Petanque, Cemeteries, Catacombes, and Ice Cream!

Bonjour!
I don’t remember where I last left off in my blog, haha. So please forgive me if I make you read about this stuff again…oh wait! I think it is coming back to me. I believe that I wrote about going to Le Paradis des Fruits and getting the yucky chicken curry stuff. I’m pretty sure that was Wednesday! Ok, so Thursday! Every week, the whole group goes on one or two cultural outings together. Thursday morning, the director took us to a private petanque club. What is petanque, you ask? It is exactly like Bocce Ball if you know what that is…The basic premise is that someone throws a little blue ball and it has to land 6-10 meter away from the throwing line. There are 2 teams of 3 and each person has 2 larger silver balls (6 of the balls are the same for team 1, 6 are identical for team 2). A member from team 1 throws one of their silver balls as close to the blue ball as possible, followed by a member of team 2. Whoever is further away gets to go next. The order of succession after that is really confusing…Team 1 (or whoever has a ball farthest from the blue after the initial round of throws) throws until they get a silver ball closer to the blue ball than team 2, and then it is team 2’s turn. It is team 2’s turn until they get closer to the blue ball than team 1. When everyone is out of silver balls, you go over to the small blue one. You decide which team has the closest silver ball to the blue ball. Then you count that team’s silver balls around the blue one (you look at the top 4 closest balls and that is what you choose from). For example, say that team 2’s balls were closest, then you’d count the remainder of team 2’s balls surrounding the blue ball (but you only count the top four closest balls)…one point per silver ball. So if team 2 had the closest ball, but the other 3 closest balls belonged to team 1, then team 2 would get 1 point, team 1 would get 0. The team to reach 13 first, wins. You’re allowed to hit other player’s silver balls out of the way or hit the blue ball to move it away from your opponent or closer to your team’s silvers. It was pretty fun once I figured out what the heck we were doing!! Petanque is mostly played by older people (like bingo or chess in the park), but it was super fun!
My team was comprised of me, Rachel and Megan. We were Team Mermaid!! And we totally won! The final score was 13-6. Poor Team Jacob (made up of Leslie, Karen—my super cool French teacher—and Kiara) never had a chance! Mermaids are way better than werewolves…duh! (If you don’t understand what Jacob and werewolves have to do with each other, I suggest you go see Eclipse!)
Members of the petanque club taught us how to play and our game was the first to end. He took us to the little hangout/bar area and served us beer or wine, haha. The club president brought his puppy too! She was really adorable…a highlands terrier named Eclaire who hopped up on the table and took a nap!
After petanque, the kids in the culture class had to go to the Centre Pompidou (a modern art museum). Before we headed there though, we had lunch at a cute little café across the road from the petanque club. We were in the Montmartre quarter, which I think is my favorite region of Paris. There are a lot of very cute shops and it is a lot more calm and tranquil than the Latin quarter (where I am living). I had the salade chicken, haha. I thought it was interesting that they used the English word for chicken instead of the French one. It was pretty good because I asked for the dressing on the side and then gave my tomatoes and cucumbers to Leslie. The chicken was ok, but it was all dark meat and cold (which I don’t exactly like) and there were cold potatoes on it too. (it was rather strange as well…I’ve never had cold potatoes.)
After that, I went to Le Centre George Pompidou for like 5 hours. It was a humongous place!!! It had art by Picasso and Dali as well as weirder stuff like a video projected on a wall of a woman hulahooping naked…with a barbed wire hoolahoop! Most of the museum just creeped me out. I much prefer impressionist or renaissance art to modern art. I really didn’t feel extremely inspired or changed or intrigued by anything I saw…just weirded out, haha.
Other things I saw:
-these two giant jellyfish looking things strung from the ceiling. One was made of pink material and had crabs and fish eggs all over it. It was emitting music and creepy moans of pain. The other one was made of a burlap material and had giant pictures of tooth extractions on it. I read the plaque next to the “art” and learned that the structures were supposed to be fraternal twins…one was blind but had teeth and the other had cancer but could speak…yeah…I don’t get it either. It was just extremely bizarre and eerie.
-the top floor of the museum/gallery had an exhibition called “Dreamland.” It was a display of big cities their designs, and the effectiveness of their designs. It showcased New York City, Las Vegas, EPCOT (more on that in a minute), some cities in southeast Asia, and more (but I don’t really remember.) The Las Vegas one was my favorite because it had a whole bunch of pictures and the city plans from the 50s. It was neat to see all of the casinos that were super ritzy in the 50s and know how different they have turned out. The EPCOT thing was cool too. We all know EPCOT as an awesome part of DisneyWorld, but it started out as a plan for a utopian society, created by Walt himself! I watched a movie from 1966 in which he explained his plans for creating this mega city, complete with Wedway People Movers, a metro system, different districts for living, working and for recreation, and a dome overtop the town to keep out rain and provide a controlled climate. Walt died in December of 1966 and no one continued with his plans for the utopian society EPCOT, instead the big white golf ball-looking thing was made and placed in DisneyWorld. I had no idea about any of this stuff! So it was pretty cool to learn all of it.
