An American in Paris: Day 4-7

Day 4 was the start of the conference so I checked to make sure Kathy (Director of Merrimack’s Writing Center) had arrived before going to the Champs de Mars for my first actual viewing of the Tour Eiffel. It is incredible and gargantuan in real life. Then Kathy and I went to the opening of the Conference, which was held at the American Church, and a champagne and hors d’oeuvres reception. Afterwards I met Sasha and Phoebe for dinner with Sasha’s aunt. She was the cutest little woman and made sure we had traditional French eatings like an aperitif of kir (chardonnay with créme de cassis) and escargot. I’d never had escargot before, but I’d been dying to try it. It was served hot with pesto and butter and it was chewy, but delicious.

Day 5 was taken up almost entirely by the conference. But it was great! I learned so much about writing center pedagogy and writing in different countries like Germany, Turkey, Poland, England and Denmark. After the conference the entire group went for ride on a bâteaux mouche. The boat took us along the quai and we got to see unique views of the Eiffel Tower, National Assembly, Invalides, Tulieries, Louvre, Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame. Kathy and I also decided to visit the Eiffel Tower at night. I love when it sparkles! It is just plain beautiful.

Day 6 I finally got to go to the Musée d’Orsay and it was certainly worth the wait. There was a special exhibit called Crime et Châtiment (Crime and Punishment) and it was really, really cool, if rather morbid. It featured the dark side of artwork with scenes of death, torture, dissections, prisons, the French revolution, femmes fatales, judgment scenes, sensational newspaper story covers, a guillotine, and even the ballet dancers of Degas who represented a form of punishment to the body. The most impressionant was this creepy wooden prison door from Bois, France from 1900 with carvings of numbers, dates and the words “adiu, adieu, adieu” on the prisoners’ side of the door. I’m glad I saw the exhibit first because everything else after that was happy. I saw works by Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Seurat, Degas, Lautrec, Delacroix, Gaugin, Rodin, etc.

I returned to the conference and afterwards there was a bus tour of the city led by two American University of Paris students who were very well informed about the history and sights of Paris. We learned that on the 7th floor of Louis Vuitton is a free art gallery and that the Champs Elysées is now the 3rd most expensive street in the world.

Day 7 was presentation day and it went spectacularly well. Everyone was intrigued by our topic and we had a great discussion at the end. A wine and cheese reception finished off the conference and then it was time for me to catch the train back to Angers. And whadda ya know, there was an accident on my section of the metro so I had to run to the next stop which, luckily, had the transfer I needed to get to the train station. Still it was touch and go for a bit there. In the end I made it safely back to Angers and had to mentally prepare myself for taking my socio-cultural final the next morning.

Bonne chance à moi!

Heidi

Monsieur, can we take a picture of your mustache?

Things are winding down over here so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to write. But here’s a quick recap of the weekend. My friends and I had not one, but TWO picnics. The first one took place under the shade of the castle and it was so successful we planned another for the next day under the gazebo in the Jardin du Mail. We had so much food that I wasn’t even hungry for dinner. There were baguettes, chocolate croissants, wine, cidre, chocolate, cookies, sausage, ginger butter (like peanut butter, but it tastes like ginger snaps), and of course a variety of cheeses: brie, coulommiers, camembert, rocquefort, etc. And since we are very resourceful, poor college students we used the round cheese container as a Frisbee (I wouldn’t recommend it for distances greater than twenty feet).

After the second picnic we had an Angers Photo Scavenger Hunt, created by your truly. We split into two randomly selected teams and set off to take pictures with all 32 objects/places. Some of the things on the list included finding someone wearing a beret, someone with a mustache, French graffiti, French car, French phone booth, a purple flower, a snail, a happy face traffic light, French people holding up a peace sign, something with the name Angers, bridge across the river, our school, a street sign with the word “ecrivain” (writer), a fountain, etc. We met up at the chateau at the very end and everyone agreed it was one of their favorite things (the only thing our team couldn’t find was the happy face stoplight).

Today I leave for Paris! I’ll be gone for an entire week because I have yet to visit the museums and actually see the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower. I’ll also be representing Merrimack at the European Writing Centers Association Conference with Professor Kathy Shine Cain, the director of Merrimack’s writing center. Our topic is “Positionality and the 21st Century Writing Center: Interdisciplinary, Transdisciplinary, and Cultural Border Crossing.” In case that sound totally foreign to you, essentially I’m going to be talking about the different relationships in the writing center and about my experiences as a second language student.

Wish me bonne chance!

Heidi