PARIS

I just returned from the most amazing city of Paris! I spent three days walking, exploring, sight-seeing, walking, museum going, walking, eating, laughing, walking….It was a wonderful experience. But do you get the point? I have never done so much walking in my life! So here is the story of my weekend. It is long. And there are no more pictures. I just thought I'd warn you in advance...(If you want to see pictures, go to my Facebook page. Blogger has issues uploading here...)

We left London on Wednesday evening. There were fourteen of us who were headed to Paris, but we all had different hotels and agendas. We were greeted on the train intercom by Jean-Paul and I have no idea how to spell it, but it sounds like “Onwee.” How French! Ooh la la. It was a little scary finding our hotel that night. We had heard the train station was a little sketchy. We started out by witnessing this tiny lady (and she wasn’t like a midget, she was proportionally small. Like a little doll.) walk past just screaming words for no apparent reason. Straight faced and walking forward. Then on our first metro train, this old man came and sat by us. He smiled at Taylor so creepily that the rest of us (andrea, Kristen, and I) just started busting up laughing. Then he looked at us. We would not wipe his ridiculous grin off his face. It looked as if someone had draw a perfect half circle with sharpie on his face. That is how weird this guy looked. Then he tried speaking French to us and I said, “I don’t speak French.” (one of the very few French phrases I learned). But he just went on and on and on, and we were just laughing our heads off. How American of us. Our hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the metro stop. Walking into our Marriot room was like walking into heaven.

Day 1:

We were to meet some of the other girls at 9 am at the Louvre. But of course, we were all so very excited for our first French meal, the breakfast at the hotel! So we happily rode the elevator down, only to find out that breakfast was not included and the cheapest breakfast option cost 17 euros! Wow. No thanks. So we got stupid mcdonald’s smoothies right outside the Louvre. The Louvre was pretty overwhelming. I loved the outside of it. The architecture of the building and the glass pyramids were beautiful. And the day was beautiful with not a single cloud in the sky. It was a bit unreal. I also loved the inside of course…who wouldn’t? But there was just so much to see! Too much! And after week after week of going to art museums in London, sketching pieces and writing papers about it, a lot of the art starts to look the same. BUT don’t get me wrong, I love art more than I ever though I did. I didn’t get to see all of the Louvre, and I am perfectly okay with that. We headed over to Musée d’Orsay, which has mostly French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, my absolute favorite kind of art. On our way there, we grabbed sandwiches at the first bakery we saw. And lucky us, it turned out to be the best food we had all weekend. My Aunt Mary said they always had baguettes and cheese when they went to Paris. Ever since she told me that, I just pictured myself happy as can be with a baguette in one hand and cheese in the other. That is what I was craving for lunch, and guess what kind of sandwich they had: sesame seed baguette with lettuce and brie. That’s it. Sounds kind of weird, but it was incredible.

We all went to Notre Dame next. Everyone else went inside, butsince I will be back in Paris in a week and a half and will go to Notre Dame then, I met my dear friend Maddi instead. She is studying abroad in Paris right now and we decided to get together. It was so much fun. Right away, she took me to her favorite crepe place in the Latin Quarter. I had one with nutella and coconut. It was very delicious of course. Then, she took me to Sacre Coeur, a beautiful church on top of a hill, where you can see a beautiful view of Paris. There were some funny things going on outside the church, like someone singing to weird music, and a puppet show that looked like maybe it was about Adam and Eve? Maddi says its kind of a sketchy part of town. But I loved the view and the church, both inside and out!

Next, we walked through the Tuilleries Jardin and down Champs Élysées, the posh shopping street. This is what Paris looked like in my head, high fashion stores, crowds in the sunny street, bakeries, and at the end of the street, the breath-taking Arc de Triomphe. We stopped at a grocery store where Maddi introduced me to her favorite candy…darn her, it was all delicious. The best was this stuff called Speculoos. She said you can only get it in France and Belgium. It has the consistency of Peanut Butter or Nutella and it tastes like Biscotti cookies, like the ones they give you on Delta Airlines. YUM! It is supposed to be for toast, but I am picturing it on apples, and it looks divine.

We climbed the Arc and saw another beautiful view of the city. This time we could see Sacre Couer on the hill. It is so high above everything else. I never knew, but Paris is surrounded by hills outside the city. It is beautiful.

