Loyola U. Maryland in Paris

Last picnic and goodbyes...

2011-06-27T07:04:00.004-04:00

The students left for home yesterday!

Our time together passed so fast. Both Dr. King and I are so grateful these exceptional Loyola students chose to spend part of their summer with us.

Here are photos from our last picnic (on Saturday, June 25) at the Eiffel Tower.

Gardens, Art and Luncheon on the Grass in Giverny

2011-06-23T16:58:00.006-04:00

More showers today, but most of the time, just cool and breezy!

Like last year, instead of booking a "canned" tour, we went to Giverny like a lot of French people do--we took a regional train from the St. Lazare station to the little town of Vernon (across the Seine river from Giverny) and then transferred to a bus for a short ride to the village of Giverny.

We had a fantastic picnic today in Giverny--fresh French bread, cheese, sliced turkey and chicken, with all the fixings! The students had requested hummus, chips, apples and chocolate, too. We brought lots of food with us and had enough leftovers for a substantial snack on the train back to Paris this afternoon.

Our group reservation at Monet's house was at 1 p.m. The students explored the two gardens (both the "clos normand" and the Japanese water garden) and the house on their own and had free time until we met up again at the bus stop a bit after 4. After the train ride home, the students had a free evening; all day tomorrow is free as well!

I wonder what they'll do with their free day--can't wait to find out on Saturday....our last day in Paris before the students return home!

Philosophical conversations

2011-06-22T16:16:00.008-04:00

A very inauspicious start to our day--it was raining cats and dogs this morning! Because last night was the annual Fête de la Musique (Music Festival), we let the students sleep in a bit this morning, so by the time we got to the Montparnasse Cemetery, the sky was actually blue!

Highlights of today's activities include:

visits to the tombs of Alfred Dreyfus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in the Cimetière Montparnasse

an intellectual discussion at the café "Les Deux Magots" (a famous existentialist hangout in the Faubourg Saint-Germain)

a presentation by grad students on a book by sociologist, writer and politician Azouz Begag

a delicious dinner in a North African restaurant, the Café Bistrot Toucan.

On Versailles and very patient students!

2011-06-21T17:48:00.006-04:00

Today was to be a "light" day....but Versailles turned out to be a little more complicated than anticipated!

For one thing, the weather continued to be not optimal--grey with intermittent light showers. At the château itself, there was only one line to get in. Normally, there is at least two--one for groups and one for individuals. The good news is that we had our museum passes so we didn't have to stand in the ticket line, just in the line to get in. The bad news is that we stood in line for an hour and a half. Despite all this, our students were patient and good-humored (thanks, guys!).

I love Versailles (usually!)--my area of specialization spans the 17th and 18th centuries of French literature and culture, and, as you can imagine, there is lots to see at Versailles that is relevant to the period from 1660 to the French revolution. I'm including in today's blog some neat paintings and sculptures displayed at Versailles that I particularly like. The first sculpture is a bust of Louis XIV during his very handsome youth. Then, I've included a painting of Louis XIV from later in life (note that even though he's no longer young, he positions himself in such a way that you can see his shapely legs--he was very proud of his legs and danced when he was a young man). The second sculpture is a bust of Marie Antoinette.

Tomorrow: the Montparnasse cemetary and a philosophical discussion at "Les Deux Magots"!

"Iffy" Weather and Program Modifications

2011-06-20T14:56:00.011-04:00

Since the arrival of the students last Thursday, the weather here has been partly to mostly cloudy with showers. This morning, it was really raining! We had planned mostly an outdoor day, but modified the agenda to include mostly indoor activities.

We started the day at the Pantheon, the monument and tomb to the great heroes of France--the great 18th-century philosophes Voltaire and Rousseau (whose tombs are located there) are obvious examples. The Pantheon also houses the tombs of Marie and Pierre Curie (great scientists) and writers (Emile Zola, who we have studied in the course, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas), Jean Moulin (a hero of the French Resistance), and important politicians (such as JeanJaurès and Jean Monnet). I'm including, at right, a photo of Jean Moulin, which is part of the exhibit on the Resistance at the Musée de l'Armée (a museum that we visited yesterday). Moulin was quite a dashing figure (very handsome) and the story of his heroic refusal to break under torture by the Nazis is legendary.

Some of these names are more known to Americans than others; I think our students will have a lasting memory of Emile Zola, since we have "run into him" at the Orsay, in the Montmartre cemetary and now again at the Pantheon!

Afterwards, we spent about 45 minutes at the Orangerie viewing the huge canvasses of Monet's Les Nymphéas--beautiful impressionist paintings of Monet's Japanese garden at Giverny (we'll see it in person in a couple of days).

Lunch today was quick street food--many of us had falafel pitas at L'As du Falafel (the best falafel in the world), whose bustling take-out window is located on the Rue des Rosiers in the Jewish quarter. Delicious.

Finally, we visited the Musée Nationale d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme (the National Museum of Jewish Art and History) which houses a wonderful collection of European Jewish cultural and religious artifacts.

