valentina's blog

This course is really wonderful because it gives you the opportunity to write and reflect about your experiences. Sometimes when we are in a new place and there are so many things to do we loose track and this course has helped me keep track of what I do and what I would like to do in the time remaining in Paris. The Art of Travel was a wonderful book that helped me put into words some of the feelings that I was having towards traveling. The other books that I read, The Flaneur by Edmund White and Paris Tales by Helen Constantine helped appreciate many aspects of Paris and learn about the historical background of Paris. I think that it is a course worth taking the most advantage of.  

Sacre CoeurBeing in Paris has brought me many beautiful experiences. When I first got here I had spent the summer in Colombia and I was ready for a change. Paris received me with open arms and from the first moment I met wonderful people who showed me a great variety of situations in France. I met Jean Michel and Martha who showed me the beautiful mountains of France and taught me the pleasures of walking. I met Guillaume, my neighbor who was there for me all year to keep me company and serve as family. I encountered several friends from Colombia who were here already and introduced me to their friends here. I met a girl from France, Valentine, who is a yoga teacher and travels around the world cultivating her spirit. I also met Isabel De La Maison Rouge, my art teacher who was a great influence in my life and who helped me open up my mind to art and the wonders of color.

At first it was difficult to adjust to the culture, the language, the rhythm of Paris when it comes to getting errands done, but everything was very constructive. At times I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing here but every moment of hardship is a worthy lesson.  I also had trouble getting all of the academic enrichment but I found ways to write about things that interested me and learn about French literature, art, and even Pre-Colombian art at the Sorbonne. 

I came to Paris with the idea of settling in and it was the first time that I was going to be away from Colombia for so long. This was very positive because it helped me center myself and create a life here that I will always remember and hopefully keep cultivating sometime in the future. I also came with the purpose of recovering my French, which I did and very successfully. I took all of the courses in French, which challenged me to remember it and develop it.

            France has given me much with its beauty and diversity. I traveled to the Alps, the Pyrenees, Avignon, Orange, and Bretagne. Every place was an incredible experience that somehow I had envisioned before and that completed itself by going there. I also had the opportunity to travel to Spain and Portugal with my family in December and discovered many magical places like Sintra (the mountain of the moon) in Portugal. I saw the Alhambra and all of the beautiful Arabic influence in the south of Spain combined with the flamenco culture.

            Being here has made me much stronger and has opened up my mind to a new world that I will always be connected to. I will come back sometime to see the sunflower and lavender fields in the South or go hiking in the Pyrennees or Chamonix. I will always remember my days in the parks in Paris with my friends, canoeing in a river after a picnic, doing yoga in Saint-Michel, going to all of the galleries with Isabelle De La Maison Rouge, having tea with Guillaume on Sundays, going to the market for fruits, eating delicious food at the NYU trips to the Chateaux and Avignon, stopping for lunch at the Jardin de Tuileries, walking through the Pere Lachaise cemetery, going up to the beautiful Sacre Coeur, and Butte Chaumont of course. All of these places have made a place in my heart that I will always remember with joy and gratitude.

Buttes ChaumontParis is a very interesting place to discover. It is a beautiful city full of history and art. When I got here, the first settling arrangements were somewhat difficult. Errands don’t get done as easily as in the US.  Nevertheless, they get done so be patient. When getting a cell phone, minutes are very expensive so if you are staying for a year, get the year plan. To get groceries it depends on the neighborhood but one of the things that I have enjoyed the most is going to the markets on Sundays. The Bastille market has very good prices and you can get plenty of fruits and vegetables for less.

            The 20th arrondissement is a great place that is not very explored by tourists. My favorite park in the city is Butte Chaumont and it is located in the 20th arrondissement. It has beautiful waterfalls and a great view of the Sacred Heart. I would also recommend exploring Le Canal Saint-Martin where there is plenty of restaurants and people when there is nice weather. You can go to the market on a Sunday, buy some food for a picnic and have it at Butte Chaumont.

