Toute à l’Heure: Paris Day 4

Well, so day 4 wasn’t a super full day. We had to fly back home so we had breakfast and put our stuff in a room since we had to check out of ours. We went to the Arc de Triomphe and then walked around Les Champs Élysées before meeting back up at the hotel to come home! Et Voila! Made it back to the college just in time for dinner!

I really did love Paris and I can’t wait to keep going back (I hope) and discover more there because there is SO much. I barely repeated anything from my last trip there in this one, and at the same time there is so much more I want to see like Les Invalides

My favorite moments of the trip were:

1.       Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

2.       Listening to “La Vie En Rose” while eating dinner on the Seine at sunset.

3.       Spending an afternoon being a real “Parisian” and just walking the city, sitting on the sidewalk outside a café, and taking a “promenade” along the Seine, all with good company.

The only semi-regret I had about this trip was not putting my own lock on the lock bridge! For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, there’s actually two in Paris, but it’s a place where thousands of people, mostly couples, go to put their initials on a lock and throw the keys into the Seine River. And you know what? I think that’s where I’m going to end up at the end of my trip. It seems fitting that after this crazy, incredible, truly life-changing semester abroad, that I do that, because let’s be honest (and maybe a bit cheesy)… France will forever have a piece of my heart. So, if around June 13 or 14^th you happen to wonder where I might be or what I might be doing for my last days in Europe, know you know where I’ll be—In Paris, on le Pont des Arts, adding my lock to the bridge, and tossing the keys.

Children of the Revolution: Paris Day 3

Woke up and did a walking tour of Montmartre which was AWESOME. We came off of the metro and RIGHT there was the Moulin Rouge. So I was very happy about that. London and I were singing songs from the movie which was great. The walking tour was pretty cool and we got to go into more of the town and less of the more “red light” area. We made our way up to the Sacré Coeur which was gorgeous. It’s located on the highest hill in Paris so the view is incredible (besides how smoggy/polluted it was). I also couldn’t help but think of the song “Sacré Coeur” by the Civil Wars which was nice background music to have playing in my head. I learned that the people of France have, surprisingly, a kind of weird opinion about the church since it was built in Montmartre as a sort of punishment and in an effort to “cleanse” the city a bit. In fact, there’s someone praying in the church every hour of every day for the city, still! So that was pretty fascinating. Outside there had been a violinist playing “My Heart Will Go On” which I found nice but kind of funny.

From there we had the rest of the day free. A group of us went to Chipotle, which I’m not going to lie, was probably the best thing ever at the time. Cannes is so small and France in general just doesn’t have a lot of fast food—the most fast-food thing we get are kebabs which are AMAZING but aren’t quite the same as a Chipotle burrito.

From there everyone started splitting off to do their own thing. I went with London, Elsa, Yvette, and Melina to the Opera House. It was only 6 euros as students to go in so we did! Now, London LOVES Phantom of the Opera so it was kind of a dream come true for her. It was very fun to get to do it with her and see her excitement. I also LOVED it though. It was designed by the same architect who built the first casino in Monte Carlo which we were able to go to a few months ago! And it’s just absolutely stunning. Especially the theatre itself—just… wow. I also bought a version of Phantom that’s in French!

Then some people wanted to go to the Louvre so Elsa and Yvette and I just wandered around and shopped and got coffee. That afternoon/evening ended up being my favorite of the trip by far. We literally sat outside a café/bagel place for over an hour at least getting coffee and snacking. Then we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries (kind of on accident but Elsa had wanted to see it!) and then by the secondhand bookstores along the Seine by Notre Dame and the lock bridge! I wanted to do a lock but I didn’t. So I’ll have to save it for when I’m there with someone special! Or when I’m back at the end of this trip on my own or something too! I don’t know!

We went back to the hotel to change before going to the Latin Quarter for dinner. A lot of people were there and guys would try to call you into their restaurants, which is a bit overwhelming, but we found one with 3 course dinner for either 12 or 16 euros depending on which menu you wanted to order from! (Just to give some perspective, a 3 course dinner in Cannes is 27 euros on average, which is somewhere between $35-40). We had made plans and backup plans in order to meet up with other friends—since very few of us have phones, trying to meet up in Paris can be pretty difficult. We did find my friend Katie and her mom, Ronda, who was incredible. We ended up meeting up with other people and going checking out the nightlife in the Latin Quarter before then going to a few places by the Bastille.

