I officially have one week left in Paris. Somehow, I'm just not sure that's true. This whole experience has been filled with ups and downs, pros and cons, goods and bads. Was every single moment what I thought it would be? No. Did I learn a lot about myself, living in a city, and makin' it on my own? Yes. The days seemed to last forever but the weeks and months flew by, suddenly making the end of the program in single digits.
But regardless of what's behind me, I'm currently trying to live my last couple days to their fullest. Yes, it's almost finals, but luckily I've done well this semester so my grades don't depend on them so much. This means I've been enjoying paris as it's meant to be seen, in the sunshine and warm. I've had tons of picnics and wandering days. But no matter how much I do, just like everyone said it would be, I have tons of things that are not crossed off on my to-do list. Which explains why I'm writing this entry on my phone on the metro - there's too much to do to just sit around!
My fam gets here Friday and thus begins the epic France vacation 2010.
But now I've gotta get off the metro and go live!
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
springtime in paris.
As most of you surely know, the weather drastically affects my mood. I'm unsure why I thought Boston was the right town for me. Regardless. It's now, finally, springtime in Paris. What I've been waiting for this whole time. My nose is pink with sunburn and I am blissfully happy. The flowers are blooming all over - tulips (my favorite). I can run outside without getting frostbite. In essence, spring here is everything the songs say it is.
As it has been getting warmer, I've been doing more and more walking. It's become my favorite part of being here - walking from place to place means you get to see a lot more than just the inside of a metro stop / a museum. In fact, for those of you that visit here, I highly suggest walking as opposed to taking the metro. The famous part of the city (excluding Monmartre) is very walk-able. You can walk Notre Dame to the Eiffel tower in a morning and see all the sights along the way. I have tons of pictures, per usual, but I'm exhausted from this weekend. My friends from Tufts came to visit, and it was so nice to have them here! Lindsay and I spent all day Friday and Saturday on the go, walking around, seeing things, laying in front of the Eiffel Tower, etc. I'm really starting to feel at ease here. Unfortunately, I'm leaving three weeks from today to start our French vaycay. But, it is nice to say that I feel like I really got to know Paris. Et, bien sur, je l'aime. (And, of course, i love it.) It is a really wonderful place with so much to offer.
It has been hard, though, fighting the American stereotype. You don't quite realize how bad American tourists are until you look around. There are little cultural things that make us look really bad - like the fact it's incredibly impolite not to say hello to someone (in a restaurant, a store, etc). I've made that faux pas a couple times and the frenchpeople were not pleased. I never quite realized how presumptuous it is to assume that everyone's gonna speak English.
Also, since I feel like I haven't talked about her enough, I LOVE my host mother, Mimi. She is incredibly warm and inviting and I like to think of her as an aunt. I live a very independent life from her, but she's always interested (and patient) as I tell her stories from my day. I really feel at home here and I'm so lucky for that.
I think this post was a little of this and a little of that, but nothing really exciting has happened recently. I'm 3/4 done with my Sorbonne work, which is really encouraging. I only have one paper left, and now that I'm FINALLY comfortable with the french set-up, I feel like I can do it. But mostly, my life is as routine as it can get when you live somewhere like Paris and the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Luxembourg Gardens are just around the corner.
As it has been getting warmer, I've been doing more and more walking. It's become my favorite part of being here - walking from place to place means you get to see a lot more than just the inside of a metro stop / a museum. In fact, for those of you that visit here, I highly suggest walking as opposed to taking the metro. The famous part of the city (excluding Monmartre) is very walk-able. You can walk Notre Dame to the Eiffel tower in a morning and see all the sights along the way. I have tons of pictures, per usual, but I'm exhausted from this weekend. My friends from Tufts came to visit, and it was so nice to have them here! Lindsay and I spent all day Friday and Saturday on the go, walking around, seeing things, laying in front of the Eiffel Tower, etc. I'm really starting to feel at ease here. Unfortunately, I'm leaving three weeks from today to start our French vaycay. But, it is nice to say that I feel like I really got to know Paris. Et, bien sur, je l'aime. (And, of course, i love it.) It is a really wonderful place with so much to offer.
It has been hard, though, fighting the American stereotype. You don't quite realize how bad American tourists are until you look around. There are little cultural things that make us look really bad - like the fact it's incredibly impolite not to say hello to someone (in a restaurant, a store, etc). I've made that faux pas a couple times and the frenchpeople were not pleased. I never quite realized how presumptuous it is to assume that everyone's gonna speak English.
Also, since I feel like I haven't talked about her enough, I LOVE my host mother, Mimi. She is incredibly warm and inviting and I like to think of her as an aunt. I live a very independent life from her, but she's always interested (and patient) as I tell her stories from my day. I really feel at home here and I'm so lucky for that.
