We had backpacks strapped to our backs, per usual. Lauren and I stepped off of the metro and into the dearest part of Paris. Unlike many of the popular sites in Paris, the area that Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève is located near is void of Asian tourists weighted down with camera equipment. The sky was dusky with the newness of day, and the street was still save for a few passerby’s. I can see why Midnight in Paris was shot on that very street (http://parisadele.com/portfolio/bibliotheque-sainte-genevieve/). Woody Allen must have felt it too, the quiet beauty as if I had stepped off of the metro and into another world.
Lauren had been to the library before. She insisted that I go, hyping me up for a library that was Belle-esque in size (Beauty and the Beast, anyone?). I read on the website that the library, constructed in 1846, housed over two million documents covering numerous topics, from mathematics and physics to fashion to the technicalities of English grammar(https://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.bsg.univ-paris3.fr/&prev=search).
We slipped inside the massive doors and tiptoed to the librarian’s desk. I applied for a library card, trying to speak my best possible French but eventually defaulting to English, which they understood quite well. They handed me back a shiny white library card with my picture on one side and an embellished shadow of a winding staircase on the other.
My excitement was mounting. The entrance to the library was grand in itself. White marble pillars shot to the ceiling, matching the marble busts of scholars long gone by. Portraits hung on the wall of unsmiling men, warning readers to keep their voices down. Marble steps lead to old creaky ones, and finally we entered a narrow wooden door that looked like Napoleon himself might have once grasped its handle. We entered.
At first, it felt incredibly awkward. There was a single file line to get into the library, and once I stepped through the little gate, it felt as though every person in the place looked up. And it is a very, very large library. But then my trepidation faded. My neck craned backwards. Lauren smiled at me and prodded me forward, but I was too busy looking at the sheer mass and beauty of it all. Iron working scrolled across shelves, which were two stories’ high. The people at the wooden tables that stretched across the room were working feverishly. Once I stopped oogling and we found seats in the corner, I couldn’t not do schoolwork. Everyone else looked so productive, I felt social pressure to be productive as well. It was one of my favorite moments in my exploration of Paris.