Dinner was Chinese food at a restaurant that Dr. King and I particularly like, Fong Lai, just around the corner from our hotel on the Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud--we highly recommend!

In sum, another fun and intellectually stimulating day with great examples of the wonderful international foods available in Paris!

House Museums

2011-06-20T14:31:00.006-04:00

I have always been a great lover of house museums. I have visited the homes of 10 or 15 U.S. presidents . I loved seeing James Buchanan's stately mansion (he was the 15th president of the United States, for those of you who were wondering), Eisenhower's perfectly typical suburban-like home in Gettysburg and Teddy Roosevelt's place in Oyster Bay, which is adorned--if that is the right word--with the heads of dead animals. Visiting house museums I learned that Mark Twain was neighbors with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in basically a one-room cabin. I think walking through a person's house connects you to historical characters in unique ways. You can imagine Twain chatting with Stowe in the back yard.

But there are house museums with the emphasis on the house and then there are house museums with the emphasis on the museum. In Paris, it is mainly the former. This trip Dr. Nell and I visited Alexander Dumas' house (he wrote The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo) and the students visited the Rodin Museum in the Hotel Biron, which Rodin used as a workshop starting in 1908. In Dumas' case, the house generally holds artifacts about his life but none of the furnishings or decoration from the time he occupied the house. (There is a writing table in the mock-castle based on The Count of Monte Cristo that he used as his space to write)

Rodin's sculptures (and some paintings) are on display at the Rodin Museum including the ones everybody knows like The Kiss, The Gates of Hell (my favorite) and The Thinker. For some reason, when I saw The Thinker this time, all I could think about was the early 1960s sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis in which The Thinker was a touchstone statue on his college campus. The best character in that show, of course, was Maynard G. Krebs, a beatnik cum airhead.

Don't misunderstand me. I learned a lot at both houses. Dumas was half-black. Rodin was educated by the Christian Brother and Rainier Maria Rilke served as his secretary. And Rodin suffered some serious set back in his career. He was refused admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Art and when he was commissioned to create a monument for Victor Hugo to be displayed at the Pantheon, the work was rejected by the Society for the People of Letters for lacking clarity and being vague. And he suffered some harsh criticism. One critic opined that his statute of the author Balzac pioneered a new way to portray the human body, a way in which a person's brains are outside the head. (The Society of the People of Letters apparently was a glutton for punishment. It had commissioned this statute as well. In the case of the Balzac piece, Monet, Cezanne and Toulouse-Lautrec sprung to Rodin's defense. Finally, Rodin worked on The Gates of Hell for nearly 40 years.

Later in the week we will visit the "mother" of house museums, the palace at Versailles, and Claude Monet's home. Despite its opulence, I find it hard to imagine myself into the palace. At Monet's house (which also displays his work but still has some of his original furniture), I can feel him as a living breathing person. For me, that is what a house museum should do.

Napoleon, Military History and Rodin

2011-06-19T16:37:00.005-04:00

We had another full day today! We scheduled a little later start (we left the hotel after10 a.m.) and got to Napoleon's tomb just before 11.

After a few introductory remarks, we spent about half an hour in Napoleon's tomb. We asked the students to look in particular at the way Napoleon is depicted (a question we had also asked at the Louvre). We then went just next door and visited the sections in the Musée de l'Armée (the Army Museum) that are devoted to the periods of the Franco-Prussian War, World Wars I and II.

After lunch, we all went to the Rodin Museum, which is very near Napoleon's Tomb and the Army Museum. The Rodin Museum is one of my favorite spots in Paris--not only are Rodin's masterpieces displayed beautifully in the gardens, but also there are lovely views of the baroque Dome Church where Napoleon's tomb is located as well as the Eiffel Tower.

Musée d'Orsay and Arc de Triomphe

2011-06-18T16:34:00.007-04:00

A few showers aside, the weather is cool and pleasant. Today we all went to the Musée d'Orsay--an annual highlight of the course. Impressionist art and the culture of the late nineteenth century are featured in the first unit of the course; we are in particular interested in how art criticism shaped the artistic currents. We asked the students to view and study several art works that we had previously studied in our readings. Sadly, two of them, Manet's "Olympia" and the "Déjeuner sur l'herbe" have been removed from the collection and placed in a special exhibit on Manet's relationship to the modern. We didn't get the tickets to the special exhibition, so we didn't get to see these paintings!

We ask our graduate students to prepare and deliver a short presentation to the undergrads on a couple of extra books (books that the undergrads don't read). Today we had the first of these presentations--on Emile Zola's novel The Masterpiece. This novel's hero is based on the impressionist painter, Cézanne. Maureen McCann and Shannon Harkins did a great job in presenting the novel to the undergrads!

We also went to the Champs-Elysées and climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, which presented many photo ops (and I'm including a sample in today's blog).

Finally, we had a great Italian dinner at a little restaurant around the corner from our hotel.

