3 Weeks?

How are there only three weeks left?
THERE IS SO MUCH WORK TO DO. And not enough time. This week feels like all the others so far, blended together. Sunday was full of photo shoots with Paulina, Bridget and Becca. I'm really happy with the work that I'm turning out, but Liz still isn't too happy with it. But I would rather do stuff I'm happy with than please a professor.
Yesterday I worked all morning organizing the frame cave for Vernissage and then doing some work, but not enough. Marissa and I watched Avatar (the best ever!) before we went to bed and it was a nice way to end the night, especially because it was a long day full of nothing.

Today we had to do proposals for Working Class Studio of what we're doing for our finals. We're supposed to do something Lacoste/Provence/France themed that is marketable to people outside of SCAD. I'm planning on doing a series of clocks that are based around images that I've taken here that are all going to be abstracted into patterns more than scenes.

Seminar II today was a full work session, so I spent 3 hours organizing, editing and printing some photos. I've printed half of one of my photo portfolios for finals, and edited down the images that I'm going to be using for other ones. And now, I'm spending time doing research for classes and for my sketchbook.
But that's all. Nothing new and exciting here!

In The Interest of Art

One of my dear friends is making a film, if anyone has any interest in donating check it out here. Everything about his film is beautiful, I was the set photographer for his first section. The main actress, Bailey Keith, is a phenomenal 13 year old who is teetering on the edge of exploding into a career already and the director, Chris Heady is one of the most talented actors and puppeteers as well as being the one of the most loving and wonderful people I've met in Savannah.
<3

Rock Giant: A film by Christopher Heady
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2023848428/rock-giant-an-independent-puppet-film-thatll-melt

A Week of Critique

September 17th- 23rd

The sun was just right... taken from my doorway to my dorm.

This past week has felt so long and so short at the same time. Monday was work, printing and getting ready to show my edits to Liz for class. I got to go down to the Residence du SCAD (the hotel that the college owns here in Lacoste) to pick up some things to ship to a guest, and I was so amazed at how beautiful the hotel was. I hope to stay there at some point in the future (take note Mom and Dad)  because it is really beautiful and in such an amazing location.

I had so much work to do on Tuesday and Wednesday for Working Class and Travel Photo that the days just flew by. Critique went pretty well for travel, more small technical notes than overall photo notes (which is a good thing) and Liz said that my food shots were the best that she saw out of the whole class. (Yay me!) It's certainly getting colder here in Lacoste and I'm so happy that I brought all the layers that I did :)

The husk of a flower ( I don't know what kind... a little help Mom? ) One of the most beautiful and delicate things I've found in nature

My cat friend

Thursday was critique for working class, which went over pretty well. My main critique was that most of my stuff was too clean, too perfect and I needed to let some more stuff just happen, so I'm okay with that critique. For Seminar we took a trip to Sangion, which is about a 25 minute drive from Lacoste. It's located above Apt (where we go to the market every weekend) and has an amazing view over the valley. The first place we went was the Garden of Curiosities, where most of the things were dead, but it was still beautiful. We were only there for about 20 minutes, but we all got to walk around and take pictures. It's always nice to just be out of Lacoste for a little while. We headed back towards the village itself, and everyone went their separate ways. I wandered through the streets that were all covered in leaves that are changing colors. I ended up making friends with a cat who followed me around for a while until I ran into Alex and we walked up to the little castle at the top of the town. The view of the valley and the entire town was breathtaking, and the sunset was starting to look amazing. It was quite cold though, and the second it started to get shady it started to get colder and colder. We drove back to Lacoste, and just as we were hitting Pont Julien the sky looked like it was on fire. Liz pulled the van over so we could take pictures just because it was so amazing. After that it was back to the cafeteria for dinner and then an early night to get ready to go to Aix en Provence.

Sangion's church and town from the castle.

