Femme Fatale, Femme Fidèle or Femme Hillary

I have not had one moment to blog since my last post. Thursday was spent at the Louvre (I had two of my three classes there) and then ran back to school for my advanced conversation class, where I got a care package! :)

Let me skip to Friday afternoon before I tell about Thursday night because it was so exciting!

Friday I woke up and ran to yet another class at the Louvre (I hope I'm not sick of it by the time I leave, but I feel that it may be unavoidable). Alicia, Clare, Kate and I found a café right near by that has become our "After-Louvre" spot, so we lunched there. until 2:30...

Because, at 2:30, the Dior gates for fashion week in Paris opened! Guess who was filmed??? Yours truly! The press was everywhere, we saw some famous people, and then I got put on camera! How cool! There is nothing quite like Paris Fashion week, I'm learning.

The shoes were amazing and it was surprisingly intimidating to be surrounded by so many fashionistas (who are deceivingly scary and serious). In any case, I just love that I got to sign press-relaese authorization forms. Its just so unlike something that would happen to me in New York - like a movie!

                            

  

The rest of Friday was spent doing homework. It was rainy and yucky out, and after an afternoon like that, anything seems dull.

Friday night was a bit crazy so I won't go into it, but we went to a French friend's party (actually, he was the friend of a French friend) and met a lot of new French people with whom we all exchanged numbers.  They all recently graduated Science Po, which is like the Harvard of Paris, and all of them are intellectual and very cool. They told me my French is good and such- need I say more? I don't think I should.

Sorry for the disorganization - I just had to tell abut Dior first. But backtrack with me a little...

Thursday night, I went to see the Wagner opera, The Flying Dutchman. Equally as fabulous as the ballet, but it was in the Opera Bastille, the modern opera house, so it wasn't nearly as grand. As I began to explain in my last post, the French are doing all the mixing of old and new, but when I go to the opera, I want it to be grand! The house was stark, black, and modern: art in and of itself, but not the ambience desired for opera viewing. The opera was about this woman, Senta, who pledges her
everlasting fidelity to the Flying Dutchman so that his soul can rest.

This brings me to the title of this blog entry. The ballet on Wednesday was all about the femme fatale, the woman whose existence ultimately brings about the demise of the man, whereas the opera shows a faithful woman, - quite the opposite - the femme fidèle. In fact, HIS existence brings about her demise. Talk about having different feelings evoked in two nights! What is better to be: Fatale, or Fidèle? Every girl who saw both the ballet and the opera is currently having an intense internal chat with herself. Its very interesting, the directions these two story likes went. I left the ballet feeling powerful, as in "Wow! Look what a woman can do! Look what she is capable of!" However, I left the opera with the hopeless romantic part of me thinking, "Oh. That was so romantic, that's true love." Verrry interesting. Just some food for thought!

Now its 1:00pm on Saturday afternoon. I just woke up a few minutes ago and posted this, to find myself with mountains of work to do. Tonight is Nuit Blanche, meaning white night, or all-nighter. The metros stay open all night (instead of closing at their usual relatively early hour) and people run around Paris to see all of these outdoor art exhibits! It's supposed to be great, so I'll keep you posted!