impressionist

Wow, so it's been a long time. I cannot believe that I've already been in Paris for two weeks (and furthermore, that this has been my first post while here!). The wifi where I'm staying is broken, so getting on the Internet is difficult. I've been using it sparingly. However, I made an effort to take "outfit photos" in my dorm room with my point and shoot camera, and here they are! Not the best quality, but they will suffice. Paris has been, up until a few days ago, extremely cold and rainy. When I got here, I had to go out and buy sweaters! But the past couple of days have been absolutely beautiful and I'm hoping for better weather for my last week and a half.

In case I've been vague, I'm in Paris to study Gothic art & architecture. I'm absolutely not an art history student so the topic is really difficult for me and I find myself floundering in it a bit. I'm doing my research paper on depictions of Saint Christopher and I have absolutely no idea where to start or what to say. I have a day to figure that out until the first part is due. Oops!

Beyond going to class, I've mostly been site seeing. Since I've been to Paris before, I have a good idea of what is nearby and have been enjoying being able to spend more time with things. I'm also here with a pretty good group and so I've been trying to meet new people. So many excuses as to why I haven't been blogging! I will try to work it into my schedule better, I swear. I have been updating fairly regularly on my Twitter page, but that's it. I feel like, despite writing this blog, I'm really slow to get the hang of technology.

So I hate to sound like a bad consumer, but I seriously love Zara. We had to have dresses for a concert the other night, and I had nothing, so we had a shopping day on Monday to find dresses. I found a beautiful blue & white polka dot one there (hopefully it will warm up more soon so that I can wear it again!) but I'm seriously obsessed with everything in that store. Even the kid's section! This grey tee is from the men's section and I love it. So soft and loose and flowy, and I adore the seam up the back (which you probably cannot see in these photos). I also bought super cool pants from there which I'm already excited to show off! Except I spilt orange juice on them today....

The pants I'm wearing here are from Pimkie. I have no idea about this store, but I remember I bought a shirt from one in Geneva a couple of years ago. Anyways, we went into the store trying to find a dress and I absolutely screamed over how lovely these pants were! They have little birds all over them and have this super wonderful lace texture. I'm obsessed. And they're not super low rise like most jeans these days. I love that. Jeans brands: please quit making super low rise jeans! They don't accommodate the average woman's derriere. So yeah, I am super excited about these pants. Super excited. It might help though that I only brought three bottoms (pants, shorts, a skirt) and I've gotten very very sick of wearing them constantly. I thought that I'd go out shopping and find great stuff right away, but I've only bought sweaters!

I spent my day, after class, at Musee d'Orsay. I adore that museum. I wish that I was here to study Impressionist art instead of Gothic. It appeals to me so much more. d'Orsay has an exhibition currently showing called L'ange du bizarre, or like Angel of the Odds or something in English. Well, it's all surrealistic, bizarre, dark, gothic type painting, sculptures, movies, etc. It was such an amazing exhibit! We spent like 3 hours in it. I wish that stuff like that came to Minnesota (dreaming big here, I know!). I bought myself this little 3 pack set of notebooks with different paintings/drawing on them from the exhibit. I wanted to buy an exhibit book but 45 euro is way too much! I've hardly bought myself anything (besides food and necessary sweaters) while here, so I wanted to treat myself to something. Notebooks it is.

I know that this is disappointingly short and pretty vague. I wish that I had time to update more frequently with my day to day activities, but I'm so out of my element while here! And I have little free time as I'm trying to cram everything in... If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do while in Paris, places to check out, etc. please send them my way! I'd be very appreciative. I don't want to miss a thing!