Sunset at Pont Julien (this is really what the sky looked like, I didn't touch the colors at all)

Friday was a full day trip to Aix, where we really had no specific plans or places that we had to go. I met up with Spencer Myers, who went to middle school and high school with me (for those of you who don't know him) because he's studying in Aix until May. It was really nice to have my worlds collide for a hot minute in South France. I was with Marissa, Bridget and Breece, and when we met up with Spencer we went to lunch and then wandered around looking for a few different shops. Marissa got her nose pierced (which looks so good on her!) and I bought a hoop for my own nose, since I haven't had anything in it for more than a year. We wandered in and out of a bunch of shops and I bought a few birthday and Christmas presents for people and when we finally ended up at the art supply store I got some paper and wrapping stuff for both Vernissage and presents. By the time we ended up back at the bus everyone was exhausted as usual. We had the hour bus ride back to Lacoste, dinner and then getting all dressed up for Lauren's birthday! We had bought a few bottles of wine for her birthday, and all sang before she drank her wine. We headed down to Cafe du France (as usual) and got a couple of karafs of wine bought for us. The wine flowed freely all night, and everyone had such a good time.

Today was a lazy day for the most part. A bunch of us didn't go to Apt today because Working Class and Metals and Jewelry are going to the market in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue tomorrow. It's bigger than the Apt market and has more antiques and such. I did a photoshoot again after lunch, a completely different style this time, and then went and hung out in their room. I ended up in Bridget and Becca's room (big shock, I know) and Becks and I watched The Last of the Mohicans while Bridget kind of watched (but more of slept through the whole thing). After the movie, Sunni and I walked down to the vineyards in the valley so that we could take pictures. The lighting was pretty much perfect while we were down there and we took a ton of pictures and then walked all the way back up the hill to our dorm. A definite note; I'm way more in shape than when I got here. All the French food means my figure is still the same (curvy and wonderful :) ) but I'm not panting (as hard) when I walk back up the hills. Which is a good thing. And my calf muscles are amazing if I do say so myself.

So tomorrow is the flea market in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue and I'm hoping to find inspiration for my final for Working Class, as well as take some amazing pictures. Final critique is the week after next so I have to start figuring out printing and what I also want to submit for Vernissage. I have a couple of photos that I think would do really well, as well as my two etchings (if I ever finish them!) and hopefully something from working class. But, those are things to think about tomorrow. For tonight, I'll edit pictures and watch dvds :)

They're the color of blueberries.

Raisins

There are no more grapes.

Vineyards :)

Oh, hey. This is where I live. No big deal.

Finally Time for Words (And More Pictures!!)

October 9-17th

Okay, so I left off with the last day of Paris (October 9th).

The lady that I followed for half a block because I liked her hat

Everybody was 100% exhausted. We got up early ish and had breakfast and then Bridget, Becca, Sunni, Lauren and I decided to head back to Pere Lachaise Cemetary where I had been with Bridget and Alex the first day. We went back to Oscar Wilde's grave and then wandered to go find Jim Morrison's. We were starving by the time we left the cemetary, so we decided to be really classy and go to McDonald's for lunch. Yes, we were fully aware of the fact that we were surrounded by some of the best food in the world, but that burger tasted real nice. A piece of home if you will. From there we went back toward out hotel and Notre Dame, and walked toward the shopping district. We went into H&M (also, I know I can get this in the states, but shopping in Paris... so expensive) and I bought a new dress and a gray cowl (which is a circular scarf) and then we wandered around with Sunni and Lauren who had big shopping plans. By the time we got back to the hotel, we were three hours earlier than we needed to be, but almost everyone was there and so exhausted.

Repetto Shoes

All of our feet hurt so bad, but we decided to kill some time and walk back down to Saint Germain and get some sushi (making up for the McDonalds). After sushi we went back to the hotel and grabbed our luggage and Becca, Bridget and I went with Cedric (who runs the boutique in Lacoste, but was there as the main translator for the gala) and caught the bus to the train station. We were still really early getting there so we lounged in the sun for a while outside and enjoyed the last bit of beautiful weather that week before we headed inside to go find everyone else. When we finally ended up on the train, we were so tired. I spent most of the 3 hour train ride back typing my previous Paris entry, and reading a little bit and listening to a couple of different symphonies. We got back to the train station about 20 minutes later than planned, and then an hour bus ride back to Lacoste, so by the time we finally got to our house (up the hill, with our luggage) it was around 12:30 am.

Sunday was definitely a recovery day. I slept until noon and then started working on sorting out my pictures (I took more than a thousand in Paris). Not much else happened that day, I think that we watched Pushing Daisies all day and worked on our sketchbooks as well.

