thanksgiving,

so maybe i'm ready to go home.

paris was nice enough. no, no, it was very nice. i finally went to see ste-chapelle, the 'jewelbox' chapel on île de la cité that is probably more stained glass than structural components. i walked along the rive gauche (left bank) again, and stopped at mariage fréres for tins of tea and ladurée (not on the left bank) for macaroons. i went to the musée rodin and saw my favorite sculpture of all time, probably, the burghers of calais. also there was the thinker, the gates of hell, ugolino, balzac and the kiss, along with an entire room of equally-impressive sculptures by rodin's mistress, camille claudel.

on saturday we went as a group (more or less) to chartres cathedral and versailles. it was truly magnificent to see finally see chartres after studying it so many times; unfortunately, due to a memory-card mishap, i do not have photographs of those iconically mismatched towers. oh well, they were nice. versailles... was the same as the last time i saw it, in paris, in the third week of november. i actually really do like that aspect of symmetry - it'd been five years to the week since i'd been in paris last. i saw all the signs for beaujolais nouveau and once again, i saved all of my metro tickets.

and, on saturday night, a group of us went to go see ra ra riot in this little (well, not that little) club on the outskirts of paris (past pére-lachaise cemetary), also in celebration of ryan's birthday. the show itself was very nice, and the entire experience of going to an indie rock concert, or any concert at all, which i hadn't been to since nextech way back in september. after ra ra riot, these exquisitely hilarious french rappers (think mc solaar but not quite) came on stage, and by that time, everything was funny. none of us had any idea what they were saying; but boy did we think it all hilarious.

the sleeper trains there and back (again) may have killed my nascent love for love distance travel by train. or maybe it's simply trenitalia. the trains were delayed both ways, which meant that to paris, we lost nearly two and a half hours of friday morning and back from paris, i didn't end up having enough time to go to my first class, which i really did want to go to (it was italian). walking home from the train station in a downpour on monday morning didn't enhance my mood, either.

okay, that's about it for now. i'm going (back) to rome, again, this weekend with my etruscans & romans class, led by the indomitable professor charles ewell. i'm also only in rome for one day, and spending the rest of the time in pompeii and herculaneum, sorrento, naples, and along the amalfi coast. it'll probably be too cold to go into the water, but i know the view will be nice. until then, signing off.