Tomorrow--Napoleon's tomb, the Museum of the Army and the Rodin Museum!

Unmanageable Museums

2011-06-18T15:52:00.010-04:00

Dr. Nell and I will blog separately this year. Dr. Nell is going to be responsible for sending what I call "post cards from home." I will try to reflect a little bit and give some additional insight on each site we see, it part to give students in my Travel Reporting classes models of different kinds of travel reporting. So bear with me, and if all you want to do is see what we are doing, look for Dr. Nell's posts.

So here goes . When we promote this class during the school year, we promise the students that they will see all the A sites of Paris as well as many sites off the beaten track (like the Martyrium, where the founding Jesuits first promise to work with each other after they were all ordained, and which connects our students to nearly 500 years of Jesuit education). So we visit the Notre Dame on the day the students arrive. The second day we go to the Louvre and the the third day (today) we head to the Musee d' Orsay, the museum with works of the Impressionists (one of the foci of the course) and modern French art.

The Louvre is basically impossible to negotiate. Even with an audio guide it is very difficult to find your away around. To compensate, we give the students certain specific works to look for, some related to the class and some because they are the "it" pieces in the Louvre--The Mona Lisa, The Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo. Of all the thousands of pieces of art in the Louvre, those are the three that everybody must see. That is reductionism in the extreme.

For those of you who have not been there, the three large buildings joined in a U shape that make up the Louvre are cut up into hundreds of little rooms, each generally with a specific collection Technically you can move from wing to wing but it isn't easy. Wondering around, you can go directly from a collection of artifacts from Mesopotamia to 18th century French Sculpture. Nineteenth century French paintings are not next to 18th century French paintings and even when I look at a map and am not sure how to get from one section to the other. I once took a audio tour and still got lost. Often it is just easier to exit from one wing, cross the central lobby--which is heated up by being directly under the I.M Pei pyramid--and entering another lobby.

So it seems to me that you basically have two choices, wander around in this huge jumble of art and artifacts or build a sense of purpose that enables you to look at specific works and ignore others. You have to reduce the Louvre into something manageable. But even then, you are bound to get lost.

The Orsay is smaller than the Louvre and completely different in its architectural look. But it too is divided into small rooms. But while I find a visit to the Louvre wearying, I find the Orsay deeply affecting, and it is not just because of the works themselves,though that plays a role in it. The Louvre, for me, is a "must do" site. While the same sense of obligation exists for the Orsay (it is an A site afterall) the payoff seems more meaningful.

As for the students, the visits to both museums wears them out. But as they follow the direction given to them, they understand that they have taken steps forward.

Welcome 2011 Paris Students!

2011-06-17T16:51:00.004-04:00

We've all arrived in Paris, France, for the Paris Study Course: Communication and Culture in Contemporary and Modern France! Students arrived yesterday and, despite just a few glitches, we picked up the students at the airport (two students had already arrived, so they met us at the hotel). After a pretty grueling day of travel and arrival, everyone got a good night sleep and we started bright and early today.

Highlights of our activities included: three hours in the Louvre, contemplating works that are important to the subject matter in the course (by artists such as Delacroix, David and Gros). Oh, and we saw the Mona Lisa, too! We went up to the Montmartre and visited Emile Zola's first tomb (hint: he has a second tomb that we will visit later) and the Martyrium, the chapel where St. Ignatius of Loyola and his first companions made their first vows. We also spent a few minutes in Sacré Coeur and toured the wonderful Montmartre district. Finally, we had dinner at a restaurant in Montmartre. Tomorrow, the Musée d'Orsay and more paintings that we are studying in our course!

Last Day in Paris! Jim Morrison, picnic, banquet and river cruise

2010-06-28T03:02:00.009-04:00

What a great last day! A few of us started early with a visit to the Père Lachaise cemetary. Carson and Andrew wanted to pay hommage to Jim Morrison, who died in Paris in the early 70s.

Later, the group met at the hotel and we picnicked at the Eiffel Tower.

Our banquet was great this year--a French restaurant in the Marais.

Our tradition is to end the course with a cruise down the Seine at sunset.

We just put our first group of students on the shuttle to the aiport--it's been a great experience for all!

Picnic at the Eiffel Tower

2010-06-27T05:43:00.002-04:00

It is hard to believe that we are at the last day of the trip and we leave tomorrow. Today, we will picnic at the Eiffel Tower. Then the students will then have time to pack (or, if they have packed, time to pick up some last minute souvenirs. ) We finish with a closing banquet and a boat ride down the Seine.

Yesterday was a free day. There was a lot of good shopping and some of the folks went to some special places their parents' had recommended to them. Everybody was able to make their way around Paris and return to the hotel on time.

Dr. Nell has the camera so I assume she will post some pictures later. We will probably post on or two more times before we leave.

Free day in Paris!

2010-06-26T17:01:00.004-04:00

Today Dr. Amy Wells, who gave a lecture to our students yesterday on the burka controversy, and I went to the Centre Pompidou (the French national contemporary art museum).