I think this post was a little of this and a little of that, but nothing really exciting has happened recently. I'm 3/4 done with my Sorbonne work, which is really encouraging. I only have one paper left, and now that I'm FINALLY comfortable with the french set-up, I feel like I can do it. But mostly, my life is as routine as it can get when you live somewhere like Paris and the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the Luxembourg Gardens are just around the corner.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
just a short jaunt around paris
So Thursday I did a lot of walking. This is what happens when you do a lot of walking around Paris and casually snap some photos with your phone.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
you-lano, me-lano, we-lano
So, I woke up super early Friday morning (read: 5am), got on one of the first metros, got on a train to the airport, took off, landed, all before 10am. And then all of a sudden it hit me: I was in ITALY. Home of gelato, pizza, pasta, gnocchi, and all other things delicious. And that feeling never quite went away, as this weekend was one of the best I've had maybe in my whole life.
Friday, after I dropped my bag off at the hotel, I took a short day trip up to Bergamo. The train was easy, I got by with no Italian, and I got a tourist map and info brochure in English. Because Milan is a notably industrial city in Italy, perhaps THE industrial city in Italy, I wanted to go somewhere out of the city to get a better taste. Bergamo didn't disappoint. It was a beautiful city with TONS of history, noteable for it's "Old City" on the top of the hill - you had to take a cable car to get to it. The city is walled in with walls from the Middle Ages. This height allows you to get amazing views of the Italian country side and the walls mean you won't ever get truly lost. It was also, I realized, one of the first times I'd been out of a real city since I'd been abroad. I think it was something about being on a hill that made the air seem cleaner or better smelling or something. It was very nice to have a day to myself. (Please, nobody ever look to see how many times I use positive adjectives in this blog. It would be horrendous and embarrassing.)
A great day, made even greater by the fact that Lindsay and Gillian from Tufts and their friend Jacob (on their Geneva program) got there that night! Too tired to go experience nightlife, we went to sleep.
The next day, I can very proudly say, Linds, Gillian and I ate our way through all of Milan. Pizza, bruschetta, pasta, pesto, gelato, brioches, nutella, you name it, we ate it. We also saw the castle, the world's oldest shopping mall, the Basilica, and the Duomo, stopping frequently for snacks and coffee. It was a great, relaxed day with a little shopping, no serious agenda, and the ability to stop and say "hey, let's go in here" without any trouble. There were plenty of charismatic people along the way, especially when we went to la banque, a Milan dischotecha, but was such an incredibly successful day that I didn't even mind.
Sunday was cut short by travelling, boo, but I can already tell that I'm going to want to go back to Italy in my life time. Probably more than once. But now I'm back to real life, which is, I suppose, not so bad when you're living in Paris.
Yes, yes, the promise of pictures remains. But I have my first Sorbonne paper due Tuesday.
Friday, after I dropped my bag off at the hotel, I took a short day trip up to Bergamo. The train was easy, I got by with no Italian, and I got a tourist map and info brochure in English. Because Milan is a notably industrial city in Italy, perhaps THE industrial city in Italy, I wanted to go somewhere out of the city to get a better taste. Bergamo didn't disappoint. It was a beautiful city with TONS of history, noteable for it's "Old City" on the top of the hill - you had to take a cable car to get to it. The city is walled in with walls from the Middle Ages. This height allows you to get amazing views of the Italian country side and the walls mean you won't ever get truly lost. It was also, I realized, one of the first times I'd been out of a real city since I'd been abroad. I think it was something about being on a hill that made the air seem cleaner or better smelling or something. It was very nice to have a day to myself. (Please, nobody ever look to see how many times I use positive adjectives in this blog. It would be horrendous and embarrassing.)
A great day, made even greater by the fact that Lindsay and Gillian from Tufts and their friend Jacob (on their Geneva program) got there that night! Too tired to go experience nightlife, we went to sleep.
The next day, I can very proudly say, Linds, Gillian and I ate our way through all of Milan. Pizza, bruschetta, pasta, pesto, gelato, brioches, nutella, you name it, we ate it. We also saw the castle, the world's oldest shopping mall, the Basilica, and the Duomo, stopping frequently for snacks and coffee. It was a great, relaxed day with a little shopping, no serious agenda, and the ability to stop and say "hey, let's go in here" without any trouble. There were plenty of charismatic people along the way, especially when we went to la banque, a Milan dischotecha, but was such an incredibly successful day that I didn't even mind.
Sunday was cut short by travelling, boo, but I can already tell that I'm going to want to go back to Italy in my life time. Probably more than once. But now I'm back to real life, which is, I suppose, not so bad when you're living in Paris.
Yes, yes, the promise of pictures remains. But I have my first Sorbonne paper due Tuesday.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
a little of this, a little of that.
You, as a frequent and obsessive reader of my blog, may notice that my posts are becoming more infrequent. That is not because Paris is starting to be worse (au contraire, mes amis, the weather is finally becoming beautiful!), but it is because I am actually starting to fall into a routine. Luckily, I shook myself out of that routine a couple times this week.
