Bonjour! So this has officially been my longest gap of blogging about my weekend trips. For one, I'm now 20. This does not entail that I have been a little hermit crowding my room, but rather I have been extremely busy and entirely consumed with the weekday activities most collegiate students near finals must get through. As you can see, I have not actually posted about my past three weekends but rather I've only posted class assignments and a holcad article. Apologies especially to my family back home. I know you're eager to read about my latest stories and I will try to get them to you one story at a time as quickly as possible.
So take yourselves back to the second weekend of November. Novemer 12, the eve of my Friday-the-13th birthday, to be exact. Miles, Alyssa, and I flew EasyJet to Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris France. It is here that I got to truly test my three years of high school French and my 1 semester of 201 level French. In class, I had never received less than an A-. However, I hardly felt like the straight-A student I had become known as when I was thrown into the French native speaking city of Paris. Throughout the weekend, I was essentially the spokesperson of our groups as everyone else was either a spanish or latin student (or in alyssa's case, italian). It was fairly easy enough to start conversation:
"Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?"
However, if they spoke back in French, all I heard was a blur of French where I only picked up a couple words at a time. Anyway, after checking into our hostel in Montmarte, we dec
ided to get a headstart on the rest of the WC students who were coming to Paris on Friday. Around 11pm we found a nice looking little restaurant called La restaurant d'Albert. It is here that we had the most delicious salmon pasta ever. Much to my surprise, Alyssa secretly mentioned to our wonderful French waitress that it was my birthday and maybe they could stick a candle in my creme de caramel. Oblivious to this all, I was surprised when the TV shut off and all the lights dimmed. The restaurant was already fairly empty but suddenly this very joyful rendition of "Happy Birthday" began playing on the loudspeakers...Out comes the waiting staff bringing my creme de caramel - with an enormous sparkler that looked like it belonged more in a fireworks show than on my French dessert. A wonderful phone call from my family wishing me a happy birthday concluded my night as we all prepared for our big weekend.
Friday was the first day of our tour with International Friends. We checked into the 3-star tourgroup hotel early and, since we had a couple hours to kill, Miles and I stumbled upon
this tall building near our hotel with grass growing out of its walls. We explored the inside and actually found that it was the host venue for the Paris Masters tennis tournament. Seeing the eventual tournament winner Novak Djokovic was winning convincingly, Miles and I decided to purchase tickets for the very next match featuring the World #2 Rafael Nadal versus #9 Tsonga of France. I have never witnessed tennis at any level higher than my high school friends played. The match itself was quite an enjoyment with hard-hitting serves and incredible returns. The speed of the game is much quicker than it looks on TV. After watching the first set, Miles and I had to go meet our tour group.
Friday's part of the tour featured a nice little bus ride to the world famous Eiffel Tower. It is here that our group, led by Tony - the short bald British man, boarded our cruise boat on the river Seine. From our tour boat, we got a wonderful view of Paris. Needless to say, It was quite a highlight to an already eventful birthday. Our busride home we met some new friends, Olga and Derek, who we eventually went out to dinner with that evening where I got to taste duck fois gras.
Saturday began our full day of guided sightseeing. We headed into the historic district of Montmarte and got to visit the world-famous eglise de Sacre Coeur, or, the church of the Sacred Heart. To date, this is my favorite cathedral I've visited. The Sacre Coeur's placement on th
e high point overlooking Paris with nothing but the sky behind it can only cause one to gap in awe. Its Byzantine style or curves and points with the white facade are especially pleasing to the eye. After climbing the stairs up to it, we explored the equally beautiful interior of the church. A few of us decided to continue our exploration and we decided to climb to the very top of the Sacre Coeur (which involved several hundred winding steps) to get the best view of the entirety of Paris. It is here that our tour group actually left us WC students atop the Sacre Coeur. However we were not complaining because we decided that enjoying our time was more fun.
We eventually met up with our tour group after lunch where we continued onto Notre Dame. This cathedral is not only the namesake of a prestigious university and the home to a hunchback named Quasimodo, this cathedral was France's finest example of gothic architecture. With its flying buttresses and gargoyles, and overall forboding presence, Notre Dame was quite an impressive building. How they built such a building still beats me but the this cathedral actually makes my top-3 list of favorites. The inside was absolutely massive. with it's multiple archways and incredible stain glass windows, Notre Dame must be able to hold several thousand in one service.
After visiting Notre Dame, many of us continued the second half of Saturday's tour to Versailles. Now I honestly did not know much about Versailles except that it was some palace with some gardens and that a treaty was signed here after a world war. What I did not expect was the product of King Louis XIV's lavish spending on himself. The guy actually employed every good French painter for one sole purpose - self portraits. Now I had visited Buckingham Palace a month earlier but even the home of the Queen did not compare to this palace. Room after room was adorned with gold, silver, precious stones, and of course, several life sized paintings of king Louis XIV. The Gardens were equally as impressive with their unique shrubberies , fountains, and gorgeous landscaping.
