Saturday, February 28, 2009

Medieval Musuem

After visiting Saint Séverin, Cat, Eric, Matt, Ian, and I went to a medieval museum in the Latin Quarter.



It was a nice change of pace from the usual art museums we had been visiting. The things contained in this museum were mostly relics from the middle ages--fabrics, tapestries, ceramics, religious artifacts, ironwork, and stained glass. There were paintings and sculptures, also, but by this point in our trip we were reaching museum overload and I think we all appreciated the more historical aspect of the collections, rather than the pure artistic elements we had become accustomed to examining.



There were two rooms in the museum devoted to stained glass. The walls were covered entirely in stained glass. It was my favorite part of the museum. I just love how the colors become so vibrant and spirited as light shines through the window.



A lot of us had been wanting to find some reading material, but obviously most of the bookstores around here sell books that are written in...French. But we were told that there is an English bookstore called Shakespeare and Company in the Latin Quarter, so after visiting the medieval museum, that's where we headed.



I was in heaven as I browsed through the book selection there. It's weird, but it was oddly reassuring to see books with titles written in a language I could understand, and when I picked up a book to flip through it, I was almost comforted by the English I saw. I guess I'm just used to seeing things written in French now, and although I try to decipher what I read, I'm not always entirely successful. So it was nice to feel at home again, if only for a few moments, even though I'm an entire ocean away.



I was debating between buying A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway or Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. In the end, I went with Everything is Illuminated, because it was the cheaper of the two. I'm saving pennies where I can, haha.

1 comment:

  1. I got everything is illuminated at the library today!

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