9 saints, but only about 1% of Paris' saint population

What have I been doing day-to-day recently? Not much very exciting to all of you out there: mostly shopping and visiting cathedrals. The French government imposes a period of sales on French clothing stores in the beginning of the year (imagine the U.S. government trying to do that! Hee!). French take their fashion seriously, and so need to make room for incoming lines. So these sales start around 40% and continue rising from there. Yay! I haven’t gotten all that much, but it’s good shopping. I’ve mostly been going around the Marais, which is a very eclectic, young area of the city which used to be the Jewish ghetto (and still has many temples, is closed on Saturday nights, and has amazing falafel) and is now full of gay bars and other interesting nightlife.

There are two lovely cathedrals I’ve visited in the same area, one of which I saw today, St. Gervais de-somethingorother. It was huge, very open and airy, with a very strange mixture of styles; it seems like much of it was destroyed in WWI, so there are some sections that are very modern while much of it is neo-Gothic. It is definitely a practicing place of worship, and must have some sort of convent attached. I saw at least four nuns getting ready for the next service. And to those who don’t know – I LOVE nuns!

St. Paul and St. Someoneelse is right in the heart of the Marais, and is set up more like a museum, with plaques explaining things. It’s older and darker than St. Gervais, but is very peaceful.

I also went to St. Etienne-du-Mont today, which is right next to the Panthéon. It is also really large, but more well-known. It has a very famous altar screen, which is an intricate passage of screened stairs leading up a couple of stories to a raised altar. The stairs wind from the middle of the sanctuary upwards. It also houses the remains of Ste. Geneviève, patroness of Paris. She gets an incredibly ornate chapel to herself, with a tomb that is out of proportion to the very few pieces of her that are left. The church has some really lovely Renaissance art inside, too.

St. Severin in the St. Germain-des-Près district is probably my favorite new discovery so far: it’s quite old (about 1300’s), small but intimate, and very lovely. It has a chapel to each sacrament and very pretty windows. I love its immediate area, too: it is a hidden, quiet street within reach of the student-dominated Place St. Michel and the nice cafés of St. Germain-des-Près (getting confused with all these saints yet? Someday I’ll explain them).

One of these, I don't quite remember which, has a cabinet full of saint bones. I didn't know what they were - they looked like old rolled up parchment - but I stopped looking when I realized one was Ste. Ursula's femur.

I haven’t been doing the nightlife thing too much as I want to get a good feel for the city before I wander around it at night. Classes at the AUP start Monday, but mine might not until Tuesday. I found out my scheduled class is on Fridays until about 6:30 (bleh!) so I want to switch out. We’ll see how that goes. (By the way, when I get a camera I’ll post pics of the cathedrals, etc.)