before the bones began. It was a little frightening to think about how much earth was above our heads.

The opening to the bones read "Arrete--c'est ici l'empire de la mort" (Stop--here is the empire of death). Indeed, walking those tunnels made all of us contemplate our own mortality.

So I went from bones of all shapes and sizes in the morning to miles of human bones in the afternoon.

Going "Paris-ing"

This city merits its own verb. I have to admit, I have never been anywhere where just aimlessly walking can be so rewarding; where you can go to one museum in the morning, one at lunch, and one in the afternoon; where just riding the train makes you feel like you're in a movie, complete with its own soundtrack. One of my friends simply calls it "Paris-ing."

I made a conscious decision to not just stay in my room doing my homework, but to get out and do stuff. So this week, my first week of school, I went Paris-ing.

On Sunday after church I visited the Eiffel Tower with friends and took the mandatory tourist photos, then went to a flea market on the afternoon, vowing to return when I was ready to spend money.

On Thursday, as I sat in my room with very little homework, I decided to just go into central Paris by myself. I ended up at St. Chapelle Church (famed for its stained glass windows) right as the sun was setting, so I sat and watched the light change on the windows. The church was built to house the Crown of Thorns, and indeed, built into the glass of the 13th-century windows was the exact same Crown of Thorns I kissed last week.

The guy in purple holds the Crown

Then I ate dinner in a cafe with the windows thrown wide open, soaking in the all-too-little sun. I'm not one to eat outside, but the weather was so perfect I absolutely had to. I bought myself a Berthillon ice cream before heading to the Centre Pompidou for my mandatory conversation session--a meeting at a cafe or a bar with a French student paid by UChicago just speak French with us. She took us to the Cafe de la Fusee, which she says is a real French bar.

On Friday I spent the morning at the Museum of Natural History with my biology class, and I spent the afternoon deep underground in the Parisian catacombs. More on this trip later... 

On Saturday I spent the morning at the Rodin Museum. Since many of the sculptures are in a garden outside, I wanted to visit it on a nice day. What that man could do with stone is beyond words. Some of the sculptures brought me close to tears. 

Eve hiding her face from God

"The Hand of God," with "The Kiss" in the background

The famous "Thinker"

A closeup of one of the "Burghers of Calais"

This is an amazing city, to have all of this in one place.

Cite Universitaire

I've been in my dorm for one week now, and it is amazing! I'm living at the Cite Internationale Universitaire de Paris, on the southern end of the city. I also learned that my high school French teacher lived here when she was in France, which is a pretty fun connection. My building is in a complex of international dorms built by Rockefeller. The main "student union" building is built to look like the Chateau of  Fontainebleau, since Rockefeller also gave the money for that. So there is a dorm for each country--Fondation Hellenique, Maison de la Tunisie, and so on. The University of Chicago put students in three of the houses: Fondation des Etats-Unis (USA), Maison du Cambodge, and the Maison des Provinces de France (me!). I think my program was so small that they just stuck us where they had room, so we are with all of the French-speaking students at MPF, rather than at the American house. But the rooms are huge with (drum roll please...) private bathrooms!!! I've never had a private bathroom in my life! Also, one of my friends said that our dorm rooms are as big as movies always make them out to be, which is pretty large...

Me in front of the Maison Internationale--the "student union" building

My dorm--la Maison des Provinces de France

My HUGE dorm room

My PRIVATE bathroom

My view

The community kitchen

I think it will be really fun living here, although the drawback is that we have to take the train all the way into central Paris and all the way out to get to class, but that's okay.

The University of Chicago Paris center (which is separate from the Cite Universitaire dorm complex) is pretty nice too. It is just the first and second floors of a couple buildings in a brand new neighborhood on the east side of Paris. It is right by the National Library (la bibliotheque de Francois Mitterand). We are also right next to a Parisian university. I just learned that there are a bunch of University of Paris-es (14 maybe?) and they all have numbers as well as proper names. For example, the university next door is Paris 7, but the University of Denis Diderot.  The Sorbonne, in case you were wondering, is Paris 3 and 4 or something like that. But, even though we are U of C students, we have Paris 7 ID cards. Thus, we have all the resources of real Parisian students--access to all university libraries, cafeterias, and so on. But the best part is we have FREE ACCESS to almost every museum in Paris. Do you know how much money museums cost??!! That means I can go to the Louvre every day! (Well, maybe not every day, since I have homework and stuff...) But isn't that cool?

Our first day at the Paris Center we had cocktails and fancy hors d'oeuvres, then a tour of the neighborhood around the Center. Then we went to different excursions related to our program. My group went to the Musee de Carnavalet--the Paris history museum--and had a guided tour of the prehistoric Paris stuff. I guess they thought it was connected to monkeys or something. I would have much rather been with the European History people who got a tour of the French Revolution section. Oh well. 
 

The neighborhood around the Paris Center

The front door

Our outing to the Musee de Carnavalet

Kissing the Crown of Thorns (almost)

While we were passing Notre Dame, we saw that the first Friday of every month, they brought out the Crown of Thorns to be venerated. Mom and I looked at each other and said, "We can't miss that." However, Friday was move-in day at my dorm (more on that later...) So we left my semi-mandatory guided tour of the neighborhood to bust up to the cathedral before 3:00.