It ended up being a really eventful night with some crazy stories though! One thing that was slightly frustrating was we had to deal with a very rude receptionist. A girl in our group needed to get into her room but the key wasn’t working. Now, at least 5 or 6 us of tried to get it to work (guys and girls) before we asked the receptionist for help—which he did NOT seem to want to do. However, he told not only the girl and our friend David, but also came down the stairs and told a group full of girls that the reason she couldn’t get it open was “because she was a woman.” Now, I did talk to some other French people about the incident and they communicated to me that it most likely was trying to be funny. Unfortunately for him, however, it did not come across that way at all to the group of fairly intellectual young women—especially since 2 guys had also tried it. He was also just kind of a jerk, hate to say it but it’s true, to us when we would go in or out.

Probably the more exciting story though, which I wasn’t around for but heard about the next day, was a girl in our group, Savoy, got pickpocketed! BUT not really. Which sounds weird. However, she’d put her I-phone in her blazer pocket, felt it get taken, turned around, and then proceeded to fearlessly follow this guy and yell at him for her phone. And guess what he did? He gave it back! So we all thought that was pretty incredible and that she was pretty lucky to get it. But they warn you about pickpockets literally everywhere in Paris (in a lot of Europe, but especially there). So it was kind of crazy to have it happen to someone in our group, but even more surprising was the fact that she was able to get it back from him! 

«Métro, Boulot, Dodo»: Paris Day 2

Turns out we didn’t need to buy metro passes because interestingly enough, some of you guys might or might not be aware, but the metro ended up being free all weekend due to the pollution here! Kind of crazy but awesome for us! And I want to take a second to acknowledge how much I love the metro. It’s the best system ever and I wish American would figure out how to do it well. It’s so simple and just nice and I love it.

So! Friday we had breakfast at the hotel. Back at home I wouldn’t typically be excited about the little breakfast buffet that was there, however, since my breakfast nowadays is 3 pieces of bread with jam, hot chocolate, and maybe some fruit (which I love by the way), the buffet with pain au chocolat, nutella, eggs, bacon, cereal, fruit, toast, juices, etc. was incredible!

From there, we went to the Musée d’Orsay which was completely new for me. There was a big exhibition of Van Gogh and Arnaud going on which was pretty cool as well as some great impressionist and post-impressionist galleries. I’m not a very knowledgeable person when it comes to art and museums and I can only be in them for so long before I stop absorbing much of anything. However, I can definitely appreciate it and have my mind blown by it from time to time—which most definitely happened.

After, I went with a group of girls to see The Deux Maggots which is where Hemingway and all those awesome people would meet up and talk and what not. We wanted to try to eat there but it was very crowded so we got croques and sandwiches at another café nearby.

Then we met our group at the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) and got to take a tour of that which is apparently a pretty special thing to do. It was INCREDIBLE. So ornate and mind blowingly detailed and gorgeous.

We had free time after that until a show so I went to Notre Dame with a group. We wanted to go up in the towers but couldn’t because of the pollution which was a bummer (I’ll have to save it for next time now ;) ) Then we lost Elsa temporarily and found her at Shakespeare and Company, a very cool bookstore where, once again, many a famous writers hung out and wrote.

There was some very good looking/talented musicians playing outside who we listened to for quite some time. We actually spent a good half hour deliberating on what to write on a note to one of them after he said they took tips and food and phone numbers from beautiful women (as he looked directly in our direction). None of us have phone numbers that work here though so we wrote him a nice note that said something along the lines of “You may or may not be human perfection. We’re tourists and don’t have phone numbers we can give you so you’ll have to settle for our hearts.” It was goofy, yes. But funny. We also checked out the Latin Quarter and got some crèpes—which are everywhere <3.

THEN, (yeah I know, long day), we met back at the hotel and went to a show called “How to Become a Parisian in One Hour.” It was a one-man show that was very funny and just poked fun at a bunch of different cultures, especially Americans.