            I would also recommend exploring contemporary art in Paris since it is so great. You can buy the Paris Capitale, a magazine that lists all of the events around Paris. The Gustave Moreau museum in the 9th arrondissement is really worth going to and also the Musee de l’Orangerie where you can see Monet’s water lilies. Don’t be afraid to explore outside the conventional museums and go to smaller museums such as the Zadkine museum next to the Jardin de Luxembourg.

            French people are not the most unkind people and it is always good to have an open attitude and smile. It is like in every country where there are all kinds of people. Young people here are very immature and I feel like they don’t experience as many things as Americans do when they leave home for college and study abroad.

            The NYU program is very good and I think that it is mainly up to the person to make the most of it. There is much help and there are all of the resources to help students with their French. I recommend taking classes with Isabelle De La Maison Rouge. She is a great art teacher who can teach you much about art in Paris. The library is not very large but you can go to any of the libraries in Paris. The library at the Pompidou is a great resource where you can find books in any subject you’d like. Taxis are very hard to get at night so if you get a chance, get a taxi number (from a driver) so that you can call that taxi driver in case of emergency.

            My advice is to make the most out of your experience and push the limits of the conventional Paris experiences. France is a beautiful country with plenty of places and people to discover.  

Exploring from the insideComing back home is always difficult but it is then that one must be courageous and try to keep a healthy mind and body. Sometimes it is relieving to come home, like I did for spring break. Nevertheless, it also took time to adjust to being back in Colombia since I had completely detached myself from the idea of home for the last nine months.

            It is always an adventure for me to go home and explore Colombia with the experiences that I have acquired from my voyages. Traveling opens up one’s mind and makes us aware as de Botton points out, of the fact that we have to encounter places with humility. With humility, we learn other ways of life that can even make us question our own and rethink our habits. Traveling has given me wings that have allowed me to create my own world based on the different cultures that I have encountered. When I go home, I find myself approaching my own culture with humility because there is always more to learn from people we encounter. I remember the first few years that I lived far from home when I would go back and be amazed to see the signs in the streets, the packages of chips, and all of the ordinary objects of life that reminded me of home. Everything would give me a sense of warmth and gladness.

            Even the relationship with our loved ones becomes more powerful when we travel. For the past seven years, all of my family members have lived apart form each other, which has made us overcome all of our issues and understand the love that bases our relationships. I could say that distance can make relationships mature and that I feel the presence of my family wherever I go now.

            On the other hand, traveling also makes us aware of the impermanency of life and situations. It teaches us to live here and now, to enjoy every second of traveling and of being home. I agree with Maistre with the fact that it is not where we travel but with what mind-set we travel. If we open up to experiences and try not to imagine or make expectations, we will always walk through life with a sense of wonder. There is a very wise passage in the I Ching that says that any thought outside the present moment can only disturb our hearts. In traveling, we always tend to create expectations but I think it is better to live the moment when it comes and that way we will be free of all judgments and preconceptions.

            The concept of journeying around the bedroom is a very interesting one as well. I think that besides the fact that Maistre is trying to open our minds to rediscovering our everyday lives he is also trying to emphasize the fact that we must cultivate the sense of wonder and discovery from our own spirit. If we cannot dream and travel without having to go anywhere, we cannot experience traveling and discovering like we can if we have already cultivated the capacity to fly on our own.   

Contemporary art Gallery 'La Maison Rouge' (she has actually nothing to do with it but I like to say she does)

Since I have been in Paris I have met very interesting people. Someone who has amazed me from the beginning is my art teacher Isabel de la Maison Rouge. She is a very elegant French lady that must be around fifty years old. Physically she is also very beautiful and young. I say she is around her fifties but she could easily pass for less. The ‘de’ in her last name indicates a noble provenance. I have learned many last names in France actually come from the middle ages. Last names like La Maison Rouge (The red house), Lavoix (the voice), Lepetit (the little one) were made up at the time almost like nicknames that indicated a characteristic of the person. So maybe one of her ancestors lived in a red house or has a story involving a red house.

