C'est le fin...

My last night in Paris!!! Ahhh I can’t believe my European adventures are finally coming to a close :( but before all that sentimentality, let me outline you on what we’ve been up to for the last several days:

Thursday morning, Thea and I were so exhausted from our last week of frenzied sightseeing on little sleep that we took a late morning and slept in until 11. We took our leisurely time at lunch and meandered over to Jardin de Luxembourg, which was really pretty and colorful, there’s a lovely fountain in the middle where children have little motor-controlled sailboats. We didn’t actually go into the Palais du Luxembourg, but just seeing the outside was really majestic.

Then we wandered over to the Pantheon, which was incredibly cool, I think my favorite historical monument I’ve seen so far in Europe. We got to see Foucault’s pendulum, which is strung from all the way at the top of the ceiling and swings really slowly several feet from the floor. There was incredible architecture, including a monument dedicated to the heroes of the French Revolution, and the crypts underneath were also really awesome to see. The people buried underneath the Pantheon include Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Pierre and Marie Claude, Toussant L’Ouverture, Emile Zola and Victor Hugo.

After that we once again exercised our considerable knowledge of the Metro and got over to Montmartre, where we climbed up the large hill (even though it had started raining by this point, Thea and I were troopers) and took a look around Sacre-Coeur, a really pretty cathedral. We walked up 300 stairs (by this point, that’s nothing to us!) and got to see the most amazing unobstructed panoramic view of Paris from all directions, it was pretty amazing. Again there were a multitude of stairs (over 300) and most of them were granite. In the rain, it was really slippery and dangerous, so we had to be even more super careful. We had dinner there (pizza, yummy) before metro-ing back and calling it a night.

On Friday, we made a day trip to Versailles!! We walked over to the Invalides metro station, which had the line that went to Versailles, and bought tickets to the chateau there. This turned out to be a really wise decision… we arrived a half hour later and the line without having already purchased tickets was probably around 3 hours, it was absurd! Luckily, Thea and I only had to wait like 20 minutes before entering. We toured the Chateau itself first, which included the state apartments of the French King and Queen, some of the old galleries, the chapel, and the Dauphin’s apartments. The Hall of Mirrors was incredibly amazing in particular!

Next, we walked through the gardens, and although it started to drizzle a little bit it was still a lovely stroll. It started to let up as we reached Marie Antoinette’s estate, which is good because that was all outdoors. We got to wander through her entire outdoor fantasyland that she had created for her as a diversion from the oppressive courtesan life at Versailles. She had lakes and gardens installed, along with her own theatre at which she performed, and she and her children would play in the estates frequently. Afterwards, we got dinner at a nearby café (I got French onion soup which was delicious, and after Thea and I split a nutella crepe-- soooooo good!!) We spent practically all day at Versailles (we left Invalides at 10am and returned there around 7:30pm) so we again crashed at the hostel.

Today was our last day here!! We first walked through the Palais-Royal, which is nearby our area but we hadn’t really examined it, so we walked through and saw a lot of pretty gardens. Next we headed to the Centre Pompidou and the Musee National D’Art Moderne. It was without a doubt my FAVORITE museum I’ve seen in Europe thus far! All of the modern works were extremely colorful and textured, and I found tons of them so incredibly interesting. There were also a lot of pieces of the heavyweights like Dali, Picasso, Matisse, and also some by Cy Twombly (which was cool because he had some stuff at the Tate Modern in Britain, but it wasn’t on display when we were there), and also some works by the Russian artists Malevich, Goncharova and Larionov, all of whom I studied in my Modern Russian Art coures last fall with Prof. Bowlt! That was really awesome, there weren’t any displayed of the particular works we’d looked at in our class, but it was neat seeing other examples of their art. Plus the building is fantastic as well.

We then walked across the river to l’Hotel des Invalides, where we got to see Napoleon’s tomb (seriously huge for such a little guy!) and walk through an interesting but thoroughly exhaustive museum outlining France’s history in WWI and WWII. Afterwards, we got crepes and ice cream for dinner, and spent our last night sitting in front of the Tour Eiffel and watching the lights show :)

So that’s the end of Paris for me! It’s really sad because I fell in love with this city so hard, and it’s been a dream come true being able to visit and immerse myself entirely in Parisian culture. All of Europe that I've been able to see has been incredible, with my wonderful experience in Cambridge that I wouldn't trade for anything, and the cosmopotlitan travelling I got to do afterwards. Tomorrow morning I’m taking the metro to Charles de Gaulle airport and flying back home, with a layover once again in Dallas/Fort Worth before arriving in Sacramento at 7:30 pm PST!

Mes premieres jours dans la ville de Paris

Salut de Paris!

