I sadly did start to miss the weekly Thursday gathering of the masses outside of half of Dryden Road so I decided to find a Mecca of my own for the drip-sweating, red-faced, wide-eyed twenty-somethings here in Paris. After a simple process of elimination (too expensive, too many girls, too old, too unfriendly, too far, etc.), I finally stumbled upon Le Violin Dingue, located at the top of a hill in between the Pantheon and the Seine in the fifth Arrondissment.

For his work founding the Cornell Law School’s first study abroad program in France, Prof. John J. Barceló III, international and comparative law, was handed on April 2 the highest honor a non-French citizen can receive from the country: the medal of the French Legion of Honor.

Alright, so I can safely say that Student Center and the Course Catalogue are two of my favorite sites; they awkwardly appear when I hit the “Top Sites” button on Safari. I have no problems admitting that I love my classes at Cornell and really that one-liner “What courses are you taking?” does work on me…sort of.

Dina Khatib '15 analyzes Elizabeth Corkery's MFA project, a spectacle based on the Palace of Versailles.

Fashion week is not for the weak and weary.

What not going to the Louvre can teach you about art.

Paris.

Where to begin?

You can make fun of the French for just about anything, the protests ranging from petty to substantial. On the serious end of the spectrum, you have the occasional display of racial backwardness, the undeviating tendency to go on strike and the labyrinthine bureaucracy (try procuring a visa from the consulate; you’ll think you’re being ushered through the Château d’If).

Ever since French President Nicolas Sarkozy infamously stated that the burqa was “not welcome” in his country, triggering a contentious debate between Muslims, secularists and everyone in between, I’ve been struggling to identify what exactly is at issue. Women’s rights? Secularism? National security? French culture? Is the French parliamentary panel’s proposed ban on full-veils — the burqa and the niqab — legitimate legislation or the latest form of Islamophobia?

When former Sun Associate Arts Editor Rebecca Weiss ’09 sent me a text message last spring asking me if I wanted to go on an “all expenses paid trip to France,” I promptly ignored her.

Those of you who read her Weiss-a-roni column last year might have seen the silly language and ridiculous ideas and guessed, as I did, that it was just another of Rebecca’s practical jokes. But two weeks later, when Rebecca called to ask why I hadn’t gotten back to her, I realized she was serious.