Ho-Hum

Well, I haven't posted in a while, because there hasn't been much to post about. Grim weather, not much sunlight, not much going on, typical January. January is the Monday of months. I started reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which I've wanted to read for a while, but have always been too intimidated to undertake until now. I figure if I can't get through it when I don't have a job or school or anything, I never will. Jenny gave me a haircut a little while ago, and I think it turned out quite well. I like how it looks and it's nice to not have to deal with a lot of hair, but my head gets cold a lot easier now.

See? There's less hair than there was before.

Jenny has a break coming up in February, during which time we're going to stay with our friend Eve in London, then head up to stay with Johanna, a former UT professor we know who is now teaching at a university in Leeds. I'm really looking forward to visiting England! So many famous places and landmarks to see and experience. Plus it will be nice to be somewhere where everyone speaks the same language as me for the first time in about five months. I'm especially looking forward to going to see some shows on West End. We've already bought tickets for Billy Elliot the Musical and Waiting For Godot (currently starring none other than Ian McKellan!), and we're going to try to see Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and Wicked as well, if we have the time and money and aren't too sick of going to the theater. It should be a really fun trip, and I can't wait!

December Part 5 (Dec. 26-27)

After spending a relaxing few days in Lille shopping, showing my family around, and having Christmas, we rented a mini-van-type vehicle and set back out on another couple days of sightseeing. The day after Christmas, we got up reasonably early and drove about an hour and a half to see a medieval castle called the Chateau de Pierrefonds.

View of the Chateau from the front

It was pretty cool, although I thought it was more interesting from the outside than the inside. It's been used as a location for filming several movies, like The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Man in the Iron Mask, and some TV show about Merlin. It is a real medieval castle, originally built in the 12th century, but has fallen into ruin and been restored and rebuilt multiple times. The restoration that created the current incarnation was started in 1850.

One of the halls inside the Chateau

We spent most of the day seeing the Chateau and wandering in the village below. It was getting dark by the time we left, but we decided to make a small detour on the way back to Lille and stop in Amiens, which has a very famous cathedral, which is (I think) the largest cathedral in France.

Amiens Cathedral

The Cathedral was really magnificent, but unfortunately, we couldn't go inside. When we got there, we found out that if we waited around for about an hour, we could see a light show they do every night on the front of the Cathedral. So we wandered around for a bit and came back to see the light show, which was kind of cool. They projected colors onto all the sculptures in the three doorways, making them look like they were painted (which they used to be). We didn't stay for the whole thing though, because we were all pretty hungry. When we got back to Lille, we went to a creperie which Jenny and I had been to before with Liliane and Francois. It was delicious.

Canal in Bruges

The next day we ventured into Belgium. We stopped in a port town called Zeebrugge because Mom wanted to see the ocean. We then went to our main destination, the city of Bruges. We walked around the streets, looking at the canals and chocolate shops, and got some lunch in a sandwich shop. Then we headed over to the main square, where the famous belfry is located.

The belfry in Bruges

We paid to go up in the belfry. It was 366 steps to get to the top, and it was very narrow and therefore very crowded since there were people going both up and down. Several times we had to stand off to the side on landings and wait for people coming down to pass before we could go on. But once we got to the top, the view was pretty spectacular.

View from the top of the belfry

From the top, you could see a very long way in every direction (although we probably would have been able to see even farther if it hadn't been cloudy that day). It was cool to look down and see the city with all the canals going through it. It was also very cold, since we were so high up. After looking around for a while, we went back down and Bonnie Jo, Robin, Jenny and I decided to go to the chocolate museum, while Mom and Dad wandered around some more.

This weird little guy was the mascot at the chocolate museum

The chocolate museum was relatively interesting. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate and how it is made that I certainly didn't know before going there. After we went through the museum, we watched a guy actually making chocolates, which was pretty cool. And everybody got to eat one, too! After the chocolate museum, Jenny and I went to see about taking a boat ride, but all the boats were done for the day (which wasn't exactly a huge disappointment, because it was pretty cold and had been raining on and off all day, plus it was getting dark). It was getting to be around dinner time, so we left Bruges and found a nice seafood restaurant on the way back to Lille.

