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Last week’s sightseeing trip was a visit to the Musée Rodin, one of my favorites. They had just opened a new exhibit, Le Rêve Japonais (The Japanese Dream), which includes both Japanese selections from Rodin’s private collection as well as Japanese inspired works of Rodin.

I was not all that blown away by the exhibit, although that says more about my tastes than the exhibit. The reason I really visit the Rodin is to wander in the garden and visit my favorite sculptures. The Thinker, for example:

Or The Burghers of Calais, which is just heartbreaking:

The Three Shades I find fascinating: it’s three of the same figure, just turned differently:

And of course, I could pour over The Gates of Hell indefinitely:

I’m not much of one for art museums. In particular, I don’t much care for painting. It’s just too flat for my tastes. I prefer more tactile art forms, such as sculpture and metal work. However, I’ve been hearing a lot about La Forêt de Fontainebleau (The Forest of Fontainebleau) exhibit, and I decided to head over to the Musée d’Orsay and check it out.

Because this is an exhibit that focuses on the setting rather than the artist, there was a wide variety of art, spanning both different styles and different media (oil, watercolors, pen and ink, even photography and film). As a result, I enjoyed it more than I had expected to.

After the exhibit, I wandered around the rest of the museum, where I found sculpture and some Art Nouveau pieces that are part of their permanent collection. These were even more to my taste, though I didn’t find anything that I actively coveted. Well, maybe Fremiet’s St. Michael, but what would I do with a life size St. Michael? No, much better to let the d’Orsay keep it for me.

When I registered for classes at ICP, my advisor pointed out to me how nice it was to have a "garden" in which to have lunch and relax between classes:



Garden? A graveled courtyard with some forlorn patches of grass and a few trees, some picnic tables and benches, and planter box of geraniums?

I keep thinking of Goethe’s "Mathematicians are a kind of Frenchman; if you talk to them, they translate what is said into their own language, and then it is immediately something quite different". Something quite different indeed.

After an earlier post in which I commented on the lack of open green space in the immediate vicinity, I received the suggestion that I check out the Parc Buttes-Chaumont (thanks, Kimberly!).

It’s not on a direct métro route from here, and I mostly avoid trips that entail two or more transfers, as this one does. But then I looked at the map of the bus system, and saw that the number 60 bus goes from three blocks away right to the Parc. So I packed myself a little picnic lunch and went to check it out.

It is indeed a lovely park. And it was such a lovely day that it was full of families (and their dogs) and newly married couples getting their pictures taken. I wandered around and about for an hour before sitting down to enjoy my lunch (which I refused to share with an importunate dog); followed by another hour or so of wandering.

The number 60 bus actually goes all the way to Père Lachaise cemetary, so I continued my trip out that way.

Rather than post individual pictures for the day’s dual excursion here, I’m putting up a little slideshow (this will open in a new window).

Well, I’m two weeks into my classes. I’d forgotten how much work being a student is! I’m just glad that I don’t have to be concerned about grades.

The business French (Français des Affaires) course is particularly serious. The professor, Mme Sainlos, is very geared toward making sure that we can pass the DFA1 exam offered in at the end of the term. The DFA (Diplôme de Français des Affaires) is offered by the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris to certify French fluency. The written exam has two main components: writing letters and writing résumés (which in the case of business French means summaries), and so our Tuesday meetings are mostly given over to résumés, while on Thursdays we work on letters. The oral exam similarly has two main components: providing an oral summary in French of an article written in our native language and mounting an argument for (or against) an idea presented in an article written in French. And so part of our course work will also include such presentations. Next Thursday (yes, already), it’ll be my turn to argue. I have an article entitled "Le tourism s’invente de nouveaux guides" ("Tourism invents new guides"). I’m charged with outlining the advantages and limits of this new approach and advancing my own opinion.

We also have work in small groups: in groups of two or three, we’re researching different French companies and will be presenting our findings to the class. I’m working with one other student on Air France; our rough outline includes the history of Air France, their alliance with other airlines, objectives, activities, and balance sheet.

And while all of this is going on, we’re learning French business vocabulary, which is particularly tricky, since some fairly simple words have very specific meanings when they’re used in a business context. And of course those very specific meanings are not addressed in our little pocket dictionaries.

Unlike the general French course, most of the 12 of us are non-Americans with French spouses. Only three of us are Americans.