Au Revoir, Paris!

Hi again.

On to Day 2 of Paris-- Sunday.  The plan for the morning was to go to Mass at Notre Dame (Tom wanted to go to Mass, and I wanted to hear the singing and stuff).  The reality?  Tom went to Mass, and Vanessa did not, as she woke up feeling like she had gotten hit by a truck.  Turns out, running around in the snow and hail and rain and cold all day is not so conducive to one's health, and I wound up waking up the next day with a horrible cold.  Just my luck.  But I was in Paris, so I dragged myself out of bed about an hour after Tom and took the metro ALL BY MYSELF WITHOUT GETTING LOST (really!) to meet him at Notre Dame.

Oh hello, Notre Dame.

I wanted to go in and see the inside, but there was a queue about eighty years long, so I decided that it was something I could do when I return to Paris (note the use of "when" instead of "if").  So instead, we walked around the outside for a while:

And then, one of my favorite things ever-- Shakespeare and Co.! 

So this is a teeny little bookshop which is simply crammed full of books in every cranny of this twisting little house, which also contains a few cots and a piano and typewriter upstairs--relics from when this was a refuge and hangout for writers of the Lost Generation, some unknown writers like Hemingway, Eliot, Joyce, etc.  Best of all, this little shop was also responsible for the publication of Ulysses, when no one else would publish it, which alone makes it very near and dear to my heart.

After tearing myself away from Shakespeare and Co., we took a (very) long walk to the Louvre.  

Here it is again!  And this time you can see more of it.

On the first Sunday of the month, all museums in Paris are free, so we decided to take advantage.  The lines, of course, were absolutely ridiculously insane, but we found a somewhat hidden entrance, so it was a bit quicker for us to get through.  We didn't have an incredible amount of time, so we did the highlights:

Venus de Milo.  You may have heard of her.

 Nike of Samothrace.  An Art History 101 favorite.

 Napoleon III's Apartments in the wing of the Louvre that he had built.

 My favorite sculpture, Canova's Cupid and Psyche.

We also saw, of course, the Mona Lisa, but it is rather difficult to get close to her, so no picture.  Sorry.

So after breezing through the Louvre (again, need to go back to Paris-- I could have spent my entire trip there), we took a walk all the way from Napoleon's first arch:

To the second-- the Arc de Triomphe:

It was a nice walk, sure... but do you know how long the Champs d'Elysses (that's the street that runs between them-- you know, the one that used to have all of the classy shops and now is home to McDonalds and H&M) is?  It's long.  And once we got to the Arc de Triomphe, we turned around and walked to the Tour d'Eiffel.  Another very, very long walk.  Oy.

And just as the Eiffel Tower came into sight across the river from us, it lit up.  It was beautiful.  And then it started to sparkle.  And then it was magical.

Yep.  Pretty much speaks for itself.

We walked all the way up to it then:

But we didn't go up.  One, because the queue was absurdly long, and two, because I'm terribly afraid of elevators. And heights.  Maybe next time.

So with the Eiffel Tower accomplished (mostly), we headed to the Paris Opera House to try to get rush tickets for a performance.  Sadly, there was no show that evening.  (Next time?)  But we at least got to see the Opera at night, which is really rather fantastic:

We had dinner at a cafe near the Opera, which turned out to be fantastic (the nice thing about eating in Paris is that even when you are eating cheaply, it is still possible to find amazing food.  And I seem to have a knack for finding the amazing cheap places), and then we headed back to our neighborhood and went to see a movie!  Now, this posed a few problems-- the movies were all in French, so we could either see: a movie that we had already seen so that we would know what was going on, or a movie that we hadn't seen and wouldn't get all of it.  Or much at all, really.  We decided to see a new movie, but chose "Unstoppable" (the one with Chris Pine and Denzel Washington and an out-of-control train) because I wanted to see Chris Pine and there really couldn't be much need for the dialogue in this sort of movie.  Luckily, this turned out to be totally true.  We didn't understand a word, but we knew exactly what was going on.  However, I was a bit disappointed-- while I got to enjoy looking at Chris Pine, I did not get to enjoy hearing his voice, as he was dubbed by a French voice actor.  Oh well.

After the movie, we had a quick drink in the bar that Tom liked again, and then headed back to the hotel to go to sleep.  As I still felt like I had been hit by a train because I had something resembling the flu, I was rather grateful for this.