The next day was my family's last day in Lille. Liliane and Francois had us over for lunch, which was delicious, and of course they had presents for everyone! Claire and her boyfriend Eric (who she met at UT and is also from Tennessee) were there too, which was nice. After eating, we all went over to the Vimy Memorial, a nearby memorial for Canadian soldiers who fought in World War I. We then headed back to the house, where my family packed and got ready to leave in the morning. Dad, Jenny and I went to return the rental car, which was somewhat of a fiasco, because it was too big to fit into the parking garage the rental people had told us to park it in. But we eventually talked to a guy who told us where a different entrance to the garage was, and everything worked out.

The next morning, Jenny and I accompanied my family to the train station to see them off. Their train was on time and everything, and they made it back home without too much trouble (although apparently they had to go through a lot of ridiculous airport security because of the attempted bombing that had happened like a week before). And that's the end of our December adventures with my family!

Avatar

I didn't really know what to expect of Avatar going in. I was never super excited about this movie - being a movie nerd, I had followed its development online and heard James Cameron's promises that it was going to revolutionize the way 3D is used in movies, create a new kind of moviegoing experience, change cinema forever, etc. And while I was never convinced that these hyperbolic claims would come to fruition, I did believe that, coming from a writer/director like James Cameron, this film might have the potential to be groundbreaking in some way, or at least be really really good. But when the first trailer was released, I was not very impressed. I wasn't disappointed or anything, there just wasn't anything in the trailer that made me particularly excited about seeing the movie. I guess I had always planned on seeing it, mainly because it's been such a talked-about project since the very beginning of its production, but after seeing the trailer, I was somewhat skeptical about how good it would actually be.

But enough about my expectations for Avatar going in, here's what I thought coming out: I was pleasantly surprised by it, but not blown away. My main response was that this movie is absolutely gorgeous. If there's ever been a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen, this is it (that's why I almost didn't include any image of it at the top of this post, and why I ended up using a poster instead of a screen shot - these images were created for a big screen, and seeing them reduced to computer screen size is almost pointless. Still, I like to have something to put up there). That's the main thing that James Cameron and his visual effects teams delivered with this movie - a new world that is jaw-droppingly beautiful. I don't know if I would call the visuals in Avatar groundbreaking, because they really don't do anything truly new, but the thing is, they do things that have been done before BETTER than they've been done before. We've seen photo-real CGI landscapes before, but not ones this lovely, and we've seen motion-capture CGI characters before, but not ones this convincing. I would say that these effects, rather than changing the game (as Cameron claimed they would), simply raise the bar - which is not an unimpressive feat. If Avatar does not win the Oscar for visual effects come March, the Academy Awards will be stripped of any shred of credibility they have left.

There has been a significant amount of criticism directed at Avatar's writing, comparing the plot to "Dances With Wolves in space", complaining about the not-so-brilliant dialogue, etc. And while these accusations are not wholly unfounded, and the fact is that the script is the film's weakest point, I don't think they really hurt the film or get in the way of what Cameron is trying to accomplish with it. The script is nothing new and nothing brilliant, but it's not a bad script, and it does what it needs to do, which is provide the film with a reasonably compelling story to tell with its amazing visuals. The characters are good enough to give the actors something to work with and make the audience care about them, even if this movie won't be winning any acting awards, and the plot is interesting enough to propel the action.

I would not call Avatar a masterpiece or a game-changer or anything like that. But I would call it a good movie, because it succeeds at what it sets out to do. What people who complain about a plot we've seen before or the simplistic dialogue don't realize is that James Cameron did not set out to give us the next Citizen Kane, and you know what? That's okay. He set out to give us a good action movie with wondrous visuals, and that's what he did. A movie doesn't have to be good at everything in order to be a good movie. It should avoid being bad at any one thing, but if a movie does one or two things spectacularly, and everything else decently, that movie is by no means a failure.

I do feel that Cameron ultimately hurt his own movie by talking it up so much and building such high expectations for it. Not financially of course - Avatar has broken the record for reaching the $1 billion worldwide gross mark faster than any other film and is currently the second-highest grossing film of all time behind Cameron's own Titanic. But artistically, Avatar simply doesn't live up to all the things that Cameron promised about it, and honestly, I don't know if any film he'd given us could have. But regardless of its failure to live up to the hype, Avatar IS a solid science fiction/action movie that is absolutely stunning to look at, and that's good enough to make it one of the better films of 2009.