I arrived in Gare du Nord two nights ago with nary a problem, and successfully navigated the metro to meet Thea at the stop nearest our hostel. It was my first ever practical implementation of conversational French, and it went fairly smoothly (when I asked an attendant for help with finding a line that went to Louvre-Rivoli). As the metro name suggests, our hostel is located very near to the Louvre. It’s a pretty central location and nice facilities, although the bureaucracy is somewhat annoying/unprofessional, but the two of us are working through that, as it were. It was pretty surreal for me to emerge from that subway station, though, and realize that I was in Paris, the city that I have most wanted to visit ever since my childhood studies of French. That was really exciting in itself, even though that night we were too tired from our travels from London to do anything else but crash (besides, by that point it was fairly late anyhow).

Yesterday morning, we woke up and got our petit dejeuner (breakfast) at a little café, ordering un croissant et un café noir (standard French fare- they’re not into large breakfasts, which is fine by me). The two of us first ventured across the Seine to the Musee d’Orsay, which was really nice, we saw Leonardo’s The Virigin on the Rocks amongst other works that aren't coming to mind yet. D'Orsay mostly houses the works that are too modern to keep in the Louvre, which includes a lot of Impressionist works. We got lunch at a little café (again) and I ordered a croque-madame (something I’ve also been dying to try ever since studying the French names of certain dishes in elementary school), which is a fried egg, ham and cheese sandwich. We then headed to the Opera Garnier (wholly unintentionally, as we were looking for a Tourist Information bureau, but we passed it and figured we might as well head in) which was very pretty as well, and where the Phantom of the Opera takes place which is really exciting! The actual auditorium is gorgeous, as is the entryway. The ceiling in the auditorium was painted by Marc Chagall, pretty neat.

We went back to our hostel to catch a breather, and then strolled out through the Jardin des Tulieres past the Louvre until it hit the Champs-Elysees. There is a lot of high-end retail shopping, and I kind of poked around but nothing particularly caught my fancy. We walked it all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe and got to see the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which I thought was really cool, I’ve always wanted to see it. Plus, we got to climb the stairs all the way to the top and that was a pretty neat view.

Afterwards, we headed back down the Champs-Elysees on the other side to make sure we didn’t miss anything, before doubling back and heading to the Eiffel Tower to meet Rex. Due to unforeseen metro complications, he met us kind of late but that was ok. We grabbed dinner at yet another café, I got un steak-frites (steak with fries) and we got to hear all about his travels in Edinburgh. Initially we’d intended upon ascending the Eiffel Tower that evening, but for one reason or another changed our minds, and we took the looonnnngggg walk back to our hostel. Seriously, from the Tower to the Louvre, it was probably close to 2 miles. We ended up at a McDonald’s (MacDo in French) because there was free wifi there, haha. Rex then left us and that concluded our first Parisian day.

This morning, we woke up and had our same breakfast before making our way through a walking tour of historic Paris, according to Rick Steves (who wrote this tour guide book that Thea swears by). We made our way towards l’Ile de la Citie started at the Notre Dame which was pretty, although far more gorgeous/impressive from the outside, I think (particularly from the sides/back, the front is the least impressive). We were planning on climbing the Tower, but the line was too long, so we made our way instead towards the Deportation Memorial, which honors the 200,000 French victims of the Holocaust. It was pretty startling after all the grandoise architecture we'd seen, as it's very simple yet moving and a definite change of pace. After that, we headed off towards the other side of the seine, through the Quartier Latin which was really awesome, we saw some old churches and grabbed lunch at a cheap gyros place. We next walked through the Sainte-Chapelle, which has the prettiest stained glass windows of any church I’ve ever seen, and then the Conciergement where many prisoners of the French Revolution were held, including Marie Antoinette. After that, we made our way back to l’Ile St. Louis where we got amazing ice cream (the best in Paris, apparently... it was really good!). We headed back towards the Louvre over the Pont Neuf bridge, which I thought was pretty cool because in my French class last semester we watched the film Les Amants sur le Pont Neuf, which takes place/was filmed on that bridge.

We then spent the rest of our afternoon at the Louvre. It was great, not my favorite museum though simply because it’s far too large/overwhelming with huge crowds, and it got a little bit overheated/claustrophobic at times. We paid for an English tour, which was informative although my audio thing didn’t work and I got separated from the group at one point, so that detracted slightly from the experience. The Mona Lisa was amazing though, I absolutely loved it, as well as the Venus de Milo. We also got dinner there, I had Liberian food which was AMAZING, I absolutely recommend it. After we left the Louvre, we got on a riverboat cruise of the Seine, which took us down past the Notre Dame before turning around and ending at the Eiffel Tower (after about an hour total). We hopped off and finally got in line!!!