Monday morning I was back doing work study in Eleanor's office and helping Cedric in the boutique. I made some schedules for Eleanor and did a bunch of stuff for Cedric, and then ended up going up to the frame cave to start organizing for Vernissage. There are so many frames! It was really dusty up there, and a lot of broken glass, but it was nice to stick my headphones in and just do busy work and not have to think for a little bit. That night found us in one of the lounges again watching movies and hanging out. Mom stood me up on a skype date because I was 4 minutes late, but we got to talk a little on the phone since I hadn't really talked to anyone in Paris at all.

Tuesday morning I helped Cedric again to get one of the exhibitions that had been here over the summer into packages and ready to ship before lunch and class. We had a full work session in Working Class Studio, we are working on creating hand printed stationary that would be sold as a higher end thing in either ShopSCAD or through Working Class. I spent a lot of time sorting out my designs and thinking of phrases, but nothing is set in stone yet. Seminar II class was a trip to Oppede le Vieux (the pictures that I posted the other day) which was only about a 20 minute drive away from Lacoste, but then a slight hike up the hill to get to the crumbling castle on the top. The town was really small, but the ruins were beautiful and fun to hike up to with the class. We were there for about an hour and a half and I got some pictures that I'm really happy with. When we got back we went to dinner, and then I called my dad to say Happy Birthday! It was nice to talk to him too, and he got to go out to dinner and get his favorite thing: fish tacos. :) That night there was plenty more work to do, it seems as if there is never an end to it.

Wednesday's travel class took us to Sisteron, which is in the base of the Alps, and about an hour and forty minute drive from Lacoste. It was such a beautiful drive to get there, and we got dropped off at the Citadel at the top of the hill and just slowly wandered down from there. It was a great place to get a bunch of the shots for our lifestyle assignments, and the Tour de France goes through there, so there was a lot of decorations hung up for that. Sunni and I wandered through most of the town and found Gracie and then just wandered through a bunch of little side streets. There were so many cute houses, and it was such beautiful weather (if you were walking, not sitting. It was wayyy too cold to sit). We wandered into a little Indian jewelry shop where the lady who owned it was from Arizona, so we talked to her for a little while. It's always interesting to meet people here, everyone has so many stories, but we keep finding that no one really knows where Lacoste is at all. They know the area, but it's not a big enough town to be really significant. Until we say something about Marquis de Sade and then people know where it is. :) I grabbed some food on our way out of the town (quiche and a chocolate croissant, though no quiche that I've had here can beat Liam's spinach quiche) and my iPod died right as we got in the car. I finished my book on the way back as well (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, recommended for a summer read) and got to just watch the landscape roll by. The lighting was perfect as we were driving by full fields of sheep and rolling hills, but there was definitely no stopping. I think that's one of the things I'm finding hard about being in Lacoste... not having the freedom of mobility. We have to go where we're taken, and anything else depends on our own two feet or a taxi.  That night was of course movies again, and catching up on other work.

Thursday in Working Class we had a meeting with Paula D. who owns Paris Market in Savannah. She gave us a lot of thoughts on professionalism, marketing, starting your own business, how to sell stuff and so on. It was really interesting and helpful to have someone who is working in the market right now and is coping with the economy in a city that we are really familiar with. After she left we had another work session for our stationary. President Wallace came to our Seminar II class when we were having a work session and looked at a few people's work (not mine unfortunately), but I had a meeting with Liz at the end of class and we went over a lot of my new work. She gave me a lot of positive feedback, and it was nice to know that I was finally doing something right. She was even encouraging about my fashion work (which I need to work on, but it's pouring rain outside, so that makes it a little hard). After dinner that night we went down to Cafe du France because Alex, despite being the wonderful and amazing person and student that she is, had gotten in trouble in Paris for being late to check in one morning. Due to a no tolerance policy for absences in Paris, she was getting sent home from the program, and it was her last night in Lacoste. We all were down at the cafe for a while and then headed up to the chateau to carry on our amazing send-off. Thanks to plenty of wine, I don't remember much towards the end, but I'm very thankful for Bridget and Alex and my roommate Christina for taking care of my hot mess of a self.Anyway.