What a great choice for the free day! There was a great exhibit of the work of women artists from the permanent collection of this museum. Here's the website: http://www.ina.fr/fresques/elles-centrepompidou/Html/PrincipaleAccueil.php .

I'm posting here a work by the Guerilla Girls which is part of the exhibit.

Also, we saw a special exhibit by Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, and a very interesting exhibit on "Dreamlands"--from the beginnings of theme parks to imaginary cities.

Tomorrow is our closing banquet and scenic cruise on the Seine!

Footloose and Fancy Free in Paris

2010-06-26T02:59:00.002-04:00

Dr. Nell gave a great summary of yesterday and the pictures say it all. One of the promises we make to this class going in is that Paris itself is the classroom and you can see that it is the case from the pictures. The talks are so much more real when they are delivered in situ, so to speak.

The other promise we make is that by the end of the stay, the students will be the masters of Paris and today is the day they get to demonstrate that. Since a nationwide sale started earlier in the week, I know that some folks have been plotting their shopping excursions for days now. I am heading for a trendy new district called South Pigalle (SoPi) to see what I can find.

It is hard to believe that we are getting towards the end of our stay. Tomorrow we will picnic at the Eiffel Tower and then have a closing banquet followed by a boat ride along the Seine.

Ethnicity: the Jewish quarter and museum, lecture on the burka law and North African dinner

2010-06-25T15:37:00.008-04:00

It's been another very full day. We had a free morning, so students slept in or went with Dr. King to visit the Arc de Triomphe. At noon, some of the students met me at the hotel and we went to the Marais district for "the best falafel in the world"--where we ran into Dr. King. After lunch, we went to the Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme (Museum of Jewish Art and History) where we learned about Jewish life and traditions in Europe.

Before dinner, we met for a lecture in the park by Dr. Amy Wells of the University of Limoges.
Dr. Wells talked about the current controversy in France concerning wearing the burka. Currently the French government is considering outlawing the burka.

After the lecture, we headed to "Toucan Café" where we had a delicous North African dinner--couscous!

We ended our dinner with mint tea. Tomorrow is the "free day"--what will our students decide to do???

Our fantastic day at Giverny!

2010-06-25T05:04:00.006-04:00

The stars aligned, the gods smiled and our day in Giverny worked out really well! Problem: there was a strike yesterday. The French government has decided to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and the unions called a strike. It didn't shut down everything, but did slow things down. Our train was delayed for 30 minutes on the way to Giverny and about 40 minutes on the way back. We had no problems getting tickets for the group from the bus driver (I was worried about this), but he did look at me a bit funny when I asked for a large number! We had ordered picnic boxed lunches from a restaurant in Giverny and were able to have our own version of "Luncheon on the Grass" (a famous painting by Manet).

We were able to stay on schedule with our group reservation at Monet's house and had a wonderful time wandering the gardens and touring the house.

It was great this year to have extra time in the village. We all walked to Monet's tomb and I had some delicious sorbet at a restaurant where Monet and the other impressionist artists hung out. I also had an impromptu conversation with an elderly French man and his wife about the weather, the American revolution and Lafayette!
(Sharon Nell)

2010-06-25T03:51:00.002-04:00

The wireless in the hotel is down so I am on a French keyboard which is a pain. Yesterday was a great day in Giverny, which is my favorite part of the trip. The weather was perfect; the sun was perfect to appreciate the full splendor of the pond. We have lots of great pictures; which we will have to figure out how to post.

Today is immigration day (I cant find the quotation marks) and we will have a guest lecture by Dr. Amy Wells of the University of Limoges. Hope to have the Internet issues resolved soon.

Rambling Around Paris

2010-06-23T17:09:00.006-04:00

The weather in Paris has gone from cold to hot. For most of the day, it was just perfect. But from time to time, it was just too hot. It should be hot and sunny for the rest of our visit (at least that is the forecast.) Hot and sunny is better than cold and rainy.

Today was a great example of the way the trip works. In the morning, the students visited the Musee d’ l’Orangerie, which has a huge collection of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies. Tomorrow we travel to Giverny to see the pond on which the water lily paintings are based. At least we hope that is what we will be able to do. Real life has intruded on the trip as there will be a general strike in Paris protesting raising the retirement age in France to 62 (from 60), one of the actions taken by the current government in response to the European debt crisis. Railroad officials assured us there would only be minor delays on the trains, so we hope the trip to and from Giverny will be uneventful.

The rest of the day consisted of going to Napoleon’s Tomb and the Museum of the Army. The students then went on their own to the Rodin Museum and the Pantheon. We had Italian food for dinner.

Everybody is getting along well and I just heard that Shioban Prior, who graduated a couple of years ago and is now playing women’s basketball professionally, may visit with us on Friday, which will be fun.

Oh, and one more thought. Being in Europe, we are following the World Cup soccer tournament pretty closely. It has been a disaster for France—one newspaper’s headline called it “the end of the world”—but USA won a thriller today.

