Hope you've got time.. because this is gonna be a long one
Expectations before arriving in Paris:
no one speaks french
everyone smells bad on the metroits cold and dreary all the time
tourists, tourists, tourists, everywhere you go
everything is $$$$$$$$$$$$$
everyone is fabulous. besides the tourists.
oh and for more pics.. go here :)
so my weekend started with my first independent european voyage by myself. quite the maturing experience, i felt like such an adult. i tried to picture what i looked like to the other travelers. did i look as nervous as i felt? could they see the childish anticipation on my face? did i look like i knew what i was doing. i cant answer any of these, but there really is lots to be said about European train travel. no baggage check or customs or security check. wanna bring a bottle of wine with you on the train? go for it. hungry? good think you have a homemade sandwich packed by your host mom. it really is so easy. you could even get away without having a ticket im sure if youre cunning enough. so off i was, racing along the tracks to the capital of France, City of Lights and one of the biggest, best and most romantic cities in the world.
I had pre arranged to stay with my friend Tiffany Mast. we have been friends since the good ol days in Columbia Hall freshman year at USC and i was so thrilled when she said she would love to have me stay with her. she picked me up at the train station and took me to her quaint little Parisian apartment that she shares with 2 other girls and a boy who are all Gamecock students too. Renata, one of her roommates, i knew from french classes these past semesters and her other roommate Nicole is in the same Chi Omega sorority that al of my friends are in. they have a charming 2 bedroom apartment with a little living room and kitchen and one bathroom. one thing i learned is how impossible and expensive living in Paris is... seriously, for the money you pay and the size of the apartment you get, the leasers are "volers" as my host family said.
i was seriously so lucky to have tiffany this weekend, for many reasons. but one of the most prominent was the fact that she saved me such headaches trying to negotiate the metro system. Paris has one of the most complicated systems I have ever seen and there was no way I could have done it so easy if not for her. I also decided that I will never ever ever live in a city where the metro is my main form of transportation. the crowds, the smells, the gypsies, the timing issues .. oh I just never would want to deal with that on a daily basis. but it is really convenient.
so afternoon 1 .. we had the idea to have a quintessential french lunch .. AKA, every day of my life in Aix .. a bottle of rosé, a baguette and cheese. i introduced Tiff and Renata to the love of my life .. ail&fines herbs cheese .. which is essentially a garlic and herb cream cheese that my host family bought for me week one and I have been spreading the love all across the continent. it was really funny how such a standard part of my study abroad experience (wine, bread and cheese picnics) was such a foreign concept to them. I was glad to share it though :) after stuffing our faces we headed out to explore. it was a beautiful spring afternoon. i definitely picked the right weekend to come to Paris.. the sun was shining, the flowers have been blooming and you could just tell how much happier everyone was to see winter finally go away.
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| From top clockwise: beautiful flowers blooming in front of Notre Dame, First view of the Eiffel Tower, Renata, Tiffany and I playing on the playground, looking good in front of the Louvre, Notre Dame, me on the Lovers Bridge with Notre Dame behind me, an LD lock just for me |
we started at Notre Dame.. although we did not go outside, we spent lots of time playing on the playgrounds located just next to the beautiful church. we admired the beautiful blossoms and took lots and lots of photos! (by the end of the weekend , i had accumulated around 250 photos, i just couldnt stop snapping). we then crossed the river Seine on the Lover's Bridge.. a place where couples go to attach a lock of some sort signifying their committment and love for each other. it is really such a sweet sentiment. someone out there must be searching for me because i found this little guy hanging on the fence.
from there we took a lovely stroll along the river, catching up on stories, swapping tales and just taking in all of the sights. i will never forget how i felt when i caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. you really do not feel like youre in Paris until youre standing right in front of the symbolic, world renowned monument. again, after many pictures, we continued on our way to the Louvre. Not wanting to waste the beautiful weather inside of a museum, we just admired the grounds and the Tulieries, the gardens of the former palace of the Kings before Versailles. We grabbed a quick bite at this great place they had found a few weeks back where during happy hour, wine is only 3euros and then you get unlimited pasta and pizza.
After feeling sufficiently stuffed, we returned to Tiffany's place to get ready for the evenings activities. My roommate from last semester, Jill has been studying abroad this semester in Paris too. She lives in a 1 bedroom apartment with quite a large pullout sofa with our friends Sally, Lily and Meredith. Unfortunately Meredith's mom was in town this weekend so we didnt get to hang out with her much. but it was so nice to see these girls and have a little USC reunion! Nicole, Tiffanys roommate, had 2 girls in town too from USC who are studying in Sevilla, Spain. It was like USC took over Paris. It even felt like we were back in Columbia. The only difference was, no drink specials and we had to take the metro to get to where we needed to go, rather than just walk down to 5 points. But alas, we had quite an enjoyable evening together galavanting around the Paris nightlife.
The next day, Tiffany took me to Sacré Coeur, the highest point in all of Paris and a great view of the city. Its not such a bad spot itself as it is located in the esteemed village of Montemarte. Celebrities and French socialites call it home and there are dozens of artists displaying their artwork, and of course gypsies begging you to let them draw your caricature. it was a great little vibe. it is also home to the famous Moulin Rouge.. which does not look like what you would expect at all, its much smaller.
