Aujourd/hui à Giverny

I'm just going to put it out there - today was great. For the first time since I arrived here in Paris in August, finally able to call it my home, I left the city of lights for a breath of fresh air. 

It was truly a struggle getting up on a Sunday morning when the rain gently drizzled outside my bedroom window and I had only had 5 hours of sleep. But rain, hail or shine (okay maybe not hail), I was excited to get out of the city and visit a well-known little village in the next province - Giverny. 

Famous for it's resident impressionist painter Claude Monet, the little village tucked away beside a hillside houses the gorgeous boastful gardens and ponds that the artist tended to and used as subject for most of his famous works such as "The Waterlilies" (Les Nymphéas) and garden series which featured in his turn-of-the-century later works. Though his work is famous for its impressionist style, when you come across the garden and ponds it is not far from the truth at all. The place explodes with colour even in the months of fall and you're overwhelmed with the intensity of texture which he portrays brilliantly in his painting. I had studied these gorgeous artworks in year 12 under the direction of a brilliant teacher and it was so wonderful to put it all into perspective. To see the work in its most raw, alive form.

Enough about the art talk. The day itself was just lovely. I knew pretty much none of these people (except for the lovely Kristiana) but despite their tendency to slide back into their native Spanish, not once did we feel out of place. I mean, sarcasm is my favourite language and all of us spoke it fluently.

Francisco stole apples from the garden and made us take a bite - oh the rebellion! And then we all ended up retreating from the gardens for crepes, pizza, and more apple picking. We spent the afternoon chatting (really shit-talking if you ask me) and wandering aimlessly around the tiny village before stumbling across Monet's grave and a quiet little church on the hill. The dewy mist rolling off the mountainside and into the village brought a fresh, deep colour to the world around us and was perfect to capture on camera. And I was reunited with my Canon for the first time in two months, armed and ready.