December Part 4 (Dec. 20-21)

Sunday, December 20, was our last full day in Paris. Robin and Dad were pretty tired of doing tourist things, so they decided to stay around the apartment and do some wandering of their own while Bonnie Jo, Mom, Jenny and I went to see the Palace of Versailles, which was the thing Jenny wanted to see most in Paris.

The gates of Versailles

It took us a little while to figure out how to get to Versailles, but we finally managed to get on the right RER train going in the right direction. The journey took about thirty minutes and we got to see some of the area surrounding Paris. It was snowing very hard during the whole train ride, and was still snowing very hard when we got to Versailles.

View out onto the gardens from a window

Versailles was pretty cool, but I was also glad that it was our last day of being full-time tourists. There was a special exhibit about Louis XIV, which was interesting. And the palace is so huge! Unsurprisingly (but still sadly) the gardens were closed due to weather.

The famed Hall of Mirrors

That night was our last night at the apartment in Paris. We had train tickets to go back to Lille for the next day around 4 p.m., so the next morning we got up and finished packing before heading out into Paris one last time. Bonnie Jo, Robin, Jenny and I had wanted to go to the Musee d'Orsay, but it's closed on Mondays, so we ended up going to the Musee de l'Orangerie instead, which is a relatively small museum that focuses on impressionist paintings. It is most famous for housing Matisse's water lily paintings, called the Nympheas. By that point, I was pretty tired of taking pictures, so I didn't take any in there, but we did see some cool paintings.

After we were done at the museum, we all headed back to the apartment to finish getting our stuff together and head to Lille. It was quite an expedition, but we somehow managed to get six people plus all of our luggage from the apartment to the metro (while changing metro lines three times) to the train station on time. But once we got there, our train was missing several cars for one reason or another (you have to love France), so there was a mass of people trying to figure out where they were supposed to sit. Jenny talked to an official-type person who told her we should just get on a first-class car and try to find space. It was all very stressful, but by about 5:30 we were on our way to Lille, with a free seating upgrade. After that, there were no more troubles, and we finally arrived home in Lille!

We spent the next few days leading up to Christmas relaxing, shopping, and getting ready for Christmas, and showing my family around Lille. Even though Paris was a lot of fun, it was good to have a break from all the rushing around and seeing things. But the day after Christmas, we returned to our sightseeing, which I will get to in a later post.

Top 10 Movies of the Decade

I originally wanted to do a "Best Movies of 2009" post, but I realized that there are so many movies that came out this year that I haven't had the chance to see yet, that I would have a hard time coming up with a list that satisfied me. So instead, I decided to do my Top 10 of the past decade (2000-2009), since I've seen considerably more of the movies that have come out in the past decade than in the past year, and can therefore create a more accurate list. I'm putting these in order chronologically, rather than ordering it according to favorites, since that would just be too hard. So let the list begin...

Almost Famous (2000)

Even though this list isn't in order, I have to say, this is my number one favorite movie, not just of the past ten years, but of all time. This movie both warms and breaks my heart every time I see it. Every character is perfect - and so are the actors who portray them. I can't think of another single movie with this many amazing performances in it - Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee - every single one of these actors creates (with the help of Cameron Crowe's excellent writing) a completely unique, believable, and memorable character. There are no one-dimensional characters in this movie, even supporting ones. These are characters you connect with. The soundtrack is also excellent, and the story is one of a kind. This movie is hilarious and beautiful and intelligent all at the same time, and it's about so many things - learning to love, dealing with fame, the power of music, growing up, being uncool. I could go on and on and on about all the specific reasons why this movie is perfect, but I'm not going to do that here. Suffice it to say that movies like this are the reason I love movies.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)

