Big Plans For A Big Weekend

I am going to be really busy this weekend, so I thought I would let everyone know my schedule before I leave town, since I might not have the time to blog until the weekend is over.

This is a big weekend in France: it is the weekend of the Fete Nationale, which most Americans know as Bastille day. It is France's National Holiday (like our Independence Day), and it occurs on July 14 (this Monday). It is the celebration of the storming of the Bastille, which is a French prison that was a symbol of the absolutist monarchy that ruled France at the time, on July 14, 1789. The common French people were tired of starving while their government was spending ridiculous amount of its treasury on frivolous things, such as grand palaces. Like Americans in the American Revolution, the people of France were tired of corrupt absolute monarchs being in power, so the people rose up to take control of their country. They wanted a republic, ruled by the people, for the people. So really long story short, they rose up and killed the aristocracy as well as King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, and their children (which is where we get the guillotine). And now we have La Republic Francaise (The French Republic).

The festivities for La Fete Nationale will take place on Monday, starting at 10:30 in the morning with a big parade down the Champs-Elysees. Everyone will party all day, then there will be a HUGE fireworks show in Paris that night after sundown. It really sounds very similar to how Americans celebrate Independence Day, so it should be interesting.

I have a lot more planned for this weekend though:
On Saturday, Kaylin and I will take a train out of Paris to the city of Rouen, in the province of Normandy (about an hour and a half northwest of Paris). Rouen is the city in northern France where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake on April 30, 1431 by the English during the Hundred Years' War. There is a Joan of Arc museum there, as well as a Joan of Arc Cathedral (she is the National Hero of France). There is also a plague cemetery, which is filled with the bodies of the victims of the Black Death, which killed off nearly a third of the Earth's population in the late 1300s. The Black Death reached Europe by 1347, killing off anywhere from a third to a half of Europe's population. This is very exciting for me because I did a project on the Black Death last summer and it is a really interesting subject... I have sort of a morbid fascination with it so I am really excited to see a plague cemetery in person! Now I need to shut up because I am going into history-nerd mode. We will spend the day in Rouen seeing the sights, and will return to Paris that same night.

On Sunday, the entire group from Auburn will be taking an excursion to Giverny, which is the home of impressionist painter Claude Monet. It is now a museum surrounded by the beautiful gardens in which he has painted some of his most famous paintings more than a century ago. I am very excited about this because I love Monet's artwork and I have heard that Giverny is absolutely lovely.