            She lives in the seventh arrondissement next to the Musee d’Orsay in one of the most bourgeois neighborhoods in Paris. Her house in decorated with many interesting objects and beautiful tiles. She seems to have many interesting friends that she occasionally talks about like many contemporary artists. She has two daughters, Gabriel and Raphael. I was giving Spanish classes to Gabriel because she wants to do a program in Argentina next year. Isabel always talks about how different her daughters are; one a fashion student, the other one a law student. When you see them, you realize that they are definitely opposites. Isabel says she wanted to have two Archangels but that it is not so at all; maybe in the future they will be.

            Aside from being an art history teacher, she is very involved in the art scene in Paris. I have never seen someone move around Paris’s galleries and museums with so much energy and interest. She is a source of knowledge for every time we go to a museum she talks about the works with the most natural familiarity. The first time she walked into our class she said that what really interested her was that we learned how to stand in front a piece of artwork. She is very practical in her way of teaching since we actually go to museums, which helps us understand better what we are learning. Every Monday we have class at the NYU center where she shows us slides and explains everything to us in a very clear manner. Her way of speaking is very eloquent and clear. I find myself using many of her expressions when I speak in French since she is probably one of the people that I talk to the most in French here. In taking classes with her, I have come to see art differently and I have learned to appreciate going to museums and galleries like I never did before. Aside from being a teacher she has also been a great life mentor to me. The way she sees art and her elegant way of being have taught me much and formed me in many ways.

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I have always been very picky with yoga studios. In order for me to be encouraged to go class, the place has to be cozy, light, and comfortable. I have recently discovered a yoga place in Saint-Michel through the Internet. Surprisingly, I have had no complaints at all since the first time I went. It is located on Rue Saint-Jacques near Notre Dame. I take the metro for 20 minutes, and I am at the Saint-Michel station where a statue of Archangel Michael welcomes me out of the underground tunnels. I have to walk through what is probably one of the most touristy streets in Paris where you find all the tourist French bistros and the gift shops. While I run to yoga class with my mat and see the crowded streets across the river from Notre Dame, a feeling of happiness overwhelms me. I feel the luckiest person in the world to be able to live here and see the beauty of Paris while walking to yoga.

            At 21 Rue Saint-Jacques I open a large wooden door and walk into a small internal garden with trees that are in their first stages of blooming. At the end of the courtyard, there is the studio with large glass windows that let in the atmosphere from the courtyard. On the left, there is a shoe rack with shoes of all colors and sizes. All along the east wall there are books, mats, and all kinds of yoga equipment to sell. On the west wall there is a sofa and a table with books about paradisiacal yoga retreats and a water carafe with two glasses next to it. Still on the west part of the room, there is the front desk where you can find all of the brochures for yoga workshops and classes. 

            The salon then opens a door at the wall in the back to the yoga room where all classes are held. It is a spacious room that can hold up to about 30-50 people in a class. It is equipped with mats, cushions (small and large), eye pillows, wood blocks, blankets, and yoga belts. It has a high glass roof with a small window that can be open in case of overheating, which is generally the case during class. At the front of the room is a small altar with a statue of Tara, and to the left of it, a stereo. There is always incense, candles, and some essential oils for the teachers to use at their convenience.

            There is a small corridor that opens on the west wall of the salon that leads into the changing rooms. From the corridor you can also access a small kitchen, two bathrooms, a massage room, a shower room, the man’s changing room, and the women’s changing room with a few lockers available.

            Overall, it is a cozy, comfortable, clean place that encourages me to wake up before going to school on Tuesday and Thursday to go to a two-hour yoga class. That is not to say that I sometimes hesitate before going but at the end, I end up feeling full on energy after a yoga session.

Jean Daviot

Lately I have had several interesting encounters with people that have seemed to have literally ‘fallen from the sky’. I have been enjoying Paris these days like I had never before. The weather is changing, people are happier, and everything seems magical. I have been understanding many of the processes that I have come to live here in a personal and academic basis. My French is better, I have been walking more and enjoying the city like never before.

