Paris, mon amour <3

Sorry it's been a while since I last updated, but here I am with a couple more adventures to share :) I went to Paris last weekend (for the first time - strange, I know) and it was wonderful! I already worked out going one more time before I leave. lol So, here's the low down on what I did:

PARIS

Day 1: Friday, May 2nd
We (Maggi, Di, Maija, and I) left at around 9am by train and got to Paris by 10:30. After stopping by the hostel (which wasn't quite as sketchy as I was anticipating, which is always good. For a hostel it really wasn't bad), we headed up to Sacre Coeur. The basilica was quite beautiful, but I think what impressed my straight off was the number of people that were there! This is the first real visit I've made at the beginning of high tourist season, so it was a bit of a shock at first...not that there's really a low season in Paris, but still. After Sacre Coeur and the artist's market (where there are a ton of artists that either do portraits or have a display of their work up. It was quite interesting to see), we headed down to the Eiffel Tower...the long way. We started off walking along the Blvd de Clichey (where the Moulin Rouge and many similar establishments are located), then diagonaled down to les Champs Elysées up to l'Arc de Triomphe. I was very disappointed to find a McDonald's on the Champs Elysées - that should NOT be allowed. Ah well. Who am I to stop the awesome power of American entrepreneurship? lol Anyways, after l'Arc de Triomphe we headed down to Place de la Concorde (where the Louvre is located) and the crossed over to the Eiffel Tower! After taking a wee break on the lawn in front of the tower, we headed down to get in line, which was incredibly confusing. With the help of a nice French guy, we figured out where we need to be (it was quite nice actually - I asked him to make sure we were in the right line, and then they ended up changing lines, but he came back to make sure he had given me the right information/ to tell us something he figured out). Since we took the stairs instead of the elevator (yup, you heard right!) the line only took about an hour...the other could have taken more than two hours and was four times as expensive! I actually prefer taking the stairs; I think you appreciate reaching each level a bit more after having physically exerted yourself a bit. After the second level, you can buy tickets to take the elevator up to the top, but there was a huge line and it was already 6pm, so we decided to content ourself with the already incredible view we had and walked back down. We headed back towards the direction of the Louvre, rested in the garden for a bit and then found a Chinese restaurant for diner (not to expensive and close to where we were...it was pretty good, actually, even if it wasn't French cuisine). We then headed back to the hostel and rested up for Versailles tomorrow!

Day 2: Saturday, May 3rd

We hit the road decently early and with transport we got to Versailles around 10:30am. Before getting in line we grabbed sandwiches at a vendor in front of the castle. The guy selling the sandwiches has to deal with a lot of tourists, which is why he seemed quite please when I ordered and spoke with him in French - "Oh! Vous parlez francais - c'est très bien!" I bought my sandwich and tried to get all my affairs together, but there was one small problem - I didn't realize that the plastic bag for the sandwich wasn't sealed on both sides and in my clumsiness I dropped my sandwich on the ground. The whole line around me let out a sympathetic groan (I kid you not), and while it was only the beginning of the sandwich that had actually touched the dirt, the vendor gave me another sandwich anyway! So very nice for the stupid blond with the sandwich problems. After that minor incident we settled in line for a lovely two hour wait. While it was not lovely to wait, it was an incredibly organized line - everyone was calm, hardly anyone tried to cut the line (there was enough people watching to make sure they didn't), so the two hours passed very well. Versailles itself is really impressive; I can't help appreciate le Roi du Soleil and how intelligent and egotistical he must have been. The chateau was beautiful, albeit almost too ornate. The king's chambers were practically covered in gold! I kid you not. And the gardens were fantastic. After touring the chateau we headed down to Grand Trianon (quite slowly - stopping to eat some ice cream, appreciate the gardens, etc) - the king's private residence, which was remarquable less ornate while still being qutie elegant and beautiful. Petit Trianon and la Domaine de Marie Antoinette was the most interesting and the biggest contrast. The gardens were much more wild, much more natural, and I could not believe the little village she had built so she could pretend she was in the countryside with her children. It was quite pretty and the idea a bit absurd - what a play ground! We stayed at Versailles until around 7pm, when we headed back to Paris and the Latin Quarter for dinner at a restaurant that was, unfortunately, expensive and not very good. I was a bit dissapointed, but how could we have known? The ambiance was very nice and alluring. After that we walked around a bit and then headed back to the hostel to shower and sleep.