That evening I had dinner with a group of girls at this random but delicious Italian place we found that was reasonably priced. Dinner went pretty late so we probably got back to the hotel around 22h30 or 23h00 (10:30 or 11:00). Then we “rallied” and went out to a bar/dance club thing by the Latin Quarter. It was pretty fun but very crowded and very hot! And soon after we decided to try to find something else in the Bastille area where our hotel was, but by the time we all got cabs home (since the metro closes at 1:30) we didn’t go out anywhere else. We tried valiantly with the metro, too. We left around maybe 1:15 and got to the station to find a train about to leave with the doors open, so naturally all 20 or so of us sprinted down the stairs and barely made it—it was quite exciting and probably freaked out the local Parisians. However, we got to the connecting train literally 2 minutes after 1:30 and hence the need for cabs…

The rested up for Day 3!

New Promises: Paris Day 1

So Paris was too incredible to fit into one blog post; therefore, I'm doing it in smaller, more manageable installments!

Day 1:

Left bright and early to fly out of Nice. Got to fly Air France which was nice and very exciting so I can check that off the bucket list now. We got to our hotel in the early afternoon and took a bus tour around the city that lasted about 2 hours. What was funny for me was driving by certain buildings and learning the significance/history to them and realizing I’d definitely been there before but NEVER knew those things. For example, the Place de la Concorde I drove through multiple times in my last trip without realizing/knowing that that’s where they would guillotine people including Marie Antoinette!! What?! And also Les Invalides which I didn’t get to go visit this time but would love to another time. Napoleon’s tomb is there! Crazy!

We had some free time after the tour but I napped until dinner. We got metro passes and took the metro to go have dinner in a bateau-mouche (a boat) that goes along the Seine while you eat. It was pretty much perfection. It was sunset and we got to see the Eiffel Tower light up from the Seine and… oh yeah they played “La Vie en Rose” by Édith Piaf while we were floating there. I actually started to tear up a bit because of how utterly incredible it was.

After that a lot of our AIFS group ended up going to the Eiffel Tower. We watched it light up and then actually took the stairs to the second level which was semi-frightening since I’m not the biggest fan of heights but it was cheaper and less of a line and we’re all broke college kids (ok, maybe not everyone here, but the majority). We did end up taking the elevator to the top, which I know will make my mom a bit sad since I was too scared to go with her two years ago. But it was very cool and I got to have a really incredible talk with my roommate Grace just looking out at Paris at night.

Eiffel Tower lit up! With a bit of editing done on the photo.

I just couldn’t even begin to fathom just how long that tower’s been there. It’s older than the country that I come from. And beyond that, that place holds so much significance to so many millions of people besides myself. There are people who see it every day and people that will only ever get to see it in pictures. People who’ve visited there with so many different stories and experiences and situations going on in their lives. There are people who’ve stood there and looked out with family, friends, or a lover (oh la la!). And at the same time there are people who’ve come with grief, heartache.

For me, I’m lucky enough to have been twice now. And both experiences have been completely different. When I was in France two years ago I had just graduated high school. I had platinum blonde hair, I had not started going to Chapman, I was dating a guy who a few months later was going to drastically change my life (through a weird experience—but definitely for the better—I’m sure a lot of you know the story). I didn’t have a belly button piercing. I didn’t have any idea what fun I had ahead in college. I didn’t have the faith that I have now. I didn’t know I’d be back only 2 years later.

But this time, instead of being with my mom (who, of course, I love dearly and we will always have that experience)—I got myself there pretty much on my own. I’d been living in France for over a month and was surrounded by all these people who I really just met but honestly who I feel I’ve known so much longer. This time around I had a bit more life experience, a lot more knowledge of French, red hair, a belly button piercing (not sure why that’s significant but it’s a funny detail I guess right?), and, although this may seem like an exaggeration, I now have an entirely new outlook on my life. And I couldn’t be more thankful for that. However, one thing that I’ve found to be the same between the two experiences was that 2 years ago I had NO idea what life was going to throw at me in the years to come or how much things would change. And now, especially with all the new experiences I’ve had recently, I find myself in a very similar boat. I have ZERO idea where my life is going to take me from here. But I do know that God has blessed me enough to bring me to this point and I trust him wholeheartedly moving forward. I just continue to be amazed and nothing but thankful each and every day.

“I could provide a long list of all… the hurts and missteps and conflicts… But then come the golden moments, and these are the time when everyone must stop and smile and clear the air… It is here, in the uncluttered heart, that the Author and Finisher of our faith writes new songs, new stories, new promises.” 

