Well, it ain't no Sainte Chapelle...

... but I'm home.  :)

I've been meaning to post something saying I'm home for the past week (since I've been home for a week now), but I just haven't been feeling motivated.  Today, though, is the day.  I am home.  And it is time to post something.  So before I write anything else, I want to finish up with the Paris post that never made it out of the queue: pictures from my visit to the Sainte Chapelle with Karen.  They speak pretty well for themselves, so the only background information I'll offer is that it was constructed in the mid-13th century by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns (yes, like, the Crown of Thorns), but you can go to the Wikipedia link if you want to know more about what the Sainte Chapelle is.

Entrance to the lower chapel.  Yeah, seriously.

More lower chapel.  At some point I learned the vocabulary for all of the parts of a cathedral, but I've completely forgotten it now.  And I guess I learned it in French, so that wouldn't be much help anyway.

Inside the main part of the cathedral itself.  If you ever go to Paris, go here, and not to Notre Dame, for your cathedral experience.  While there are lots of tourists here, they're very quiet and respectful, whereas at Notre Dame they're incredibly loud and rude.

The rose window.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is the reliquary that houses the Crown of Thorns.  But don't take my word on that.

So that was the Sainte Chapelle.  I mean, do you see how hard it is to write a blog post about being back home after you've been hanging out in 13th century gothic cathedrals for 6 weeks?  'Cause that's what we do in Paris, just hang out in 13th century gothic cathedrals.

But seriously, it's very nice to be back, I just kind of don't know what to say about it.  It's amazing how quickly Paris seems so long ago.  And it's doubly weird that my friend and collaborator, who I was living with, is still there right now.  It really seems like it was ages and ages ago, and yet just last weekend, I was biking along the Canal and taking in all those Parisian smells.

One thing I will mention is what an amazing memory trigger the sense of smell is.  One of the first things that struck me when we got to Paris was the smell of the metro.  And I have no idea how to describe it, or what it is, and I can't even really remember what it smells like very well right now, but as soon as we got down into the metro, my brain was like, "PARIS.  YOU ARE IN PARIS."  It's not an especially strong smell, and definitely not an offensive odor or anything, it's just so particular, and it was so jarring to have that, of all things, come rushing back to me after so many years.

And then, as I was walking home to our house in Berkeley from the BART station last Monday night, the fruity-sweet smell of summer flowers wafted over me, and my brain went, "Mmmmm California.  You are in California."

Smells are so funny that way.

Well, the other thing I wanted to say is that I'm headed to Illinois next week, if you can believe it.  I wasn't originally planning to, after all this traveling, but fall semester is going to be crazy busy, so otherwise I wouldn't be able to make it back until Christmas, and that's a long time with no Illinois love.  So I'm flying in to Chicago on August 3rd, taking the train down to C-U on the 4th, hanging around until probably the 8th, then back up to Chicago for a little bit and flying back to Berkeley on the 10th.  Very quick little trip, but this way I get to go to my cousin's baby shower, and it'll be so nice to be in my Illinois home and see people, as always.

I think that's a wrap for now.  I'll try to write again relatively soon!