My Paris

Classes are done, bags are packed, tickets are printed. These last ten weeks have been the most incredible of my entire life. I saw so much I had never seen before, learned more than I could have imagined, and met some really amazing people. And I think I did a rather good job of keeping up with this little travel blog along the way; if you actually tuned in the whole time, props to you. For my last post, I thought I would talk about what Paris is to me. It might be the most visited tourist city in the world, but it has become a second home to me. And there are places in Paris that aren't as well-known or touristy - or are touristy - that constitute My Paris. As excited as I am to travel for a couple weeks after, and then return home to see my family and friends, part of my heart will always be in Paris.

Rue Vavin
I became very familiar with this cute little road in the 6eme arrondissement, between Boulevard Montparnasse and the Luxembourg Gardens. It housed CUPA, where I spent at least 15 hours every week, and where I learned amazing things from some incredible professors. It's also home to a small boulangerie with a blue facade, an overpriced and tasty chocolate store, and a gelato shop, all of which I frequented. There's a Starbucks that I spent  too much of my lunch money, and where the workers seemed to recognize me by the end. Rue Vavin, that small one-way road, will always have a special place in my heart.

Food
Of course the food. All of it. But I also have my favorites. Like this tiny crepe stand around the corner from the St Michel fountain. It has the best (by best I mean cheapest and delicious) crepes in Paris. I went there on the first and last day of classes, and if felt like everything had come full circle. I also love the apple and brie sandwich from the boulangerie across from CUPA. Paired with a pain au chocolat aux amandes for dessert. I love that eggs are a dinner item. The Camembert cheese we had almost every night after dinner. That we had baguettes every single night with dinner. Nothing can compare to the delicious food of France (sorry Dad - I still love your food, though).

Eiffel Tower Nights
Yeah, part of "My Paris" is the quintessentially touristy Eiffel Tower. But it's not just the monument itself. It's a very specific patch of grass, to the left of the main part. Where we would bring a bottle of wine and watch as the tower lit up a midnight. It was moments like those that the absolute magic of the city hit me, and when I realized even more how incredibly fortunate I was to be in Paris with such amazing people.

Issy les Moulineaux
Admittedly not technically Paris, but close enough. I didn't explore Issy as much as I wish I would have, but what I did see was rather adorable. You get French charm, away from the bustle of the city center. You get shops that people don't assume you're a tourist, so you get to order in french and be delighted when they respond in french. There's the mediatheque, where I spent many a Sunday, doing all the homework I should have been doing throughout the week. Parc Henri Barbusse, that has a surprising and splendid view of the Eiffel Tower, as well as a tree-lined pathway that's straight out of a fairy tale. And of course, the 7 minute walk to and from the metro, up the hill, past the Playing Card museum, to the right, to my pink-painted house.

Family
Last night, we had a goodbye dinner with all the students from the program. We went around and said our favorite experiences. About half of the students "favorites" were in relation to their host families. Mine was as well: it was my host sister's first communion, and all of the extended family was there. I loved not only meeting more French people, but also seeing what a French family - cousins, grandparents, and all - is really like. And honestly, it's not that much different from an American one. I've learned a lot in my classes, but I've learned so, so much - from little words to jokes - from the family that opened their home to me. It sometimes got rough living with children aged 8 and 10, but it was so worth it and I will miss seeing them every day.

There are so many more little things that I see as being essential to Paris, and to my experience in Paris, but I just can't name them all. I've loved living in this city for two and a half months, even when I got stressed, or homesick, or was just having a bad day, the magic of Paris never left me. Sometimes all it took was a wander through a neighborhood I didn't know, or a trip to Monoprix for some chocolate, and I was feeling better. As sad as I am to be leaving, I know that I'll be back many times. Until next time, Paris.

I'll leave you with this - the view of the Eiffel Tower from Parc Henri Barbusse.

Final Stretch

I'm back! Sorry about my temporary leave of absence. I don't really have any excuse other than I've been too lazy! Whoops. But the term is closing in, so this will be one of my last posts. Right now, I'll just try to sum up what I've been doing over the past few weeks.

