God, the weather is strange in Paris right now. Last week it was so hot and steamy, and now it's like February at Stanford... rainy and in the forties. Not too pleasant. It's not a big deal for me, though, because I have to stay in and do some work these next few days. And since I have work to do, I'm obviously going to procrastinate, so it's blog-updating time! And there's a lot to say... oh goodness, we've got to cover the rest of England, last week in Paris, and this weekend in Barcelona. Hold on, because this is going to be a long one! I've divided it into three sections to make it less daunting, so take your time. :)

Oh, and a quick apology-- I noticed tons of typos in the entry I wrote last week when I revisited it. J'ai si honte.

Anyhow, England, continued...

:: I don't think I mentioned yet how xenophobic England felt, and how paranoid about its security. Okay, I know these are "dangerous times" or whatever, but seriously. Not a single garbage can in the entire Underground? Vacuum-sealing my eyedrops at Heathrow? A ten minute interrogation about my business in England on arrival? That's a little excessive. Silvia told me that England has the highest number of security cameras per square kilometer in the entire world, and I would totally believe it.

:: Everyone says it, but it's so true: Oxford is so Harry Potter-esque. You should see the capes they wear! Like, I'm not kidding... students wear long flowing black capes, as do professors. It's hard not to laugh when you're in a convenience store and someone is walking around in a billowing thing that looks like a Halloween costume. And all the ancient common spaces and stuff... the same deal. We went to Formal Dinner at Francie's college, and it was in this echoing hall with gothic windows and long tables, with the professors sitting at the Head Table in front of everyone else. Crazy.

:: Francie took me to London on Saturday, because I have always wanted to go. We were only there for the afternoon and evening, which is hardly any time to do it justice, but I've always wanted to visit, so we did our best. It would have been foolish and stressful to try to "do" London and see all the famous sights and monuments, so we just did a few things, which was fine with me.
I've always wanted to visit the British Museum, so we went there. It was fantastic, I must say. It's free, and I marvel at the fact that you can just stroll in off the street and find yourself before the Rosetta Stone and other treasures like that. Wow, the Rosetta Stone is small! But it remains one of my favorite artifacts I've ever seen. It's so odd to think of all the human passions and efforts that have unfolded around that hunk of rock... its original creation, its capture and transport to England, and the controversy of whether it belongs to England, France, or Egypt. It's odd to be able to stand before something that provokes so many international complications. Same goes for the Elgin Marbles, which I think are more interesting for the political stew in which they are broiling than for their actual historical context. Anyhow, those things, the famous mummies, and everything else made me a big fan of the British Museum. I will have to go back, because a couple hours was barely enough to see those few exhibits.
On Francie's recommendation, we also went to an exhibit at the British Library called "Treasures of England" or something like that. Actually, it was pretty splendid. I had forgotten how much history that little island country actually has, but what a glorious past. Perhaps the British can be forgiven for their backward-looking country; there's a lot to look back on. The Library had a lot of general treasures from the rest of Europe and the world, as well; I particularly enjoyed seeing original manuscripts from composers like Chopin. And they had original copies of the Magna Carta and stuff like that, pages and pages of manuscripts from various authors, other stuff... and I think a lot of the Library for putting it all on display instead of hiding it in some warehouse somewhere! Kudos.
We also went for a walk along the Thames, from the Tower of London to the Tate Modern, passing various landmarks: the Tower Bridge, the new London Bridge (which is tremendously ugly; London should be ashamed); St. Paul's, and the new Millennium Bridge. The river walk was nice, but it must be said, I think the Seine is a better place for a walk. The Thames is a grander river, but the banks are crowded with ugly modern office towers and the path is not always pedestrian-friendly. We were heading for the Tate Modern, but wanted to grab some dinner first. Unfortunately, the area around the Tate Modern, Southwark (charmingly pronounced "Sutherk") is an industrial nowheresville of broad, empty streets, warehouses, and blank windows. We had to walk for almost half an hour before we found anything open, a gritty tandoori restaurant. Fortunately, I really wanted Indian food in London, so it was fine with me. We ate and felt much better after we did.
I think the Tate Modern is my new favorite museum. Wow! It's the city of London's modern art museum, and is housed in a former factory or power station or something similarly industrial. They've left a lot of the original fixtures in place, so it's an innovative setting for a museum. And the collection is just astonishing. They have it set up thematically instead of chronologically, kind of like Centre Pompidou, but even better; the fact that so many masterpieces show up in such an eclectic collection is amazing. Wandering around there was a great experience. It's also open late for a museum (especially in comparison with Paris), and is free. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
In general, London gets massive thumbs up for the museums, and I had a great time there. That being said, what I saw of it was kind of cold and characterless, and it felt huge and sprawling... a dour version of how I imagine Southern California. It felt impossibly big. I will certainly have to return, though, with more time.

I think that's everything I wanted to share from my visit to England. But oh, lucky reader, our adventures together are just beginning! Come now and relive last week in Paris with me.

