Monday, February 02, 2009

Snnnnoow!! Lovely, slushy snow!

Yes, as you might have guessed, it snowed last night. Quite a lot actually. Since it's raining now, it'll all probably be gone by the afternoon, but it's set to snow tomorrow too. At a guess, I'd say the snow is about 2 inches deep, but the majority of it has already been trampled into a nightmarish sludge. The roads look like they're earth tracks, and all the footpaths are fatally slippy. On the bright side, the Esplanade des Invalides is a nice white field. Pretty...

In other news...
I tidied my apartment on Friday! Yay! It's already becoming somewhat untidy, but nothing a bit of cleaning won't solve.

Saturday I got up early, posted some stuff, and then went to buy a book. I decided to get of at Châtelet and walk to Gibert Jeune (a book shop) at Place St-Michel by crossing over Ile-de-la-Cité. I noticed the queue for la Sainte Chapelle, a church on the island, was unusually short, so I decided I would go in. It cost 5€, and was definitely worth it, although I was somewhat disappointed the lady at the ticket desk (a hardened woman she was) wouldn't accept my 'histoire de l'art' student card, when they accept art and architecture ones. I'm quite sure someone studying 'histoire de l'art' has more right to get in free to a church displaying fourteenth century artwork (i.e. historical art) than someone studying plain old boring art. But, that said, the 5€ probably did go to the preserving the lovely church. As I didn't have a camera with me, I'm stealing a picture from Wikipedia.

The picture shows the upper chapel; Sainte Chapelle has two, the lower one, which is underneath the upper one. It was built to hold relics of the crucifixion, such as the crown of thorns, and it's famous for its stained glass windows and its ornate decoration.

After buying the book, I watched Fort Saganne, quite possibly the longest film of my life. It might not be the longest film in the purest sense, it's probably shorter than one, two, if not all of the Lord of the Rings films, but boy, didn't it feel long. I felt my life dribbling away in the library as I watched Gerard Depardieu swan between various parts of North Africa, Paris, rural France and the trenches of WWI. I knew I had stopped following the film when about half way through (about the time most films end), I noticed that Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve were having sex for apparently no reason whatsoever. The only time I'd seen them together in the film was at a press conference, and although Depardieu spoke very convincingly, it definitely wasn't enough of a reason for old Catherine there to jump into bed, even by French standards.

Yesterday, I had a very lazy day.

4 comments:

  1. You stole a camera from wikipedia? Is that possible? I like the description of you loose track of the film.

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  2. you know what I mean! I hope...

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  3. And now I've changed it so all evidence is removed! Mwahaha!

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  4. A little update, I've watched the film again (in fast-forward), and yes, Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve to start making love for no reason whatsoever. So typically, unadulteratedly French.

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