le 20 juin, lundi
Ah, lundi vient deja! J'ai pensé que trois semaines serais beaucoup, mais maintenant je suis désolée que j'ai seul une semaine plus!
As per usual, I went to class at 9 and found it to be quite different without all of the Georgia Southern students there. In fact, there were just four of us: myself, my two Korean friends Hyunju and Jinju, and a girl from Colorado, Jessica. I find that the English speaking students are much quicker to speak english all the time during school, which really frustrates the teachers. I tried to speak French even outside of the school when I would go places with my Korean friends or with Susan from Toronto. There's really no better way to learn than by using the language, and it would seem silly to me to not try everything I can to learn the language - especially after paying for these classes!
After class I met Susan and Christina to head toward the cinema. As (I think) I mentioned earlier, we decided to see Minuit à Paris to keep with the theme of French. The movie theater is in an old church that has been converted.
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Utopia Theatres - Converted from a Church
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It was quite interesting; the hallways remained decorated with old paintings of priests and bishops as we climbed the stairs to our theater. The theater itself was situated next to a large statue and featured a painting of Mary and Jesus above the screen.
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| Movie Screen - complete with sculpture and religious painting (above the screen - difficult to see) |
The movie was surprisingly easy to understand. I'm not saying that I caught every word; I probably only orally understood 30% of the dialogue, but luckily the actions of the actors really helped to tell the story. But I'm not sure that I'm a fan of Woody Allen movies.. The film seemed to end without an ending, and it felt you feeling like nothing was resolved. I was a little disappointed in the plot, though I enjoyed trying to understand everything that was being said.
Alas, after the movie I visited.. what else... another church! I showed you the outside of St. André when I was trying to find an evening mass last Sunday, but today I went inside. It's truly a beautiful church. More stunning than St. Seurin in that its arches loft higher than those in St. Seurin, and there were larger and higher windows to brighten the church in St. André; whereas St. Seurin had a cave-like feeling to it, St. André boasted a feeling of importance and tradition.
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| St. André and the heavens - side entrance |
The walls of these churches are frequently adorned with what appear to be Renaissance paintings, but I have not been able to determine the artist or the year that the painting was completed. But, and I don't think I've actually thought of this before, perhaps that was the original intention of the artists for so many of the celebrated religious paintings that we see nowadays at the Met or the MFA...
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| Paintings in St. André |
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| Another painting in St. André |
The churches that I've been to in the States never have old art or art that appears to be commissioned, other than stained glass windows and the Stations of the Cross. The paintings bring a feeling of antiquity to the church, and serve as another reminder that you are so small in the timeline of the church, of the world. It's quite humbling.
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| The organ and the rear of the church with incredible archways overhead |
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| The organ of St. André |
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| Facing forward |
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| One of the side entrances to St. André (pictured from the outside above) |
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| Tomb of a Saint in St. André - one of at least 5 tombs |
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| Tabernacle at the apex of St. André |
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| Additional artwork in a nave off the side of St. André |
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| One final glimpse of St. André - from the east side |
I hope that I am not boring my audience with all my talk of churches. They seem to be the least expensive attractions in this city, and they are all so different from each other, and so different from any church I've been to in the U.S. Last fall I went to St. Patrick's in Manhattan - it's a gorgeous, gothic cathedral. But even that old church emitted its own sense of modernity which is just not apparent in these French churches. The history that these churches have witness - the pilgrims of the middle ages, the Crusades, the plague - its incomparable to anything in the U.S. And I'm going to miss that when I go home. I just wish that Andrew was here to recant the actual history to me, since I'm sure he knows all the details!
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