Friday morning we had a field trip for printmaking to go to Les Baux to see Louis Jous' work in a museum there. The town was about an hour away and it was another little hill/castle town. It was so cold and windy though, and none of us were ready for the cold. We took shelter in a few of the little stores around (mainly the candy store), and when we finally got to go into the museum, I think all of us were a little shocked. The museum is kept as Louis Jous' house was, with walls upon walls of his engravings (all of the blocks, not just the prints) and prints from his personal collection. He a bunch of Goya's work as well as many other artists, but the sheer amount of his work, and the amazing condition that it was in just astounded me. It really was beautiful (I'll have pictures of it soon, they're still on my camera). When we were finished at the museum we were able to walk around in the town a little, and we took refuge from the wind in a little restaurant that had a really good crepe menu for pretty cheap. I was with Bridget and Sunni, and we were so excited for our crepes (and coca cola). They came out of the kitchen unlike any other crepe we had seen, and they were absolutely huge. I got smoked salmon, creme, lemon and herbs and both Bridget and Sunni ordered goat cheese, creme, olive and tomatoes. None of us could even finish them because they were so rich and huge! When we got back to Lacoste, most people took naps, but I cleaned my bed and our stairway and got some work finished before dinner and then got to talk to Maddie for more than just a minute. We were back up in the lounge after dinner watching Pushing Daisies, and I got to talk to both of my parents again, my mom for a decent amount of time (she kept telling me to go to bed because it was 11 pm... as if that's late). I eventually went to sleep around one after editing pictures and trying to get things organized.

Yesterday morning we were up early again to go to Apt for the market and of course, the ATM. We all needed to replenish our stock of food from the grocery store, and after that we just wandered in and out of stores looking for Christmas presents and hiding from the cold. I ate the best chocolate croissant that I've had since I got to France, and of course Bridget, queen of the croissants didn't get one, and she was so disappointed. I spent the rest of the day in the studio working on carvings and on etchings, and I'm finally getting to a point where I'm happy with my etching, and I'm motivated to start more. Last night we spent a bunch of time in Helene and Lauren's room just hanging out and talking. We were being lazy for quite a while, and then I decided to attempt to do some more etching work. I came down to the mac lab to print some things out to get everything ready, and then the power went out. There were quite a few people being really immature and loud about multiple things, including the power outage, so I just went back to Helene and Lauren's and crawled in bed with everyone else (and my etching) and we all watched Grey's Anatomy. I went back to my room and edited for a while to get ready for printing, and then crashed in my bed.

This morning I had a print time at 8 am, and everything in Lacoste was so quiet. It was so nice. I had two full hours in the Mac lab with no one else, just my headphones and my pictures, and I printed until I had no more paper. I  walked back to my room and the lighting was absolutely perfect in the valley and above Bonneiux. I grabbed my camera and took a bunch of pictures and then crawled back in bed until almost one. I ran to breakfast and grabbed some bread and then headed up to the jewelry studio for a workshop that I had signed up for. I went with Helene, and we learned how to do enameling from the jewelry girls, and there were quite a few people there. We all made charm bracelets from our enameled stuff, and even though they're not exactly my style, it was fun to learn how to do. Since then, I've been catching up on computer homework and trying to figure out my classes for next quarter. Which seems way too soon. Today has been a bit of a dreary day, the kind where you don't want to leave your bed and you get homesick easily, so the plan for tonight is, you guessed it... movies in the lounge :) This upcoming week holds three critiques (right after midterms, as if those weren't stressful enough) and plenty of work. This is our last critique before finals, which makes time feel as if it's flying by. I can't believe that I've been in France for five weeks. It honestly feels like five minutes, but my body knows otherwise. We do so much here, it's truly exhausting. But next week we get to take a full campus trip to Aix en Provence where I'll get to meet up with someone I went to high school with for lunch, and that will be nice :)

Oh, and a tid bit of information, you can click on any of my pictures to make them bigger than they already are if you want to see more detail! :)

Words to Come Later

Sisteron

Sisteron

Sisteron

Sisteron

Sisteron

Sisteron

... When I have time to breathe, I'll write. But these are the photos from the last two days of class taken in Oppede le Vieux and Sisteron.

Paris, Continued...