We slept late the next day, because we weren't in much hurry and I still felt awful.  Once we got up, we headed back to the Opera to take a look around the inside.  It was incredibly beautiful-- unbelievably opulent (almost gaudy), but fantastic, and nearly overwhelming.  

The Grand Staircase.

 Um, hello giant reception hall thingy.  Good lord.

  This may not be the famous chandelier (that one's in the main auditorium, which was technically closed, but we saw it in the dark by sneaking into an unlocked Box), but I still couldn't help getting nervous whilst walking underneath it... I kept expecting the Phantom of the Opera to jump out from somewhere or drop a chandelier on me unexpectedly.  Also couldn't get "Masquerade" out of my head.

So yes.  Opera House= fantastic.  

After that, we took another meandering walk to the Musee d'Orsay, which of course was closed.  But we got some lunch (quiche, baguette, orangina... mmm), and walked around some more-- Paris is such a beautiful city that even walking aimlessly is fantastic.

The National Assembly building.

At this point, we were fairly close to the Louvre again, and I wanted to shop, so we went back to the Carousel shops beneath the Louvre.  My purchases: a purple beret and a few macaroons from Maison du Chocolat.  Fabulous.

We hopped on the metro and headed out to our last destination: the Pantheon.  This is kind of like a memorial/church thing for the French Revolutionaries, and serves as the burial place for national heroes, writers, thinkers, etc.

 The outside, which looks suspiciously like the Pantheon of, you know, the Romans.  Hmmm...

And the inside.  Similarly suspiciously similar.  (whoa. that's a lot of similarity)

It had wonderful frescoes of scenes important to French history, as well as a lot to do with St. Genevieve, Paris's patron saint.

Then we headed down into the crypt, where we saw the tombs of Rosseau and Voltaire, who hated each other, right across from each other, as well as Alexander Dumas, Victor Hugo, Marie and Pierre Currie, lots of famous French people that I've never heard of, etc.  But the air was so dry, and I was so sick, that I couldn't stop coughing, so Tom took me out of there out of fear that I would need a box of my own.  

Afterwards, we headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags, then had an early dinner of crepes before taking the long metro + bus journey to the airport.  The trip took so long that I was petrified that we would miss our plane, which we might have, had it not been delayed for two hours.

I'll spare you the stories of angry dealings with airline people, and the actually hilarious account of Tom and I running through the airport with our shoes and coats in those security scanning boxes when we found out that we were in the wrong security line for our plane.  Suffice it to say, it was annoying.  On the positive side, I had enough spare time to check out the tax-free designer store, and finally bought the purple Longchamp bag that I have been coveting for months at about 2/3rds of the price that I would pay in the US, so in the long run, not so bad.

Once we finally got on the plane and landed in Bristol an hour later, we discovered that all of the fuss was because there was an inch of snow on the ground.  I'm telling you-- the Brits simply don't know how to deal with snow.  Simultaneously hilarious and frustrating.  Unfortunately, we got in just too late to catch the last train out of Bristol, and had to take a long taxi ride home.  But in the end, it was fine-- we got home at about 12:30 am.  

Trouble was... I had a dissertation due at 2:00 pm that day.  And I had about 2,000 words left to write.  Uh oh.

To be continued....

(I know, I'm mean-- sorry.  I need to go to bed!  I'll tell you tomorrow, I promise.)

Bonjour, Paris!

Hello, my dear, dear readers.  I am so very sorry to have kept you waiting for over a week to hear about Paris.  I have a good excuse, I promise.  You'll hear it latter.  But first, without further delay, PARIS!  Allons-y!

Okey dokey.  So Friday afternoon, Tom and I packed up, and headed for the train station.  (I left my laptop, which is why I didn't post things for you over the weekend.  I'm sorry.  The laptop is heavy.  And I didn't have a French outlet converter.)  Train-->Bus-->Bristol airport-->....delayed flight.  No problem.  We had some dinner and a drink at the airport bar....-->Paris airport-->Zut!  Je ne remember le francais pas!-->tourist information booth-->bus into the city-->Paris metro adventure-->hotel.  Whew. That was exhausting!  At this point, it's 11:00 pm, Paris time, so we headed to a restaurant on the corner for a drink (hot chocolate for me, because I was freezing, a and a beer for Tom, who was not), and then headed back and went to bed.  Exciting first day, huh?

