Thursday, March 11, 2010

Paris

For ten days in the spring, codes are suspended and all the students at AC join a project. Some of them are lead by teachers and some are lead by students.
I was lucky enough to be in the Paris project.
Last Thursday I hopped on a bus and then a plane and then a train and then a subway, with about thirty other students to see the sights of Paris and to practice our french.
It was an awesome trip!
And although my feet my never forgive me for all of the walking I did, I saw so much of the city and made some great memories.

Here is Anette (Norway) and I on the first day looking very excited!
A normal street in Paris. It was amazing to me how beautiful even the 'normal' buildings were.

Some church.
On the first day we walked to Gallery Lafayette and climbed up to the roof where there was a beautiful view of the city
The Eiffel tower!
Anette and I

The roof of the gallery Lafayette

One of the angels on the roof of the opera house

Anette and Kami were excited to be in Paris

Printemps had Alice in wonderland stuff in all of their display windows.

We went into this crazy car showroom/building called Citroën on the champs-elysees. I personally thought that the cars on display that week were sort of boring (albeit very comfortable) but the building was pretty cool.

The arc de triomphe.

The sun was setting as we walked back to our hostel

Moulin Rouge!
Our hostel was about two blocks away.

The wall in the hostel we stayed at was signed by people who stayed there.

Our hostel was right at the foot of the sacre coeur. Out the window of my room we had a beautiful view of it:

The climb up the steps to the sacre coeur was worth the view of the city

Viktor (Norway), Anette and Tim (malaysia)

We saw a marching band!
Anette eating a crepe outside a restaurant in montmartre

We walked past this beautiful house in search of a market

One of the beautiful roads we strolled down

Some cool graffiti
We went to the pere lachaise cemetery to see Oscar Wilde's grave


We figured sad faces were more appropriate for the setting
The cemetery was absolutely humongous. We had to get a map just to find out where we were going. And we spoke to a man who worked there (in french might I add) and he said that because there were family graves that there could be up to 13 people buried under one tombstone... It was a bit mind boggling On the way we visited Marcel Proust


In the middle of the cemetery there was this big, freaky crematorium. The walls were covered in these plaques
Eventually we made it to Oscar Wilde's resting place... and were not the first...
...his grave was covered in kiss marks (and is apparently cleaned every two weeks)
We then walked to this monument looking for a museum... which didn't exist... oops
Viktor capturing the city through his lens
Finally we made it to Notre Dame!

We were excited to get there

But were sooo tired from walking all day

The fat pigeons

Viktor was a fan of the star jumps

And then I dragged them all to Shakespeare and company!
I was soo excited. So, while they all collapsed into chairs I wove my way through the book shelves, feasting my eyes on all the beautiful spines, inhaling the wonderful smell and trying to absorb all of the knowledge by diffusion.
All the quotes and messages left by others who had visited this wonderful book store

Much later, we manged to make it to the Eiffel tower!
Unfortunately the stairs were closed, and because we didn't want to pay/wait to go up the elevator, we didn't go up. But it was amazing to look at.

The next day we had our dose of cultural and art.
We started at the Louvre.
My favourite part is the Egyptian stuff.

This is probably my favourite thing in the whole building.
It is a carving of the constellations made by the epytians

And of course we had to go and see the Mona Lisa.
But I couldn't get very close because there were sooo many people
A re-do of a photo of me from a year and a half ago

Viktor, Mia (Bahamas), Kami (Nigeria) and Anette

Outside the louvre
The controversial pyramid
For lunch, Anette, Viktor and I ate sandwichs and sat beside a fountain to enjoy the sun


Next we went to the museum d'orsay to see some more paintings:




After that, Viktor, Anette and I walked along the river past notre Dame in search of an ice cream place that my teacher told us about
We walked across this bridge covered in locks.
One each lock a couple has engraved their initials, and then after locking it they are supposed to throw the key into the river.
The trees along the river were covered in initials and drawings
The island where Notre Dame is

Some of the stairs near Sacre Coeur
Goodbye Paris.
Maybe one day I will once again walk your streets, breathe in your polluted and cigarette laced air, eat your bagettes and love it all.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Low tide

Yesterday was the lowest tide of the year, so I trekked down to the beach to see for myself:

The lucky lifeguards had a regular kayaking session, but today was even worse because they had to carry their boats all the way to the water's edge.
Here is Ola (Norway) from my house looking fabulous in his wetsuit, helmet and spray deckSome of the lovely girls who walked down with me. From the left Jess (Britain), lynn (Denmark), Hannah (USA) and Sarah (Isle of Man)
Some biology students were also checking out the beach in search of sea life with their teacher, James Mendelssohn
Hugo (Spain) from my house
Making its way back to the sea

The water makes beautiful designs in the sand

We found a fish! I forget what kind it is, but James was surprised to find it. I just thought it had some beautiful scales
Mr. Fishy!

James Mendelssohn
We also found some sea worm things (you can tell by my scientific terminology that I am a biology student...not)
And some crabs.
and (a little shout out to anyone from PPC), you can tell it is a male because of the lighthouse

We were pretty fond of our crab. We named him Archibald.
But he wasn't very fond of us....
A little crabby love
And Hugo again

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Chairing of the Bard

The chairing of the bard is a welsh event in which a 'bard' is named by winning a poetry competition.
We had a small one at our school, and they read some welsh which I thought would be fun to share.
and, no, it does not sound anything like it looks.

Dyro, Druw, dy nawdd;
ac yn nawdd, nerth;
ac yn nerth, deall;
ac yn neall, gwybod;
ac o wybod, qwybod y cyfiawn;
ac o wydob y cyfiawn ei garu;
ac o garu, caru Duw.
Duw a phob daioni.

The translation into english is:

Grant, God, thy refuge;
and in refuge, strength;
and in strength, understanding;
and in understanding, knowledge;
and from knowledge, knowledge of what is right;
and from knowledge of wat is right, the love of it;
and from loving, the love of God.
God and all goodness.