Rainy Days in Paris

Since my last post, the euphoria about being in Paris has started to wear off. I am still loving this city and incredibly grateful to be here, but it's starting to feel less like a fairytale and more like a real city.

My first day here was the only sunny day we've had thus far. Every day since has been cloudy, gray, and cold. The weather feels like October in Minnesota. In my imagination, Paris wasn't rainy and dreary like this, and I definitely couldn't catch colds like the one I feel coming on!

But besides the gloomy weather, my relationship with my host family still has not improved. Everything here is perfectly fine, I just wish they seemed more interested or excited about me. Instead, I feel a little like a boarder renting a room here, and that gets a little lonely. It just seems like the host family experience here is much less personal than what I was expecting.

I've been dealing with this little case of the blues by getting out and walking. I've explored the Marais, the 8th and the 16th. Paris is such a beautiful city that just walking around, enjoying the architecture, looking for fashionably dressed people and cute little dogs, tends to cheer me up.

Today, I wandered down to the 16th to the Musée de Marmottan. I love the Impressionists so this was a really wonderful experience for me. I got to see a lot of pieces I have studied in books, which was really really nice. I was particularly interested in seeing one of my favorite paintings, a Berthe Morisot piece. I love Morisot because of what she accomplished as a woman working in a sector usually reserved for men, and gaining really clout in the art world. At the time of her death, her pieces were selling better than Monet's and all of the other male Impressionists. Her personal history is like a 19th century soap opera, and I really had a good time studying her last semester. I particularly like "Jeune fille au bal" because of the girl's expression. She's not one of Renoir's doe-eyed, rosy cheeked girls. Her gazed is focused, discerning and intelligent.

After my visit, I stopped in the gift shop to pick up a couple of postcards and a poster of "Jeune fille au bal." Art museums in general have a very calming effect on me, so I left feeling a lot more zen about my living situation.

Now, I'm back at the apartment, eating a bowl of cereal and packing up. I'm heading off to London Thursday-Sunday to visit Stephen!