Saturday was considerably more exciting.  We got up and headed for a crepe place down the block, and I had a delicious nutella-and-pear crepe for breakfast.  Mmmm.  We decided that we would start off our trip by taking a free walking tour (offered in English, thank goodness), which started at 11, so we took another metro adventure and found our way to the city center.  We emerged from the metro at St. Michael's Fountain, and lo and behold, it was SNOWING!  Beautiful, huge snowflakes falling all around the gorgeous city-- it was enough to make a romantic out of anyone, I'm convinced.

Saint Michelle Fountain, with tour groups assembling under it, and big flakes of snow.  This fountain was built to celebrate Napoleon's victory over somebody... and today, whenever an international football (soccer) team wins a game in Paris, they put their flag around 

the angel's shoulders as a cape.

 

Il fait neige! (It's snowing!)  And piling up quickly.

Right.  So we went on this tour.  Now, our tour guide, Bryan, was possibly one of the coolest people that I've encountered, ever.  He was hilarious, brilliant, energetic, and gorgeous, with, I'm pretty sure, an affection for Star Wars and Casablanca.  To give you an idea, if I hadn't been fairly convinced that he was gay, I would have possibly proposed to him on the spot.  Yeah.  Oh, and the best part?  He's from Holland, PA-- ten minutes from where I live.  A match made in heaven.  But alas... 

Ahem. Sorry.  You wanted to hear about the tour.  Not the tour guide.  I'll try to remember what he was actually talking about while I was watching him talk...

Ok.  So we started to walk around in the snow.  And it was glorious.  First, we stopped by the Police Headquarters (which he told us to avoid visiting the inside, as this would require being arrested).  Historical relevance: this is where the Germans holed up during WWII when they took Paris, and so the facade is covered in bullet holes from resistance fighters.  Amazingly, this is one of very few buildings in Paris that shows evidence of the occupation during the war, even though the city was actually supposed to be leveled when the Germans retreated.  Otherwise, the building is not especially impressive.

Meh.  Not interesting.  The view from their windows, however--gorgeous.

Next stop: walking along the river, under a bridge.  It was pretty.  We learned historical things about Paris.  I don't remember them specifically...sorry.  But there was a very cool story about the sculptures adorning the bridge!  Some King at some point decided that it would be an awesome idea to have a huge party.  And as he really liked sketches, he ordered a sketch artist for his party to draw all of his friends.  Now, most of these friends had had a little too much to drink, so they were not exactly at their best when they were sketched.  But then after the party, the King decided to have the sketches made into sculptures to adorn the bridge that he was building-- the first stone bridge in Paris.  And now the poor decisions of those nobles that night are immortalized, literally, in stone.  And the punchline?...

It's the original facebook! (Ba dum, chhh!)

Moving on.  We then walked past a spot that no Parisian will step on, because it was cursed by some dude who was burned at the stake there, and then we saw a statue of Henry IV (of France, not England... I had to continually remind myself of this), who was very well-liked, despite the fact that he was a Protestant (*gasp*).  Yes, Paris had the same Catholic-Protestant issues as the rest of Europe.  Paris was Catholic, and had a nasty tendency to massacre lots of Protestants at a time.  Which is what happened right before Henry IV ascended the throne (as the chosen King of the Catholic Queen).  Thankfully though, Henry IV escaped, and came back into town to claim the throne.  The first thing he did though?  Walked into Notre Dame Cathedral, and to the shock and awe of all, pronounced "Paris is worth a Mass".  He was then beloved by the people of France from then on.

King Henry IV.  Fun Fact: the statue's sword used to light up at night.  I.e., he carried a lightsaber.  Win.

 Then we walked around and saw other things....which I can't remember.... and then we wound up in front of the Academie du Francais-- where official things about the French language are decided, like naming new things with non-Anglicized names (which are only sometimes accepted by the public), and deciding whether or not they are masculine or feminine.  

The best story about the Academie involved the iPod; they couldn't really change the name of the iPod--because, let's face it, what else are you going to call it?--but they could still decide whether it would be masculine or feminine.  So they're looking at it, playing with it, listing its attributes: constantly changing, lots of games to play on it, turns on easily at the slightest touch..... yep, definitely masculine.  Hahaha.  Oh Bryan, how I love you.

Then we crossed another bridge-- the Pont des Arts-- also known as "the lover's bridge".  This is where newlywed couples traditionally go and attach a lock to the bridge and throw the key into the river, thus immortalizing their bond.

You really have to wonder though about the people who put combination locks on the fence...

