Monday, January 24, 2011

Sunday afternoon

The lovely Tiffany stained glass windows in the American Church in ParisWalking (part of the way) home from churchMany of the French surrealists and symbolist poets whom I got acquainted with this semester (Aragon, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Appollinaire) used to frequent the terrasse of this famous cafe.My companions waiting for me at home. I'm going to miss these two.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Alésia

This is the neighborhood where I'm currently living and cat-sitting.It's definitely a step up from my last neighborhood in terms of atmosphere.I'll be moving again to a new neighborhood on the opposite side of the city next week.And in other news, I took my final oral exam yesterday and so my course at the Sorbonne is officially over. I'm taking a trip to Germany next week to visit an old friend from graduate school. When I get back, I'll have to sort out the details of what I'll be doing with myself all spring.The elevator here was out of service a couple days ago. I only ended up making one trip climbing the 9 floors to the apartment before a neighbor told me how to take the elevator on the opposite side of the building to the 10th floor, climb one flight to the roof, and cross over to the other stairwell where I walk down two floors to my apartment. The fortuitous part of this is that I got to discover the view from the roof.You can actually see the tour eiffel from my bedroom window, too, but the view from the roof is even better.One of my charges making himself comfortable on top of my laundry.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Back in Paris

A month or so ago a friend told me about a little neighborhood called the Cité Florale near Cité Universitaire in the 14th, which is not too far from where I live. So today, when I forced myself to venture out for a walk (still feeling extremely groggy and jet-lagged) I took the tram over there and wandered around until I managed to find it. It was tiny but adorable, as she had said.You can still see the tops of the ugly buildings in the surrounding area peeking above these little cottages.But this little cluster of homes itself is so sweet.It doesn't feel like Paris at all.On the trip over there, I was happy to spot some posters on the tramway displaying poetry. Since I just discovered Jacques Prévert this fall and am now a big fan, I snapped a picture of this one of his.