If you squint real hard you can see Dr. King talking to the students on the steps of Napoleon's tomb. For this course, Paris is definitely our classroom.

2010-06-22T14:51:00.002-04:00

Today we visited Versailles. Obviously this is on the “A” list when it comes to visiting Paris. But for our students, it is also another important step in mastering their way around Paris. While Dr. Nell and I accompanied the students to Versailles, they made their own way back to Paris. One group of students stopped at the Eiffel Tower and others made other stops on their way back. The students are becoming increasingly confident in their ability to negotiate the mass transit system here.

Until now, the weather has been very cold and overcast (but fortunately no rain). Today, there was a glorious blue sky and warm weather. We are looking forward to good weather for the rest of our stay.

I forgot the mention that last night we ate in a Spain Tapas restaurant. Tomorrow night we will eat at an Italian restaurant. The final two dinner stops will be North African and then back to France for our final banquet. We learned today that the crepe place by the hotel is run by people from Sri Lanka and I found out that we have a lot in common—none of us can speak French. (Some of our students speak French quite well and the others are doing their best to pick it up.)

Tomorrow is another big museum day. The difference is that after the first stop—a museum that has a huge collection of Monet’s Water Lily paintings (we travel to the pond on which they were based the day after tomorrow)—the rest of the day the students will make their way around town on their own.

It is hard to believe the trip is at the halfway point, but it clearly is. Some of the students have begun to plot their shopping excursion for the free day on Saturday.

Coffee with the Existentialists

2010-06-22T04:32:00.005-04:00

Okay, Dr. Nell and I are both posting independently now because we are having so much fun.

The trip is now in full swing. Yesterday was a great day. We visited the Montparnasse Cemetery to visit the graves of Alfred Dreyfus, Jean Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir. Each of those figures played central roles in the readings of the course and it was amazing to actually visit the graves. One of the objectives of the course is to make the readings real and the visit to Montparnasse does just that.

In the cemetery, we also discussed the Franco Prussian war and the Paris Commune. Once again, the material comes alive when you are actually standing in front of a monument memorializing those events. One of the student’s parents joined us at the cemetery. One of the fun parts of the trip is when students’ friends and family are able to join us for a day. Last year, the brother of one of the student’s showed up. It is incredible to be drinking coffee with your parents in Paris.

After the visit to the cemetery, we went to the Café de Flore, where the existentialists liked to hang out. We divided the class into groups, who bought coffee and discussed the idea of change in society and the class of conflicting social forces. Later in the day, the students wrote their first reflection papers, comparing the competing social forces in France in the age of Dreyfus to competing social forces in other time periods.

At night, we got to participate in the Music Festival. On June 21, the longest day of the year, there is a city-wide music festival. Basically there are people playing music on every street corner and there must be a million people in the street. It is quite an event. The students fanned out across the city to partake in the fun.

Now, on a personal note, what’s up with the bathrooms in French hotels? Okay European hotel rooms are small. I get that. And I don’t even mind hand-held showers. But they can’t add six inches to the shower stall and six inches between the edge of the toilet and the wall. I mean, come on. Otherwise, the hotel we are at, the Alhambra, is very decent. The rooms are a decent size (which means there is actually floor space in most rooms after people bring in their luggage) and the public areas are very nice. The breakfast if pretty standard and some of the students have taken to eating breakfast at the cafe on the corner. They look very French sitting at their sidewalk tables.

Philosophy at the Café de Flore

2010-06-22T04:07:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, we visited the Cimetière Montparnasse and visited the tombs of two iconic figures of our course: Alfred Dreyfus and Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are buried together although they never married. After visiting the cemetery, we had coffee at the Café de Flore, an existentialist hangout. In the 1930s and 40s, Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus and other writers would hang out upstairs in the café, discuss and write. This is one of the highlights of the trips: we put our students into groups and they had a philosophical discussion just like these great philosophers.

Last night was the annual music festival. It was amazing as usual! We go to Versailles today.

I Heart Paris

2010-06-21T04:15:00.005-04:00

The first two days of the trip have action packed. The first day we spent three plus hours at the Louvre (we will have to post pictures later). In addition to being incredible, the Louvre is one of the most frustrating museums I have every encountered. Everybody gets and audio guide and I tried to follow one of the tours. It was basically impossible. Still, everybody seemed to be able to find the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Nike Swoosh—I mean Winged Victory.

After lunch, we went to the Museum de Cluny. When we first told the students we were going there, a couple could not believe that George Clooney had his own museum in Paris. It is actually the museum of the middle ages. Most people found it interesting anyway. After that, people made their own way back to the hotel and we enjoyed a great Chinese dinner in a local restaurant Dr. Nell and I found last year.

The second day consisted of a trip to the Musee d’ Orsay, the impressionists museum, which tied directly into the reading we did prior to course. We then stopped at the grave of Emile Zola, one of the central figures in the course and followed that with a trip to Montmartre and the Church of the Sacre Coeur. The place was mobbed. We had dinner at a charming French bistro.