            About a month ago, in my way to school in the metro I sat down in front of a woman of about fifty something years of age. She impacted me because unlike most people in Paris, she had a peaceful smile on her face. She was elegantly dressed and somehow reminded me of my aunt. About four hours later, I got on the metro and she was sitting in front of me. Since it was such a coincidence, we started talking and she told me she worked at Le Musee de l’Homme and that she was a specialist in prehistoric art. I had been thinking about my IAPC during those days and had had a conversation with my father about my interest in ancient civilizations and prehistoric art. I was feeling somewhat lost and had been asking myself if I was actually going to be able to find something to do in life with my passions. I had just hung up the phone with my dad before taking the metro, and there she was. So yes, I am supposed to follow my passions and trust that I have the support of the universe to do so.

            In the past few years I have had encounters with indigenous tribes in Colombia who have taught to weave among many other thing. The weaves are representations of the weaves in nature and are a way of meditation. A few days ago, I went to my regular yoga class in Saint Michel and noticed there was a new teacher. She looked at the bracelets I was wearing and told me she had lived in Mexico where she had learned about them. She seemed very interested to learn about my work and told me she wanted to learn how to weave. As we exchanged phone numbers, we suddenly noticed we were both named Valentina.

            Last Wednesday I went to the art fair, ArtParis at the Grand Palais. There were many interesting works of contemporary artists and some avant-garde artists. Of course, there was the Parisian art scene from the collectionists to the art dealers. As I looked around, I met the owner of a gallery in Brussels that was helping a friend in the fair. We chatted for some time and among many things, he said to me that I was going to become someone great in life but that I needed to trust myself more and become stronger. I think perhaps that it is one of the most important things someone has ever told me.

            Today, in our regular museum/gallery visit, we went to the studio of an artist called Jean Daviot. He has created, with the help of technicians, a machine that allows him to paint with light in a series called “Les ecritures de lumiere” (the writings of light). He goes to different settings and captures the light to then transfer it onto a canvas. In this series he also draws with the moon and the sun. In one canvas, he created the symbol of infinity by using the light of the moon. He also works with the meaning of words and sounds and has made a series that connects words to certain landscapes. He looks at the meanings that words can create by modifying them in some way and finds the image for the words. Sometimes the words inspire the photos and sometimes the photos inspire the words. He revolves around the connection between sound, light, color and image. He talks about the fact that each color/light has a particular sound. On the other hand, he did a series where he would invite people to stand in front of a canvas as he traces their body onto the canvas and paints whatever color he sees on the person. He also does research on the origin of language and talks about the fact that language appeared around the same time art appeared. It is also pertinent to remark the connection between language and art in hieroglyphic writing in Egyptian and Pre-Colombian civilizations.

            In the series of words and landscapes, there was one in particular that had the word SOLEIL (sun) with the space SOL EIL and in the space the image of the sun which ends up constructing SOL OEIL which literally sounds like ‘only eye’ and looks like the eye of a bird. The image of the sun has the iris around it showing all of the colors in the spectrum. In Egyptian writing, the eye hieroglyph is the O, which is also linked to the origin of creation. The circle, which represents the cycles in the universe, also gives the idea of the hole, the nonexistence from where creation comes.

            I found his work particularly interesting because in my meditations I feel the connection between light, sound, color, and vibration. I like to see his work as capturing the subtlety in space. 

Lac de Gaube

In the Art of Travel, Alain de Botton talks about the sense of the sublime. As de Botton explains, “the value of landscapes would henceforth be decided not solely on the basis of formal aesthetic criteria or even economic or practical concerns, but rather according to the power of places to arouse the mind to sublimity” (163). These places are those that make us aware of the immensity of the universe and creation. When we encounter ourselves with nature that inspires a feeling of awe and respect, our egos become a secondary component of our beings. In the history of humanity, human beings have come to consider themselves the masters of nature. With the development of science and the mentality centered on the human being, we have forgotten about the vast universe and our rather powerless position in comparison to nature. In places that inspire the sense of sublime, we are reminded of such and our narrow concentration on our egos becomes subdued by the power of nature.

