Gargantua

Ok, so it is 11:30 at night, I have to get a load out of the laundry, and I'm going to Normandy tomorrow at 8 in the morning. Woohoo!

Yesterday wasn't much special. Went to class, studied, went to class, came home and ate with the family and talked with the monk. It was fun.

And here is my coat, Lauren - it's the best picture I could find. Unfortunately, it's with this creepy white guy:
Like? No? Oh, sorry, I meant the White Saint.

Today was a long day, but not. Do you know what I mean? Or am I just really weird? I mean, I didn't do much anything that special or great, but my head just hurt so much by the time dinner came around that I just gave up and resorted to English. Mariam (a friend of the family who's staying at the house) didn't mind - she wanted to practice her English. :)

So I had Art History first. We had to meet at Musée de Cluny at 9:30 and had class until about 1. Technically it's supposed to go to 12:30, but talking art is just so much fun that we went over. So when we got there, he showed us first the remains of the Roman bath house.Sorry this picture isn't as good as it could have been. There was a fence in the way, and I had to squeeze in between the holes to get one. But guess which building is the oldest building in Paris? I'll give you three guesses.
This is from inside. Sorry the quality ain't that great. We couldn't use flash inside. But for the Roman bath house, this would be the Frigidarium - or the room where you get to cool off. The Tepidarium and the Calarium (warm and hot rooms) didn't last. You can see the walls (reference first picture - that would be the Calarium) but the roof caved in. In fact, you can still see piles of rock on the ground from the ceiling.

And then we continued on. He told us that the bath house was destroyed (obviously), and that's what's left of it - the Abby Cluny had taken the building and completely replaced it in some parts.
This was my favorite. Anyone notice anything interesting about this picture? And then the next one just shows how beautiful the artwork was. This was carved in the freaking Middle Ages, during the DARK Ages, to boot. Who said they weren't educated in the Dark Ages? Maybe they might not have had a lot of philosophy to study, but they sure had enough nature to study that they would make something as breathtaking as this. Holy cow, you can see the leaf has been hallowed out, and the vine goes behind it! I can't even make a convincing painting like that!
And then we went around and looked at a lot of cool things (tombstones, why people wanted to be buried in the church, etc. I saw a legit Roman bath). Then this capital was a favorite of mine. Basically, our teacher had us look at this and try to figure out what the story was. I loved the "Ah ha!" moment when we finally did. I could actually feel the light bulb pop up above my head.

Looky, looky! It's Genesis!

Creation of Eve - see her rising up out of Adam's ribs?

Adam and Eve eating the fruit - Eve is on the right because 1. she is touching the fruit first; 2. she has long hair. And see the snake?

Expulsion - the angel with the flaming sword. Also, you can't see it very well, but the angel has wings on his head. You can also tell this is Adam and Eve because they are covering themselves shamefully.

There was also a room full of stained glass windows from St. Chappelle - these are the windows that broke and had to be replaced, and the salvageable parts were moved to this museum. Here's one stained glass, and it's a pity this detail can't be viewed up close in the Cathedral. (Psst! We'll be going there next week!)

Sampson getting his eyes put out

And then we saw some more things, such as the original, damaged statues from Notre Dame. And here's a statue that I really liked.

Adam

He's very Greekish. His upper torso is very Apollo-adolescent beauty, while the bottom is very much like Venus and her modesty. Apparently, Christians found it very difficult to be original in their ideas, but it sure is nice to look at. You know, looking at this now, I think I studied this in my Art History class last semester, but it's one thing to see a picture, and a completely different thing to see it in real life. It's really cool. That, and my teacher is 5000000000+ times better.

And then we ended in this last room with an incredible ceiling that just took my breath completely away. It looks so much better in real life. I'm finding myself very disappointed with the pictures I take, because everything is so much better in real life. Bigger, better, and more beautiful. (That is so not parallel and therefore bad grammar, but so is "beautifuler")

Whoa, I still haven't finished my day! So Art History class ended, I went to a park to eat lunch (free lunch, mind you!) and studied for a while, went to the Institute, studied more, had French class and had a brain explosion trying to understand the story we were learning (Gargantua). It's an interesting story, even if it did take me a while (coughfivereadsplusteacherhelpedcough) to get it. Got to draw some neat parallels. Like, the giant represented humanity and their nature (how we can be nice, but also savage, etc.) to be hypocritical and contradictory. It also made me give up on speaking French for the rest of the day.

I need to go to bed now. I'm getting up early! Woo! It's ok, it's a 5 hour bus ride - I think I can sleep on the bus.