Today we will go to the graves of Sarte, Simone de Beauvoir, Dreyfus and the other leading lights of French culture and intellectual life. That will be followed by philosophical discussions at the Café de Flore, one on the Existentialists’ favorite watering hole. Tonight is the musical festival. There will be music all over Paris and a million people in the street.

The Students Arrive!

2010-06-18T16:37:00.003-04:00

The students arrived today. Collecting everybody at the airport and taking the RER (light rail) into town was very uneventful. But on the flights over, the students had some adventures. One student who expected to fly on Continental from Baltimore to Newark to Paris arrived at BWI to find her flight to Newark was cancelled. This happened to me two years ago. Apparently that flight is only theoretical. NEVER BOOK A FLIGHT FROM BALTIMORE TO NEWARK ON CONTINENTAL.

Two years ago, the folks at Continental put me (and four other people going on the trip) on Amtrak. This year they could not even do that. The student’s mother had to drive her to Newark, fighting rush hour a good part of the way. But she made it and arrived safely and on time.

Another student’s flight was double booked and an irate passenger had to be physically removed from the flight. And there was more that wasn’t pretty.

But everybody arrived in good spirits. Dr. Nell and I met everybody and I took the first group into town and Dr. Nell followed with the late arrivals. After getting to the hotel, we took a tour of our neighborhood, locating our friendly neighborhood café and other important locations. We went to Republic Place where there is a memorial that provides a concise history of the development of democratic government in France through 1880.

After our rooms were ready, the students took short rests and then freshened up. We then took a walk through the Marais district, the former Jewish Quarter which is now a trendy boutique area. We visited both the Holocaust Memorial and a memorial to the deportation of the Jews during World War II. This tied into some the reading we had done earlier.

We then went to the Cathedral de la Notre Dame. Awesome and a great way to really start the experience. We finished with a dinner of crepes and traditional French sparkling Apple Cider in the Latin Quarter. The consensus was that the desert crepes were much better than the dinner crepes.

We then headed back to the hotel. Most of the students headed to bed early, which is a little hard because it is light until 10:15. A few decided to chill a little at our friendly, neighborhood café.

Tomorrow we are off to the Louvre and we will really be underway.

Trial Run in Giverny

2010-06-17T16:10:00.006-04:00

We went to Giverny today to prep for when the students travel there next week. We think that Monet’s pond at Giverny is one of the most tranquil places we have ever visited. For people who have seen Monet’s series of paintings based on the ponds, with all due respect, they don’t rival the pond in any way. The pond may be Monet’s greatest work of art.

In years past we have taken an organized tour to Giverny. This year we are going on our own and it will be much better. The town of Giverny is really cute and we will visit Monet’s grave as well as picnic and stroll around. We saw some incredible sand sculpture today. The day at Giverny should be awesome. The photos are of Dr. Nell next to a bust of Monet and at his grave.

The students arrive tomorrow and we can’t wait.

First post of the 2010 course--Dr. King at work in Paris!

2010-06-16T15:47:00.004-04:00

Dr. Nell and I arrived safely in Paris this morning. The trip from Philadelphia was mostly uneventful. It was a little chaotic at check-in as US Airways where there are only kiosks for the check in and there wasn’t an orderly procedure for check-in. You have to try to figure out which line will be the shortest. Other than that, everything went smoothly.
The weather today was very variable—cool, then warm, then windy. The forecast is for the highs in only the 60s for the first couple of days. We will need a lot of different layers of clothing that we can put on and take off as the weather changes.
This is the third year in a row that I am in Paris. It is starting to get familiar and I am speaking a little French (very little). We did a test run today for day one. We are looking forward to everybody arriving on Friday.
We didn’t know it but apparently a lot of eating establishments are closed on Wednesdays. We thought it was a sign of the recession but no, just a day off. All and all, Paris is as dynamic as ever. More anon. Dr. King

Final banquet and group photo

2009-07-14T10:50:00.001-04:00

Final Days

2009-07-08T10:00:00.004-04:00

As is clear from the lapse in time since the last post, the last few days of the program in Paris were very hectic (and we ran out of computer time). On Friday, we addressed the issues raised in the book The Shantytown Kid with a trip to an extremely interesting museum on immigration, the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration. The building was originially constructed for the International Colonial Exposition of 1931 and the huge facade frieze shows colonial laborers toiling for the empire’s glory. It was so controversial when it opened that none of France's leading politicians would attend. Nonetheless, the exhibits were very interesting. We also heard an a talk from Professor Amy Wells from the University of Limoges. The talk was quickly dubbed the "Sandbox Talk" because Professor Wells was standing in a sandbox in a park when she gave the talk.

Before going to the immigration museum, we had visited the Museum of Jewish History and for lunch, had the best falafel in the world. It is true. The falafel was great. For dinner, we had cous cous, so it was a very North African, Middle Eastern dinning day.

