Bonjour Tout le monde et je suis desolé!
 I know I promised photos and a lengthy post yesterday, but my oh my it was a crazy day. First thing, we went the the Louvre. It's a beautiful museum but it took us about an hour to get in and once we were in we experienced our first bouts of French unkindness. C'est la vie, it's a story for another time. The Louvre is like being in a palace full to the brim of priceless art. It's very overwhelming, so many people and so many paintings and sculptures, it's easy to get lost. We got to see the classic Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo (whom I'm absolutely obsessed with, oh my gosh she's beautiful). Along with that, we had our fair share of other renaissance realism. Then, last night, we took the metro (for the first time!) down to Paris' African district and met up with Melissa again and she took us to her lovely little apartment where we drank juice and met her friend whose a refugee from Mali. They took us to dinner at a French restaurant where we ate snails for the first time and Lucie and Ben found their long lost favorite French drink, Pshchitt! We took the metro home and returned at about 11, hence why yesterday there was no blog post.
Today, we started off early at the Musée d'Orsay. d'Orsay is located in an old train station and is known as the museum for impressionists. It houses many famous artists such as Gaugain, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Renior, Degas, etc. So far, it's been my favorite museum and I love love love the impressionist art. Everything is so vibrant and you can see every brush strokes. It was an amazing place. I got to see Degas' 'Tiny Dancer,' one of my favorite pieces as well. After then we went to Sennelier, where we bought our sketchbooks and the beginnings of our art supplies. In the afternoon, we went to la Musée Rodin where we saw 'The Thinker' and many other pieces of lovely sculpture. We all had our sketchbooks now too and enjoyed drawing the human bodies done in marble. Finalment, we went to the Eiffel tower! We were so happy to be able to walk on the grass and play in the sun and we took lots of pictures. Our feet are very very sore now, but we are happy to be in Paris and tomorrow we are headed to Versailles!

Now for pictures!!!

Le Licorne et La Dame tapestry at Musée de Cluny

Stained glass at the Musée de Cluny

Us outside the museum

the Seine river and the Louvre

Lucie and Ben in a panorama gone wrong

one of Paris' many lock bridges

a roman colliseum

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Sue with Je Suis Charlie

With Angelo's mom outside his old school!

At the Louvre

Venus de Milo

ESCARGOT

Lucie eating snails

A Monet

Degas

Degas' Tiny Dancer

Le Groupe

In front of the eiffel tower!

Bon Soir!
Another busy, busy, day in Paris. We had the French daylight savings time today, so we woke up what felt like an hour earlier, (yay jetlag and daylight savings!). After yet another phenomenal breakfast, we walked in the rain, (il plue!) to the beautiful Notre Dame. From down the street, we could already hear the bells from the church and what sounded like a choir of angels coming from inside. Lots of people were lined up outside already, and so we got in line behind them and waited to enter the church. When we first walked in, the service was already under way and the priest was speaking French into a microphone so that his voice echoed throughout the chapel. The service would switch between him speaking and the choir singing. During it, we were able to walk around and see all of the amazing architecture. Notre Dame is one of the largest, most complexly built buildings I've ever been in. The stained glass is so beautiful and reflects rainbow colors across the walls. The outside is rich with flying buttresses and the inside has these huge domed ceilings. I'm not religious, but being in Notre Dame made me want to be Catholic. After we'd finished our exploration, we walked to the Foundation Cartier museum where we met up with Angelo's parents again. Inside, there were a couple of exhibits by Bruce Nauman. It was all contemporary art, some of which was quite disturbing. None of us really knew what to make of it, but it was an interesting look at the commentary that the artist had on the human condition. Next, we went and had an huge lunch at a little cafe, complete with creme brûlée and had a nice couple of hours off our feet. We'd intended to go to the Musèe d'Orsey after that but by the time we'd walked over, it was closed, so instead we walked through le Jardin de Tuileries to a museum called Jeu de Paume. Joue du pomme means apple juice in French, so the museum's name is sort of a play on words. There were two photography exhibits there, one by Taryn Simon, and one by Florence Henri. Simon's exhibit had a series of photos about wrongly convicted criminals, one about war conditions in other countries, and one about things people tried to smuggle through customs at the airport. You'd be surprised how much is forbidden! Florence Henri's exhibit was mostly about her style of photography and how she used different elements to capture different things, whether it was landscape, portrait, or still life. Finalement, we were so tired and our feet hurt so much, so we walked back to our lovely little hotel and ate Gyros and crêpes for dinner. Tomorrow, I think we're going to the Louvre, as well as having time to wander Paris and hopefully see the Arc De Triumph and the Eiffel Tower! Our French is improving so much every day, and we're so happy to be here.
We hope everyone at home and at Putney is well!
Bon Nuit
The France Group
Ps. I promise photos will come tomorrow!!! The internet in my room doesn't work very well and all the photos are on my phone so I just need to find the time and motivation to transfer them so that you can all see our lovely Paris!!

Bonjour!
Today was our first full day in Paris! We started the day off with an amazing breakfast of croissants, hot chocolate, coffee, orange juice, jam, apricot sauce and baguette. We first went to the Musée du Cluny. The Cluny museum is a big stone building that is home to tons of artifacts displaying both home life, and religious practice in 12th century France. We saw large stone carved pieces of old buildings, and tapestries depicting both religious and mystical scenes. After spending a good amount of time in the museum and the courtyard, we walked along the Seine river and walked across the lock bridge, which is so full of locks that they had to board it up! We had intended to buy sketchbooks, but the store was closed so we walked back into the center of Paris to Le Fontaine de Saint Michel, a big fountain that has Saint Michel killing the devil and spouting water out of some gargoyles. There was also a whole baguette floating in the fountain, yeah France! We got crêpes (again), and then met Arthur, a Putney Alum from '56 who gave us a walking tour of Paris full of little tidbits about Paris history. After that, we went to a Russian film festival where we met Angelo's parents and brother! It was so lovely to have a connection to our lives back at Putney.
I promise there will be lots of photos soon!
Bon Nuit!
The France Trip
(Oliva, Cazo, Maeve, Lucie, Ben, Dalton, Henry, and Izzy)

Bonjour!
Our first day in Paris was very relaxed. We arrived at around 9:30 in the morning after a flight delay and a six hour flight from Boston. Our hotel is on the Left Bank of Paris, called Le Hotel des Grande Ecole. It has a beautiful courtyard and garden. Our rooms all have lovely wallpaper and are so pretty. We wandered around Paris and had our first crêpes du chocolat et coco (nutella and coconut!). The ever Paris savvy Ben led us to le Jardin du Luxemborg where we wandered around the fountain, watched the french version of bocce, drank cafè du creme and people watched. Everyone in Paris has been so so friendly. None of us can quite believe we're here, but that may be due to our lack of sleep. Tonight, we'll sleep well before our first full day in Paris tomorrow!
Au Revoir and Bon Nuit from the French Group!