All good things must come to an end and so it was with James’ Paris trip. The intention of the class was to get the students actual time in a French setting where they could really refine their speaking of the French language and interact with the culture and history of the French people.

James took some pictures of his hotel room before he left to give us an idea of where he stayed for nine nights, then headed out with his class to the airport where he took a direct flight home to Detroit on Air France. The flight was scheduled to take 9 hours but was only a little over 8 hours as James’ family picked him up at about 8:30 pm Detroit time.

Continue reading “2024 Day Ten of Paris Trip” →

Today was a big shopping day for the class as they went to Galeries Lafayette. Galeries Lafayetteis an upmarket French department store chain, the biggest in Europe. Its flagship store is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. During Nazi occupation of France in 1940, Les Galeries Lafayette underwent a process of “Aryanization”, that is the removal of Jewish owners and their replacement by non-Jewish owners. Théophile Bader, Raoul Meyer, Max Heilbronn, the store’s administrators and 129 Jewish employees were forced to resign. The property of Bader, Meyer and Heilbronn families was taken.

James was surprised to see the Statue of Liberty in Paris, but then found out that France has no less than 6 reproductions of the Statue of Liberty in Paris (exhibited in the open air or in the museum).

Continue reading “2024 Day Eight of Paris Trip” →

Another wow day as James got to visit the most famous art museum in the world! The Louvre is home to some of the most canonical works of Western art, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the Medieval Louvre fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.

The Louvre, as so many of the other places James visited, is the setting for another famous movie, “The Davinci Code”.

Continue reading “2024 Day Seven of Paris Trip” →

Wow, what a day! Today included a visit to the Orsay Museum in the morning and the Paris Opera in the afternoon. Now opera may sound a little boring, but not this opera due to its one “notorious” occupant – The Phantom of the Opera.

The Musée d’Orsay (English: Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d’Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography. It houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, by painters including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, and van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum’s opening in 1986. It is one of the largest art museums in Europe.

The Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera) is the primary opera and ballet company of France and was the setting for the book and musical “The Phantom of the Opera”. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d’Opéra, and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the Académie Royale de Musique, but continued to be known more simply as the Opéra. Classical ballet as it is known today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral and important part of the company. Currently called the Opéra national de Paris, it mainly produces operas at its modern 2,723-seat theatre Opéra Bastille which opened in 1989.

Continue reading “2024 Day Six of Paris Trip” →

The fifth day in France was a historic visit through the streets of Paris. Too many landmarks to mention in this post but lets look at two of the more “unique” places that were visited.

THE PASSE-MURAILLE, OR “PASSER THROUGH Walls” is a homage to a famous work of French literature by the same name which immortalizes the novel’s tragic finale wherein a man with the ability to phase/walk through walls finds himself caught in mid-pass after a streak of roguish shenanigans.

Moulin Rouge is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive dance by the courtesans who operated from the site, the can-can dance revue evolved into a form of entertainment of its own and led to the introduction of cabarets across Europe. Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering predominantly musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world. The club’s decor still contains much of the romance of fin de siècle France.

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Todays schedule included a trip to the Palace of Versailles on this overcast morning in France. Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.

Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.

After returning from Versailles, James’ class visited the Eifel tower at night and got some great pictures

Continue reading “2024 Day Four of Paris Trip” →

The first full day in Paris was today and James’ French class was now in session. One of the places that they visited was the Notre Dame cathedral of Paris. It is in the center of the city and was the setting for the famous film = “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” which starred Charles Laughton in 1939. A fire broke out at Notre Dame on 15 April 2019. The fire made the roof and main spire fall. The building’s vaulted stone ceiling contained the burning roof as it collapsed, preventing worse damage to the interior.

Around 23:00 local time, the spokesperson of the Paris firefighters said that the structure would probably be saved. James took pictures of the construction currently going on at this world famous cathedral.

Over 400 people helped fight the fire that day in 2019 and as you can see by these pictures, they saved the cathedral.

Continue reading “2024 Day Three of Paris Trip” →

Once the plane left New York, James was fascinated by the plane tracker which showed exactly where the plane was via a gps system.

After the long trans-atlantic flight the first day in Paris was a real adventure. Despite being tired James class did what most people would do on such a trip, they went to visit the Eifel tower and grab a bite of food to eat at a local cafe. The Eiffel Tower was built by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel for the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Even though Gustave Eiffel is credited for the Eiffel Tower it was actually two lesser known people who came up with the original drawing of it. These people were Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier. These two men were the chief engineers of Eiffel’s engineering firm. The main architect was Stephen Sauvestre. James held up his VIP Camp sign for his friends at camp and will do this repeatedly during this trip.

Despite being tired, James had a wonderful time and called home to let his family know he was alright.

Continue reading “2024 Day Two of Paris Trip” →

As part of his French class James’ class went to France for nine days. The first day was a trip to Metro Airport where James flew to New York. After a layover in New York James went on a trip over the Atlantic ocean and on to France. Mom and Dad took pictures of James’ plane as it left Metro airport and James took some pics out of the planes window as it left the motor city. James said he could see the new Gordie Howe bridge (which is still under construction) as the pane flew to New York. While waiting in NY, James took a great pic of the sunset from JFK airport. This was James’ first time on an airplane.
Continue reading “2024 Day One of Paris Trip” →