Saturday was an open day for shopping or whatever. Some students went to Versailles on their own. Another went to an Andy Warhol exhibit and a third to the French National Tennis Center. Several had the Parisian experience of finding an outdoor table at the local cafe and relaxed and people-watched for hours. I went to the Gallaries Lafayette and it was positively bedlam as Paris was in the middle of a large sale. All in all, by Saturday, the students demonstrated that they were the masters of Paris. They could do whatever they liked on their own.

We closed the day with a banquet at a fine restaurant at an outdoor plaza in the Marais District and then took a one hour boat ride up and down the Seine River.

On Sunday, we went our separate ways. Many of us returned to the United States. A couple met their moms to spend a few extra days in Paris and one went on the Amsterdam.

But as they say, "We will always have Paris."

Post-program post from London / YouTube videos

2009-07-01T16:34:00.002-04:00

Can't believe the program is over for this year! Our time in Paris went so fast. A couple of videos from the program have been posted on YouTube:

Day One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHJ_sQhu5yI

Day Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClSZmfb5TyA

Enjoy!

Free Day

2009-06-26T03:14:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a free day and everybody could do whatever they wanted. Several people went to Versailles, the old royal palace and the recommended option. To get there you take the light rail out of town. Students were comfortable enough to do it on their own. I took a day trip to Normandy. It was a very long but amazing day. Others took advantage of the fact that the annual sale has started in Paris. Louis Vuitton is smiling right now.

Everybody seems to be finding their own favorite things to do. One group goes almost every night to watch the light show at the Eiffel Tour. It is really fun. Others like to go dancing (having gotten recommendations from last year's group.)

Today we learn about the North African immigration to France complete with a lecture from a professor here in France.

I am looking forward to it. The weather has gotten a little rainy so we are now going to get the full Parisian experience.

June 24, 2009: Giverny

2009-06-24T17:25:00.003-04:00

We had great weather today for our trip to Giverny. We started the day with a stop at the Orangerie, a small museum, close to the Place de la Concorde, where some of Monet's huge waterlily canvasses are displayed. While there, we watched part of a great film about Monet's work at his home in Giverny. Then, we hopped on the Parisvision bus and went to Giverny, where we saw "the real thing" --in particular, Monet's Japanese garden. I think everyone enjoyed it very much. It was a bit hot, but that is better than rain. Speaking of which, I think we're due to get rain tomorrow afternoon and it will continue until the end of the trip. I'm posting a few pictures from our day in Giverny.

2009-06-24T03:24:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was an important day as we literally sat were Sarte and friends sat and talked about important things. Today is one of the hightlights of the whole trip. We will see a film about Monet, then see his Waterlily paintings at L'Ongerie Museum. We will then visit the pond that is the subject for the painting. The pond is really one of the awesome places in the world, in my humble opinion. We will try to post pictures.

Martyrium / Napoleon's Tomb, etc.

2009-06-23T17:22:00.003-04:00

These pictures were taken yesterday, June 22, at Les Deux Magots. The students had an assigned discussion. We have a really great group this year and are enjoying every student!

Today (June 23), the group went to the Martyrium and had a talk by a French Jesuit priest. The Martyrium is important because it is where the patron saint of France, St. Denis, was martyred (beheaded). Also, it is the place where St. Ignatius Loyola and his friends from the Sorbonne made their first vows. We also went to Napoleon's tomb and the students were sent to the Rodin Museum and the Pantheon. We had a wonderful Italian dinner at a neighborhood restaurant.

Day Three

2009-06-23T12:09:00.003-04:00

Today we did something a little different. We travelled by train to Chartres, a town about one hour outside of Paris that is the oldest intact Gothic Cathedral in Europe, complete with some spectacular stained glass windows. It was huge, and I was amazed at the engineering skills and the craftsmanship involved. Some of us went to mass. It was first communion for the children the neighborhood. The mass was in French and the Cathedral was packed. It was awesome to think that that people have been gathering to pray for more than 1000 years in that spot. There is an old town around the Cathedral so there was plenty to do for the entire day.

It was great to get outside of Paris and see a little of the country side. And we had wonderful crepes for lunch in a quaint little restaurant.

Some students went to the Eiffel tower when we came back and watched the light show.

(It turns out that the placement of the m, the a, and the period are the most annoying switches in the French keyboard.)

Day Two

2009-06-22T11:08:00.003-04:00

Day two of the trip was a very busy day. In the morning we visited the Musee de Orsay, which has all the impressionist paintings. We had read a book The Judgment of Paris about the Impressionists and discussed it online prior to the course and the visit made the discussion and the book all the more real. Emile Zola was one of the main proponents of the Impressionists and his name was mentioned several times in the audio guide, which was very cool. Often the guide voice would say--When this painting was first relased at the Salon, Emile Zola said....and so on.

After lunch, we went to visit Zola's tomb.

After visiting Zola's tomb and learning about the Dreyfus Affair, we briefly stopped outside the crypt where Loyola and the 7 original Jesuits made their initial vows to each other. We then . climbed Montmarte and visited the Church of the Sacre Coeur. Lots of walking. And the walk through the Pigalle district to get there was quite eye opening. Some very raunchy billboards, indeed.

