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Published: April 16th 2008
Watch out, this entry is gonna be long...
Where I really went after I left England was Paris. Now, I've never been very excited about Paris. When I think of Paris, I think of food that I can't afford and probably don't want to eat (such as foie gras and escargot) and clothes that I can't afford and probably don't want to wear. However, Paris is kind of a requisite for having a well-rounded knowledge of Europe, so I booked a flight there out of a sense of duty, really. Plus, Kim made it seem not so bad in her travel blog.
Speaking of Kim, I'm going to get to my shout-out's early in this entry. KIM- thanks for the package! I haven't eaten any of it yet, but I know it'll be good. I'm debating whether or not I'm generous enough to share my precious, precious tacos with one or two select friends. I may not be that nice.
MICHELLE- i'm glad to know that you still have time to comment on my blog. at least until you are married, anyway.
ROSE, SHAWN, JESSICA, MEGS AND ANYONE ELSE WHO HAS SENT ME ANYTHING---thanks a lot guys!
montmatre
where our first hostel was located. the hills were considerable.it means so much to me. seriously.
back to paris. paris outlived my expectations by SO MUCH! i was expecting it to be just another city, but especially bad b/c it would be full of angry french people. oh no! paris is filled with really magnificent, ornate buildings. usually you'll go to a city and you'll see a few nice buildings and lots of boring buildings, but everywhere you look in paris there's something great to look at. in fact, it's so great that during WWII Hitler, who out of frustration over the fact that he could not get paris under nazi control sent in some guy who was especially good at totally razing cities, was not able to destroy. you see, the destruction-specialist assigned to the job instantly fell in love with paris and absolutely refused to destroy it. and so its still pretty.
i would also like to say that french people are really nice! i never would have believed it, but it's true! on our first night in the city, kelly (another american studying at york whom i flew over with) and i were walking around. we took out a map for a second to
get our bearings, and voila! some nice french lady appears and tries to help us find where ever we are going. we tell her (kelly speaks some french, i'm really good at gesticulating) that we are looking for some where to eating. knowing that we are american she directed us towards a mcdonalds (which the french refer to as mac-doh, with doh being pronounced as homer simpson would say it) and some other cheap burger place. we did not eat at either of these establishments, though i was totally grateful for the motives behind her suggestions. and the niceness did not stop here. some guy at the train station was super nice and willing to work to help me get my proper train reservations, and just about everyone that we ran into were really polite and helpful. i was so pleasantly surprised.
my travelling buddies during this stretch of my journey were also very pleasant. I flew over with Kelly, a Texan also studying at the Univ. of York through IFSA-Butler, and then met up with Leslie, my friend from AR who currently teaches English in Spain, Emily, one of Leslie's friend and fellow teachers from Spain, and Chris,
Emily's friend from back home in Connecticut. And onward...
DEBACLES IN PARIS
-kelly and i had some money troubles when we first got into paris. her debit card, recognizing that she was withdrawing from a location outside of england, flipped out, and she wasn't able to withdraw money for the whole time we were there. thankfully, she had some traveller's cheques with her, and eventually her bank took the block off her card. kelly handled the situation like a champ, though, and remained impressively unstressed.
-my troubles were a little different. we went to an atm the first morning in paris. leslie and emily used this particular atm with success, but when i put my card in, the screen started saying "please wait" in french and then did absolutely nothing. after about a minute and a half i start freaking out, of course, wondering if the machine has shredded my card or something. Leslie THANKFULLY speaks decent french and went into the bank to retrieve my card. the bank people said something like "oh, we will check later. come back at two." this was not good enough for me, though, so i urged leslie to go back
in and argue some more on the behalf of my card. fortunatley, right when she walks back into the bank some worker guy comes out saying "hey i found this card in the machine...". I think he must have started working on the machine right when i put my card in, and thus the machine was set on hold before i could get my card out. i was really worried there for awhile, but it all worked out in the end.
-as some of you may know, i have a tendency to get freaked out and scream in my sleep when i am sleeping in unfamiliar places. this happened in paris. i was having some bad dream (i think leslie was being really mean to me or something), and bam, i started screaming in real life. i think i was on the brink of waking myself up, but leslie woke up first and said "sarah! what's wrong!". i then had to lamely say, "oh, just a bad dream...sorry guys..." after waking up leslie and chris (emily slept through the whole ordeal thanks to her earplugs).