We grabbed some quick, but delicious salads on our way to our next destination: the Eiffel Tower! We met up with some of her friends from her study abroad program and just sat on the grass, people watching, eating candy, talking, laughing. None of them had climbed the Eiffel tower yet, but tonight was the night! We stood in line forever, and finally were admitted to climb the stairs. Apparrently, there are NUMBER steps, but we made it in an astonishing 8 minutes! Good for us, we felt good about that. We then had to wait inline AGAIN at the half way point to ride the elevator the rest of the way up. We met a lot of funny people in that line. At 10 and 11 pm, the tower sparkles for about ten minutes. It lights up with blinking lights and looks like a Christmas tree. I had no idea about this! So at ten, I got to see it from right next to the tower, and at eleven, it sparkled when I was on the tower. The crowd went wild when it sparkled. In line, we were right in the middle of a huge group of Belgian teenage boys. They started chanting in Dutch to each other when the lights went off. When we asked what they were saying, they blushed a little and told us it was, “Where is the party at? Here is the party at!” They were hilarious kids. They love the show Jersey Shore. How embarrassing that they think that is what Americans are generally like! We set them straight and told them that show is garbage. It was incredible to be over 1,000 feet high in Paris! The view was breath taking and it had an unreal feeling. It was super windy up there, so we didn’t spend too much time. We took in the gorgeous view and made our way back down. It was getting late, so we had to sprint down the stairs to try and make it to the metro in time. That was kind of scary. The stairs are steep!

But due to the long waits, we weren’t going to make it home in time for Maddi and her friends to take me to my hotel and make it back to their flat before the Metro closed. And they were not going to let me walk alone at night to my hotel. Thank goodness they were very strict about that. I would have been terrified and probably gotten lost. My friends were already asleep in the hotel and I couldn’t get a hold of them, so I ended up going to Maddi’s apartment and spending the night, and waking up early so I could get back to my hotel and be ready to go to Versailles with my friends. So I got 3 hours of sleep and had to ride a train and two metros back to the hotel. But I got to see Maddi’s flat, which I really wanted. It was adorable. And she was great and wrote me step by step details. And I made it perfectly fine. So don’t freak out, mom and dadJ

Day 2

I have been dreaming of going to Versailles for as long as I knew what it was. I remember one of the first things I looked at on Google Earth were the gardens at Versailles and I though, someday, I’m going there! And there I was on Friday, standing in front of those huge ornate golden gates with the giant palace behind. I have never seen anything so ornate. Every part of the palace was decorated lavishly, from floor to ceiling. The ceilings were all painted, everything was gold plated, the walls were covered in rich fabrics, and the furniture was too beautiful for use. The hall of mirrors was breathtaking. One side of the hall had windows looking over the beautiful gardens and the other side was covered in walls. The ceilings had gold decoration and crystal chandeliers. I loved Marie Antoinette’s bedroom, although I think if I had to live there, I would be afraid to touch anything. I even got to see the small secret door she ran through in attempt to escape the French revolutionists.

My favorite part of Versailles was the Hamlet. Marie Antoinette obviously did not much care for her husband, King Louis XVI, so to keep herself occupied, she spent his money. The Hamlet is a little village that she had built for entertainment. She had real peasants live there (I’m not sure if they were workers who had to dress and act like peasants or actually peasants) and she would visit her little town and “play peasants.” The little houses are thatched roofed with gardens and cute little gates. The whole little village was adorable and so beautifully arranged. Versailles was amazing and beautiful, but also quite sickening that people actually lived this lavishly when their people were starving in the streets. Oh Marie Antoinette, how ignorant you were when you said, “Let them eat cake.”

Worst part about the day: My bag broke. It was heart breaking and quite simply a pain. Lauren saved the day (well she tried) by using her hair tie to connect the broken strap to a strap on the front flap. It helped, but for the rest of the weekend, my bag was horrible to carry around, and I didn’t want to leave it hanging off my shoulder wide open with all the sketchioso people in paris! I held it in my arms most the time. I will be demanding money back from Nordstrom as soon as I am home! Unacceptable, Nords, unacceptable!