I'm cheating a bit here, giving one spot to three movies, but honestly, who can look at Peter Jackson's The Fellowhip of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, and not recognize that they are all part of a single, complex work? With this trilogy, Peter Jackson accomplished the most amazing act of page-to-screen adaptation I can think of. All of the choices he made in making these movies - from what to leave in and take out of the screenplay, to who to cast, to how the creatures and landscapes should look - add up to nothing short of a masterpiece. The acting, special effects, and score are all stunning, and Jackson makes New Zealand look like Middle Earth come to life. These movies tell Tolkien's story better than I would have ever thought possible in a feature film.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Lost in Translation came out back when Bill Murray doing a quirky drama instead of a comedy was still new, and Scarlett Johansson was being paid small fees for being talented instead of large fees for being hot. This movie is about relationships and mood, and if you like movies like that, then it is superb. When I saw it when it first came out, I was just beginning to like movies like that, so it took me a couple viewings to get from "not sure if I get it" to "one of my favorites of all time". What makes this movie work is the dynamic between Murray and Johansson, and the way you, as the viewer, watch their relationship develop until it becomes real, so real that by the time Bob whispers indiscernibly into Charlotte's ear in the film's final moments, you feel that the characters deserve to keep whatever it is he said between themselves. Writer/Director Sofia Coppola was too smart to take the easy way out and make this a simple romance (although there may be a bit of that, too) - this movie is about a more complex kind of relationship that we rarely see on film, and it feels all the more real because of it.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Charlie Kaufman is one of the most talented screenwriters alive, and this is his masterpiece. In this movie, Kaufman and director Michel Gondry use an unusual plot and a unique approach to storytelling to examine one of the most commonly discussed themes in all of fiction - love. And they do it more effectively and truthfully than any romantic comedy you will ever see. This movie also contains what I would argue is Jim Carrey's best performance to date, the kind of performance that makes it really hard to believe that this is the guy who was in Ace Ventura and is still making movies like Yes Man. Kate Winslet is brilliant as always, and the supporting cast is great as well - with Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, and Tom Wilkinson all in top form. Like all of Charlie Kaufman's movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is refreshingly different from every other movie you have ever seen, but it goes beyond just being clever and well-made to being a really truthful and touching movie about what love is really like.

Garden State (2004)

This movie reminds me of high school. Partially because I was in high school when I saw it, and partially because some of the people in it remind me of people I knew in high school. I find this movie very easy to relate to, and I imagine a lot of other people who are in their late teens/early 20s do too. It's about trying to figure out yourself and your place in the world, and coming home to a place you don't recognize anymore. One reason I like Garden State is because it doesn't really provide its characters with any answers, and there isn't really a lot of plot. It's mainly just about Braff's character, Andrew Largeman, trying to figure out what his life is all about, and by the end of the movie, he's only slightly closer to figuring it out than he was at the beginning.

Children of Men (2006)

Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men is science fiction done right. In it, Cuaron creates such a believable (and even recognizable) world, that it doesn't feel like science fiction at all, even though many things are so radically different from the world in which we currently live. In Cuaron's film, the future is a dirty, gritty, dangerous place, yet this is a story about hope. Clive Owen's everyman protagonist Theo Faron makes a convincingly reluctant hero, who never volunteers to save humanity, or even to protect Kee, the girl he ends up guiding through their world - he is simply a decent man who is put in a situation where his help is needed. The attention to detail in this film is astounding, and it's the little things that make it feel real, like the fact that Theo, as he is constantly chased from one place to the other without warning, spends a large part of the story without any shoes on.

The Departed (2006)

Martin Scorsese, the master of crime movies, finally got a Directing Oscar for The Departed, and I daresay it is his masterpiece. This movie makes you feel the uneasiness and anxiety felt by guys who aren't really working for the people they work for. Matt Damon as Colin Sullivan and Leonardo DiCaprio as Billy Costigan spend the whole movie trying to outwit one another, while never knowing who each other really are. The acting is top-notch, and the whole movie is filled with tension, as both Damon's and DiCaprio's characters come closer and closer to being found out. Jack Nicholson delivers some terrific dialogue as the borderline psychotic gangster who can't be caught, and Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg are excellent as the good cop/bad cop team that run the undercover unit. I don't really know how to describe why this movie is so great, it's just a really really REALLY good movie about cops and criminals.