            Since I have been in France, I have had the opportunity to encounter the sense of sublime. Two weeks ago, I decided to take a trip to the Pyrenees with a friend from NYU. We took the train and in five hours we were in Lourdes, Midi-Pyrenees. It had been a busy week in Paris and I was having trouble envisioning myself leaving Paris before exams to go walk in the mountains. However, as we began to see the mountains from the train, we suddenly remembered why we had chosen to go. I find myself missing nature often when I am in the city. I love cities and their energy but nature is what gives me the energy to live. It is from nature that I find my inspiration to create art and it is from nature that I have learned to meditate. As Wordsworth emphasizes, I feel that nature has much to teach us, with its processes that are relevant to our lives.

            Thus, Saturday morning we woke up at 6:30 am and took the bus to Coteret, high Pyrenees. The weather in Lourdes was about 21 degrees Celsius when we got there so we thought we could simply wear our sneakers the next day in our hike. When we got to the mountain we realized that we needed snow equipment to walk and even though it wasn’t cold, there was still 5 meters of snow in the peaks. Nevertheless, our lack of equipment didn’t stop us from going up to the Lac de Gaube that we had seen in a postcard. When we asked for directions on how to get there, the lady told us we would never get there with sneakers which actually ended up encouraging us more to go up. And on we went, in sneakers walking on about 1-2 meters of snow. There were parts where it was solid enough to walk but we would still sink every now and then. After an hour and a half of walking with the help of some sticks we found in the path, we reached the lake. The feeling of sublime was omnipresent at the time; the sun, the snow, the peaks that surrounded the lake were breath taking. We sat down on a rock and absorbed the sun and the atmosphere for about two hours.

            I felt like I was walking on clouds. The mountains gave me a feeling of security, humility, complete peace, and respect. There is a passage in the I Ching, the book of mutations, called the Mountain, keeping still. “The image of the hexagram is the mountains, the youngest son of heaven and earth. The male principle is at the top because it strives upward by nature; the female principle is below, since the direction of its movement has come to its normal end” (I Ching). This image emphasizes the stillness in the mountain, the knowledge of thousands of years of existence and the connection between heaven and earth. While I was in the mountains, I meditated on this passage and tried to incorporate it, since every passage in the I Ching must be lived and understood from a personal perspective.

            In the days that followed I could still feel the presence of our time in the mountains. In my time in France I have had the luck to meet people who are connected to these mountains like the people that I traveled to Chamonix with. In places like Chamonix and Coteret, people live for the mountains. In the way down from our hike, we met a mountain guide that told us that the mountains were his office. This man, like Jean-Michel (see first post) and most people who live in towns in the Alps or the Pyrenees work as guides or in activity that revolves around the landscape. In Chamonix, I also met someone who extracted quartz from the mountains. In fact, there is a museum in Chamonix that exhibits the rocks found in high altitudes.

            Among many things, France has given me the opportunity to travel to these places, and I have suddenly found myself surrounded by the majestic presence of the mountains.

Place de La Sorbonne

After having breakfast on a Thursday morning, Matha, my father’s friend from Colombia who had invited me to the Alps, invited me to a walk she was going to that night. Her husband, a French man, directs the construction of all of the walking paths in France and was a mountain guide in Chamonix. They are both great walkers and spend every vacation in a walking paradise. I immediately accepted the invitation and left my house that afternoon at six. I walked in the direction of the Park of Luxembourg and encountered Jean Michel, her husband, at the Place de la Sorbonne.

            For some reason, I always find myself among groups with people much older than me. At one point, while a car was crossing the street and having to make its way around two hundred elders, one of the ladies cried, “ne pas blessez vos vieux avant qu’ils commencent a marcher!” (Do not injure your elders before they start walking). Apparently, this is a group that gathers once a month and walks through Paris and its surroundings. One of Martha’s colleagues from work was going which encouraged them to go since they had never been before. I was nonetheless exited and ready for the adventure to take place.