When we crossed the bridge, we arrived at the Louvre!!!  We came in through a sort of back entrance, so we didn't really get the full overwhelming effect right away, but we certainly began to appreciate just how ridiculously huge the Louvre is.  It was originally built as a palace, then the Revolution happened, and all of the art stolen from the nobility was stored in there, then Napoleon came along and added some more wings, and then it was an even bigger palace, and then eventually, it was opened to the public as an art museum (and oh, need I mention that it is basically the largest and most incredible art museum in the world?  And that there are two more Louvres in France, plus one opening in Abu Dabbi, and there is still art in their collection that isn't on display.  Insane), and then at the turn of the millennium the president of France added the big ugly glass pyramid thing to the front, and then it was immortalized in The DaVinci Code.  And that, dear readers, is a brief history of the Louvre.  The end.

 This is like, 1/6th of the back section of the old wings, which is maybe 1/4th of the whole structure.  

The Louvre in the snow!

The Parisians hate new architecture.  Every time something new goes up, they say "Ugh!  It iz 'orrible!  Tear it down!".  The pyramid in front of the Louvre is no exception.  And for once, I agree with the Parisians-- it just doesn't work.

Napoleon's first triumphal arch-- not the Arc de Triomphe (that was built after his death), but the one that he had built so that he could march his armies through it.  

So, by this point, we've been outside in the snow for like two and a half hours, and I can't feel any of my extremities.  Thankfully, we had a scheduled cafe break at this point.  So we flocked into Starbucks and thawed out with the assistance of hazelnut mochas and lattes.  So necessary.  I also took this opportunity to chat with Bryan for a while about what it's like to be in grad school in France, as well as some other things...yeah.  Very enjoyable. 

Once we got outside again, the snow had finally stopped, and it was a wee bit warmer, which was very welcome.  We carried on around the back end of the Louvre, to the Tuilleries Gardens, which were covered in snow, but still very pretty (though the snow might have actually contributed to the prettiness).

And then we got to this big plaza thing with an incredible view.  We could see:

Napoleon's Egyptian Obelisk that he got as a 'gift' from the Egyptians.

 A pretty fountain and the Grand Palais in the background.

Oh yeah, and this little thing called the Eiffel Tower.

So, uh, yeah-- that was pretty cool.  And then we walked through the Paris Christmas Market (which is not nearly as classy as the Bath Christmas Markets, I must say), and on to the Grand and Petit Palaises, which are now museums.  

Here the tour officially ended, but we could stay with Bryan for an extended tour and late lunch at a cafe.  As I would have followed Bryan to the end of the earth, I of course chose to do this.  So we continued on to Invalides (Louis XIV's veteran's hospital) via a pretty bridge:

As well as the monument that Napoleon had built for his tomb:

Pretty pretentious.  But also kind of cool.

Oh, by the way, by this point it was hailing and very cold again.  This was icky.  However, we finally made it to the cafe (at like 4pm), where we had hot wine and french onion soup and chatted with the other students who were on the tour-- a nice end to the whole 5 hour epic grand tour.

We headed back to the hotel after that, because I was cold and wet and miserable, in order to warm up for an hour or so.  Then we headed out again to explore our neighborhood and find some dinner.  We were staying in Montmarte, right by....

The Moulin Rouge.  Self-explanatory.

So our neighborhood was... funky... and well, also a tad creepy.  But you know, it was a cultural experience.  No worries.

We found dinner in a local artist-y cafe thing, and then headed up to Sacre-Coeur, a Cathedral on top of a hill.

It was beautiful-- outside and in.  The inside was full of gorgeous colorful frescoes and mosaics.

And the view-- like you wouldn't believe.  The pictures just don't do it justice.

Oy.  Blurry.  But quite stunning in real life.

Then we climbed back down the hill and wandered through some more streets for a while, before getting a drink before going back to the hotel.  I fell asleep immediately for the first time in, oh, three weeks?  So yep-- long day.  Exhausting, but wonderful.

Ok.  Since I'm obviously inept at getting things posted on time, I'll put this up now so that you have something to read, and I'll try to get the next few days up as soon as humanely possible.  So keep an eye out!  Au revoir!

Chanukah Sameach!

Captain's Log, Stardate 2248.42... or whatever (marooned on Delta Vega):

8:40 am: Too cold to get out of bed.  Toes are frozen.  Can't feel them.  
8:45 am: Have to go to class.  But...so...cold...
8:50 am: That's it.  Getting up.  OH GOD IT'S SO COLD.
9:00 am: Wearing full Under Armour layer.  Still cold.
9:05 am: Outside.  Strangely, feels warmer than my room did.... oh wait, never mind.  Not with that wind, it doesn't.  Oh look-- snow!