Juno (2007)

It is really hard to believe that Juno is the first script Diablo Cody ever wrote. Many screenwriters spend decades writing movies and still never come up with anything this original, clever, and touching. Some people complain about how "real people don't talk like that", referring to the bizarre slang and obscure references used by Juno and her friends, but I think that's missing the point - both Juno and the people she knows are weird, and they live in their own weird little world. Who doesn't have strange terms and sayings they share with close friends which would be unexplainable to someone who wasn't there when they originated? Part of what makes this movie so special is that is makes you, as the viewer, feel like you've stepped into the world of Juno and her family and friends, and are witnessing all of their quirks and eccentricities firsthand. Personally, I know more people that are weird in the ways the people in this movie are weird than otherwise. This is what life is like - people are weird, weird things happen, and not everything that happens makes sense.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Leading up to the release of The Dark Knight, I had ridiculously high expectations for it, yet at the same time I knew it couldn't be as good as I hoped and was to some extent expecting to be let down. But somehow, it managed to live up to my ridiculously high expectations. Batman Begins is quite a good movie, but The Dark Knight is not even in the same ballpark as its predecessor. This movie builds and builds and builds and when it's over, it's hard to believe that two and a half hours have gone by. It is entirely unpredictable, and the cast is amazing. Heath Ledger doesn't play The Joker, he IS The Joker. And The Joker he brings us is unlike any incarnation of him we've seen before. And, somewhat overshadowed by Ledger's incredible performance, is Aaron Eckhart's own brilliant portrayal of Harvey Dent, the tragic hero of the story. Great action, great acting, great direction, great score - AND this superhero movie has more philosophical depth than 99% of what comes out of Hollywood, addressing some really tough ethical questions. Right in the middle of this summer blockbuster is a plotline where the people of Gotham must choose between utilitarian and Kantian ethics - is it more important to serve the greater good, or to simply do the right thing? I don't care if Christopher Nolan makes a sequel to this or not - if he does, I'm sure it will be great, but there's simply no way he can make a better Batman movie than this.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Even though I still have a few problems with it, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is, in my opinion, probably his second-best film, and the best movie I saw in 2009. Tarantino divides the film into five "chapters", and each of these practically serves as its own little short film. Tarantino's films have always been dialogue-driven, but never as much as in Inglourious Basterds. Contrary to what the trailers suggest, which is that this movie is two and a half hours of Brad Pitt and friends butchering Nazis, this film has less action and more dialogue than any of Tarantino's prior films. Most of the film's five chapters are made up of only one or two scenes, and many of these scenes consist almost entirely of characters sitting around talking. The film's writing, acting, and directing are so incredible that a twenty-minute conversation between two people has the audience holding its breath the whole time. Like The Dark Knight, this movie is stolen by the villain, in this case SS Colonel Hans Landa, the man known as "The Jew Hunter", played to perfection by Christoph Waltz. The first (and best) scene, in which the audience is introduced to Landa, is a masterpiece in itself, and one of the most well-constructed and unbearably tense scenes I can ever remember watching.

Well, that's the list. Narrowing it down to ten was a lot harder than I thought it would be! I hope you enjoyed reading it, and I also hope that if there's any of these great movies that you haven't seen, you'll want to now!

December Part 3 (Dec. 19)

Our third full day in Paris, we returned to the Eiffel Tower to see it during the day and try to go up in it. Of course, because of cold weather, we could only go up to the first floor, so we did that. We were going to try to take the stairs up, but we accidentally got in line for the elevator instead, so we just took that.

View towards Montmarte (you can see Sacre Coeur) from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower

The first floor platform was much bigger than I realized it would be. There are walkways the whole way around, and there's also a gift shop, a museum, and even a restaurant! And even though we weren't able to make it up any higher than the first floor, we still got some great views of the city.

Sacre Coeur in the snow

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed over to Montmarte. I was very excited to go there since it was one of the places Jenny and I had gone on our short day trip to Paris earlier in the month, and I thought it was amazing. I think that the inside of Sacre Coeur is more amazing than the inside of Notre Dame - it's more solemn and seems more sacred, and there's no photography allowed whatsoever. The ceiling of Sacre Coeur is an incredible dome with images of Jesus, Mary, and other biblical figures all over it.

View of the city from the steps of Sacre Coeur

And the view of Paris from in front of Sacre Coeur is, I think, the best one I saw (although this might have changed if we'd been able to go up in the towers of Notre Dame or past the first floor of the Eiffel Tower). Sacre Coeur was definitely one of my favorite places we visited in all of Paris, even though it was my second time going there.

