Chez Claude

Today was simply unbelievable. I can't tell you much about it because words don't really describe how impressive Monet's gardens and home in Giverny were! A group of us left on an early train this morning to go out to the countryside and see where the famous impressionist lived. It was difficult getting up this morning because last night was a late one!

We started the night with a Rosh Hashanah dinner. Kate and I had spent the morning in the old Jewish Quarter of the Marais buying challah and other sorts of holiday foods. (I'm going to leave out the part of the morning when we tried going to services at an all-men synagogue. Oops.) After visiting all the little Jewish boulangeries, we went to class (did well on my essay and phonetics tests!) and raced to my apartment to get started on dinner! About 15 of us ate dinner and did shabbat - only a few of us were Jewish so it was really nice. Afterwards, we went out for the night to this very cool bar called Le Crocodille, or The Crocodile. Its a popular place for many French students to hang out and its located in an area with great night life. They serve over 500 different drinks and each one comes with a gummy crocodile in it! The best part was that its near where I'm going to attend classes, so I finally got to see my university! The Sorbonne is very impressive! After meeting up with friends later on, we finally got back to our apartment.

No one on the train this morning knew what to expect from Giverny. Though I can't say much, I will say that I have never been somewhere quite as serene and peaceful. Everything was so unreal, but natural, its a wonder why the world relies so much on manufactured products! Never have I seen such bright shades of color, and never have I smelled anything like this! We were especially lucky because its rare to see the lily pads in bloom and we had full flowers! The best part of the day was sitting on a bench next to the Japanese Bridge and writing. I had two pieces of luck happen to me there, and we all know about my superstitions!
1. A leaf fell directly into my notebook. Someone once told me its good luck of a leaf falls on you. I don't know if its true, but I'll take any good omen I can get!
2. A YELLOW ladybug landed  on my shoulder. Regular red ladybugs are lucky, so a yellow one must be super fortunate! Or maybe just evil... I'm going to hope the winds are in my favor!

It helps that we couldn't have asked for a more perfect day: hot in the sun, cool in the shade, perfect breeze. Its no wonder that Giverny is known for providing impressionistic art. Being there evoked a certain kind of internal personal presence. The experience was about how the colors, light, and nature made you feel individually, which is, after all, the philosophy behind impressionism. Monet was so lucky to wake up to these gardens every day! I could live there and never leave! His home is timeless - still fashioned in its original way, and would still be considered charming and classy today. We had lunch at a small cafe near by and headed home late in the afternoon. Truly a day spent in paradise - I felt like Alice in Wonderland!

     

Since tomorrow is Sunday, everything is closed so we stopped on the way home to buy groceries for the week (with the exception of fruits and veggies - those come from the market tomorrow morning).

Tonight will be spent on the Seine! Its about 10:00 here and my housemate and I are getting ready to head over to the picnic meeting spot. Its popular here for students and young people to spend one night of the weekend picnicking and meeting other people on the Seine near Notre Dame, so maybe we'll make some more French friends! Who knows what will happen after that - it's always an adventure here in Paris!