That evening, my Westminster friends and I all decided to meet at the Eiffel Tower to and climb each and ever step of the way. Nearly our entire WC group was in Paris this weekend so it was here we took our famous group picture. The Eiffel Tower does not need much more explanation except that it was beautiful and worth every step of that intense climb.
Our final day in Paris involved our trip, to, in my opinion, the world's greatest museum -
The Louvre. Now don't get me wrong, London has several fantastic museums, especially the Britis
h Museum. However, the Louvre takes the cake on this one. The place was once a fortress and also a palace and massively enormous doesn't give this place enough credit. The Louvre houses perhaps the most famous painting of all time - The Mona Lisa. It also is filled with dozens of other incredibly famous works of art and achievement. I could honestly spend a week straight in this museum and still not see everything there is to see. However, due to time constraints and an eventual evening flight to catch, we were restricted to only visiting the most well-known exhibits.
At this point, the main tour group departed back home leaving me back with my original group of Miles and Alyssa. From the Louvre, we decided to walk to the Arc de Triumph. Big m
istake. Climbing the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur had taken its toll on our legs. Despite Alyssa's warnings of how far the Arc was from the Louvre, Miles and I were stubborn enough to walk the entire walk down the Champ D'Elysees. Nearing the heart of the city, we got a true feel of how unique Paris is as a city and how it has maintained its look as one of the world's most famous cities. The Arc de Triumph is the world's second biggest arc and simply lies in the center of a huge intersection. Once again, Paris did not cease to impress me with yet another world famous landmark.
From this point, Miles, Alyssa, and I had a few more hours left until we had to depart for
our flight home. Here we had our fun with the Parisian underground system. Unlike London, the French don't actually monitor the gates to get in and out of each station. As a result, we discovered that we could, like many of the locals, hop over or climb under each gateway. With only 1 one-journey ticket, Miles, Alyssa, and I managed to navigate our way through the underground system to Moulin Rouge, and eventually, back to the airport.
All in all, Paris is my favorite city surpassing Venice. If I ever get the chance I would come back in a heartbeat. It was perhaps the most complete visit of a city I've done yet. Seeing the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph, and Moulin Rouge are pretty much things I hope to keep in memory for the rest of my life. Speaking of life, I now need to blog about my weekend trip in the Swiss Alps.
Au Revoir!
So take yourselves back to the second weekend of November. Novemer 12, the eve of my Friday-the-13th birthday, to be exact. Miles, Alyssa, and I flew EasyJet to Charles De Gaulle Airport near Paris France. It is here that I got to truly test my three years of high school French and my 1 semester of 201 level French. In class, I had never received less than an A-. However, I hardly felt like the straight-A student I had become known as when I was thrown into the French native speaking city of Paris. Throughout the weekend, I was essentially the spokesperson of our groups as everyone else was either a spanish or latin student (or in alyssa's case, italian). It was fairly easy enough to start conversation:
"Bonjour, parlez-vous anglais?"
However, if they spoke back in French, all I heard was a blur of French where I only picked up a couple words at a time. Anyway, after checking into our hostel in Montmarte, we dec
ided to get a headstart on the rest of the WC students who were coming to Paris on Friday. Around 11pm we found a nice looking little restaurant called La restaurant d'Albert. It is here that we had the most delicious salmon pasta ever. Much to my surprise, Alyssa secretly mentioned to our wonderful French waitress that it was my birthday and maybe they could stick a candle in my creme de caramel. Oblivious to this all, I was surprised when the TV shut off and all the lights dimmed. The restaurant was already fairly empty but suddenly this very joyful rendition of "Happy Birthday" began playing on the loudspeakers...Out comes the waiting staff bringing my creme de caramel - with an enormous sparkler that looked like it belonged more in a fireworks show than on my French dessert. A wonderful phone call from my family wishing me a happy birthday concluded my night as we all prepared for our big weekend.Friday was the first day of our tour with International Friends. We checked into the 3-star tourgroup hotel early and, since we had a couple hours to kill, Miles and I stumbled upon
this tall building near our hotel with grass growing out of its walls. We explored the inside and actually found that it was the host venue for the Paris Masters tennis tournament. Seeing the eventual tournament winner Novak Djokovic was winning convincingly, Miles and I decided to purchase tickets for the very next match featuring the World #2 Rafael Nadal versus #9 Tsonga of France. I have never witnessed tennis at any level higher than my high school friends played. The match itself was quite an enjoyment with hard-hitting serves and incredible returns. The speed of the game is much quicker than it looks on TV. After watching the first set, Miles and I had to go meet our tour group.