Parks and Gardens
There was a couple weeks where the weather was incredible, so I spent a considerable amount of time exploring various parks and gardens around Paris. I went to some really amazing ones. My pictures don't even capture how incredible they were. A lot where just so different from the typical "French" garden like Luxembourg, and it was really refreshing. I even got to sit on the grass!

I went to Parc Andre Citroen, which is fairly close to my house. It has little sections that are smaller gardens with specific types of flowers. There was also a hot air-balloon that people could ride, which is a bit unusual.

Next was Promenade Plantee, which is this 2 kilometer or so stretch that used to be a railway, but was converted into a garden. It was incredible. The flowers where beautiful, the plants were incredibly green, and the view was breathtaking. I highly recommend.

I also went to Jardin des Plantes, which is a kind of informational garden, with little signs explaining why certain plants are grouped together, or the healing effects of certain herbs. It would be super informative if you took the time to read everything (I didn't though).

Finally, I went to Park Buttes-Chaumont. It's basically a fairy-tale. It's in Montmartre, which is the big hilly area in the northern part of Paris, so there's quite a few hills in the park, but it makes for some really incredible views.

From high up, you can see all the people
lounging on one of the hills

Chartres
I went to Chartres! The whole program went. Chartres is a town about an hour and a half south west of Paris, and there is a cathedral there that is a very typically Gothic style cathedral. We had this amazing 80 year old British tour guide who had been leading tours for Carleton groups for 50 years. And he seemed to know everything there is to know about the cathedral, even though he said he's still learning. We also went up to the top of the super tall towers, which was not great for my fear of heights, but the view was spectacular.

Chartres from the distance

Facade! (I've seen better.)

The rose window from the West facade and stained glass windows.
Our guide could "read" all of these without even looking.

A side portal.

View from part way up the cathedral.

Ever wonder what the flying buttresses look like from above?
This.

Other stuff
With our professor, we all went to see a play at a small theater. It was Le Porteur d'Histoire, that we had just read in class, and it was absolutely incredible. The writer of the play also directed it, so we saw the play they way he wanted it to be seen.

I also made Wild Rice Soup for my host family! I had brought Minnesota wild rice as a gift when I arrived, so I finally made it for them. It was adorable when each member of the family walked into the kitchen, and, upon smelling the cooking wild rice, said "Ohh, ca sent bon!" (That smells good!) They all liked the soup. I was really happy to be able to share some of my "cultural heritage" with them.

I went up the Eiffel Tower! I didn't go all the way to the top because the elevator line was way too long, but I climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor and the view was pretty great. Here's a blurry night time photo of me there!

View of the Eiffel Tower, from the Eiffel Tower. We were
also on it when it started sparkling on the hour.

I went to a wine and cheese tasting, and now I think I know all there is to know about French wine! (Kidding.) It was really fun, and I was actually able to tell the difference between certain types of wine. And the cheese was probably the best cheese I have ever had in my life. After that, Austin and I went to Musee Grevin, which is a wax museum. We saw a ton of famous people in waxwork form, as well as a lot of French celebrities we did not recognize at all. Fun day!

Wine and cheese tasting!

Good ole Gerard Depardieu

Louis XIV, my love

Al. Doing some thinking.

That is a rather comprehensive, if brief, summary of my life the last few weeks. I honestly can't believe how fast these last nine weeks have gone. But I won't get all sentimental yet, that's for next time! I'll leave you with this incredible view of Sacre Coeur from a random street in the 2nd arrondissement. It's right near Austin's house and only visible for like 12 steps. But so, so worth it!

London

London was not what I was expecting. This is for many reasons, the foremost of which is that it was my first time traveling for the sake of traveling, in complete control of my own actions. Basically, I was an adult in the real world and it was scary. It was exhilarating and fun and I learned a lot, but it was also very stressful. I learned that I am not a very carefree traveler, as much as I might like to be; I get stressed about transportation problems, or worried about spending too much money, and then I get snappy at people. My travel buddies Austin and Josie didn't appreciate this very much. The fact that it rained the entire time we were there didn't help either.

