As part of the Journées du Patrimoine, fellow architecture student Catie and I went to visit the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) today. The interiors are nearly unbelievable - filled with marble, gold, exotic woods, paintings, sculpture, etc. Earlier we had attended one of the morning service at the American Church in Paris and afterwards enjoyed walking through the streets of downtown Paris sans cars courtesy of International Car Free Day.
Tomorrow “real’ classes start. Our intensive French language study is over so now it’s time for architecture studio, a visual communications class, another one covering French architecture, and continuing “non-intensive” (3 hr/week vs. 15 hr/week) language classes.
As for other news, I’m just finishing reading Word Freak, a book about competitive Scrabble®. Interesting fact #173: The game was invented by an out-of-work architect during the Great Depression. I’ve played team Scrabble® twice while here in Europe - using the French version but playing in English - and have amassed an amazing 1-1 record! Not that I’m competitive, but we should have won the second game but the other teams didn’t think “et” was a word although Merriam-Webster lists it as a past tense of “eat.” Who are you going to believe?
