Last weekend I went out with one of my roommates and several of her friends on Friday night, only to be overwhelmed by the variety and quantity of bars in the area near the Bastille. We realized we need some guidance, so Katerina and I intend to solicit recommendations for future endeavors from our various French acquaintances. It was still an enjoyable evening though, and it made us appreciate our location in central Paris even more, as the metro stops running around 1am and our other friends faced a looooonng walk home.
However, I had a wonderfully successful Saturday in many ways. I began by visiting Pierre Herme, supposedly the home of one of the best croissants, if not THE best, in Paris. Alt
hough it was a wonderful croissant - crispy through the top layers, but light and flaky below with a good allotment of dark chocolate - I have sampled at least 15 different bakeries' croissants by now and I can not say that theirs was truly head and shoulders above several of the others, and especially not for the extra 40 centimes! Conveniently however, Pierre Herme was on the way to the Musee de Luxembourg, my legitimate destination for the afternoon. On the recommendation of my boss, I went to the museum to see an exhibit on the late 19th, early 20th century jewlery and glass designer Rene Lalique. How I had never heard of him prior to this is amazing, because his work was absolutely breathtaking. The variety, craftsmanship, and ingenuity of each of the pieces was stunning, and the accompanying sketches were also very interesting to see as a small time designer myself. I left the exhibit completely overwhelmed but also full of ideas for future projects. I also bought two books from the exhibit (a bit of a splurge) as design references. Oh! And one other cool conincidence is that Lalique's first shop/atelier was located about a block away from my current apartment on Rue Therese!
hough it was a wonderful croissant - crispy through the top layers, but light and flaky below with a good allotment of dark chocolate - I have sampled at least 15 different bakeries' croissants by now and I can not say that theirs was truly head and shoulders above several of the others, and especially not for the extra 40 centimes! Conveniently however, Pierre Herme was on the way to the Musee de Luxembourg, my legitimate destination for the afternoon. On the recommendation of my boss, I went to the museum to see an exhibit on the late 19th, early 20th century jewlery and glass designer Rene Lalique. How I had never heard of him prior to this is amazing, because his work was absolutely breathtaking. The variety, craftsmanship, and ingenuity of each of the pieces was stunning, and the accompanying sketches were also very interesting to see as a small time designer myself. I left the exhibit completely overwhelmed but also full of ideas for future projects. I also bought two books from the exhibit (a bit of a splurge) as design references. Oh! And one other cool conincidence is that Lalique's first shop/atelier was located about a block away from my current apartment on Rue Therese! After Lalique, I wandered around the wonderfu
l area of St. Germain de Pres and enjoyed a rare bit of Parisian sun (see photo). The weatehr has been pretty terrible thus far, hovering in the mid 60s with sprinkles to showers almost every day I've been here. Supposedly it's going to be in the 80s this weekend, and hopefully will remain that way for a while. In the evening, I went out to Indian food with my two French buddies, Laurent and Farid. The Indian food was pretty good, and once again I had a nice chance to practice my French with two patient friends.Sunday, I brought two of the roommates to my favorite market near the Bastille to pick up some cheap produce and cheese for the following week. They were very impressed and we all came away with quite a haul. After that, Katerina and I decided to flex our culture muscles and hit up two free classical music concerts. The first one was a Romanian celloist who played pieces by Chopi
n and Grieg, and t
he second was an organ concert featuring Bach. Although I know virtually nothing about classical music, they were both very enjoyable and seemed to be generally solid performances - and even more so for being completely free and in Paris.
n and Grieg, and t
he second was an organ concert featuring Bach. Although I know virtually nothing about classical music, they were both very enjoyable and seemed to be generally solid performances - and even more so for being completely free and in Paris.Thus far this week, we've had people over three of the four nights, including a large dinner party for the birthday of one of Katerina's friends from Harvard. Maintaining my role as official Dartmouth ambassador, I prepared most of the meal (pasta, salad, cheese tray and brownies) and had quite an enjoyable time with all the Harvard kids - about 7 in total. The one big difference I've discerned thus far between Harvard kids and Dartmouth kids is that about 80% of the Harvard kids smoke! Given that it's very rare and socially disdained (in general) at Dartmouth, I was a bit surprised.
This weekend is Bastille Day (or wannabe Independence Day) and I'm hoping to see the Fireworks on Saturday and generally enjoy the first truly hot day of the summer! Apparently all of the fire houses have parties in the evening as well, so Katerina and I are definitely considering checking that out, as the average attractiveness level of French firefighters is far greater than those of the U.S. Many are of ambiguous sexual orientation, but we figure it's worth a look at least, haha.
One final note, if anyone needs to or wants to contact me, my address through August 31st is:
Alix Toothman
15 Rue Therese
75001 Paris, France
1 comment:
HI ALIX,
I just spoke with your mom, and she told me about your blog. I enjoyed reading about how your summer is going. Glad to hear the French are taking care of you, and that you are having fun. Keep blogging!!!
Love,
David (your cousin)
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