paris 101: by day

paris 101: by day

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the last in the series, this is another big mix of things I saw by daylight:

cakes!
beautiful side streets
cute kids with umbrellas
cafes
san michel
(small) market
incredible cheese
the outside of the Louvre
outside of the Orsay
Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, Serat
chocolate shoppes and the fancy chocolate I bought
Place de le Concorde (spelling?)
Arc de Triumphe
the Eiffel tower and the Pont Neuf

again, I heard all of these names and didn't see much spelling of them so they may be way off!

It was an incredible trip... now for my exams then farming in Italy!

au revoir!

music by Carla Bruni

ps thanks to Margaux, I noticed I spelled 'de jour' incorrectly... many apologies!

paris 101: by night

paris 101: by night

This is a montage of all the sights I saw at nighttime. The whole city seemed to be glowing and shimmering. Some of the sights included are (somewhat in order):

the metro
the opera
entrance to the Louvre
Notre Dame de Paris (front and back)
the Bastille
Eiffel tower
water sculpture outside the modern art museum

I apologize for any mis-spellings of the french, je suis desole!

music by rufus wainwright

paris 101: versailles

paris 101: versailles

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Part 1 of 3

I went to Paris this past weekend to see my uncle and my two cousins and visit the city for the first time.  I got a world-class tour of the sights beginning with a trip to Versailles with Margaux.  What an incredible place!  The palace is gigantic with the most lavish decor imaginable.  The gardens stretched on forever.  It was the only really sunny day I had there but it was still quite a trip.  

music by J.S. Bach

a walk on a sunny morning

a walk on a sunny morning

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nothing extraordinary inspired this montage other the sunny morning we had today.  truely unbelievable.

in the afternoon, it rained.  and turned cold.

long live the sun.

music by badly drawn boy

paper.writing

paper.writing

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we have a history paper due tomorrow.  This is what part of last night was like.  Hey, I did write half my paper at the same time!

music by Paul Simon

to comhaltas

to comhaltas

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yesterday I had my "interview" at my internship, Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eirann (pronounced cult-is keeltori eraan), at the Irish Cultural Institute.  Aside from a crazy commute there (yesterday took me an hour and half, I hope I can get it down to an hour), it went really well.  The place is pretty fantastic and I'll have a lot of freedom with what I do.  They have sessions 4x a week in the bar downstairs and lessons every night.  They loaded me up with all sorts of fun stuff, cds, tunes books, song books... I supposed you could say it was a great match for me!

The commute was stressful but fun... I got to take the DART south right along the coast which was beautiful.  Sorry about another Rufus song... I've been on a Rufus kick.

Cheers.

music by rufus wainwright

kilmainham gaol

kilmainham gaol

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yesterday we took a trip to Kilmainham Gaol (Jail), a national historic site in ireland.  It has held all sorts of political heroes since the early 1800s as well as many people caught during the Famine (purposefully or not).  The 9 men who were executed for the 1916 Rising were executed in the yard in the final shot.

Something funny happened with this video and every time the clip changes the music goes back one second... frustrating.  Also, still trying to figure out compression.

music by alberto iglesias

new slippers

new slippers

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this one's for my mom.  My new slippers arrived in the mail today.  It's a wonder something so small can make me so happy.  We keep our apartment cold (energy is expensive, you know) and its also my feet that do the complaining.  So here ya go mom and dad, you made some feet very happy today.

p.s. keep eyes peeled for my post from today's trip to Kilmainham Gael.

music by Patsy Cline

a different country

a different country

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on friday, the whole program went to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the day.  It was a pretty surreal experience... felt like the same country until we got into the city.  Just the layout was a bit different.  A guy came on the bus and took us on a tour around the city to look at the murals.  The first shots you see are mostly from Nationalist/Republican neighborhoods, the second set (I'm sure you can tell which ones) are from the Unionist/Loyalist sections.  We then went to Stormund, the N. Ireland Parliament buildings.  The parliament was suspended in 1972 shortly after Bloody Sunday.  It then recommenced in 1998, only to be suspended again in 2002.  It is easy to tell where the money was going.

Things to look for: In the beginning there's a shot of a building that says Orange Hall... Keep an eye out for those murals, I know some of them are hard to see.  Also, towards the end there is a shot of an old police station with huge walls around it.  There were groups of houses like that, if they were in the opposition's side of town.

And I apologize ahead of time for the music choice.  U2 is not my favorite but out of any Irish music I had, it gave the most accurate representation of the situtation.  Bare with it.

Shocking... a shocking, sad... trip.

music by U2