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! :)