Paris, France

October 15, 1945

Dear Mom,

No school today and tomorrow, I guess, for I see a notice on the board to meet at the school on Wednesday morning. Maybe we'll get started then.

This afternoon I went to the Autumn Exhibition of Paris Artists at the Museum of Modern Art. It is a large show with several thousand paintings and drawings and considerable decorative work. It is a little too much to absorb at one time and I'll try to get there again. One good thing is there is no charge at any of the museums for military personnel.

This exhibition runs the whole gamut of French art "isms" and there are many wasted canvases. But it is a lively show. They certainly have a flair for the decorative and both this and their book illustrations are superb.

Now I'll give you some idea of my own set-up. I am a student in a civilian institution under the Army Educational Program. A certain number of Army people are sent to civilian schools over here and in England at Government expense for work that is more advanced than the regular educational program given in unit schools such as I was running.

I am on "Detached Service". We are still on a military status and live in Government quarters and eat at Army operated messes. But the whole Civilian Agency Program, as it is called, is purposely kept as "civilian" as possible and actually we are pretty much like any university student attending college anywhere. We have no military duties and our free time is our own. As yet I don't know how much free time we are to have for our course has not been outlined yet. However, it promises to be interesting for we are to be farmed out according to our interests and training to work under various French artists as I understand it.

I live at Cite Universitaire where I stayed before. But this time I am in the American Building. At present I have a room to myself. The rooms are set up for two students and each has two single beds, a desk, two chairs (straight-backed) and one lounge chair, one bedstand with study lamp and a wash-bowl. The closet is built in. The toilets are just across the hall from me and showers down the hall. There is hot water in the morning and again at night.

We eat at a small hotel down near the Sorbonne, about 3/4 of a mile from my school. However, I can eat in the Casual Officer's mess in Place San Augustin, I discovered today, so I probably will eat my evening meals here.

We are each issued two blankets and two sheets, so I'm glad I have my woolen pajamas. It's already getting quite nippy at night.

Incidentally, I wish you would send me some soluble coffee, some sugar and some condensed milk. It will go good on these cold evenings and I can heat it on a little German stove I have. Soluble coffee is OK for I have no facilities for the regular kind. Like everyone else in the army I am quite a coffee drinker - usually two cups at every meal at which it is served.

Goodnight and thanks.

Love,

Bob