–Robin Jones Gunn 

Barcelona!

This was the first (of quite a few) random weekend trips of my study abroad experience traveling on my own (for example—our whole AIFS group is going to Paris this weekend but it’s all been organized by AIFS and is pre-planned for the most part). So, going into it, London, Emily, Rachel, David, and myself knew it was going to be a learning experience; and although I was confident in all of our abilities to figure out how to get places and hopefully not get pickpocketed, it was both exciting and a bit nerve-wracking to pack up a backpack of things on Friday afternoon and leave the place that’s been our home for over a month now.

Before I give you some highlights from the trip, I have to introduce you to everyone because although the trip itself was amazing, what really made the weekend so spectacular was the people I got to adventure with!

Emily, London, David, Rachel and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe!

Starting on the left is Emily (quick pause—to anyone in AIFS potentially reading this I know it’s a bit silly)... Ok so Emily! Probably one of the bubbliest personalities here. She’s a total sweetheart and super fun to be around. Goes to Drake and is studying journalism. Then the blonde girl (the only one in the college if I had to guess) is London who is in room next to me at school and (sorry to everyone else) is probably one of my absolute favorite people I’ve met on this trip! She’s from Arkansas and is SO intelligent while being so down-to-earth and fun to be around. I think I’ve told her more about my life in the last month than a lot of even my close friends have learned about me in the last few years! Then there’s David, the only guy. He also goes to Drake for accounting and is one of the sweetest guys here. He’s pretty much always smiling and is super nice and has a Minnesota accent when he says “Bag.” Then there’s Rachel who has some amazingly curly hair. This was the first time her and I really got spend a lot of time together and I loved getting to talk to her and get to know her better and laugh a LOT and take lots of photos together. And yeah that’s me on the right.

So. I originally started writing something for the blog that turned into more of a personal journal and was simply way too long. Therefore, I’ve decided to try my best to just give the highlights. So without further ado, my weekend in Barcelona:

-Wandering the streets of Barcelona trying to find the hostel. We left the college at around 4, found the bus to Nice, got dinner, walked to the airport, flew into Barcelona, and had taken a bus into the city. From there we had a picture of a map of how to get to the hostel with very few street names and without the actual address of the hostel either (oops!). So it ended up being about an hour and a half walk at 11:30 at night trying to navigate our way when we literally had no idea where we were!

Pretty much what we looked like for most of the trip.

-The moment I walked into La Sagrada Familia—literally took my breath away and gave me chills! Words just can’t describe how stunning it was.

Outside of La Sagrada Familia

The ceiling! Incredible, right?

On of many of the gorgeous stained glass windows.

-Holding hands and praying an Our Father in La Sagrada Familia per London’s suggestion <3

-Checking out La Boccheria—the open air market there. It was not only huge but just filled with fresh fruits, fresh meats, candies, spices, cooking oils and so on. Definitely would recommend it!

-Eating some insanely good tapas!

-Getting lost looking for the Picasso Museum and ending up in the gothic quarter <3

-Taking a siesta!

-Sprinting to see the Magic Fountain. It’s sort of like an original World of Color or Bellagio Fountain thing except it’s just huge and in the middle of Barcelona and really cool. We saw it from the metro stop and saw it starting so decided to sprint.

-Dinner at this very small Mexican food place which we were at from 9:30-12:00/12:30ish. It was really good which is why it was so crowded! But it was the latest dinner I might’ve ever had.

-Mastering the Metro

-Stumbling upon a parade with amazing music, brightly colored costumes, and dancing!

-Getting to sit on the beach and then get more tapas <3

We came. We saw. We conquered.

Or at least, we felt like we did. And really we did see quite a lot. We got to experience a new culture which was great despite that we really could’ve brushed up on more Spanish so we could’ve avoided constantly telling people “Oui! Oh oops yes I mean si!” I’m really enjoying getting to see and experience the Latin culture, too. And this trip made me realize I want to learn to speak Spanish and build up the stamina to party like they do in Spain—their nights start at about 12 and go until like 5—which is I guess why they take siestas.

I have to now take some time to write about the last 4 days in Paris! Ah! Will post something soon though hopefully!

Bisous tout le monde!