Un Semestre en France: Paris

Up until now all my travels have just been day trips around the area, a bus ride to Sète, a train to Toulouse, etc., but this whole weekend was spent in Paris.

Last summer I spent a couple days in Paris with my mom on our way back from Poland, and to be blunt, I was sorely disappointed. The city wasn't magical and the food didn't make we weep with joy. The trip was stressful and uncomfortable and unplanned and tinted with the sadness of having to leave our loved ones once again.

This time? Still not magical, exhausting to say the least, but undoubtedly better. I think I was able to enjoy it more because I had gotten over the initial disappointment of finding out that at this point, Paris is simply famous for being famous. It's like a Kardashian, basically. I didn't expect to be blown away.

Paris was strange though, in that it both made me feel like I was back home all while making me the slightest bit homesick for Montpellier. The Starbucks (Oh Starbucks, how I miss you), the Polish/English spoken around me, the civilized living situation: it was comforting. But I like hearing the tram ding at night, I like the warm weather (Paris was literally the first time I had worn jeans since I got here), and I missed hearing more French than English around me (and I missed the southern French accent, I like it).

I'll elaborate.

I was able to stay in a lovely apartment (see last post). After living in Triolet for almost two months (wow, already?), this apartment felt like a mansion. I literally couldn't fall asleep because I would keep opening my eyes to marvel at how far away the wall was from my face. The bathroom was probably as big as my room here, and it was actually a separate room, as was the kitchen. All the faucets worked for as long as I needed water, I didn't have to press a stupid knob every 30 seconds and I didn't have a nasty shower curtain sticking to me. And there was a living room area. And the bed was so comfy. I think this alone made the 70 euros I spent on train tickets worth it.

I didn't have too much time to enjoy it though. I literally had four hours of sleep a night, I would just pop in at late at night and pop out in the morning.

So, the trip:

We had tickets at around 5 pm (weird hour = good price), so we rolled in after 9, starving . There must have been over 20 of us from my program there that weekend, but I went with a group of four. After finding our respective apartments, we got food. Chinese food. A girl in my group speaks Chinese, so I think the shop owner liked us, she gave us some free dessert too.

Yeaaaaaah buddy. It was great. I miss Asian food of any variety. We almost got sushi but didn't (darn).

And then...we saw it, the first one in a long time. Could it be real? Yes. "Guys stop!" Mouth open, arm outstretched, finger pointing: A Starbucks! The most beautiful form of globalization there is. Too bad it was closed.

We wandered around looking for the Eiffel Tower, found it all lit up, sat under it, and ate our takeout. That part was great, there was a lot of good energy, we were hungry people with food, good places to stay, and in Paris, we were all just really excited to be there.

Then at one point two guys walked up to us and starting asking us in broken English if we wanted wine. Great price. Do we want? No, we do not want. But great price! How much? Only 20 Euro. Umm...we can get 2 euro wine at Carrefour, so no. Okay, 15 euro? No. 10? No. How much you pay? 3 euros. No.

It was really irritating.

The guy was literally shoving it in our hands trying to get us to get it, it must have taken 10 minutes to get rid of him. But once they were gone it was great.

While we were eating the Eiffel Tower started twinkling, which it does every hour on the hour, and that was really pretty.

We then walked along the Seine and took to many pictures.

I got back at two am ish, and went right to bed. Oh, that bed. It was luxury I tell you!

The next morning we met up at the Starbucks. I got there early, bought myself a fruit and grain bread thing (fantastic, by the way), and apple and an Americano. Sigh...as good as I remember it. I will not say how much I paid for it, I'm a little ashamed, but I regret nothing!

We spent our morning in Montmartre, which I think was my favorite. That was the one place I hadn't been able to go last year. Maybe not going there with my mother was a good thing, though: walking out of the metro toward the Moulin Rouge, the street is literally alllllll sex shops. Porn movie theaters. Sex museums. Lots and lots of that stuff.

But Montmartre is really cool, it's not nearly as touristy (until you get to the Sacre Coeur, that is), the shops are cute. I was able to quickly see some of the stuff from the movie Amelie.

At one point I saw the most obvious tourist group ever, wearing there neon yellow hats. I went a little closer and realized they were Polish, I got really happy and sort of stood there awkwardly listening to them talk.

We saw the Sacre Coeur, the view from the hill it's on is just amazing.

I would have been happy spending the day there. I had done Paris, I wasn't interested in all the big sights, and I really liked all the shops there. I think I annoyed my group a little with all my stops, sorry guys.

Although there was one scary encounter. Walking away from the Sacre Coeur, these guys came up to us with bracelets and were trying to get us to buy one. I said no, and they went over to the guy in our group and grabbed his wrist and would not let go. That was a little freaky.

But, sadly when one spends a day and a half in Paris, one cannot really take anything in, it was go go go.

I'll admit, I think there was a little bit of tension in our group. One person wanted this, the other wanted that, we were sort of pulling in different directions. Don't get me wrong, I liked everyone in the group a lot, it was just an inevitable result of having too much to see in too little time.

But we moved on to some of the more popular parts of Paris: the Notre Dame, the lock bridge, we saw a memorial for those killed by the Nazis in the camps, which was interesting considering the French typically stay silent when it comes to that. We went to the Champs Elysee, walked into ridiculously expensive stores, and, or course, to the Arc de Triomph. This time I actually went to the top, another fantastic view. I actually liked it better than the Eiffel Tower: for one thing, when you're in the tower you don't see it, duh, it's cheaper, and you get to the top way faster.

After that we picnicked with a couple other girls who had come to Paris, pot luck style, under the once-again lit-up Eiffel Tower.

Then we tried to do the Nuit Blanche thing. That was a bit of a flop. We had expected all of Paris to turn into basically an outdoor museum. Turns out there were only a couple cool things, and they were spaced out too far to walk. We saw some fireworks (disappointing, by the way, more smoke than fireworks), and after I wanted to get on a metro to find some cool stuff, but a couple others in our group were tired. So we headed home.

The next day was reserved for the Louvre. I had slept eight hours in two days and my leg was doing the same thing it did last time I went to Paris (Sometimes when I walk around a lot the inside of my knee all the way down to my foot starts to throb, and while sitting for an hour makes it go away, sleeping for four apparently does not. I was hobbling), so I wasn't really feeling the whole Louvre thing.

But I'm glad I went. It was the first Sunday of the month so it was free, we got there early so the wait was only about 45 minutes. It was cool, there were some things I liked, but I felt a little claustrophobic, there was just too much. By the end all I wanted to do was go get lost in a forest somewhere. But I saw the Mona Lisa (not as disappointing as I expected, actually), Venus de Milo, some Greek stuff, some Egyptian stuff, lots of paintings. And a surprisingly large number of Polish people. After a few hours of that and an overpriced sandwich we headed back to the train station to head home.

Overall: I don't regret going at all. There were better times and worse times, but overall a good experience.Next weekend though, I'm taking off. This girl needs a weekend off where she can sleep and maybe get some studying done for once.

PICTURES - be warned, there are a lot: