Cyclopes

On a small plot of land in the Fontainbleau Forest, there rests a Cyclopes. The eye of this sculpture moves, as does its giant ear. In fact, this is more than a sculpture. It's now a museum, and it's also a large toy. The tongue of this mirror-covered creature is a water slide. The inner-workings, which resemble its brain, work and turn. It's like a giant version of the board game Mousetrap. There is even what resembles an enormous pinball machine. Large metal balls follow a track when put into movement.

My professor only discovered this hidden art this year. The monstrous museum is only open about four months a year, so we got lucky. It's not well-known and hasn't seen many visitors. We requested a visit after Gayle told us about it, so she rented a bus for the hour trek outside Paris. I don't think I could convince you how cool this was!

The Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely secretly began the 22.5-meter creature in 1969. His wife Niki and over 15 other artists built the statue with scrap metal. You can see where many artists left their marks with small art within Le Cyclop.

Reluctantly, they turned it over to the French state in 1987 so that it could be preserved. It was declared complete in 1994. The Cyclopes took over 20 years to mature. It's a product of New Surrealism.

On the top back, next to a reflection pool on the roof, there is a two-ton train car jutting out. It represents the carriages used to transport people to concentration camps during the Holocaust. It symbolically leads to nowhere.

French Fact: France is not a federalist country like America, which has state and federal laws. France does not have any regional laws, only national laws. Mayors do have power to make minor laws.

In a Word: Chocolate

My pores are oozing chocolate. I spent the afternoon at Le Salon du Chocolat, eating, smelling, and staring at chocolate. As my friend Elizabeth would say, "This is my happy face."

Think dark, white, and milk chocolates, mixed with spices or nuts or nougat, that snap when you break them or melt like a kiss on your tongue.

There's an entrance fee, but almost every booth at this exhibition will give you a free taste. I visited a lot of booths. I'm currently digesting truffles and candy bars and chocolate liquids and chocolate covered nuts and rich candies…. Is your mouth watering yet?

Apart from gorging yourself on chocolates from around the world, there is entertainment for the chocalateur. We saw a fabulous fashion show featuring models dressed as chocolate treats. Parts of their attire were genuine chocolate. I applaud our friend Alex, the only boy in my program, for putting up with Caroline and me! (Although we all know he secretly enjoyed it.)

We also sat through a couple cooking demos by Parisian cooks, all young males I might add. I felt like I was watching the food network. The best part about this was the free samples at the end.

Now I am a true chocolate connoisseur.

French Fact: French women won the right to vote in 1944.

Can it get any better?

I had a delightful evening watching the movie Fame, which premiers in Paris next week, for free. The best part wasn't the cookies I nibbled on afterwards but the fact that I was in the American Ambassador Charles Rivkin's house! The house was beautiful and ornate as usual. I received an invitation because of the Gilman Scholarship that I received for study abroad through the State Department. There were many different kinds of people in attendance, including the Ambassador and his wife. I chatted with a lawyer woman from New York for a while afterwards.

I'm making a habit of waking up early on Monday mornings. I've started tutoring children in English at Jean Moulin College, which is a middle school. This morning I spent two hours conversing with two 14-year-old boys. It's a great opportunity because French schools are generally very closed. Parents aren't even allowed into schools like they are in America. The teens have been telling me all about their lives and school system, so it's a cultural lesson for me. A few others in my program have been volunteering there too since my professor Gayle suggested it.

On Sunday I went with my friend Caroline to Sainte-Chapelle, the prettiest church I have ever seen. It's colorful and full of stained glass. We happened to arrive just as a free tour was beginning in English. The High Gothic church was originally part of the royal residences, along with the Conciergerie that we also visited. The church has not operated as such since it was trashed during the French Revolution. The Conciergerie housed famous prisoners including Marie-Antoinette and Robespierre.

Saturday night was Nuit Blanche, a Paris festival where artistic light exhibits were displayed along with other entertainment. Cydney and I went to Notre Dame where large illuminated crystals were randomly placed and a concert was going on, a bridge where big, blue, lit-up cubes were, and Luxembourg Gardens where a giant disco ball hung in the air. During the day I had went to Rodin's Gardens and Museum to study. I think it's so cool that I can sit on a bench by The Thinker and do my homework!

I also need to mention the fashion "show" I went to on Friday. Someone got everyone in my program passes, so a group of us went. We received badges that said we were "buyers" - as if! Then we strolled through designers' booths and pretended to shop for accessories and clothes, most of which didn't even have sizes or price tags (can we say unaffordable?). It was designed for people to order articles in bulk to sell.

French Fact: In the 6th century, the first king, Clovis, made Ile-de-la-Cité his home. It was the traditional seat of power for centuries. Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame are still located on this island in the Seine.

Normandy: A Region Flowing with Cream and Apples

There's a critical act that helped the Allies win WWII that none of us had ever learned about. On Tuesday my program visited the Arromanches and a D-Day museum devoted to explaining its role.

The Allies knew that securing a harbor along France's northern border in the English Channel was essential for equipping soldiers with supplies. The problem was the Germans understood this. They heavily enforced all the ports and attempts at liberating any of them had been a failure.

Winston Churchill decided they should make their own. In 1943, 30,000 men worked in Great Britain on pieces of the port. In Normandy, 15 old ships were sunk onto the sea bed to form a foundation. Then 7,000 tons of concrete breakwaters were drug across the English Channel and installed to keep waves from pounding the piers. Within 12 days, the experiment was nearly complete.

Then a gale errupted and attacked the ports for three days. The British Port Arromanches, coded Marbury B, was damaged, but still operable. A second American port, Marbury A, was destroyed because it had not been secured well. This may be why this engineering feat is ignored in our history books.

We were able to make out many of the large breakwaters lining the horizon. Then we visited Omaha Beach, the American cemetery, and Pointe du Hoc where the lunar landscape gives witness to Ally bombings. During the war, American soldiers were given temporary burials. Then two-thirds of families requested their loved ones' bodies to be returned. The remaining 9, 387 soldiers were buried in an American cemetery with white crosses facing west towards the USA.

That night I ate a delicious French dinner of chicken in heavenly cream with mushrooms, tasty mashed potatoes, an onion dish we never identified, and, of course, French bread. Then I had my first crème
brûlée, which is a sweet cream like pudding topped with a bitter layer of hardened sugar.

Yesterday we spent the morning at a museum in Caen. It's supposed to be a peace memorial, but its focus is on war. We walked through exhibits on WWII, the Cold War, Nobel Peace Prizes, and children of the Shoah. Shoah is the term the French use for Holocaust.

We climbed up Mont-Saint-Michel and explored the Abbey the dominates it in the afternoon. The beach and prairie landscape is disrupted by a little mountain, which is surrounded by sand at low tide and sea at high tide. The Abbey honors Saint Michael and has lasted centuries of construction and reconstruction.

Woosh! A month has already passed. The longer I stay in France, the more I love it. My group is bonding well. I returned last night to my own room for the first time. This is a long story, but my own space is refreshing.

French Fact: The tides in France are not like those I'm used to in Florida. The sea easily retreats 30 feet during low tide. Special floating docks at the Ally's port had to adapt to this, and when we visited Mont-Saint-Michel, we couldn't see the shore line.