STUFF WE DID
on our first full day in the city, we
went to the louvre. the line to get in was REALLY long (i think it took us at least an hour to get in), but its a really fabulous museum, although a bit overwhelming. apparently, if you looked at everything in the louvre for 30 seconds, it would take you 3 months to get through it. we stayed for about 2.5 hours and made it through one floor.
later that evening we went on a free tour of montmartre, the hilly area of paris that is famous for having been a haven for cancan dancers and artists (such as picasso) at the beginning of the 20th century. let me say, though, that these free tours that you see offered around europe aren't quite free. you're suppose to tip the tour guides, which is fair enough, but it makes the tour not free. kelly and i missed the beginning of this tour b/c kelly went back to the hostel to call her parents to sort out her bank troubles and i went with her. we walked through montmatre by ourselves for awhile, saw the moulin rouge, and then headed up the hill the sacre couer, one of paris's more famous
churches. this was tuesday or wednesday of the week before easter, so some important day in the Catholic church, and we just happened to go into the church during evening mass. i wasn't allowed to take pictures, but it was very nice. those nuns can sing like angels. awhile later we happened upon leslie, chris, and emily and the rest of the tour group, which was nice. and then we had dinner and bought souvenirs. a good day, in my opinion.
the next day we took another sorta-free tour, this one around just about everywhere in paris except montmartre. the tour was pretty long (3 or 4 hours), but our tour guide George was very entertaining and made it worth our while. However, it was super, super cold all day (and during basically our whole stay in paris), and that made the tour a little less enjoyable. we hit up a lot of major sites (the tuilleries, the exterior of the louvre, national assembly, etc) and learned a lot of interesting historical tidbits that really enhanced our sightseeing. after the tour we we to the musee d'orsay, which specializes in late 19th century art, especially impressionism. i liked
this museum more than the louvre, although it would also take a really long time to get through it properly. we were there for about 2 hours and only covered one floor.
these first two days were pretty intense, and after all this i think we were all pretty tired out. also, i caught a cold and felt kinda poopy b/c of that. so on our last two days we spent more time sitting around, eating, and drinking coffee and beer. we did manage to catch Good Friday mass at Notre Dame (what a wonderful church! and according to tour guide George, after the French Revolution it was used to house cattle and grains b/c of its association with corrupt clergy, people directed their class anger at the church. it was saved in part by Hugo when he wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which reminded people of what an excellent building this church is).
we also spent a rare sunny hour sitting around in the gardens of luxemburg. they were nice. there was a palace there. it was nice, too.
on our last day we went to look at the pompadou (sp?) center. this is a
contemporary art museum that is probably more famous for what's on the outside of it than the inside b/c it was built with all the heating ducts, electrical crap, pipes, etc., on the outside. we walked around it and then got some gelato.
speaking of gelato, i was very pleased with the food of paris, as you might guess. i didn't have the clams necessary to buy a nice french dinner, but i did eat several delicious crepes and several delicious doner kebabs. We made friends with the owner of one particular kebab/crepe shop, and he even gave Emily a free crepe on her birthday! chris got escargot for dinner once, and he really liked them. he said they just tasted like the buttery pesto stuff that they were marinated in.
i would also like to recommend both of the hostels we stayed in during our visit in paris. we had to stay in two because paris hostels book up well in advance, and we didn't book quite in time to be able to stay in only one location. this worked out very well, though, b/c our second hostel had a really good bar/restaurant upstairs and a nice
from the left
leslie, chris, emily, and kelly relaxation/ tv room downstairs. by the time we were staying in the second hostel (St. christopher's paris) we were feeling kinda rundown, and spent a decent amount of time just hanging out at the hostel. this hostel was also nice b/c even though we were staying in a 10-bed dorm room, the room was super spacious, and each bunk had a nice, thick privacy curtain and its own reading light, coat hooks, and electrical sockets. the only bad thing about this hostel was its COLD showers. our first hostel (square cualcuincourt) was located right by a metro stop in montmatre, which is a really beautiful area. it was warm, quiet, and snug, and had a really excellent breakfast.
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Ania1323
Anna Talaga
Great blog!
Your pictures are stunning! Especially the ones of the Seine and the Notre Dame!