Allegedly the Crown of Thorns was owned by some Byzantine emperor in 1200, but he ran out of money so he pawned it (along with a piece of the True Cross and a nail from the Crucifixion). St. Louis, the King of France, bought them and brought them to France in 1206. He built a church as a reliquary--Sainte Chapelle (the one with the gorgeous windows).  Eventually they were moved to Notre Dame where you can pay three euros to see them in the Treasury.

For me, the cool part about these relics is not that they are real (I mean, who really knows?) but that they were brought to Notre Dame in 1200, and that for almost 900 years people have thought they were real. That's pretty neat.

Now the Crown of Thorns is in a gold see-through circle. It just looks like a ring of wood because all the thorns were sent out to various kings throughout Europe. The first Friday of every month they hold a big procession of nuns and monks, and the Archbishop carries in the Crown, still guarded by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (what a nifty name).

So I was all set to stand in line and kiss the Crown of Thorns when my turn came (Mom was too chicken). But apparently, post Vatican Council II, you don't get to kiss it--you just get to kneel, bow, or whatever. So, I got within three feet and genuflected. It was still a pretty powerful experience.

A priest holding the Crown of Thorns in the front

The Archbishop carrying it out

Chez Martin

Last Wednesday, we went to visit Jeremiah and Shaelagh Martin. It was fun to get out into the suburbs again (the opposite end of the same train line as our Polish friends). If we had continued on the same line, we could have gone to Disney World...but the Martins are much better! We had a lovely lunch, and I got to see Annalise and Miriam (age five and one). After a fascinating discussion about French society and the French education system, I asked them all my practical questions about living in France (where to buy a cell phone, where to buy hangers, etc.) They were generous enough to give me one of their old cell phones, so now I get to look at baby Annalise every time I use my phone!  Also, the cell phone numbers of many LaSallers are programmed in, so beware of accidental phone calls from me...

After lunch Shaelagh, my mom, and I took a trip to Carrefour, which is bigger than a SuperWalmart. Unfortunately, they had rearranged the huge store, but at least Shaelagh, unlike me, could read the signs. Without her I might have spent three months washing my clothes in dish soap or something. She also used her stunning French skills to help me buy a sim card for my new/old phone.

It's really nice to know someone in a foreign city!

 

Les Chateaux de la Loire

Last Tuesday's adventure involved a day trip to the Loire Valley. My mom and I decided that we wanted to get out of Paris for at least one day. I had studied several of the chateaux in French class junior year, and I'd always wanted to see them in person. I knew that I would appreciate the castles because I'm a history nerd, so I know all about Francois I and Henry II and all those French dudes.

My mom and I decided many movies could be made about riding on a tour bus. It was pretty hilarious/excruciating. We were on the bus for about three hours, because the Loire Valley is almost in the middle of France. Cramming more than 50 people of many different cultures onto one bus for three hours is not necessarily a pleasant experience. There were three different groups, each with a different guide with a different language: Spanish, Japanese, and English. So we got to hear the general info in all three.  It was fun to watch the guides flipping back and forth between languages with ease. We had to take the tour bus because it is impossible to do more than one in one day by yourself--the castles are too far apart.

But the actual castles were really cool! We went to Chenonceau, Cheverny, and Chambord. I had learned about Chenonceau and Chambord in class, and I didn't know much about Cheverny.

Apparently, Chenonceau is supposed to be the most beautiful of all the castles. We thought it was neat looking, but not overwhelming. You could actually live there. It was originally the home of Henry II's "favorite" (mistress), Diane de Poitiers. She was 20 years older than he was, but the real power behind the throne. After Henry II died (in a hunting accident when a lance went through his eye--gross!), his wife, Catherine de Medici, took over the castle. She was not happy playing second to Diane. They each built a garden around the castle, trying to outdo each other.  The upshot is the castle looked very lived-in and real.

Mom and me in front

Me in front of Chenonceau castle

Then we went to Cheverny, which I knew nothing about. It was more of a large fancy house than a castle. Its claim to fame is that the writer of Tintin based the castle in the cartoon on Cheverny. Also, there is a huge pack of hunting dogs, and they still go out on hunts periodically.

Mom and Cheverny

Part of the dog pack

Finally we went to Chambord, which looked exactly like the castle in Disney World--no kidding. This was definitely a CASTLE. My mom kept saying, "You are parked in "Doc." You are parked in "Sleepy." You are parked in "Bashful,"' (like the little parking tram voice in Disney World). However, there wasn't much there, since it was built as a hunting lodge (some hunting lodge!) and the kings never spent a huge amount of time there. So it was pretty empty inside. The coolest part was a special exhibit about Chambord during World War II, since the Vichy government kept all the paintings from Paris museums at Chambord to keep them safe from looting. There were some great pictures of the Mona Lisa in the castle!

The central tower

Me with Chambord

All in all, it was a really fun trip.

Les amis

Last Sunday night Mom and I visited friends of ours who live in the suburbs. They live in Chambourcy, past the last RER stop of St. Germain-en-Laye. It was fun to get out of the city and see how real people live, because the people in downtown Paris don't seem to have real lives. We had a lovely dinner, good conversation, and got to hear the kids perform all their instruments. It was a multilingual dinner--a combination of French, English, and Polish. Only one person at the table could speak all three fluently! Because French is the family's second language, they spoke it a bit slower than a native French speaker. Thus, I could understand them perfectly! It was really cool to be able to understand every word in a foreign language.

Laura and me

Half the family

The castle where Louis XIV was born, in St. Germain-en-Laye