-the level under the entrance level was host to a very strange exhibition. It was titled “Neige Blanche”…Snow White. There was a huge red carpet and a reeeeally long dining table on top of it (think of a table in a king or queen’s dining hall). There were several place settings atop the table, along with baskets of apples, and a dead deer. Sitting in chairs at the table and walking around it, several women were dressed up as Snow White! Some of them were carrying machine guns! And the ones that were wearing shoes, were wearing combat boots! It was very strange. The Snow Whites with guns walked around like they were patrolling the area defensively while the ones sitting at the table ate apples. I have no idea what was going on. There was a dead boar on the carpet, a little bit away from the table. It was rather creepy! I think it was supposed to be some sort of social commentary concerning how different children a couple generations ago are to children now. Before bed children from older generations read fairytales, but children now play violent video games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto. I think the exhibition was supposed to be a collaboration of both: Snow White with machine guns, dead animals all over the place. I’m not really sure though, haha.
After the Centre Pompidou, I went home and did homework before bed. Leslie and I got up early Friday morning because we wanted to go the Catacombes. They opene at 10 but several kids in our group went last week and they said they waited in line for 2 hours! We left the Foyer at 9 and got there at 9:15ish. We were like the third or fourth group in line, but the line progressively became longer every minute! By 10:00, it was wrapped around the corner and went down the adjacent street. We were let in around 10:20 and it took us about 45 minutes to walk through.
Before the mid 1700’s, there used to be a lot of rock mining under the Parisian streets. Once the quarry stopped being used for obtaining rocks, city planners noticed that the Paris cemeteries were extremely overcrowded and they didn’t have anywhere to put the more recently deceased. They thought, hey, why don’t we exhume all of the bodies that have been rotting in the cemeteries for who knows how long and stick them in the old rock quarry? This idea gained popularity, and that’s exactly what they did! To make room for the newly dead in cemeteries, they took all of the old, rotted bodies and carted them underground. The result: the Catacombes! Dark, narrow tunnels underground (under the metro system and the water pipes and the sewage system) are now lined with human skeletal remains!
Before getting to the tunnels, we had to walk down like 150 stairs. We then made our way through winding pathways in semi-darkness. My head touched the ceiling in a few spots and the narrowest of passageways was about 2-3 people wide (shoulder to shoulder). It was pretty fantastic! I pretended I was taking the secret passage from the Whomping Willow to the Shrieking Shack. (If you didn’t understand that, I suggest you read/watch Harry Potter, haha.) We rounded a corner and then all of the sudden, the walls were made of human skeletons!! It was so cooool!!!! It would have sucked to be the one who had to build it, but the results were awesome! A line of skulls on the bottom, femurs and humoruses on top of that, then another line of skulls, and so on. From the ground to the ceiling…it went on for about 30 minutes of walking!! I couldn’t believe how cool it was! I thought I was going to be super creeped out or claustrophobic or something…but it was totally neat!
After the Catacombes (aka ascending 150 stairs on an extremely narrow spiral staircase that made me dizzy and feel like I was walking sideways haha), Leslie and I just hung out. We went back to the huge mall so that she could buy something else and then we did homework back at the Foyer.
Today (Saturday), we got up around 8:30ish. There is this thing in Paris in the summer called Paris Plage: they import sand, blow up plastic palm trees and set out deck chairs along the banks of the Seine. People flock to it because it is supposed to be like a beach. There are vendors and other things of that sort I imagine. We woke up with intentions of going, but it was raining and cold, so we didn’t. Instead, we read and did homework (woohoo…) In the afternoon, the rain let up and we (along with some other girls) decided to go to Le Cimetiere Pere Lachaise. I felt extremely emo: 2 cemeteries and the Catacombes in a span of 4 days? Haha. I’m glad we went to Pere Lachaise though, because it was way cooler than Montparnasse! I saw the graves of Jim Morrison (with a gate around it blocking crazy fans from doing drugs and having sex on it…true story! I read it in my guide book), Oscar Wilde (it is tradition to put on lipstick and kiss the tombstone for good luck! I did it and was sort of grossed out because I got tombstone particles stuck to my lips), Colette, George Seraut, Haussman (the guy who designed the roads that intersect the Arc de Triomphe), Moliere, and Chopin. The weather was beautiful once the sun peeked from behind the clouds, and I enjoyed walking around and taking pictures!
Speaking of taking pictures, I think something may be wrong with my camera :( It is having trouble focusing, especially when there is a lot of sunlight in the scene I am trying to capture. I might have to get it checked out. I haven’t dropped it or anything! In fact, I’ve been extremely careful.
Ho hum, what else can I tell you? I was assigned to read 35 pages of the book we’re reading for lit class this weekend. I have about 33 to go, haha.
Oh! After the cemetery today, we went to this legendary French ice cream place called Chez Berthillon. But it was closed!! For their midsummer holiday! (A strange time to close an ice cream shop, I would say.) But it was ok because we continued walking down the street and like 10 of the little restaurants were selling Chez Berthillon ice cream. I had a scoop of white chocolate and a scoop of framboises a la rose. It was probably the best ice cream I’ve ever had (next to the gelato I wrote about the other day, haha). The white chocolate was to die for! and I’ve never had anything as wonderful as the framboises a la rose! It was raspberry and rose! It basically tasted like I was eating rose flavored raspberries and was super delish!!!!
So yup. Now, I’m just hanging out, avoiding homework. I feel super lame because it’s Saturday night and I’m writing a blog and doing homework hahaha. Some of the girls are going to a discotheque…a dance club! I was thinking about going, but I don’t want to put on make up or change out of my pajamas, haha. I don’t know if it’s laziness or fatigue. I’m going to say the latter because I keep yawning. I guess I’ll start reading my book and then fall asleep in like ten minutes, haha.

Bon nuit!
Briana