October 5-8

Okay, so Tuesday. We went to the cemetery in the morning and then worked our way to the Biblioteque National du France where they have an entire collection of original prints from pretty much every artist you can think of that did printmaking. The lady who was showing us the prints showed us relief prints from the 1500s, Duer engravings from around the same time (which were so wonderfully detailed that even an inch from them they looked unreal) as well as showing us original Goya prints (also engravings). It was such a wonderful thing to see, I wouldn’t have given I up for anything. I find it so interesting to see the things of history here that I’ve only seen in reproduction. After that we went shopping at H&M, Zara and Promede. I had bought new boots before we went to the BNF and the blisters on my feet were quite sizable because I wasn’t wearing socks with them (my socks were soaking wet). I finally got new socks but my feet were definitely ruined for the week. Wednesday was the beginning of the required museum days for anyone taking a history class this quarter, which I’m not,  but since I wanted to see the places anyway as well as the fact that all of my friends would be going, I tagged along. We started at the Louvre which is ohmygoodness amazingly huge. We headed to the painting section first, seeing so many of the classic art pieces that I’ve seen in my textbooks during Survey of Western Art II, but in real life they are so stunning. I know that sounds like an idiotic comment, but the sheer size of the paintings is what astounded me. I have seen some of them on a screen that makes them about 4x6 feet, but it’s nothing compared to the paintings that are the size of the wall. I was with Bridget for most of the time at the Louvre, and we met up with some other people for lunch after we had been there for a few hours. It was so overwhelming to be there with all of the people. So many people don’t even look at the art, they just take a picture of it and move on to the next one, or run up to it and have someone take a picture of them standing next to the piece. It was really frustrating, especially because I know so much about art, and I feel like none of it was even being appreciated at all. But anyway. So we went to lunch and got ripped off on water (we asked for glasses and the snooty French waiter brought us Evian bottles) which left us all a tad bit bitter at the French. My friends had to be at the next museum at 2:30, so we headed over to the d’Orsay Museum to move ahead in time a little bit. Every museum we attended was in chronological order, which was a really good way to view it (highly recommended to anyone wanting to do the museums in Paris. It shows how art changes through the jump of centuries). At the d’Orsay they had an entire section of Picasso paintings that I loved, though not really any of the typical ones that (normal non art history taking) people would know. I fell in love with one that is a café during the day; the paint was so thick and textured that it seemed so much more sculptural than like a painting. There were some Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings, but they aren’t necessarily things that I loved. I was so exhausted by the time I was seeing all of those things though that I probably am not giving them the credit they deserve. I decided to rest my feet with Eleanor (the student director) and in the midst of our rest she got a phone call to say that the president of our school was going to be joining us soon. She grabbed my arm and we headed down to meet the one and only Paula Wallace. She’s very nice in person, though she has no reason to not be to the students. I know that she gets almost a hundred thousand dollars from just me while I’m attending SCAD, and a lot of people resent her for how much money she takes from us, but she did truly seem interested in the things that I was talking about, and we joined a few other people for tea, and she loved listening to them as well. I do admire the way that she knows how to run a business, she has built an empire of an art school and no matter what people say about her, SCAD is internationally recognized and admired. Anyway. So that was a bit of a frazzled moment for Eleanor, but it was nice to be the student she chose to help her. After the d’Orsay we went out to dinner and then out to a British pub that was having Ladies Night (yay cheap drinks!). We ended up home around one in the morning and planned for an early morning the next day (as usual).

