Paris Revisited: More Fun

One of the girls we met for dinner earlier in the week was turning 22, so we met her at a sushi place for a couple of hours. Very fun times. Fun note: they have cheese sushi in Paris. It's some sort of cream cheese surrounded by rice and seaweed. Pretty good, actually.

There are many boat rides that one can take along the Seine. My program took us on the Bateaux Mouches, and then I took the girls on the same ride when Katie and her friends came to visit last spring. I'm pretty fond of it. It has a nice sequence, and it's a good price. But I'd never taken the cruise during the day. What details was I missing out on? Time to find out...

Getting started

Centre Georges Pompidou

The amazing houseboats along the Seine

A corner of the Louvre

Musee d'Orsay

Love-Lock Bridge- you and your true love bring a padlock, write your initials and the date, lock it onto the bridge, then kiss as you throw the key into the Seine

The little garden where I wrote the other day

People hanging out, enjoying the gorgeous weather

That one building

Notre Dame from the side/back

A ridiculously gorgeous day. Lots of picnickers.

I finished the day by hanging out along the Seine for a few hours, writing and pondering. I think I am arranging my life in such a way that it won't ever be too long before I visit Paris again. That realization took away whatever stress I was feeling to revisit every spot I had even remotely fond memories of. Instead, I hit whatever moved me that day. Made for an excellent vacation.

Stateside once more, but a few more updates to come!

Paris Revisited: Day 2- Strolling the Seine

After sleeping in for quite a while, and lazing around for several more hours, I decided it was finally time to get out and see more of Paris. I grabbed the local Metro (the 8 ligne) and took it to one of its Seine stops- Place de la Concorde. Up to this point, I had seen only parts of Paris that were new to me (with the exception of the Gare de Nord, which I am quite familiar with, but doesn't really count for our purposes). So it was exciting and new, but it wasn't Paris. That all changed when I emerged from the Concorde Metro stop at sunset:

Now that looks familiar!

 It looked like Paris again! My Paris. I spent many happy hours strolling along this area of the Seine at twilight, and here I was again. My goal was to be at the Eiffel Tower by 7pm, in case it was dark enough that they would start the sparkling. But I had a little over an hour, so I took the opportunity to meander....

Through the Tuileries...

View of the Place de la Concorde from the Tuileries, all the way down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe

Down to the Louvre....

Then over to the Seine!

Discovered a new bridge...

And walked into the sunset to get to the Eiffel Tower

Got my crepe at the base of Trocadero

No sparkling until 8 (which I couldn't stay for), but all lit up and pretty nonetheless!

Fountains at Trocadero

The day rounded out with a dinner at Laura's in-laws. We spoke French most of the time, and it was comforting to know that most of my hard-earned semi-fluency from last year has remained intact. I've lost some random phrases, but I could fearlessly trundle ahead with less-than-perfect, yet still understandable, French. They also served a really excellent Speculoos cheesecake for dessert!

I spent the rest of my evening babysitting Nootka and Skypeing avec ma mere, then lying in bed until 4am because I forgot to take my sleeping pills. So I slept in past noon today. But I am determined to be up and about earlier tomorrow! You will see.

Au Revoir a Paris

Though I've been back for a month, I still actually have several remaining updates for you. Tonight, I'm feeling strong enough to tackle my last days in Paris. They were significantly harder that I was expecting. Not in terms of getting packed up and to the airport- that actually went swimmingly (for the first time ever!). But actually mentally coming to terms with leaving. I didn't realize until it was winding down how much Paris had come to mean to me. I grew up a lot there. And it's just so darn gorgeous, with so much history and magic.

The second to last night, I was exceptionally melancholy. I went down to the Seine that evening, after cleaning my room and packing all day. I started at Notre Dame, and spent the rest of the night walking over to the Eiffel Tower on the Right Bank. Melancholy really is the best word to use, and it didn't help that it was one of the most ridiculously photogenic nights ever created.

Take a look. None of these have had their coloring altered in any way, btw.

*whimper*

Things perked up significantly on my last full day, however. Because of all the time spent packing and cleaning on Thursday, I was able to spend my last Friday in Paris enjoying Paris. I could have gone on a mad sprint around to all of my favorite haunts on last time, but I opted for the slow and localized. I could only have one destination: le tour Eiffel.

