Versailles, Nuit Blanche

I'm alive! This week I didn't have much class, so I had some time to explore Paris. On Thursday afternoon, I visited Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum. According to Wikipedia, the museum was completed in 1977 and named after the ex-President. On Saturday, I visited Versailles, which is the chateau for the royalty of France. It's a southwest suburb of Paris, and only took about 30 minutes to get there on the train. This venture was one of our "cultural requirements" for French class, but it was actually really fun! There was a La Fête des Saveurs going on, which is a tasting festival. They a lot of small booths set up with farmers offering tastes and explanations of their food. There were mussels, apples and pears grown in the Versailles gardens, homemade apple juice, wine, cheese, sorbet...the French definitely love their food! After our stomachs were full, we walked around the breath-taking Versailles gardens and visited the inside of the castle for the Jeff Koons exhibit. It's been a pretty hot topic in France, and it's easy to see why. I personally enjoyed it because it made me think about the purpose of each room in a different way than I otherwise would. And it was shocking that the pieces that looked like inflatable children toys were actually made out of aluminum!

After Versailles, we went out for Nuit Blanche, which is an all-night arts exhibition in Paris. With events and people all over the city it definitely wasn't a boring night :)

Overall, I'm feeling at lot more adjusted to Paris and just accepting that it's different from the US in many ways. While I'm sure every CVS/Walgreens in America is overflowing with cheap candy and plastic pumpkins at this point, there is not a trace of Halloween in France. There aren't tacky fall decorations or drunk Ohio State football fanatics or Halloween costume stores. But it's all okay, because I know all the American stuff will be waiting for me when I cross back over the ocean. Ohh, and I updated my pictures below, so you can either watch the slide show or click on it to go to my Picasa site.