I already can't remember what we ate for dinner, but eating together has been one of the higlights of the trip. The students are having the opportunity to eat a lot of different foods and we really get to talk toeach other.

This was a full, full day and most people crashed at the end, I think.

Day Two

2009-06-22T03:01:00.002-04:00

On Friday, everybody was pretty good about getting up on time. The rooms in the hotel are very small (the hotel is unrated so you can imagine) and it is not too quiet. There is no air cnditioning soyou have to sleep with the windows open. It has been cool, however so that is good. The hotel is clean and the people working here are very nice. One or two even speak some English. Okay, one) Still some of the students got some sleep, I guess. Everybody is making their adjustments and having a bunch of high school kids from England isn't making it easier but it ismore fun. Actually, the hotel is pretty typical for these kinds of trips. A couple of our students have had experiences with similar hotels when they were in high school.

The first stop was the Louvre. Everybody got audio guides and off they went. The guides were new and very sophisticated. Of course, I could not get mine to work correctly. Despited the challenges with the guides, everybody got to see the must-see exhibits--the Mona Lisa, Venus di Milo, the statue of Nike, etc. I never can find my way in the Lourve. For such an incredible museum, I wish the authorities would invest a little bit into signage. (They are changing the exhibits. The audio guide frequently did not match to the paintings currently hung.

After lunch in the museum cafeteria (it was a little pricey), we went to the Museum of the City of Paris. It was all in French and most people ran through it as quickly as possible (nobody bowled me over as they ran out--thank goodness for small favors)

Many of the students then took naps to feel more rested for the evening. We ate dinner in a great Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood. I loved it. For some, it was the first time they ate Chinese food! Most of the students went to the Latin Quarter at night.

First Days

2009-06-22T02:49:00.002-04:00

The first couple of days of the trip have been great. Everybody arrived relatively on time and we made our way into Paris on the light rail in two groups without a problem. The students explored the neighborhood while I waited for some of the students who had come in early to arrive. After everybody had checked in, we immediately headed out for a walk through the Marais district (the old Jewish quarter), stopping at two Holocaust memorials, and then making our way to the Cathedral of the Notre Dame. Notre Dame is always awesome and it looks even etter right now because a project to clean th facade was recently finished; We had dinner that night in the Latin Quarter. The food left a lot to be desired but it was fun. When we returned to the hotel, some of the students decided to go out for a while to a local spot in the neighborhood. They did stay out too late. Even they were tired.

The Students Arrive

2009-06-18T06:30:00.003-04:00

The first group of students arrived and were met at CDG without a problem. One of my students, Kiko, was basically the last one off the plane so I was very happy to see her. The students are now exploring the neighborhood as we wait for the second group to arrive and for our rooms to be ready for check-in. This keyboard writes in a French accent. The travellers are tired but in very good spirits. Tonight, we go to the Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter.

The Night Before

2009-06-17T16:34:00.002-04:00

The students should all be on their way to the airport, as I write. Today we scouted some places that will not be on the trip next year as well as taking dry runs for some of the events this year. We went to the Louvre and then walked out with taking in the exhibitions, which took a little will power. We had a wonderful Chinese dinner. The students will have the opportunity to eat there later in the week.

We are still working out our telecommunications set up. Dr. Nell purchased a French Sim card that doesn't work. The hotel does not enable outbound calls, even with a calling card. I have to use pay phones on the street. Jeez, what a throw back.

The students are arriving in several different waves. Hopefully everybody's planes will be relatively on time. Tomorrow, we will stop at the Cathedral of the Notre Dame, the Memorial for the Deportations, which is our main meeting place, and a few other places on our way to a nice French dinner in the Latin Quarter to start our trip.

We are not going to blog everyday because we don't want to spend too much time on the Internet.

Arrival

2009-06-16T11:49:00.003-04:00

First of all, this is a French keyboard so I am excused from all typos. Weather is great. Hotel is in good location. Small rooms but that is to be expected. ATM worked Estonian cellphone works. Blog works. The World is a small place. Started to plan dinners. We will eat Greek; Turkish; North African, Italian. France is very multicultural cuisine wise. We are excited.

Leaving for Paris

2009-06-15T12:43:00.005-04:00

I leave for Paris tonight. Right now I am remembering how much I don't like to travel by air. Too many moving parts. Too many things that can go wrong. As I have gotten older, I have gotten more anxious about the whole process.

I go through the same cycle with travel all the time--right now I am trying to remember why I ever want to go anywhere. But I am anticipating that I will have a good time when I get to Paris and hopefully, will be able to do it again next year.

But for now, it is on to the Philly airport for departure.

Getting Ready to Go

2009-05-26T12:36:00.000-04:00

In three weeks, a group of Loyola University Maryland students will travel to Paris for ten days. In preparation, we are reading several books and conducting several real-time chat sessions. This blog will chronicle our entire adventure together.