Last Friday was the official start of Spring Break and while I’m ecstatic to have a break from school, this European adventure will sadly be my last big travel extravaganza before I leave. Disregarding the fact that I soon have to leave my European bubble and return to reality, this spring break has been the time of my life (so far). I started in Paris, where my life was graced by perfect weather every day I was there and I gorged myself on macaroons, wine, and duck.
Saturday morning, April 16, I finished packing my life for 2 weeks and headed to the train station where I met the rest of the Lewis and Clark group and the Kalamazoo kids. We got on our train around 9 and arrived in Paris 2 hours later and then checked into our hotel. We stayed in a place called Hotel Minerve, which is located in the Latin Quarter of Paris and was reaaaallly nice. I think it’s a 3 star hotel and everything was great except for the fact that our room smelled like stale cigarettes. I shared a room with Jill and Alissa, two of my friends from the Lewis and Clark program.
We had crepes for lunch and then some of us went to Notre Dame where we met up with Rosanna, one of our Canadian friends who is also studying in Strasbourg. It was wonderful to see her!
That afternoon I met up with Cecile, Clement, and Brice. I had seen Cecile and Brice a few times since my arrival to France but I hadn’t seen Clement since last year at Longwood so it was great to be with the gang again (except Mariza wasn’t there!) Anyway, we walked along the seine before we decided to sit and hang out in the park in front of the Louvre. We talked for a while and then I wanted to go get macaroons from La Durée, which is conveniently located on the Champs Elysées. I love macaroons and the ones from La Durée are supposed to be really good. Let me tell you, they are better than good. Totally worth the wait in line and the money.
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| Heaven. |
After obtaining those little bites of heaven, I needed to head back to the hotel to meet up with the group, since we had a group activity to see the play called La Cancatrice Chauve, which has been playing in Paris for 6 days a week since the 1950s. It’s well-known and a comedy, but unfortunately, I did not find it funny. It’s a play from the period of Absurd Theatre in French history, where there is less plot and more ridiculous interaction between the characters. The jokes were mostly repetitive and silly plays on words. Maybe I would have found it more humorous if I hadn’t been so tired, but I just didn’t appreciate the play. Thankfully, dinner was afterwards. We went as a group to an Indian restaurant and we ate well. After dinner, some students were making plans to go out, but I was so exhausted that just hanging out in the room with Jill and Alissa sounded like a great time to me. So the three of us had a great evening in the hotel room eating chocolate and macaroons, drinking wine, and watching tv. After a hectic day of traveling and walking around Paris, this was a perfect night.
Unfortunately, Sunday morning we woke up too late to go to the Gregorian Mass at Notre Dame de Paris. The three of us still managed to get up and out in a decent amount of time. We stumbled upon Victor Hugo’s house and since it was free admission, we decided to check it out. It was really cool and Victor Hugo had some beautiful views from his apartment! Afterwards we went to the Musée de Carnavalet, which is a museum about the history of Paris.
Then we had to meet up with the other students for our group activity of the Musée Rodin, a sculpture museum. I got to see Le Penseur (the thinker) in person, it was awesome.
Brenah and I broke off from the rest of the group after the museum and we were hoping to go to the Musée D’Orsay, but once we got there and saw the line, we changed our minds and decided to walk down the Champs Elysées instead. We started at Place de la Concorde and walked all the way down to L’Arc de Triomphe, which we decided to climb. After climbing the stairs of the cathedrals in Prague, Strasbourg, and Geneva, L’Arc de Triomphe wasn’t bad at all. When we got to the top, the views were great since the sky was clear and it was really sunny. We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes before we had to descend to take the metro and arrive back at the hotel on time for dinner.
The restaurant we went to that night was probably my favorite of the entirety of the Paris trip. For an appetizer we ate ravioli stuffed with chevre (goat cheese). If you know me, you will know that one of my favorite things about French culture/cuisine is the cheese. I love cheese. My favorite is probably Chevre, followed closely by Munster and Roquefort. I love that the French have cheese in its own course. It’s one of my favorite parts of dinner/lunch with my host family. Anyway, for the main dish we had DUCK. Since I came to France, I ate duck for the first time and now it is probably one of my favorite foods. With the duck we ate yummy cooked vegetables and of course red wine. For dessert, we had a sort of creamy yogurt with a raspberry sauce. It was delicious. Afterwards we had coffee. It was pretty much the perfect meal.
After dinner about half of the kids in the group wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night/climb it. It took over an hour for us to organize ourselves after dinner though so by the time we got there, it was too late to climb the Eiffel Tower so we just hung out on the lawn in front of it and watched it sparkle at the top of the hour while some of the kids drank wine. My camera was dead so I was unable to take pictures.
Monday morning we had an organized tour of the Opéra Garnier in Paris. I have seen the Opera several times from the outside, but this was my first time going inside. It was beautiful!! Everything was immaculate. The staircase was flawless and the many types of marble were amazing. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and she even showed us inside of the hall. The ceiling inside of the performance hall is incredible and the seats and tiers are so stunning. I feel lucky to have been able to go inside and hopefully one day I might actually see an opera inside… who knows.
After the Opera tour, Alissa and I went to Galeries Lafayette and shopped around. I didn’t buy anything (shocking, I know) but Alissa found some great stuff. Then I went to meet Jill somewhere outside of touristy Paris to go shopping in an area that her host mom told her had lots of boutiques and wasn’t very expensive. I’m not sure if we missed it or if it just doesn’t exist, but all we found was a street that was full of children’s clothing shops. We walked around the block but couldn’t find anything and we were in kind of a sketchy part of town, so we hopped on the metro and went back to an area close to our hotel. I convinced Jill to come with me to Café de Flore so we went there for an afternoon coffee. It was lovely but kind of expensive... Café de Flore is really well known in Paris and a few famous philosophers used to frequent there (ie Sartre). After coffee we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. This dinner was also very delicious – we had a lot of wine with dinner and for an appetizer I had a sort of sausage with red peppers, for the main dish I had pork, salad, and potatoes, and for dessert I enjoyed a crème caramel. It was all very delicious but compared to the dinner that I enjoyed the night prior, it was average. Oh my gosh, am I becoming a food snob??
After dinner, Brenah and I decided to go to the Eiffel Tower just the two of us to climb it at night. Despite being really tipsy and having food babies in our stomachs, we hurried over to the Tower after dinner and we climbed the 700 stairs to the second level. I would love to go to the third level of the tower someday, I have never been but it’s expensive and only accessible by elevator. Maybe one day…
Anyway, when Brenah and I got to the top, the views were spectacular. The lights sprinkled across Paris made it twinkle in the night and there was a full moon hanging over the city. It was my first time going up the tower at night and it was absolutely exquisite. A lovely ending to a delightful weekend in Paris.
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