Day 3: Sunday, May 4th

Woke up day and hustled and bustled over to Notre Dame for mass at 8:30am, which was a bit surreal in some ways. Paris has been a dream of mine for so long, and here I was, in Notre Dame for mass. It was incredible, and what was even stranger is that I met someone from UD there who is also studying abroad, but in Florence. What are the odds??? After mass I explored the church a bit and then waited for a couple friends, who arranged to meet me a bit later. They looked around the cathedral while I grabbed some breakfast and a sandwich for later at a boulangerie in the Latin quarter that we discovered last night. After that, I met them back at Notre Dame and a random guy asked me (in English) if I wanted to buy some cheapo souvenir, I responded in French, and then was so distracted for some reason that I turned around to my friend and started talking to her in English. It took me a second to realize I had done it, which was incredibly strange - I don't even know what my body is doing, apparently, but we were all having language-switching problems that weekend; Maija tried to speak to us in finnish several times, this same friend spoke to me once in English after we had talked with an American we met in Versailles (and she had left - i.e. we could speak French again. She thought she was speaking French. lol) We then made a beeline for the Louvre, which was free and while I would have thought we'd be in line for AGES it literally took less than ten minutes to get inside. I was so suprised! We stayed in the Louvre for about four hours and had only really made a dent in all the things there are to see, but we saw what was most important - the Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, etc. The large room of Italian Renaissance paintings was incredible. After so many years of studying all of these artists, I don't think I could really understand being there and seeing them in person. I was so taken with all the artwork that I managed to lose my friends for a good half an hour. I was about ready to give up when we finally found each other again - whew. We left the Louvre at around 4pm and did a bit of shopping before the girls bought themselves some sandwiches and we spent some time just relaxing next to la Seine. Plenty of time before our train left. After seeing the garden behind Notre Dame we headed back to the metro, and it took a bit longer than anticipated, because all of a sudden I realized we were definitely running late. Oh crap. I was so stressed that I went into the wrong direction of our line of the metro, but I went up and asked the man at the ticket station, and he let us into the right side without having to buy another ticket. As soon as we got to Montparnasse we set off running, because, of course, the metro stop was a bit away from the train station. I was huffing and puffing and dying inside, but we got to the train with three minutes to spare, and our poor tired feet were not at all amused. AND there were, of course, technical problems so the train left ten minutes later than planned. Of course. We had entered at the beginning of the train to be sure it didn't leave without us, but our designated car was a bit later - 15. After Maija bought a drink and the train started moving, we started heading to our car, and low and behold - it's a double TGV (i.e. there's another engine in the middle), so there was no where to go after car 10. What's even worse is that usually the double TGV split up after a certain time and head in different directions. Thank God the whole train was heading to Angers or we would have been a bit screwed. Thankfully there were some seats in car 10 and we got back to Angers without any serious problems.


So, I also made a day trip to Chenenceaux yesturday (a big chateau de la Loire), and it turned out to be quite an interesting day, so I thought I'd also share what happened there.

CHENONCEAUX (I haven't loaded the pictures, though - sorry! Will come later)

I had gone out the night before to a little cuban café where the offer free initiation Salsa lessons, but got back to the house at a decent hour (around midnight) so I could wake up for the train at 7:43 this morning. I think it's because I've started leaving my window open because it's a bit hot in my room otherwise (i.e. it's a bit noisy outside), but I didn't sleep well at all. It was one of those distracted sleeps where you wake up and don't really feel satisfied at all. All night long I had these worried dreams about missing the train, things going wrong the next day, etc. I have no idea why and wouldn't have thought anything more of it if, after snoozing my alarm at 6:30pm, I hadn't woken up an HOUR later - 7:30. CRAP. There was no way in God's green earth that I could make the train when it takes ATLEAST fifteen minutes to get to the station by foot. Luckily, another friend had decided last night to come with us (and he actually woke up on time!), so my friend wasn't alone. After being sufficiently angry and letting out a sufficient number of expletives, I ate breakfast, got dressed, and headed to the train station to get information on the next train to chenonceaux. Luckily, I didn't have to buy a new train ticket, and to kill the time before the train at noon, I went on a walk by la Maine (river that cuts through Angers) up to the park du lac de Maine, which I hadn't seen yet. It was quite a nice walk, and I managed to look on my morning's failure with a pleasing amount of calmness and good humor. I succeeded in getting on the next train and got to Chenonceaux at 2:30pm, where I met up with Riikka and Adrien. When then went on the tour of the cheateau, which was quite beautiful. Chenonceaux, by the way, is called le chateau des Dames because there are five women associated with the chateau's history, most importantly Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henri II, and Catherine de Médicis, his wife. It was quite interesting, actually, there were signs of the relationship between Henri and Diane all over the castle (their initials, etc), there were two gardens, Diane's being the bigger and the prettier, etc. A very interestng dynamic - Diane was very close with Catherine as well. The most interesting thing about the castle is that, as it is situated directly above the Loire river, it ended up serving as a passageway between German-occupied France and free France. How crazy is that! After touring the castle, I was able to see all the surrounding gardens and even the little village of Chenenceaux without any time crunch at all. It turned out to be a very lovely day, and we even bought a bottle of wine (for 3 euro! And it was quite goood. They stopped producing, so they were trying to get rid of their stock before it went bad) in the small wine cave of Chenenceaux and a glass while we were killing time waiting for the train. Très French, as my host mother likes to say. Hahaha. While we were waiting for the train, a mother and daughter from Ecuador were having trouble purchasing tickets from the machine at the train stop, and a French women asked us if we could help. The mother asked if we spoke English or Spanish, and since she couldn't get her card to work on the machine, I agreed to help her purchase her tickets once we got on the train. It was quite cool, actually, being an impromptu interpreter, and the ticket controller was quite nice (and grateful for the translation help). She got her tickets without problem and then we had an hour and a half before our next train (from St. Pierre des Corps to Angers - I have lost so much time at St. Pierre des Corps - four different hour long waits. We explored it and discovered there wasn't much there. lol), we made sure she found her connection ok (and the ticket controller from the train saw us all looking at the screens and came over to make sure we had found the right connection. It was over all very lovely, and I was quite proud that I was able to help (even if one time I turned to the mother and said the exact same thing the controller said...in French. Once I realized I had continued to speak French, I shook my head a bit and switched over. lol)

I can't believe my time here is wrapping up. I don't know what to feel - I am ready to see family and friends and home, but I love being here so much. Now that classes are over, I have a lot mroe free time (we have exams for the rest of the month, and since I only have four exams, I have a lot of free time. I do, however, need to study. ^_^) The weather is finally beautiful and I am just going to make the best of the time left as best I can. Savor every lovely moment.