But apart from those few things, I did really like London. It had a lot to offer, when we could find it. It's very different from Paris (I compared the cities a lot since they're the only European cities I've visited now) and I think I prefer Paris. Which is a good thing that I'm studying here then! London is a lot more spread out, so it's harder to get places easily. At least they all spoke English so there was no language barrier in this foreign country. Now that I've reflected and all that, I'll tell you what I actually did!

DAY 1:

We flew in nice and early, then took a bus to somewhere in London. We didn't actually have a plan for the day. But the bus's first stop was Baker Street, so you know what that means! Oh yeah, Sherlock Holmes Museum. It was super overpriced for a tiny three-story house, but there were real objects from the time period the story is set in, so that was really cool to see.

I took so many more pictures than I can upload here.

Next, we wandered through Regent's Park, and decided that our next stop was King's Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4. (It was a very nerdy day.) After figuring out the Underground situation, and having to buy an "Oyster" card and put money on it to get places, we were on our way. We got to King's Cross and stood in line to take our pictures at the trolley that was halfway in the wall. As the line progressed, I got more and more excited. This was one of my childhood dreams that I was going to accomplish; something I had dreamed about for years. And it was right in front of me. By the time I got to the front of the line, there were actual tears in my eyes from excitement. The scarf-holding man seemed concerned, although not in the I-hope-she's-okay way but the that-girl-has-problems way. You'd think he'd be more used to super fans, working where he does. But I got my picture, and at the shop that's right there, I bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (it's what I've decided to collect from the countries I go to), as well as a Hufflepuff mug (Hufflepuff pride!) and a super touristy overpriced ticket to Platfrom 9 3/4!

King's Cross!

Tears

Before going up, the scarf guy said: "It doesn't actually go into the wall, you know."
I was tearful and excited, not an imbecile, sassy scarf holder.

Next, we took the Underground once more, this time to the British Library. There, we saw so many historical documents. All the better, it was free! All museums in England that are owned by the state are free. There were Leonardo de Vinci's workbooks, Beethoven's original symphonies, Galileo's notebooks, the Magna Carta... I couldn't believe how much history and power I was surrounded by in one room.

I didn't get a picture of any of the cool historical things, but here's a lot of
pretty books, and many students being studious!

We then decided to finally make our way to our hostel, for which we had to take a Tube ride, then a 20 minute train ride. We were not very central. Our hostel was equipped with the bare essentials: beds, showers, a kitchen. It wasn't spectacular, but it was cheap. We went to bed early, to the sound of a live band at the pub that was directly below our hostel.

Home sweet home

DAY 2:

This day was not great. We saw basic tourist things, but they weren't really that incredible; it was rainy and windy and overall not super enjoyable. But sometimes it's easy to forget that traveling is not always super fun - you have your flop days.

We got up and went to Covent Gardens, where there was supposed to be a market. But contrary to it's name, Covent Garden's does not have gardens. We didn't really do anything there. We made our way to the British Museum, which was really cool. There was, like the British Library, so much history and power. It was huge though, so we couldn't possibly see as much as we wanted to. Then we went to Westminster and saw the pretty facades. However it was 18 pounds (roughly $25) to enter, so we passed on that. Then we saw the House of Parliament and Big Ben - also cool to look at, but not much more to it than that. We then headed down the road for Buckingham Palace. I apologize for how awful I am about to sound: I've seen better palaces. Honestly though, after seeing the Luxembourg Palace on a regular basis, and having visited Versailles twice, Buckingham palace seemed almost plain. I realize it's an entire different country and people, with different customs towards royalty, but I never thought I would get desensitized to royal buildings. (Okay I'm done being pretentious and horribly now, I'm sorry.)