:: I finally visited the Musée d'Orsay. At first, I did not like it as much as I hoped I would. I was quite tired when Vicky and I got there, and the collection begins in a pre-Impressionistic period (I think) that I find pretty dull. But before seeing more, we went to the café on the top floor of the museum, which gets mention as the nicest museum café I've ever visited. Coffee was fairly reasonable, and the setting was cool, with the old station's gigantic clock (the museum occupies a former railroad terminal) looming over the tables. The collections after the café were much more interesting to me, then, as well. I saw Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, which lives up to its reputation as a masterpiece, I think -- it's so strange! And speaking of that, Manet was a far more versatile painter than I realized; the Musée exhibited works of his in many different styles. I didn't know much about him before this, so that was cool. I also saw a good chunk of Gaugin, whom I like, and of course some Matisse... he just shows up in every Musée I visit! And thank goodness for it, because I become a bigger and bigger fan with everything I see. I also had a moment of Midwestern pride, because Seurat's studies for Sunday on La Grande Jatte were in the collection, but not the original, because it's in Chicago! Ha.
There wasn't time to see all of the Musée, so I will have to return. I left really liking it, though.

:: We went to this great park called Buttes Chaumont in a distant corner of Paris. It's a strange place, with a huge artificial mountain in the middle, but lots of fun -- there are waterfalls and bridges and fake classical temples, all of that nonsense people liked to scatter in their parks in the nineteenth century. It also has a lot of large and gracious old trees. The top of the artificial mountain offers a lovely view of Sacre Coeur and the more urban areas of Paris, so Silvia and Vicky and I just sat on some rocks and chatted for a while, the city spread out at our feet. The only sad thing was that the long bridge which is one of the park's hallmarks was closed for repairs. Perhaps we can return...

:: We got to enjoy another Bing outing, this time to the opera to see Carmen. Sadly, I did not like Carmen as much as I thought I would. I do like music of that era a lot, and I like musicals, but something about opera drives me a little crazy. It's so dramatic... my favorite (meaning, the part I find most ludicrous) moment is when Carmen flips over a tarot card revealing her impending death, stands up, and sings, "DDEEEEEAAATTTTHHHH!!!!" Stuff like that just makes me want to laugh out loud. I mean, I like melodrama as much as the next person, but seriously? The ballet was definitely better suited to my tastes. At least Carmen is sung in French, though, so it offered the chance to practice the old language skills.

:: Thursday was one of the more ridiculous days I've had in Paris. Vicky and Silvia and I decided to have a picnic on the Champs de Mars, the long park that runs up against the Eiffel Tower. It's a great place to hang out, with lovely views of the Tower, of course. Well, I don't know exactly how this happened, but somehow we each ended up drinking a bottle of wine apiece, even though it was two in the afternoon! It was a hot, hot day, and the wine hit us pretty hard... we were a silly bunch by the end of our picnic. Please don't judge me; I know a lot of my Paris fun involves drinking at various landmarks. Oh well! Judge if you wish. I'm kind of judging myself, it must be said.
Anyhow, the best-slash-worst thing was that we had a long-anticipated program to attend right after our picnic-slash-happy-hour. It was a presentation on chocolate tasting in which we were to learn how to sample and enjoy fine chocolate like fine wine (smarmy, I know, but don't pretend you wouldn't have fun doing it too!). When we rolled in ten minutes late I know I was still semi-smashed, but oh well. The chocolate was delicious even if I couldn't really tell you what the chocolate man had to say about it.
You'd think we'd end there, but not really. We went to a café to reenergize for the rest of the day, and then headed out to the distant twentieth arrondissement, a working-class area far from our usual haunts. We had read that this area was full of interesting bars, cafes, and galleries, a youthful and innovative district for staid and matronly Paris, so it sounded like a fun place to hang out. And indeed, we found a number of promising bars without looking too hard. We settled at a place called Le Chien Stupide, a bright and colorful bar with five-euro mojitos and a friendly bartender, who just sat there smoking and drinking champagne with his friends the whole time. It had a friendly, youthful, convivial atmosphere which I hope we didn't ruin by dragging our American selves in. I don't think so, though. It was probably my favorite bar that we've visited in this fine city.
We wanted to move to a more central location before the metro stopped running and we were doomed to the night buses, so we left the 20th and headed to the more familiar Latin Quarter, looking for a bar called La Rhumerie, famous for its tropical flavors and fried bananas. Well, the kitchen was closed, sadly, but the drinks were good... I had this ridiculous chocolate-rum confection which tasted like a milkshake. The bar had a good atmosphere, so we had a great time.
This day was actually one of my favorites we've had in Paris, because it was just an endless succession of low-key fun.

That was our week, pretty much. But, oh no, the fun's not over yet. It never ends on study abroad.... This weekend I went to Barcelona, probably one of the most hotly-anticipated trips of my life. For various reasons, I have wanted to come to Barcelona since high school, and now I've finally had the chance! Join me as I relive the trip....