The artist's square in Montmarte

After seeing Sacre Coeur, we explored some more of the surrounding area, Montmarte. There weren't nearly as many artists out as when Jenny and I had come before, probably because of the cold. We saw Picasso's old workshop, and some of the famous windmills scattered throughout the neighborhood. We also saw the Moulin Rouge! After exploring for a while, we went to eat dinner at a restaurant a friend of Jenny's had recommended, Refuge des Fondues. It was very crowded and pretty fun. Part of their schtick is that the waiters joke and make fun of the customers, but that was kind of lost on all of us except Jenny since we don't speak French, so they mostly left us alone. Also, they give you your drinks in baby bottles!

Sacre Coeur at night

After eating dinner, we headed back to Sacre Coeur so that we could see it at night. We went back up the hill, and got a nighttime view of the city, and we saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour, but it didn't do a light show like it had when we'd been there. We then headed back to the apartment to get some sleep before our final full day in Paris, which I will write about some time soon!

December Part 2 (Dec. 18)

Our second day in Paris, Friday, was very busy. It was extremely cold again, and still snowy. The first place we went was Notre Dame, which was the thing I was looking forward to seeing the most while we were in Paris. Jenny and I had watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney one) recently, since we knew we would be seeing the real thing, and it was pretty amazing, although to be honest, it wasn't quite as tall as I had expected.

The towers of Notre Dame

Sadly, we were once again thwarted by the cold weather, and were unable to go up into the towers due to ice. But both the inside and the outside of the Cathedral were magnificent. After taking some pictures out front, we headed inside. There is some amazing stained glass, and the little alcoves to the sides with statues of saints were very cool to see. Also, there was a nativity scene set up and there was an empty manger, since Christmas hadn't come yet, which I though was kind of cool. And it's astonishing how high and well-constructed the ceilings in there are.

The statue of Notre Dame, "Our Lady"

I was kind of surprised that photography was allowed inside (just no flashes), and I actually would have preferred if it hadn't been. It seemed a bit less solemn and a little more touristy than Sacre Coeur (which we hadn't been to yet on this trip, but I'd been to on our earlier day trip with Liliane and Francois), where no photography of any kind is allowed. I think some places are just better to be experienced in person and remembered, rather than photographed, and this was one of them, at least for me.

A view of the Cathedral from behind

After spending a good amount of time exploring the inside, we headed outside, which was just as amazing. I took my time walking the whole way around the outside. It's mind-blowing to think how much time and work was put into building Notre Dame. People simply don't make buildings like it anymore.

The famous gargoyles of Notre Dame

After we were all finished exploring both the inside and outside of Notre Dame, we decided to take a journey down into the Crypt, which is right across the square from the Cathedral. It turns out that the Crypt sounds a lot cooler than it is - I think we were all expecting something more like the Catacombs (which have been closed indefinitely since September, sadly), full of bones and graves, but the Crypt is actually just some sections of preserved ancient architecture like columns and doorways. We didn't linger there too long, and headed to a nearby cafe for some lunch.

Inside Sainte-Chapelle

After lunch, we headed over to Sainte-Chapelle, another cathedral which is famous for its stained glass, which was close by. There really is an amazing amount of stained glass in there, and my mom was very excited because if you follow along on the windows, they tell different Bible stories, although it was harder to make them out than we had thought it would be.

A few of the windows of Sainte-Chapelle

We spent a decent amount of time inside Sainte-Chapelle, looking at the stained glass, before heading back out into the cold! Before getting back on the metro, we walked back over to Notre Dame to check and make sure that we wouldn't be able to go up in the towers before leaving the area. Unfortunately, they were still closed, so we soldiered on.

The Centre Pompidou

Our next stop was the Centre Pompidou, which is home to (I think) the world's second-largest collection of modern art, behind the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Mom, Dad, and Bonnie Jo were not that interested in going to another art museum, and none of them is particularly interested in modern art anyway, so they went and drank coffee and arranged to meet Jenny, Robin, and I when we were done seeing the museum.

Rob experiencing modern art

I was really glad that the three of us did go to the museum, even though everybody wasn't interested, because we all really enjoyed it, and it turned out to be one of my favorite things we did in Paris. There were two main floors of the museum - one with more current, less famous art, and one with more well-known modern art like Picasso, Dali, and Matisse.