British Museum

Rosetta Stone - one of the many impressive items we saw

Big Ben

Westminster

Buckingham Palace

It was also raining throughout our exploration, so none of use were too happy. For lunch though, we found a really cute restaurant, and it was cozy and not crowded, so that was really nice. I also had my first British drink! I got an ale, because I felt it was appropriately British. I drank the whole thing, and it wasn't as awful as I was expecting! I still definitely prefer French wine though. This lunch was just so cozy and unexpected, that it was probably the best part of the day. 

We walked around a bit more, then returned to the hostel. For dinner, we got frozen pizzas from the food co-op down the street. A friendly guy (possibly the owner?) from the hostel suggested that we take the bus to Brixton, where there's music or something on Saturday nights. We did this, but couldn't seem to find the music when we arrived. What we did find, however, was much more amusing. There were many 20-somethings walking around in different groups, all wearing onesies. We could not figure out what it was for. We tried following some for a bit, but everyone was going toward and coming from different directions. It was pleasantly confusing, and seemed a fitting way to end the day.

Brixton library - sadly no photos of the mysterious onesie people

DAY 3: (Happy Mother's Day!)

Much better day. We went to the science museum, because Josie is a Computer Science major and wanted to see the computing exhibit that had there. I was up for it, but I learned that British science museums (or this one at least) are much less interactive and child-play oriented than American ones. We then hopped across the street to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We didn't actually know what was going to be there, but it was free, so we figured we might as well. It turned out to be really cool. We saw Islamic art, some history of fashion, and some history of jewelry; in short: pretty things. And there was a lot more to it we didn't see. Next, also in the same area, was the Natural History Museum. We left after ten minutes because it was just too crowded to be enjoyable.

Victoria and Albert Museum Entrance

This cool spaghetti sculpture thing was in the V&A museum, and
there's one in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts as well - connections!

We then headed over to Harrods, which is this huge, super expensive department store. It was beautiful. I just wanted to see it, and we were thinking of getting tea there. But the line was long and it was really expensive, so we just went down the street to a cute placed called "Luna." We had our obligatory cup of tea in London, and I was very content with the day. We walked around for a bit, got some dinner in Chinatown, then went to a pub on the West End! It was another British thing we wanted to do. We all got a pint of ale. We all were not very pleased with it. So we headed back to our hostel, hung out in the pub there, and talked (no ale) while listening to the open-mic night singers.

Harrods!

My "cuppa" as they say

DAY 4:

We didn't really have that much time, so we went to Charing Cross Road, where there are a much of bookstores. We went to one that Josie's British friend recommended, and it was cute! I always love a good bookstore. Then, we walked to Victoria station, which was quite a hike, and took our bus to the airport! And there goes London.

Overall, the trip had it's really great moments, but also it's really stressful and frustrating moments. I pretty much know that when/if I ever return to London, it will be when I am not a student on a budget, because even if the museums are free, it is an expensive city. And it taught me a lesson about traveling (and maybe life as well) that can be frustrating to learn: as much as you want to plan every exciting and cool moment, it's the parts that happen by accident that can be the most fun. Seeing Westminster and Buckingham Palace was cool, but it felt more authentic when we stumbled out of the rain, into a cute restaurant; going to Brixton to look for music and nightlife was an adventure, but we definitely didn't expect to see hoards of people in onesies. You want to be able to control everything that happens (or maybe that's just me) but when you don't, really fun and surprising things can happen.

But during this trip, I also realized how much I love Paris. I had kind of wondered if the reason Paris was my favorite city was because I hadn't really had anything to compare it to. But now that I have, I feel more confident with my opinions. I love Paris; I love how some streets are crazy crowded, while some are super silent and peaceful; I love the consistent Haussman architecture; I love how not confusing the metro is. I was so grateful and happy to get to visit London, but I was also thrilled to return to the city I now call home: Paris.

Rouen and other tidbits

Hello there!