    Thursday morning I went with two of my suitemates from Lacoste to the Luxembourg Gardens (which were only a few minute walk from our hotel) and we photographed there for about 45 minutes before we had to head back to the hotel to meet up with the history classes. The first museum of the day was the Pompedieu Center, which houses some of the more well known art of the 20th century. There was a feminist exhibit going on as well, which was interesting, but as I’m not a feminist it didn’t interest me as much. Even by the time I was getting to the Matisse sculptures, I was so burnt out on art. It’s so overwhelming to see so much, and again things that I’ve only seen in textbooks. I left a little bit early with Becca, and we walked back toward our hotel, stopping in at Notre Dame on the way. The cathedral was truly amazing, though so full of people just taking pictures and not actually taking in the beauty of where they were. I took a few pictures of course, but nothing does it justice. We were hoping to go up to the top of the towers, but the line was so long and Becca had to be at the Musee de Art Modern at 3, so we decided we would try later. I went and found Charbonelle, the French ink store for printmaking. I bought two inks (cobalt blue and black), and wanted to buy everything in the entire store. The inks smell wonderful (which is an odd comment, but if you smell like ink as much as I do, it makes a difference) and every color they make is so beautiful. I met Becca back at the hotel and we took the metro to end up at the Modern Art Museum, but we managed to get a little lost along the way and got there a little bit later than intended. When we were at the Louvre the day before I had missed an exhibit of engravings that I really wanted to go back and see, so I left everyone there and took the metro to the Louvre. It was such a different experience the second time around, especially because I was in a section that wasn’t as popular or on the main path of the monumental paintings. The exhibit was by Watteau, and every engraving I saw was so beautiful. The details in each one were amazing, they must have taken so much time, and there were more than thirty of them. Most weren’t printed by him, but printed by a master printer after he died with the original plates and some minor modifications. I was there for about 2 hours, and I wandered through the gift store, but everything was so overpriced and crowded. There is a small mall (with an Apple store) connected to the Louvre now, and I was in there for a little bit, but I wanted to meet my friends back at the hotel for dinner. I went to dinner with Becca, Sunni, Lauren and Cedric (he runs the boutique in Lacoste, but was in Paris for the SCAD Fundraiser Gala that was on Friday night. He was the main translator) and we went out to sushi by our hotel ( I know…. Paris. And I ate sushi, Chinese and even McDonalds… but remember how secluded Lacoste is). We decided to go to see the Arch de Triumph and then walk back to the Eiffel Tower. We weren't able to go up to the top of either because we got there after 10:00, but just seeing the sheer size of them was amazing, and they were so beautiful at night. The Eiffel Tower glitters at 10 and 11:00, and we got there right at 11. It was so cool to see, and even though it was so touristy to go, it's such a different thing in person. It really is awe inspiring.  I went to bed as soon as we got back to prepare for Friday; a meeting with an art consultant and volunteering at the gala!
    Friday morning came all to early, and I went out photographing by myself before I had to meet up with my photo class for the art consultant. For our class, each person was assigned a specific section of Paris (I got the 6th arrondismont (section) which is where Saint Germaine is located, as well as the Luxembourg Gardens)  and we have to take photographs that show the life of that section, not just the touristy section. I went back to the hotel to make myself look nice to meet Melissa Unger, and walked with Liz and the rest of our class to a gallery where she was giving us a lecture. She didn’t really lecture on anything specific, more just talk about her experiences and how she came to be the person she is through art, and how the contemporary art market is. Even though it wasn’t right up my alley, it was still interesting, especially learning about the market. A lot of the things that she deals with is more based in fine art, and though my photographs are a little bit fine art, they certainly cross the line into commercial far easier. She took us around to a few galleries after her lecture, the most important, largest and most controversial in Paris (definitely interesting). A few of us had to leave early to get to the gala, so we didn’t’ get to go to the last two galleries. We were all starving so we rode the metro over to the George V Four Seasons Hotel(where the gala was being held) (by the Arch de Triumph) and grabbed lovely French fast food. We had no idea how long it would be until we would eat, so it was definitely a good idea. I’m pretty sure that all of our food was gone in less than five minutes. We got to the hotel a little bit earlier than the rest of the group of volunteers and got to look at some of the items up for the silent auction. When Eleanor finally got there with the rest of the volunteers (there were about 15 of us) we were led into a back room that had 6 tables set almost exactly like they were in the dining hall. Since we volunteered we got to have our own five star dinner before everyone else in this beautiful room. Everyone was so thrilled. The food was amazing! We started with and wine and bread, of course,  and then moved to asparagus risotto (the most delicious ever), then the main course was a delicious fish with leeks, and then a raspberry torte type thing for desert with a sorbet next to it, as well as a plate full of chocolates and truffles. After dinner we started on our tasks for the gala. I was helping promote the work for the silent auction, and I got to just stand and talk about the work in the section that I was given. I had mostly photographs and printmaking (convenient because I know the most about those), but it was really interesting to just people watch, see the fashion and talk to a lot of the people that were there. After the auction was over, all the guests went in to dinner, and we packaged everything as well as wrote up tickets for the attendees. Eleanor let us leave around ten o’clock, so we all rode the metro back to the hotel. Everyone else decided to go out, but I fell asleep so fast. My body really needed it (definitely getting a cold) and most of my friends didn’t actually get home until five or six am, so I was really happy that I didn’t go out.

Paris!

