Giverny

This past Friday, IES took us on an excursion to Claude Monet's Giverny.  We had a tour through the Impressionism Museum where there is currently an exposition of Pierre Bonnard's Normandy work.  Personally, I do not find Bonnard to be that good.  His colors annoy me and I especially do not like his people.  I prefer his landscapes.  By the end, I was wishing I had just spent that hour and a half looking at Monet instead.  After lunch we got to wonder around the gardens for about three hours, and that was really amazing.  His house is also open to walk through (unfortunately you can't take pictures inside) and I found his mono-chrome taste in room decor to be really interesting.  The dining room was all yellow, which was slightly obnoxious, but the all blue kitchen was really pretty.  I took lots and lots of flower pictures because they were all so colorful and bright! Some of them literally looked as though they were glowing and then there were some of them looked like candy because the colors were so vivid and crisp.  I don't blame him for painting in that garden!

Fountain Show!

While walking around the gardens of Versailles, we kept on hearing these loud booms and wondered what they were.  Eventually we managed to follow the sound through the many garden paths to this:

Meanwhile, in Paris...

After traveling for spring break I returned home to Paris--life is so hard ;) In the few more days of vacation that I had I went to Versailles with my housemate, Anna, and her boyfriend who was visiting from DC.  The fountains were on, which was amazing, and we visited Marie Antoinette's domain (aka her three houses and farm for playing make-believe poor-girl).  Here are some pictures:

These fish were going crazy and there wasn't even any food!

They've clearly learned that this bridge=food.  

They're also supposed to be bottom feeders...

Petit Trianon

Grand Trianon

Fountain of Apollo!

We also went to the Comédie Française to see Un Tramway nommé desir (A Streetcar Named Desire).  That was an interesting experience.  The director, who is American, took an Asian/Kabuki/surrealist take on Tennessee Williams.  I'm not going to say that is was all wrong, but I will say that it was a bold choice.  There were moments when I felt that the new interpretation really jived with the play, but when it did not jive, it really did not jive.  For example, the rape scene was a complete and utter travesty.  Stanley was wearing a green wig, purple silk pajamas, and had shaving cream all over his face.  In other words, he was the Joker from Batman.  I want to erase that horrible and stupid image from my head forever.  That part was wrong, and there's no way around it.  The final scene, however, really appealed to me and I thought that the surrealism was put to good use in that scene.
In other performance news, Anna and I saw a ballet performance yesterday afternoon at Opéra Garnier.  The choreography was by Mats Ek and it was actually two separate ballets.  I understood the first one better because it had a very clear story.  The second one was a little more conceptual, but still amazing to watch.  It was incredible to see these professional dancers.  They're all so athletic, and the dance was very energetic and pretty untraditional.  Both the Comédie Française and l'Opéra are definitely things I will always remember!

La salle de spectacle de l'Opéra Garnier

Anna in our not-so-private private box :)