A Picasso painting

Both floors were very cool. I actually liked the Centre Pompidou more than the Louvre, but I guess that makes sense, since I'm much more interested in modern than classical art. One of the reasons that I really enjoy modern art is that there's more to it than technical skill - I've always had a difficult time appreciating art that is simply a portrait of some rich guy who paid to have his portrait painted. Modern art is more about the meaning behind the image than the construction of it, and I find it much easier to be interested in modern pieces for this reason. And even if you have no idea what the meaning is supposed to be, at least modern art tends to be visually exciting.

The Eiffel Tower (as if you didn't know)

Finally, after the Centre Pompidou, we ate a quick dinner at a Kebab place, and headed over to the Eiffel Tower! At this point, it was extremely cold, and we decided to go up in it the next day, when it would be lighter and warmer. But we took some pictures, and since it was almost ten o'clock, we waited a little to see the sparkly lights which they do all over the tower every hour on the hour.

Sparkle time!

To our surprise, once the sparkling stopped, a light show began! There was music playing, and the whole tower lit up in different colors that flashed, changed, and moved around. I didn't get any pictures of it, but it was pretty cool. We stayed for the whole thing, which lasted about thirty minutes. It reminded me of the Carol of the Trees, which is a light show at Dollywood which my family always watches at the end of the night when we go there at Christmas. After the light show was over, we headed home for bed.

That's Day 2! To be continued....

December Part 1 (Dec. 16-17)

Happy 2010! I haven't posted in almost a month, but that's because I've been very busy. On December 16th, my family (mom, dad, brother and sister) flew into Paris, and Jenny and I took the train down to meet them. We stayed in an apartment they'd rented in Paris for five nights, before coming back to Lille on the 21st. We then spent the next few days, including Christmas, in Lille. We rented a mini-van for three days after Christmas, and made various day trips, and then my family left Lille to fly out of Paris on the 29th. And I've been sick since the day they left, so I've mostly been in bed, sleeping, reading, and watching movies, which is why I haven't gotten around to posting until now.

We did so much, and I have so many pictures, that I'll probably have to divide this into multiple entries to make it bearable. I'll start here with our first day in Paris, and see how far I get.

View of the Arc de Triomphe down Avenue Charles de Gaulle, near our apartment

Jenny and I took a train in the afternoon, then made our way from the station to the apartment via the metro and met up with my family. It was great to see them all, since I hadn't seen any of them since leaving Tennessee at the beginning of September. That first day we took it pretty easy, taking a walk down to the Seine, cooking dinner at the apartment, planning for the rest of our time in Paris, and getting to bed early.

Snow-covered statues seen out of the window at the Louvre

When we woke up the next day, it was snowing, and there were already several inches on the ground! We went to the Louvre, which was the thing that my sister most wanted to do in Paris. It was pretty amazing, seeing in person so many works of art that I'd seen in pictures. I had expected it to be extremely crowded, but it turned out to be not bad at all. I didn't end up taking any pictures in there, I guess the tourist in me hadn't really kicked in yet. We spent several hours in the Louvre, and saw a good chunk of its collections, though I'm sure we didn't see everything. It is so huge! And by the time we left, I was certainly burnt out on looking at art and ready to go.

The Louvre Pyramid - we came out through here, but we came in through a kind of back entrance from the Metro, because we're sneaky tourists

After the Louvre, we ate at a delicious pizza place nearby, before making our way through the Jardins Tuileries, the gardens which are spread in front of the Louvre. There wasn't a whole lot to see, since it was cold and snowy, but there were some cool statues, and the snow looked nice on all the trees and hedges. After that, we went to see the special Christmas window displays at the Printemps and the Galleries Lafayette. They were kind of weird, but cool to see nonetheless. We then took the metro over to the Arc de Triomphe, which was quite a sight at night.

The Arc de Triomphe

Sadly, we couldn't go up to the top, because of ice/snow/cold weather. So we took pictures from across the street, before going down and through the passageway which leads under the roundabout surrounding it, and up under the Arc de Triomphe itself. It was very big up close, and we looked around until we were told we had to move off of the main area in front of it, because a military memorial service was about to be held. We watched that from the side for a while, but they didn't have microphones or anything, so we couldn't really tell what they were saying or what was going on, so we headed back to the apartment.

Well, that's our first full day in Paris, and it took up more space than I expected! I'm going to go ahead and end this entry here, and continue with Day 2 another time.