A Weekend in Paris

After finally getting settled in and learning how to use the metro and ask for a baguette it was time to start exploring Paris. And this past weekend was a perfect weekend to get a taste of what will be around me for the next four months.

Saturday

I started my weekend off with a trip to the Louvre with some friends. What I love about the Louvre is how you can spend all day here and still not see the entire museum. The museum has so much art to see. Of course I had to see the Mona Lisa, which was one of the first areas we went once inside. Afterwards, my friends and I spent most of our time looking at the French neoclassical paintings. I enjoyed looking at these because I recognized a lot of them from the art history class I took last year. One of the painters we learned about in the class last year was Jacques Louis David, in particular his painting, Oath of the Horatii. And seeing it in real life this past weekend was exciting, I was able to look and analyze all the figures, emotion, and space in the painting and understand what I was looking at. It gave me a new appreciation for the painting. However, looking at some of the paintings I did not recognize at the Louvre inspired me to go home and look them up so next time I come I can understand the story behind it and why the artist created the painting the way they did.

The Louvre took almost all day so afterwards my friends and I went to a café to get food into our systems. We tried to go to Angelina, to try their famous hot chocolate, but there was a long line so that will have to be saved for another time this semester

Sunday

Sunday was definitely a fun day. Some friends and I went to an area in Paris called le Marais. Earlier this week, we learned that le Marais is one of the few areas that is opened on Sundays and has great shopping. One thing that about le Marais shopping is that there are a lot fun vintage shops. There is one popular vintage shop, called Kilo Shop that has two floors full of vintage clothing. Le Marais also holds a cute tea place called, Le Loir dans La Theiere. There was a little bit of a wait for this place but it was worth it, for a tea lover like me. This place offered a variety of teas and then I chose a pastry to go with my cup of tea. It was the perfect afternoon snack.