Hannah in the Streets of Paris

As promised in my last post - these are the tales from Paris.

I arrived in Paris on Friday evening, after a surprisingly short plane ride. It is really weird and neat to get on a plane for under two hours and get off to find yourself in a completely different country. Not only that but a country that speaks a different language, has different cultural norms and looks very different from the one you came from. Europe is really quite small.

My aunt met me without too much anxiety on either of our parts, at the airport. This was my first time flying by myself and it was quite successful. I met a nice older man from Glasgow on the plane who made sure I didn't get myself too lost in the Paris airport. He also showed me his passport - it was absolutely crammed with visas and stamps, including one from Mongolia (the end of the Earth as he put it). And he also said that he needs to get a new passport every 18 months or so. I was quite impressed, I want my passport to look like that!

Once I'd successfully found my aunt we headed off into the city on the RER (similar to the Metra in Chicago). My aunt had just arrived in Paris that morning from the states so she was pretty jet-lagged and I was tired from traveling so we didn't venture very far to find dinner. We went to a cafe that was right down the street from our hotel, in the Rue Cler neighborhood of Paris. It was a rather intimidating and overwhelming experience. Neither of us were sure how to order, what the menu (written on a chalkboard) said or what the people around us were talking about. My first impression of Paris cafe life was that the Parisians really do take their smoking and wine drinking quite seriously. Everyone was smoking it seemed like.

At any rate, we ended up both ordering Caesar salads at this cafe. What we ended up with was literally the strangest salad I've ever had. Not like any Caesar salad we'd ever seen. It had: A ton of tandoori chicken, cauliflower, green beans, couscous, something very much like coleslaw, tomato, and maybe three actual pieces of lettuce. Very odd and not that good. We headed back to the hotel after dinner and planned out our weekend until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.

(Above: View from our hotel window which included the Rue Cler neighborhood and the Eiffel Tower)

Saturday morning we went to the market street right down from our hotel to get the ingredients for a picnic. We went to a bakery, a fruit stand, and a cheese store. It was interesting trying to figure out what everything was and order what we wanted. But we managed to gather the ingredients for what ended up being an epic picnic. We walked to the Rodin museum which has an outdoor garden with many of Rodin's sculptures displayed in it and this is where we had our picnic. Along the way we saw Les Invalides, which used to be a hospital. It's a beautiful building. 

Les Invalides

Once we made our way to the Rodin museum we set up our picnic on a lovely bench where we could see not only some of Rodin's sculptures, but also the top of Invalides and the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Aunt Behty, Les Invalides, Rodin sculptures, and the Eiffel Tower (to the left partially hidden by a tree)

Our delicious picnic

Looking towards the Rodin museum (Rodin's former home) through the gardens

Once we had our picnic and enjoyed the view from where we were, we spent quite a while wandering around looking at all the sculptures in the garden.

The Thinker

I'm not sure what this one was titled, but I love the detail in the expression on his face.

From the Rodin museum we wandered in the Saint Germain des pres neighborhood, which reminded me so much of New York City. It was like Times Square, so many people and so many stores. We spent the rest of the day in this area of Paris. One of my favorite things from this neighborhood was definitely the giant chocolate gorilla we saw in a shop window. 

By the time we were heading back to the hotel, we were both so thirsty we were in search of a bottle of water. When we finally found some, it was weird Spearmint flavored water. Very odd, but left you with minty fresh breath. We took the RER back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening studying maps and trying to decide how to spend my last full day in Paris.

Sunday was our busy busy day. We got up early in the morning and had breakfast at the hotel:

Then we headed off to the Eiffel Tower, as I had only ever seen the top of it from the times that we were in and around the hotel. It was a lot bigger than I had imagined it being, and very neat architecturally. 

Then we took the RER to the neighborhood around the Louvre and wandered around there before heading into the Louvre. I have to say, the Louvre was even more stunning than I had heard. I had only a vague idea of what it looked like on the outside. But really the entire building is a work of art, with many many works of art inside. The most beautiful art museum I have ever been in without a doubt. 

These are a few of my favorite things that we saw while we were there. I took so many pictures, but I will narrow it down to my favorites! It's true what people say, you really could spend days and days in the Louvre and never see the whole thing.

The Winged Victory

The Mona Lisa and I

The vegetable people (can't remember what this series was actually called)

This is a painting that was on the cover of one of textbooks last year, it was very cool to see it in the Louvre and recognize it.

Psyche and Cupid - another piece I discussed at some point last year in one of my classes, also very cool to see in person

Venus de Milo (and her many admirers)

This was one of the paintings that I just really enjoyed looking at, it has such a ghostly feeling to.

The Louvre itself was a work of art. The ceilings especially were absolutely amazing to look at.

Sorry for all the ceiling pictures. I just found it absolutely breathtaking. 

Anyway after spending many hours in the Louvre, our next stop was Notre Dame. Along the way we went over the oldest bridge in Paris, called Pont Neuf (which ironically means 'New Bridge' in French).

 Aunt Behty and I both in front of Pont Neuf.

View of the Seine from Pont Neuf

We got to Notre Dame while it was still light outside.

When we got inside it was right about the time the Sunday evening service was about to start, so we decided to stay and hear part of it. The music blew me away, and despite the fact that I'm not a religious person, the pageantry and ceremony (as well as the music) was all very interesting. Since this is Notre Dame they had what my Aunt and I thought was a bishop performing the service. They did the whole processional shebang with the giant gold cross, the swinging incense and so on. 

Inside of Notre Dame

By the time we left it was dark outside, and we got to see Notre Dame all lit up:

Then we headed back to the neighborhood where our hotel was. When we got off the RER everything was sparkling (there were lights everywhere) including the Eiffel Tower:

Rue Cler

 We had a truly delicious dinner at a different Cafe near our hotel. We also passed a Macaron store, I took a picture of the display window just because it was so colorful and pretty. 

 

Monday morning I set off bright and early back to Scotland. I had an excellent time in Paris, but when I got back to Aberdeen my reaction was - hallelujah sheep!! People who speak English! Home! It really made me appreciate 1.) how glad I am that I am studying abroad in a country where they speak English 2.) how comfortable I've become in Aberdeen 3.) that I like sheep.

The other thing that I happened in Paris (and partially Aberdeen and Edinburgh over the past month or so) is that my shoes are being eaten. While I was in Paris the boots I bought last month basically fell apart. It was very sad. The first thing I had to do when I got back to Aberdeen was go shopping for new boots and new walking shoes. My walking shoes have steadily been eaten by the cobblestone roads and the climbing I did while in Edinburgh last month. Hopefully these new boots and shoes will last me through the rest of study abroad! 

In the next post, which I intend on writing right now, there will be a silly little project that I suggested (and my aunt very nicely played along with) while we were in Paris - I call it the Baguette Project!