Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The visitors 1/3

Because vacations are fun, the French like to have a week-long break in February. This was a great opportunity for Mom and Pops to come visit France (at least, Aix and Paris) and me. We spent some time exploring Aix and Marseille before taking the TGV to Paris for four days. We saw it all: Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Notre Dame, Ste Chapelle, Arc de Triomphe, Musée Rodin, Eiffel Tower. . . AND I had really good duck a restaurant. Couldn't ask for anything more out of a vacation.

Blurry or artistic? You decide. As for me. . . well, I didn't want it to turn out this way. (Does that make it art automatically?) At the top of the Arc de Triomphe.

Mt. Ste Victoire at the Musée d'Orsay. Apparently, Cézanne painted it at least 72 times. We visited his last studio (in Aix) before our trip to Paris, and Mom even got to touch his chapeau!

Oh Musée d'Orsay, how I love thee.

Be jealous--I got to see the one and only Georgia Kuss. In Paris. For those of you who don't know her, Georgia is a dear friend of mine from high school. She's studying in Paris this semester.

The visitors 2/3

Musée Rodin. La femme accroupie (I think).

Musée Rodin.

Miraculously, not a photoshopped picture.


The visitors 3/3

Caption contest. What have you got? (Again, my camera is pretty terrible when it comes to no-flash, museum photography.)

"Honestly, you've got to switch to the new cat-gut strings!"

"One more wrong page turn and I swear I'm getting a real music stand."


Ste Chapelle

Notre Dame before Ash Wednesday mass.

Back in Aix, Dad and I take a little hike around the base of Mt. Ste Victoire.

Moussanes et les Baux

A few weekends back, Elizabeth, Carmen, and I went on a little day trip to les Baux. It was lovely.

Moussanes, or the smallest village in France. Ever. Both the lady who sold us bread and the lady who sold us soup were thoroughly confused as to why would end up there. Truth be told, we were there because the bus doesn't stop in les Baux, and this is the closest we could get.

Elizabeth and Carmen in their natural states.

We found a nice vantage point during our 3km walk from Moussanes to les Baux. And we almost got knocked over by a gust of wind into a rocky ravine. About fifteen times.

Les Baux.

Les Baux. Ten points to anyone who thinks, "Hey, didn't Christin already write a post about going to les Baux?" Yeah, this picture's about the same.