This, my dear readers, has basically been the saga of the past several days.  We have hit an epic cold streak, which wouldn't be so bad (I do go to school in New England, after all), except for the fact that British houses (at least old Georgian ones) don't believe in being warm.  Also, we have had snow on the ground for several days (and sometimes it even comes from the sky! whoa....), which is beautiful and makes me smile, but because the English are so unused to it, they can't really deal with even an inch or two, and they go into a mass panic and things start shutting down.  It would be adorable, except that it gets rather inconvenient at times.

Along with the snow came a series of house-related disasters throughout the ASE properties.  My house was without internet for six days (the HORROR!!).  I didn't realize just how addicted I am to the internet until now.  It's sad.  But, in an early Chanukah miracle, it came back on Tuesday.  Over the weekend, the heating and hot water in Linley House went out, and they are still not back (I would take being without internet over that situation any day).  All of the houses are epically cold-- the heating simply isn't keeping up with the outside temperature.  My room is about 15 degrees colder than the common room, so I've practically moved in down there.  Oh, and then yesterday when I came home from class and was preparing to cook Chanukah/family dinner, the power in the kitchen was out.  Just the kitchen.  It took me about an hour to figure out how to fix it.  But I did-- just in time to start making Challah and latkes.  Another Chanukah miracle!  Two in two days-- let's see what the next six have in store.

Speaking of the next six days; a few days ago, I was bemoaning the fact that I have a four-day weekend and nowhere to go, because everyone already had plans.  But then Tom, who lives in my house, said that he was in the same situation.  Turns out, we both wanted to go to Paris.  So what did we do?  Booked a flight to Paris on Friday night.  I'M GOING TO PARIS!!!  AHHHH!!!

Ahem.  Sorry.  I'm a little bit excited.

Back to Chanukah (sorry to be so all over the place right now-- I have soooo much to get done before I leave, and it's affecting my concentration).  I spent most of yesterday baking challah and making latkes (and I made some chicken and green beans too, in an attempt to be healthy) for Sunday family dinner, which was postponed to Wednesday in honor of Chanukah.  This left the whole house smelling like fried potatoes and bread.  What could possibly be better?  Though I still can't get the latke smell out of my hair... but this happens every year.  Anyway, NO ONE in my house had ever had a latke before!!!  What a shonda!  So, since I had, of course, made enough latkes to feed the entire Macabbean army, I shared with the house.  Everyone loved them-- especially with applesauce.  Oh, and when the challah finally came out of the oven after dinner (a teensy bit of timing miscalculations on my part), and we were all "too full to eat another bite," we ate three-quarters of the challah.  It turned out perfectly (what a welcome change from last time!), and everyone (most of whom had never had challah either!), couldn't stop asking why it was so incredibly good.  I told them it was Jew power, but they misheard me and thought I said "Jew powder," which resulted in great hilarity.  From now on, that's what I'm attributing the deliciousness of Jewish food to-- Jew powder. 

I rounded out the celebration with my illegal menorah made of tea lights (we aren't allowed to light candles in the houses, but you know what?  This is important.  And I was really careful), and though I didn't have a dreidel, I did have gelt.  The gelt here, however, is referred to as "Christmas coins," and instead of being shaped like shekels or American coin, it is modeled on the pound coin, which I find hilariously funny. 

In other news: I have finished all of my papers, except for my dissertation, which I now have to finish double-quick, because I've lost my weekend.  My last Jane Austen class was really funny-- we discussed modern-day adaptations, ranging from "Twilight" to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" to "Lost in Austen".  The book that I was assigned was "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre," which is basically what happens when you smush Twilight and Pride and Prejudice into one sequel.  It was terrible, but also incredibly funny because it was so ridiculous.  And my philosophy class on Wednesday morning (ie., the day of the first night of Chanukah) was all about the legitimacy of miracles.  Ironic, no?
Oh, and my dress for the Jane Austen Ball is coming tomorrow!!!  I promise to show you pictures.

Ok, so.... I have to do some serious work.  I have a lot to get done before I leave for Paris.  (OH MY GOODNESS I'M GOING TO PARIS.)  Right.  Hopefully, I'll bring the computer and be able to keep you updated whilst I'm there, but if not, I promise to tell you all about it soon afterward!

Happy Chanukah, my friends-- au revoir, until je vu vous dans le Paris!  (Oh dear, I really need to brush up on my French.)  A tout a l'heure!