            Consequently, one of the guides stood on the podium and explained that we were walking around the universities in Paris. We were to start at the seventh arrondissement and end at the thirteenth arrondissement where Paris VII is renewing its campus. So on we went walked up to the Pantheon where we stopped for a quick explanation of the buildings that were around. The Pantheon in front, the St. Genevieve library, the law faculty, and a church called Sainte-Etienne-du-Mont. This church, a mix of Gothic and Italian Renaissance styles from the 13th century, contains the remains of St Genevieve, although most of them were burned during the revolution. We walked around the main buildings of La Sorbonne all in the Latin Quarter, which has its name because all of the classes at the Sorbonne were given in Latin. Nowadays, La Sorbonne has several Campuses around Paris with different fields of specialization.

            We continued on many streets that I had never seen in my life. I wish it had been day but I guess it would have lost much of its charm. We walked and talked like true Parisian Flâneurs, enjoying ourselves without any rush. We continued on to the Institut du monde Arab, stopped for another explanation and a snack that Martha had prepared for us and continued walking down to the thirteenth. The thirteenth has its charm although it is not as nice as the area we had passed. Part of it holds the Chinese neighborhood, where I used to take my class at the Sorbonne last semester.

            After walking for three hours and not even noticing, we arrived to the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand. I could not believe all of the walking we had done without feeling tired. I guess that when you are not really on a rush and are not worrying about time, homework, time seems to stop. One of my friends had caught up with us in the way since she lived in the area. She dropped her velib around the corner from where we were and went home with me after the adventure.

pilgrimage

We are all looking for authentic experiences that will give us a sense of adventure in our lives. The process that comes before the traveling is very important because it sets the ground of our experience. Some of us go in search of inspiration or knowledge of some kind and others go to see a new place or to take some time off ordinary life. Whatever experience comes out of the travel is valid because it is part of a personal process. So in this way I do think that travel is related to pilgrimage but I would differentiate the category of travel for pilgrimage nowadays.

            The idea that I have of a pilgrimage is a journey done with the intention of getting out some kind of spiritual growth. We could argue that all kind of travel gives spiritual growth but pilgrimages are different. A pilgrim goes on retreat to a specific place in order to find something that is part of their spiritual path. For example, I have been in several meditation retreats around the United States, South America and now Europe. These I call pilgrimages but in some way, all of my travels have become pilgrimages because they all teach me and guide me in ways that never stop surprising me. For example, when I went to Chamonix (see introduction post) I discovered a community of people who spend their vacations walking around the mountains. They travel the whole world in search of new mountains to climb and some have already climbed the tallest peaks in the world. I found this incredibly interesting because the idea of traveling to all of the world’s highest mountains is not merely to have a sightseeing experience but to fulfill an internal quest. Thus, I have always ended up in places that despite their lack or presence of tourist attractions have made me come to introspection about the processes in my life. The degree of authenticity that a place can give us also depends on how authentic we perceive it and what our version of authentic is based on what we have already experienced.

            McCannell also suggests that sometimes it “might not be so easy to penetrate the true inner workings of other individuals or societies” (593). I think that it depends on the society and what their idea of intimacy is. For example, here is France private life is extremely private and I have found it difficult to know where the limit is between friendship and family. This may not be always true but I have felt that French people don’t expose their lives so easily and the friendships they have are very authentic. Paris is obviously a city where there are plenty of tourist places that have been especially set for the tourist. From my observation, this type of situation is most common in more developed countries where tourism is a major part of the economy.

            On the other hand, when I went to Portugal in December I felt that people were much more welcoming and open to newcomers. I don’t just say this for the regular people that we encountered in a tourist agenda but also the people that we met outside these dynamics. One day we went to the flea market in Lisbon and met some ladies that were selling fabrics. My sister and me spent an hour trying on dresses and sharing with the ladies a moment of feminine delight. At the end they gave us plenty of gifts and asked for a very low price in the items we had picked. In Portugal I also felt that there was a lack of the tourist setting. I found this charming for its ‘authenticity’ and truthfulness in the attitude of the city but some people find this disturbing. Some people who go to Lisbon think that it is quite ugly and torn down for their taste. In any case, Paris, Lisbon, and other places I have visited have all contributed in my development and I still think that beyond the tourist experience the only thing that can really create an authentic experience is your personal attitude.