I went to my boulangerie (the best bread in Paris), and picked up une tradition (better than a standard baguette), then to my local supermarche for the best goat cheese and an icy Limonata (my drink indulgence of choice. For normal people, insert your favorite wine when you imagine this scenario). Yes, there are supermarches and boulangeries near the Eiffel Tower, and they have very good products. But I needed my baguette for my last day. And I had me a picnic lunch under the Eiffel Tower.

Lunch with a view!

Then, I did something that I never planned on doing. I blame my father- he talked me into it.

I climbed the Eiffel Tower. 

And, incredibly foolishly, I actually did the first leg of it via the stairs.

Now, for many, this would not be a foolish move. In fact, the line is significantly shorter, and the fare cheaper. These are what got me to forget my Blinding Fear of Heights, which is always further exacerbated by Scary- Usually Open- Stairs, up until I was handing my ticket to the guys. The bright side of being so utterly terrified on the way up was that my adrenaline kept me from realizing exactly how fast I had powered up exactly how many stairs, so I didn't realize how hard my heart was pounding until I had been on the first level for several minutes.

I wised up and paid to upgrade to an elevator pass for the ride to the second level, and just plain ruled out the ride to the third level. Ain't never gonna happen.

My first view upon creeping to the edge of the first level

My general thoughts on being that high up

Trocadero from high up!

Contrary to popular conception, the Eiffel Tower is not, in fact, grey.

Trocadero from even higher up!! I get dizzy just looking at this picture...

I live roughly a smidgen to the left of the ginormous black thing

That evening, I went to Trocadero. I stayed for the first sparkling of the evening, at 10pm. At that point, I turned to leave. I got about 10 feet, then turned around to look. Looked for 5-10 minutes. Okay, now it's really time to go. Got maybe 25 feet, dodging a pushy vendor. Turned to look and get another picture. 15 minutes later, still standing there, I gave in and called my mom. 

[Not-So-Quick phone explanation: Upon arriving in Paris, we were all required to buy French cell phones. And, obviously, minutes for said phones. We were fed horror story upon horror story of how ridiculously expensive minutes are in France, how you should only ever text so you don't run out of minutes within the first week, etc. etc. So I bought the 50-euro plan. This got me 50 euro worth of minutes, plus an extra 15 minutes! 50 is the first level at which you get the bonus minutes. So I go about my semester, texting away. I even did some out-of-country texting when I was in Scotland and Greece. The last week, I finally figure out how to check on my balance. Turns out I have 5 days to use up, wait for it: 51.45 euros worth of minutes. I think they may have overstated how much coverage costs in Paris. So, I got to call home a couple of times! Terribly exciting =D]

She made the very obvious and clever point that I didn't have to leave. I could stay for as many hours as I deemed necessary! I could sleep on the plane the next day. So I hung around at Trocadero for over two hours. There was even some sort of figure roller skating world championship going on at the base, which made for some good between-sparklings entertainment. Thanks, Mommy!

Amazingly, none of these pictures come anywhere near to capturing the extreme dark grey-blue of the clouds, and the incredible contrast it made with the Eiffel Tower

For whatever reason, I really love the image of traffic roaring past the Eiffel Tower. I got a dozen versions of this picture each time I went at night. 

10pm sparkling

11pm sparkling

My final morning went very smoothly. I was able to pack up and leave without any difficulty. I was at the airport nice and early (aided by my wonderful friend and foyer-mate Vanessa, who helped my wheel my two gigantic suitcases to the RER station). And though it didn't thrill me to leave, I was able to instead look forward to Iceland and being home, rather than mope (too much). 

There was a nice symmetry to my arrival in Paris and my departure that helped me see how far I came in just four and a half months. It was rainy, I came in on the RER and I made sure to leave via RER. I wore my leopard print trench coat. But this time, I could speak to people. I knew which stops to get on and off at. I knew how to deal with the weirdos in the stations. 

I am so incredibly grateful for my time in Paris. I learned so much about the world and myself. I do find myself missing it frequently, even as I immerse myself in all of the things I missed about home and the USA. I'll be back with a few final updates (I still haven't shown you all of the gorgeous gardens at Giverny!), and of course, check back anytime you hear that I am jet-setting again!