My feet hurt.
That is the most constant thought I've had so far, and it's only halfway finished. But in other news, Paris is amazing. The first night that we got here we walked to the hotel from the train station (about a half hour walk) and had to get all of our hotel stuff sorted out. We went and grabbed some dinner out in Saint Germaine and then walked around. I went with Alex, Hannah and Gracie and we walked around our section of the Latin Quarter where our hotel is and then walked over to Notre Dame to see it all lit up at night. We were all exhausted from the train so we had an early night to get ready for our early day on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning I went with Alex and Bridget early to one of the famous cemeteries here in Paris. We wandered around for almost 2 hours taking pictures and looking for a map so we could find Oscar Wilde's grave, (which we all kissed, as is tradition) and we had already managed to walk by it. My shoes were soaking wet at this point, and we took the metro across town towards the BNF(Biblioteque National du France) where we had to be at 2:00 (we had an appointment to see some of the first prints that they had in their collections from the 1500's). We went shopping at Zara, which is really popular here, and I bought new boots and threw my other ones away. We walked over to the BNF and had our appointment, which was amazing. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, but I was seeing Goya and Duer prints inches away from me. The experience was amazing. After, we went shopping (more of window shopping for me, because I can buy clothes in the US) and I took plenty of pictures, though not enough.

And for now, that's all because I'm off to another museum! (This is my 4th in 2 days, including the Louvre, which I'm going back to tonight!) Pictures to be posted soon!

More of my Fabulous French Life (and Bridget's)

September 28- October 1st
Okay, Okay. I'm back. I know I took a hiatus for a few days, but it's been really busy.

Okay. Let's see. I posted on Monday, and it's Friday, so this week:
Tuesday: critique for fashion: she doesn't like them
Wednesday: critique for travel: she likes some, thinks they need more post production and work.
Thursday: Goat farm and then critique for Working Class: She like it, a few minor things should change.
Thursday and Today: Fountaine de Vaulcluse again and lots of pictures.

The Source at Vaucluse

The water wheel at Vaucluse

Grapes! So fresh on the vine!

The Luberon Valley

Vaucluse

Dylan the "Goat Whisperer"

So let's start with Thursday. Jen saw a goat farm our first week here and really wanted to take her printmaking classes to go sketch goats if we had time and could get in. She managed to find a goat farm to let us come visit, and on Thursday she took one of her Intro to Print classes, and anyone who wanted to tag along from Working Class could (which was only me and Bridget. Abby was there too, but she's in both classes). On the way there, Jen got super lost, and we drove around in a big, bumpy circle for about 30 minutes until we took another random road (this is like 30 minutes away from Lacoste in the first place) and found a man on a quad who came and asked us in french if we were looking for the goats (which of course we were, and laughing really hard about it) and he led us to the farm. We hung out there for about an hour and played with the baby goats, sketched and at the end bought goat cheese (the best I've EVER had!!!) and headed back to Lacoste.

On Friday (today) we had another printmaking field trip to Fountaine de Vaulcluse (where I've been before) but this time to see the paper making factory and one of the history museums. The factory was cool, but since they weren't doing a demo of paper making, it was all just kind of laid out for us to see, but the big water wheel was being used to make pulp for paper, which was really cool to see. The history museum was about the French Resistance, but everything was written in French, so obviously I didn't understand it. After the museum, Bridget and I hiked up to "The Source" (since it's a river that springs from pretty much nowhere, and is so so soooo clear) and checked out the actual cave where the water flows from. It was beautiful, so clear and so blue, but we know the water was absolutely freezing. Since we had been there before, we relaxed for a little bit and hung out on a bench and just talked and drank soda, and when we met up with Sunni and Helene we wandered back through town to take pictures of specific places I wanted to see. When we got back from Lacoste, (most of this happened a while ago, I just didn't mention it) we were waiting on Gwen, who used to be the director of Lacoste, to come pick us up because we are house sitting for her this weekend and watching her dog and cat. She took us to pick up a car, and I had to follow her (driving stick! Dad and Eddy, be proud you taught me well!!!! I only stalled once in about 30 minutes!) back to her house and then she showed us everything we needed. Since we had a car, I went and took some pictures that I needed for class around the valley and we got back just in time for coffee. Cat cut my bangs (woohoo!) and then it was a movie while editing pictures and then dinner. And of course down to the cafe after that :) And then to bed (which is where I am currently). I talked to my mom, aunt Evon and aunty Ginny over skype, and I'm about to crash! It's been such a long week, and today has felt never ending. So, that's all for now. We leave for Paris on Monday, and I might not have internet at all, or only a little bit until next Saturday night. But who cares! I'll be in Paris! I'm almost to the point of counting hours I'm so excited!