Wednesday, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Patrick, who seems to be in charge of booking for the fam when they're here, sent me a link to an apartment in Les Halles area of Paris, which I had never really explored before. So between my noon Sorbonne class end and my 2:15 IES class start, I decided to go check it out. I ended up walking around for almost that entire time. It is a really great area of Paris, parts that feel very much like Paris should and parts that feel like I'm in NYC. It was so nice to be able to walk around aimlessly and not lose feeling in my toes. As I get more and more comfortable here, I get more and more willing to get lost, wander around, and just BE in Paris, as opposed to constantly feeling pressure to get on and off the metro at a certain place, see certain landmarks, etc. I can't say I've conquered Paris (can anyone really?), but I feel past the superficial knowledge you glean from only a month here (has it really been two?!).
Tonight, I went to a wonderful dinner in the Latin Quarter and had Indian food!
Tomorrow, I'm getting up VERY early (yes, Dad, 5:00 is early) to fly to Milan to meet some Tufts friends. I'm not going to get very much sleep, but that's not what abroad is about, is it?!
Wednesday, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Patrick, who seems to be in charge of booking for the fam when they're here, sent me a link to an apartment in Les Halles area of Paris, which I had never really explored before. So between my noon Sorbonne class end and my 2:15 IES class start, I decided to go check it out. I ended up walking around for almost that entire time. It is a really great area of Paris, parts that feel very much like Paris should and parts that feel like I'm in NYC. It was so nice to be able to walk around aimlessly and not lose feeling in my toes. As I get more and more comfortable here, I get more and more willing to get lost, wander around, and just BE in Paris, as opposed to constantly feeling pressure to get on and off the metro at a certain place, see certain landmarks, etc. I can't say I've conquered Paris (can anyone really?), but I feel past the superficial knowledge you glean from only a month here (has it really been two?!).
Tonight, I went to a wonderful dinner in the Latin Quarter and had Indian food!
Tomorrow, I'm getting up VERY early (yes, Dad, 5:00 is early) to fly to Milan to meet some Tufts friends. I'm not going to get very much sleep, but that's not what abroad is about, is it?!
Friday, March 12, 2010
cathedrals, champagne, etc.
So today, I went to Reims (pronounced rein-ssss) with IES for a school sponsored excursion, which is why I apologize if any of my facts are slightly off. The tours were in French.
We toured the Notre Dame Cathedral there, which was where they used to coronate the kings (before the revolution, bien sur). It was a cool experience and we had a guided tour, which was nice. I probably did not profit from it as much as I could have because I was freeeeezing, tired, and hungry. But I got a lot of the main points. They're massively restoring it again - unsure how many times they've done so, but once was with money from Rockefeller/Rockefeller Jr., which is nice to see that their money went to good use. Though it was built in the Middle Ages, it tries to "blend" that art style with modern art - all of the stained glass windows are new, and there's even a set that was designed by Marc Chagall.
Then, luckily, we ate lunch in a restaurant with heat, and I got caffeine. All previous complaints erased, we headed over the the Pommery Champagne Caves. It was a cool experience - we got to walk through the caves with a tourguide who told us all about how you make champagne, the differences between the champagnes, how you can buy a super huge bottle for 500euro (serves 86 glasses!). Overall enjoyable. (Fun Fact: Europeans do not consider, nor is it legal to call, any sparkling wine that is not produced in the Champagne region true champagne.) We had a glass at the end of the tour as a "tasting", but ended up being more of a drink a glass of champagne while hanging out with your friends. It was nice to see a region of France that isn't Paris - very different.
In another direction, I've begun a picasa account through google that will let me upload photos to my computer, put them in a certain folder, and they sync with this web address:
I promise to upload Spain pictures soon too!
Now, it is time to watch some American TV and sleep - we left for Reims at 7:45.
We toured the Notre Dame Cathedral there, which was where they used to coronate the kings (before the revolution, bien sur). It was a cool experience and we had a guided tour, which was nice. I probably did not profit from it as much as I could have because I was freeeeezing, tired, and hungry. But I got a lot of the main points. They're massively restoring it again - unsure how many times they've done so, but once was with money from Rockefeller/Rockefeller Jr., which is nice to see that their money went to good use. Though it was built in the Middle Ages, it tries to "blend" that art style with modern art - all of the stained glass windows are new, and there's even a set that was designed by Marc Chagall.
Then, luckily, we ate lunch in a restaurant with heat, and I got caffeine. All previous complaints erased, we headed over the the Pommery Champagne Caves. It was a cool experience - we got to walk through the caves with a tourguide who told us all about how you make champagne, the differences between the champagnes, how you can buy a super huge bottle for 500euro (serves 86 glasses!). Overall enjoyable. (Fun Fact: Europeans do not consider, nor is it legal to call, any sparkling wine that is not produced in the Champagne region true champagne.) We had a glass at the end of the tour as a "tasting", but ended up being more of a drink a glass of champagne while hanging out with your friends. It was nice to see a region of France that isn't Paris - very different.
In another direction, I've begun a picasa account through google that will let me upload photos to my computer, put them in a certain folder, and they sync with this web address:
 |
| paris blog |
I promise to upload Spain pictures soon too!
Now, it is time to watch some American TV and sleep - we left for Reims at 7:45.
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