I’ve been very delayed in posting the words accompanying photos, but I’ll give a short synopsis of my recent adventures:
Caen: sleepy town, but cheap hostel (12€/night). Spent Saturday visiting the American Cimetière and walking along the D-day beaches, which were a lot more tropical looking than I had anticipated. Sunday was Lisieux, Bayeux, and Deauville.
Sète: vibrant city. Full of colorful buildings and canals, turquoise beaches, and beautiful coastline. Spent the entire weekend horizontal on the sand.
Afterworks: continued the trend of going out on Thursdays with the other interns (Adrien, Cyril, Tahiry, Lois, Julien). Last week was a 10€ cruise around the Seine on a “party boat”. Had the priviledge of seeing some authentic French dancing, courtesy of Cyril and Lois.
4th of July: BBQ at école polytechnique with other ‘Mericans from MIT, Caltech, Michigan, Maine. It was great fun to grill, sit on the dock of the lake with our legs in the water, and watch shirtless boys play drunken frisbee. (I played, but did not participate in the imbibing). Proceeded to Champ de Mars, where every inch of grass is covered by young Parisiens, and clumps of Americans, who linger there picnicing, drinking wine, playing music. Sunday was free museum day again, and we spent it at Musée d’Orsay. The rooms of Monet and Van Gogh were packed with tourists who spend more time taking poor quality pictures of the art work than they do actually looking at it. One of my favorite things about the museum was the interior architecture. The building was an old Gare, converted to museum, so when you walk in, you’re greeted with a long, open space with a vaulted ceiling. The art is tucked neatly into little galleries that branch off of the main corridor, and aren’t really visible from the open space, so the whole museum has a deceivingly large capacity. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, stopping to play guitar on various quais and parks. It’s been so nice to hang out with Ryan and listen to someone play music, and also indulge my fingers in a little guitarring myself. I really miss my guitar, even though I think it would’ve been impractical to take it here.
This weekend should be really fun. We’re hiking in Fontainebleu on Saturday, and Sam’s coming on Sat night and staying for 14 Juillet till Wednesday morning.
