La Sorbonne

This morning was my first class at La Sorbonne. I sat with a Turkish girl, a Brazilian, and a boy who made it clear he spoke Catalan and NOT Spanish. I was happy the common language in our group was French, because I noticed all the Americans swiftly defaulting to English, (which is hard to avoid!). I discovered in class that my building in the Quartier Latin, Rue de Fouarre, is directly next to the church where Dante attended Sorbonne church services. The street Fouarre takes its name from an antiquated French word for hay or straw. Supposedly in the 14th century, in an act of defiance, the students sat in the square upon bails of hay in order to elevate themselves physically above the teachers, (and metaphorically contest the idea that teachers are inherently superior to students). I love to think of defiant little Dante mulling over images of his professors in Inferno while genuflecting in the medieval romanesque church that I walk by every morning. The literary and historical significance of the Quartier is entirely tangible, and it is nice to be surrounded by students again. It also gives me more confidence to be rebuilding my grammatical foundations, which was a bit deteriorated after not having taken French institutionally for a year. 

Pictures pending!