That night, we ate dinner at the Latin Quarter. We had K-babs. The Paris study abroad kids and my Aunt Mary told me about these tasty wraps. So we thought we should probably try them. This the type of meal you should only eat once a year or less because of how bad it must be for you. Imagine a greek gyro wrap, except chicken instead of lamb. In a pita is onion, delicious flavorful chicken, lettuce, tomato, tzatziki sauce (yogurt type sauce), and then…it is topped with some good old French fries. Yes, inside of the wrap. Disgusting? Yes, but delicious as well. We were all starving and we all finished our entire wrap!

Then we walked down Champs Élysées to get macaroons at the famous bakery Laduree. Maddi said this place has the macaroons that were Marie Antoinette’s favorite! So obviously we had to try them. These macaroons are not the typical coconut we Americans picture. They are the cute little cookie sandwiches that are cute bright colors. The line was long, but it was worth it. My favorite was coconut! Although they had all kinds of flavors, including minty strawberry, raspberry, chocolate, pistachio, coffee and many more including licorice! (yuck.) At the end of Champs Élysées is the Arc de Triomphe, and we watched the sunset and the Eiffel Tower sparkle from the top of it. That was so much fun. What a gorgeous view. By the time we got home that night, our feet were filthy and aching, and we were dead tired. I took a shower and my legs were shaking the entire time because my feet were so dead.

Day 3

Last day in Paris. Sara and I went to Musée L’orangerie. It had Picasso, Cezanne, Monet, and much more. This was my favorite art museum in Paris. I hadn’t realized that this was the museum with Monet’s water lilies. The moment I walked in the huge white oval shaped room with nothing but Monet’s long, paintings in a perfect oval line around the room, I gasped a little bit. Though there were other people there, it was silent and peaceful. I have never seen such beautiful artwork. There were two of these rooms and they were wonderful. I felt like I could sit there and stare all day. Downstairs I saw a lot of fun things like Picasso, a portrait of Madamoiselle Chanel, some interesting still life pictures, and much more. I have decided that Monet is one of my favorite artists. I can't get enough of his art!

Next stop was the Rodin Museum. I didn’t like this one as much as L’orangerie and D’orsay, but it was pretty amazing as well. I liked the set-up of this museum. It was mostly outside and had Rodin’s sculptures throughout a beautiful garden. For a sunny day, it was very peaceful and relaxing to just look at the interesting shapes he had people in and the detailed muscles. This museum is home to the famous sculptures, The Kiss and The Thinker.

We met the rest of the girls at the Eiffel tower. They had just taken the elevator to the top. We grabbed some baguette sandwiches and headed to Saint Chapelle, the beautiful cathedral, made mostly of stained glass windows. I loved it. Like everything else in Paris, it was incredible ornate. Since the sun was so bright, it illuminated the windows and we could see each bright color. We also made a quick stop at the Moulin Rouge. One of the girls loves that movie so of course we had to see the real one. Well, it was a bit disappointing. It looked pretty cheap and ugly to be honest. It was in a horrid part of town, with nothing but topless bars and strip clubs around. AND there was no giant bejeweled elephant outside! I mean come on! Where is the glamour? (I didn’t really think there would be an elephant. But if there was….wow. That would have been fun to see.) There were lots of people taking pictures outside Moulin Rouge, including an old man in a red feather boa, and a younger gentleman, a little on the chubby side who insisted on chimmying his entire body for every picture his girlfriend? took of him. YUCK, but hilarious. We spent our last hour hanging out on Champs Élysées, buying candy, watching the weirdo street dancers, people watching. Then to the hotel to pick up our bags, and to the train station. We had to do A LOT of walking the entire weekend, so trekking all around paris with our luggage was NOT fun. By the time we got to the train station, we were tired and hungry. We all predicted that as soon as we got on the train, everyone would fall right asleep or stare out the window, too tired and grumpy to speak. How wrong we were! I don’t know how or why, but the train ride home was like a slumber party! We were all talking and laughing our heads off the entire ride home. Paris was an incredible experience, but oh how good it felt to be back in my tiny top bunk at home in London. I was a “monkey in the tree tops” again, as my parents used to call me in my bunk bed growing up. And it felt great.

1 more week in London. 6 days until my best friend Jess arrives in London to travel with me after. 19 more days in Europe and I’m home! It’s a bittersweet feeling.