Friday's part of the tour featured a nice little bus ride to the world famous Eiffel Tower. It is here that our group, led by Tony - the short bald British man, boarded our cruise boat on the river Seine. From our tour boat, we got a wonderful view of Paris. Needless to say, It was quite a highlight to an already eventful birthday. Our busride home we met some new friends, Olga and Derek, who we eventually went out to dinner with that evening where I got to taste duck fois gras.
Saturday began our full day of guided sightseeing. We headed into the historic district of Montmarte and got to visit the world-famous eglise de Sacre Coeur, or, the church of the Sacred Heart. To date, this is my favorite cathedral I've visited. The Sacre Coeur's placement on th
e high point overlooking Paris with nothing but the sky behind it can only cause one to gap in awe. Its Byzantine style or curves and points with the white facade are especially pleasing to the eye. After climbing the stairs up to it, we explored the equally beautiful interior of the church. A few of us decided to continue our exploration and we decided to climb to the very top of the Sacre Coeur (which involved several hundred winding steps) to get the best view of the entirety of Paris. It is here that our tour group actually left us WC students atop the Sacre Coeur. However we were not complaining because we decided that enjoying our time was more fun.
We eventually met up with our tour group after lunch where we continued onto Notre Dame. This cathedral is not only the namesake of a prestigious university and the home to a hunchback named Quasimodo, this cathedral was France's finest example of gothic architecture. With its flying buttresses and gargoyles, and overall forboding presence, Notre Dame was quite an impressive building. How they built such a building still beats me but the this cathedral actually makes my top-3 list of favorites. The inside was absolutely massive. with it's multiple archways and incredible stain glass windows, Notre Dame must be able to hold several thousand in one service.
After visiting Notre Dame, many of us continued the second half of Saturday's tour to Versailles. Now I honestly did not know much about Versailles except that it was some palace with some gardens and that a treaty was signed here after a world war. What I did not expect was the product of King Louis XIV's lavish spending on himself. The guy actually employed every good French painter for one sole purpose - self portraits. Now I had visited Buckingham Palace a month earlier but even the home of the Queen did not compare to this palace. Room after room was adorned with gold, silver, precious stones, and of course, several life sized paintings of king Louis XIV. The Gardens were equally as impressive with their unique shrubberies , fountains, and gorgeous landscaping.
That evening, my Westminster friends and I all decided to meet at the Eiffel Tower to and climb each and ever step of the way. Nearly our entire WC group was in Paris this weekend so it was here we took our famous group picture. The Eiffel Tower does not need much more explanation except that it was beautiful and worth every step of that intense climb.
Our final day in Paris involved our trip, to, in my opinion, the world's greatest museum -
The Louvre. Now don't get me wrong, London has several fantastic museums, especially the Britis
h Museum. However, the Louvre takes the cake on this one. The place was once a fortress and also a palace and massively enormous doesn't give this place enough credit. The Louvre houses perhaps the most famous painting of all time - The Mona Lisa. It also is filled with dozens of other incredibly famous works of art and achievement. I could honestly spend a week straight in this museum and still not see everything there is to see. However, due to time constraints and an eventual evening flight to catch, we were restricted to only visiting the most well-known exhibits.At this point, the main tour group departed back home leaving me back with my original group of Miles and Alyssa. From the Louvre, we decided to walk to the Arc de Triumph. Big m
istake. Climbing the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur had taken its toll on our legs. Despite Alyssa's warnings of how far the Arc was from the Louvre, Miles and I were stubborn enough to walk the entire walk down the Champ D'Elysees. Nearing the heart of the city, we got a true feel of how unique Paris is as a city and how it has maintained its look as one of the world's most famous cities. The Arc de Triumph is the world's second biggest arc and simply lies in the center of a huge intersection. Once again, Paris did not cease to impress me with yet another world famous landmark.From this point, Miles, Alyssa, and I had a few more hours left until we had to depart for
our flight home. Here we had our fun with the Parisian underground system. Unlike London, the French don't actually monitor the gates to get in and out of each station. As a result, we discovered that we could, like many of the locals, hop over or climb under each gateway. With only 1 one-journey ticket, Miles, Alyssa, and I managed to navigate our way through the underground system to Moulin Rouge, and eventually, back to the airport.All in all, Paris is my favorite city surpassing Venice. If I ever get the chance I would come back in a heartbeat. It was perhaps the most complete visit of a city I've done yet. Seeing the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Arc de Triumph, and Moulin Rouge are pretty much things I hope to keep in memory for the rest of my life. Speaking of life, I now need to blog about my weekend trip in the Swiss Alps.
Au Revoir!
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