So, Barcelona. I definitely liked it, but it's funny... I didn't bond with it in quite the way I'd hoped. Everything I knew about -- the strange and wonderful Gaudî architecture, the beaches, the chaos of La Rambla, the Spanish squares and such -- pleased me as much as I'd expected. But in my opinion, Barcelona didn't have that much real atmosphere. Certain areas did -- the lovely Gothic quarter, for instance, with its tall brooding buildings and colorful graffiti -- but a lot of it was just pleasant and bland. I suppose Paris has spoiled me... for all of its personality defects, or perhaps because of them, Paris is bursting with its very particular Parisian character. Parts of Barcelona seemed to have very little personality, and in fact reminded me of Monaco, which readers of this blog will know to be a huge insult. :)

I also expected to be dazzled by Barcelona's nightlife, and thought there would just be young people and liveliness and bars and cafes spilling into every street, which there were, but not to the extent that I hoped. We didn't go to any clubs or anything, and I'm sure those are the really fun part of a night in Barcelona, and I did like the places we went (especially this one place with four-fifty mojitos -- yes, that's the drink of the week, I guess). But it was less of an endless party than I expected, or if it was, the party wasn't quite to my tastes.

I do want to go back there, because I'm sure there's more to see and do, and there are certainly more neighborhoods I didn't even set foot into, but for now, it was enough time there.

Anyhow...

:: The people in Barcelona were generally very nice. The people who ran our hostel were extremely friendly and helpful, although one would hope they would be, so maybe that's not so remarkable. But random people on the street kept offering us directions, especially the first day, when we were searching for the hostel. Although I still prefer finding things on my own I really appreciate the niceness that drives a gesture like that. The people of Barcelona seem to have a better relationship with tourism than the Parisians do. I think Paris is embarrassed that it's so widely-visited and tries to pretend otherwise, while Barcelona embraces it. Barcelona's is probably a healthier attitude.
And yet I had a few bad run-ins with people in Barcelona. Or, not really bad... but let me explain. People were not shy about honking, for instance; I've never been honked at so much! And this one old man once stopped to scold us for blocking an escalator. Strangest of all, I bumped into this one dude at a metro station, and he started screaming at me and doing all this macho you-wanna-fight bullshit, which was disgusting. I found myself missing the Parisian way of pretending everyone else just doesn't exist. It makes things easier.

:: We tried to go the the beach, but accidentally got there quite late, around eight! And just as we arrived (literally just) a huge bank of clouds rolled right over the sun. We still hung out there, as it was a nice evening (though windy), and I took a quick swim as the sun set (and how many times will I be able to say I swam in the Mediterranean at sunset? Even if the sun itself was behind the clouds, but whatever), but it was not the hot barbeque-of-our-bodies we were hoping for.

:: I know I mentioned this already, but Gaudí's Modernisme really is phenomenal. All the buildings in this style look like they've just risen from the ocean, shiny and dripping and draped in colorful seaweed. It's strange and I wouldn't think it would work, but it does. The most famous building, Sagrada Familia cathedral, is huge and preposterous, and the smaller buildings are lovely to stumble across. So that was fun. Parc Güell is the most famous public space in the style, and it has that same character, just with lots of trees and funny things to clamber over, along with fantastic views of the city... so thumbs up there, of course.

:: I was pleased, because I remembered more Spanish than I thought I would, and I got to be the group translator (kind of, with Silvia), which was fun. It was also strange, though, because whenever I tried to speak Spanish it came out with lots of French words and grammar! Little things like connectors and colloquialisms... I felt bad but I couldn't help it. I guess Spanish and French share the same compartment of my brain now.

:: The food in Barcelona was really good. I mean, really. This is probably in part because we indulged on fairly nice restaurants, but I think Barcelona is known for a pretty innovative scene. It's been so long since we've eaten in young, brightly-painted restaurants with creative, well-presented dishes! Paris just doesn't go for that. Here were my menus: a mille-feuille (layered pastry) made up of mozzarella, tomato, and pesto for an appetizer and honey-olive-oil grilled vegetable plate for the main course one night, and gazpacho with a poppy-and-vegetable risotto the next night. It was really, really delicious. And street food (cafés and falafel and ice cream) was definitely cheaper than Paris, and just as good, so hooray for that.

Last night after we finished dinner, we felt like we should go out for a night on the town -- this was Barcelona, after all, a famously fun city. But we decided to come home. We were all tired, not just from this weekend, but tired in general, I think, from traveling. I don't expect you to pity my jet-set lifestyle of the past month, and I'm glad I did all the traveling I did, but last night, the thought of coming back to Paris sounded just wonderful. Every time I've gone somewhere else, coming back to Paris has been the greatest ending to a trip I could hope for. It's always such a pleasure to see people trading bisous at the baggage claim, to hear French again, to taste French bread, to settle back into this city that, whatever its imperfections, I'm beginning to understand and beginning to like an awful lot. It feels surprisingly like home.
And so here I am again, home. And now the end is close; it almost makes me want to cry sometimes. A little less than three weeks and that's it -- back to my real home, the home country I can't deny, however much I might wish I could. But right now, today, is still a beginning, the beginning of my longest stretch of time in Paris since April, and let me tell you, I'm excited. There's so much still to see and do!
So on that note, I should go do my homework so I have time to enjoy Paris in these last weeks. I will bid you adieu. And even more than usual, thank you -- this has been a long entry. And if you've read this far you make me smile. :)