So, the Eiffel Tower was an incredible experience, I’ll try to chronicle as much of it as possible. We stood in line for maybe 45 min before walking up, stopping on the first floor just to peek around, and continuing to the second. We took some pictures (the view is astounding, you literally can see all of Paris from every conceivable direction) before next immediately getting in line to take the elevator up all the way to the top. That was something, let me tell you. The view isn’t that much better, but the fact that you’re up almost 1000 feet above Paris, it was quite daunting and exhilarating at the same time. About this time it was getting dark, so the lights started coming on, and it was so lovely. We went back down to the second floor after 40 min or so and took more pictures now that it was night, and the city lights were absolutely gorgeous. The lights on the Tower started flashing then, and against the actual blue lights of the Tower, it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We only left the Tower reluctantly after grabbing a pastry to share, and I once again navigated the metro correctly back to our hostel, where I am now currently writing this entry.

Tomorrow is either Versailles or more explorations of Paris, we’ll determine in the morning. I am exhausted though, so bon soir tous les personnes!

** One final note though: Not to brag, I am impressed despite myself at my ability to use French well enough to get by in this city. I mean, I’m not fluent or anything, but I’m definitely not struggling (most of the time, anyway). I can buy our tickets, order at restaurants, ask for most kinds of help-- I’m not gonna lie, it feels pretty damn validating to actually get some practical usage out of my 7-odd years of French instruction!

Something I keep forgetting to mention:

A week or so ago while Jeff and I were reading on the lawn in Selwyn Garden, a photographer approached us and asked us to pose for a couple pictures he was taking for the newspaper he worked for. Being relatively open-minded people we obliged. A couple days later, this picture was in the Cambridge Independent, accompanying an article about Selwyn College and how it's up and rising amongst the colleges at the University of Cambridge. We, the American study abroad students from USC, are the representatives of Selwyn College. How funny is that! I never got a chance to see a hard copy (although apparently Lindsay's lecturer passed it around their class), but here's a link to the internet article: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/poorer-college-tops-cambridge-degree-table-878699.html

In other news, today Thea and I went for a cruise up and down the River Thames, which was our last go at sightseeing in London. Right now I'm hanging out in St. Pancras, the Eurorail station from London. In a couple hours time I will be peacing out to Paris, France, the newest and last leg of my journey! I'm really excited to implement my hopefully not too horrible French. I'm also going to have to get used to using Euros now...

Last day using GBP...

So Thea and I realized this morning that we in fact leave for Paris not on Tuesday, as we'd originally thought all weekend, but actually tomorrow, haha. So it was a good thing we figured that out today! Anyway, we kind of had to rush to finish seeing everything we wanted to. Thea woke me up again (she's so responsible like that, and also very patient, as many of you know I am a very difficult person to wake up).

By the way, I feel like I should chronicle the hostel experience, since it's entirely new to me and probably unfamiliar to a lot of you as well. There are 6 of us crammed in one room, co-ed, with a tiny sink and a decent amount of floor space. We're bunked together in these little cubible beds, I'm on one of the top bunks (woohoo) and everytime I climb down I'm afraid I'm going to kill myself. The bed itself is springy and not that comfortable, and continuing in the UK's adamant opposition to air conditioning, the room gets really stuffy and hot since air does not circulate. But you meet all sorts of interesting people from all over, and it's really a great experience so far... that is, I'm not miserable yet, haha. We'll wait and see how the Paris one is before I make a final determination.

We left our hostel again around 10 and went to the British Museum first. This is the largest museum I think I've ever been to before, not even kidding. We got an audio tour with some 50-odd highlights, and after an hour and a half we'd seen maybe 20 before deciding to head out. We got to see the Rosetta Stone, which was really neat, along with really well-preserved corpses from ancient Egypt, an entire samurai armor outfit, the Royal game of Ur and the Oxus Treasure, amongst many other interesting treasures. We got lunch at a cute little cafe in the park right outside the museum, and then headed to the British Library. They had an interesting exhibition on an old Indian story, the name of which I forget. We also got to see one of the remaining original copies of the Magna Carta, and also some of the fair play notes of Beatles songs. Also of note was Virigina Woolf's original handwritten copy of Mrs. Dalloway, which was really exciting!

Afterwards, we got back on the tube and went south a ways to get to Kensington Palace, where William and Mary lived, along with several other later British kings and queens. We got to tour the State apartments which were quite impressive, and also see a collection of Princess Diana's dresses, all of which were fabulous. Kensington Park was also a lovely walk-through. Finally, we stopped at Harrod's on the way back, a designer department store with absolutely exorbitant prices. We spent like 15 minutes there before I realized that it was far too ridiculous for me to expect to buy anything there. So, we went to H&M instead :) where I got a lovely grey cardigan (I've been wanting one the whole time I was in Cambridge, so it's been a long time coming).

So that about wraps up London, we have a little more time tomorrow before we leave, but the next time I update, je serais a Paris!!!! Or to translate for you anglophiles, I'll be in Paris :)

A demain!