It's been a while since my last post, so I thought I would update you on what I've been doing. First though, in regards to the future, tomorrow, nice and early (6 am) I'm leaving for my flight to London! I'll be there for four days, so I'm sure I'll have a lot of stories when I get back. And I've bought everything for plane/train rides and hostel stays for after the program as well. I'll be in Oslo, Norway for two days, Bergen, Norway for three, and Sigtuna, Sweden (outside of Stockholm) for ten days. So even more countries crossed off my to-visit list by the end of June!

So, in the last couple weeks I've gotten into a routine: get up, go to a cafe or CUPA, go to class, maybe go to a monument with people, return home, eat dinner, do homework. I'll give you the highlights.

I went to the Pantheon one afternoon, and saw the tombs of Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie Curie, and many more. It was very cool to see where all the people where buried, but unfortunately the tombs were nothing compared to the necropolis of Saint Denis. I don't know if any crypt can live up to that.

One evening, my host family had some friends over, and I ate a very long dinner with them; long as in three hours long. But it was three hours of delicious food (foie gras!) flowing wine (I actually enjoy it now) and pride in my comprehension level of french. There was a sticky moment when I tried to explain Nordic skiing to six french people, and seeing as how some Minnesotans don't even understand it, I don't think I conveyed the idea very well. But overall, it was a very nice evening.

But the next day, last Saturday, I went to Rouen! Rouen is a very cute french city of about half a million people, an hour and a half northwest of Paris. Taking the train was a great experience itself, as I got to see the beautiful french countryside as it whizzed by. And we had twelve hours there, so there was a lot of sightseeing to be done.

Vibrant green French countryside

Our main goal, however, was the cathedral. There is a stained glass window that Flaubert wrote a short story about. Austin and I read it in a french class last year, and ever since we have been set on visiting this cathedral. The story itself is long and complicated to explain, so click here for a quick summary, if you like. (The second story - it's worth it, and if you're interested, Austin and I can tell it to you in great detail.)

We exited the train station in Rouen, and realized that we absolutely did not know where the cathedral was. We kind of assumed it would be obvious. So we just started walking down the main road, Rue Jeanne d'Arc, and figured we would find it. What we found first was the Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc if you didn't get that) tower! Joan is very important in the history of this little city, so there are monuments to her just about everywhere. We went up the tower, and from a window saw the big cathedral! As we left, we headed in that direction. But along the way, we found many other little Gothic style churches. I found out when I got home that Rouen is called "la ville de cent clocher" the city of 100 steeples, because there are churches around every corner.

At last, we found the cathedral. And the facade, what would be an incredibly stunning, breathtaking sight, was under construction. I almost started crying. I had been looking forward to the beautiful facade for almost  a year, and I didn't get to see it.

Here's what the cathedral looks like on Google images without construction:

Incredible, right? This is what we saw:

Two large white rectangles away from perfection.

Alas. Once I got over my frustration, we entered. It was incredible. It is immense, and not super organized in layout. It felt cluttered. But we found our window, and spent some time identifying each scenes from the story. And then the gift shop (yep, gift shop in a cathedral) had post cards of the window, so I got one, of course.

Looking down the nave.

Can't remember what this is, but it certainly looks cool.

THE WINDOW.

Yes, I took a selfie with the window. Other tourists were looking at me strangely.

To speed things up, I'll give picture summaries of the rest of the day.

The buildings were all cool German style architecture. It was pretty.

Random beautiful church!

We found a facade! This is the Abbey of Saint Ouen,
where Joan of Arc was rehabilitated.

Inside Abbey Saint Ouen. Very tall.

Giant stained glass window at the far side.

We stumbled upon a museum of medieval and renaissance history.
I like this picture because it shows how stone decorations at that time
where painted, something a lot of people don't realize. It gives a very
different feel to all the plain uncolored stone remnants we usually see.

We finished the day with dinner (bread, cheese, fruit) at a small park,
with a swan for company.

I had an amazing time in Rouen, as much as I love Paris, it's great to get away sometimes, and to see parts of France that aren't just that one city.

Tune in next week to hear about all the Harry Potter related things I do in London!