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| From top: My former roommate Jill and I, Tiffany and I in front of the Moulin Rouge, the view of Sacré Coeur, all of the girls who were visiting/living in Paris, my sweet skills in front of the Arc de Triomphe, my friends and I in front of the Eiffel Tower celebrating Carolina Cup, l'amour de le Tour d'Eiffel |
Saturday back in Columbia was uber special because it was Carolina Cup, the annual horse race in Camden, SC and one of the best events of the year. College students from ALL over the southeast jump on buses decked out in the frattiest attire possible and the prettiest dresses with big hats and head out to the race track for a day of well, drinking and celebrating life and being young. Its quite the spectacle. Boys wearing pastel pinks, yellows, blues and greens with matching bowties and southern belles in true form with Lily Pulitzer dresses and wide brimmed hats that can never seem to stay on. Its southern tradition and in honor of that.. we decided to have Carolina Cup: Paris 2011. We all met in the park in front of the Eiffel Tower with champagne, orange juice, baguettes and everyone's new favorite treat: speculoos. Speculoos is a recent discovery made here in Aix .. it is the creme of these Belgium Speculoos cookies. They have a ginger, teddy graham taste and the spread is just .. absolutely delicious. not only is it the closest thing we have to peanut butter here in france, but its got value in its own right. cant wait to bring some back to the states. Anyways, we had such a lovely picnic in front of the Eiffel tower, people watching, laughing, soaking up the sunshine AND we even saw some horses. Which makes it the only difference really between our afternoon and everyone's experience back in Cola. :)
Tourguide Tiffany showed me to the Champs d'Elysées and all I could think about was my dad and his love for the Tour de France. We quickly visited the Arc before jetting off the other side of town to make it to this yummy mexican restaurant before it closed. THANKFULLY we made it. and man, did i love my burrito. tasted like home.
Saturday night was truly special. Lily had 2 friends visiting from Prague, one of whom she knew from back home in Connecticut. These guys, Mark and Chris were the nicest guys Ive met in a while. They decided we were going to spend the evening at Showcase, this hot nightclub located under a bridge on the river Seine. Entrance for the common folks is 15 euros and requires an online reservation + approximately an hour of waiting in line outside. For us? Not the case. The boys had reserved 2 tables .. at 180 euros each .. for the 10 of us. After insuring we were all 21, we got to bypass both sets of bouncers and were personally escorted to our own section of black leather couches in the corner. We were properly serviced with our own server -and a bucket of vodka, red bulls, orange juice and sparklers! We were living like queens (and kings). the boys didnt want us to offer to pay for anything, just to have a good time. We had such a good time we were there when the metro opened back up at 6 am. just a normal night in paris.
the next day we got a slow start, naturally. but tiffany and I wandered around the Jewish Quarter taking in all the sights. We saw some strange things to be sure. Ate some delicious falafal for the first time and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Normally the first Sunday of every month is free for most attractions, but naturally this deal expired with March. So we ventured down the Champs d'Elysées all the way to the Eiffel Tower where I just literally fell in love. There is nothing, i mean NOTHING, like being at the Eiffel Tower when it is all lit up at night. There are people all around just standing in awe, snapping pics and being in love. Unforuntaly we didnt have 11 euros to go all the way to the top, so ill have to put that on the bucket list of things to do the next time i come back to Paris. We spent such a romantic evening just the two of us, strolling around. We proceeded all the way down to where all of the beautiful government state buildings are and ended the night at Hagen Daas for some speculoos ice cream. Since I had an early afternoon train we went back to her place and watched Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen's Winning London (of course a high quality acting film).
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| Jim Morrison's grave |
Monday morning we woke up and she took me to Père LaChaise.. a very famous cemetery located right around the corner from her apartment. Its the biggest and most beautiful in all of Paris and home to the burial places of Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin, the real life Romeo and Juliet and Jim Morrison of the Doors. I wish we had had more time because it was a very beautiful and serence place to spend a quiet afternoon. But alas, I was very anxious to get back to Aix, although sad to leave Tiffany and the grandn Paris. Every time I travel .. I fall in love with the new sights and cities and cultures .. but I also fall deeper and deeper in love with Aix and my life and experiences here. Even being with my USC friends, i found myself missing my friends back here in my small town and certainly my host family. It was also really nice though to show off my french. I hadnt realized how much Ive actually learned until I had to be the sole source of communication for the weekend. My friends setups in their apartments are so great and its so so fun to live with your friends, I loved hearing their stories and see how much they love it... but I am constantly reaffirmed in my decision to study by myself in this provençal french town where I dont have the freedom of my own apartment but I have the independence of doing as I please.. while still having the opportunity to immerse myself in the language, the lifestyle and the culture of the french setting. I have learned so much from my host family and even evenings like last night, spent watching trashy french TV shows is my idea of a good time.
Stepping off the train in Aix and my walk home.. was such a beautiful welcome home. When I arrived back at our apartment Mireille was there to greet me.. she had cleaned my room, done my laundry and was getting dinner ready. She gave me some nutella toast and we sat and I told her about my weekend and she taught me how she upholsters chairs. She had made a homemade apple tart and they had waited until I got home Monday night to eat it.
i have found love and absolutely fallen in love with my study abroad experience in Aix, but a big MERCI to Paris for a weekend I shall surely never forget.
Realities after having spent a crazy weekend there:
everyone does actually speak french
the metro stations are the yuckiest, smelliest places
it was BEAUTIFUL and sunny and the flowers were blooming
tourists, damn tourists everywhere you go
everything is $$$$
eh, not everyone, ESPECIALLY not the tourists