J’ai été bien accueilli a Paris et Tours tous les deux.
I’m not sure if that was a very grammatical sentence, but I was well-welcomed into both Paris and Tours. My “famille d’acccueil”, or host family, has especially been very welcoming and nice. And what an adventurous welcome, to be in Europe!
But first, to recap some of what went on before Paris and Tours. I must apologize, for I fear that this will be yet another super-long blog entry. I guess that’s what happens when you spend a phenomenal few days without the internet or any electronic media to commemorate your adventures with. But hopefully it will be somewhat interesting, or at least amusing, and not me just blathering on and on. In retrospect, perhaps the entry title should have been the French word for “whirlwind”, because that’s what these past few days have been like. A whirlwind of adventures! Adventures plural, most certainly.
On Thursday, our last day in London (it was scary how fast it all went by—there’s way too much to see in London for the amount of time we spent there), we spent the morning by visiting post offices, bookstores, and walking to the meridian line. It was quite a hike through a very pretty park (the royal parks, I think?), but it was worth it. We actually didn’t get to see the meridian line as demarcated (and do the very touristy but oh-so-funny trick of standing in two hemispheres at the same time) because it seemed like every school group in Britain, plus a few from France and Germany, had all decided that they wanted to see the meridian line too, so the queues (yay British vocabulary!) were atrocious. It was a little disappointing, but we made up for it by going to the free (and slightly less busy) planetarium adjacent to it, had fun with some children’s science exhibits and touched the oldest thing we will ever touch—a 4.5 billion year old meteorite! It was pretty nifty. We spent the rest of the morning exploring Greenwich, walking over the royal parks, discovering old historical buildings and roadside daisy fields, once more getting distracted by pretty buildings, bookstores, little shops, and churches. Greenwich is quite an interesting neighborhood in London, sort of out-of-the way of major things, but I thought it was peaceful and very cool.
Touching the oldest thing they will ever touch. Ever.
Greenwich!!!
Stereotypical tourist picture of phone booths. They weren't quite as glamourous on the inside as one would suppose.
After lunch (once more at Noodle Time, our favorite British Asian restaurant) we went to St. Pancras International train station for our Eurostar train to Paris. We had a small missing ticket scare amongst our group but it was quickly resolved. I didn’t realize that you had to go through as much security to get on big trains as you have to do in airports (I got my backpack searched—again—and I think the British are far more thorough in searching than the TSA), but it makes sense, I suppose. The train ride itself was smooth and sort of uneventful (I wish there was a sign “You are now under the English Channel!”), and once we got out of the station at Paris Nord, it was like we had entered another world.
First Impression of Paris #1: “Oh my goodness, there are tons of people speaking French! This is so cool!”
First Impression of Paris #2: Parisians, in general, appear to dress more like Americans. Or at least like stylish/hipster Americans. And less like the super-dapper-not-a-hair-out-of-place-perfectly-put-together British business people. At any rate, it made us feel less underdressed. Mark described them as having a sort of languid intensity about them, and practically everyone seems to be channeling a sort of “starving artist chic” look about them. It’s quite interesting.
First Impression of Paris #3: London is a well-toileted city, and very politely concerned with public safety. Paris is decidedly not. There are many fewer public restrooms (and those that exist tend to cost money), as well as water fountains, and only on one or two Metro stations did we hear the French equivalent of “Mind the gap”. The British had such signs almost in excess.
First Impression of Paris #4: There is a lot more graffiti in Paris than in London. Though it is generally very interesting and artistic graffiti. And much more people smoke.
First Impression of Paris #5: The French do not appear to believe in escalators. At least not in large quantities. I don’t think I would have discovered this if our major connecting station between the train station and the hostel hadn’t been closed for construction and we were forced to take a more circuitous route. You will never fully appreciate escalators until you have to drag all of your luggage up and down multiple flights of stairs at multiple metro stations across Paris. Key Travel Tip: Pack lightly, ye wayfarers. On the bright side, I managed, and no one almost pushed me down an escalator! It must have been practice in high school lugging bell cases up and down several flights of stairs, hahaha.
First Impression of Paris #6: In general, the Parisians (contrary to popular American opinion) are very nice. When we got out of the Metro station at St. Paul and had absolutely no idea where we were going, looking very lost with our directions and our luggage, a woman out of nowhere came up and asked us “Vous cherchez l’auberge de jeunesse?” (“You’re looking for the youth hostel?”) and when we said yes, gave us directions. And I’ve seen several Parisians, when they see a struggling tourist, step in to help with directions and other aid. Without even being asked. Everyone we asked for directions was exceedingly nice, and no one treated us like ignorant tourists.
First Impression of Paris #7: Practically everyone speaks English. Or so it seemed. It was almost kind of sad, really. Whenever we went somewhere and a Parisian asked if we spoke French and we responded “Un peu” (a little), he or she almost always automatically reverted to English. I suppose when tourists typically reply “un peu” they tend to really mean “très très très peu”, but still. We would have liked to practice our French skills more. We also had several amusing experiences where we would ask questions of people in French (feeling very proud of ourselves for our flawless, mentally-practiced grammar) who turned out to be tourists too. Oops.
First Impression of Paris #8: Edith Piaf music and accordions are everywhere. This is very splendid.
First Impression of Paris #9: I never, ever, ever want to drive in Paris. It seems like a nightmare. It’s a wonder we pedestrians didn’t get hit by a bus, especially since several roads for cars look like cobblestone pedestrian-only streets. And it didn’t help that we had just conditioned ourselves to look right instead of left first when crossing the street, since we had just come from London. But we miraculously survived, haha.
First Impression of Paris #10: Paris is AMAZING!!! (I feel like this one should have been at the top of the list, but oh well. It was amazing. Really really amazing. Overwhelming, at times, but amazing.)
When we finally got to our hostel, and had dinner and settled down, we walked around the Marais (the district we were staying in, the Old Jewish quarter of Paris) a lot, just absorbing the fact that we were in Paris (it was surreal), visiting the Seine and Notre Dame. And over the next two days we discovered that, like London, it was impossible to do all of Paris in two days. It’s probably impossible to do all of Paris in two months. It’s huge. And it seems like every inch is inundated with something historically important, every little detail has some sort of significance. We only did a very tiny fraction of what there is to do in Paris.
Notre Dame
Us, on the banks of the Seine. If we look exhausted, it's because we were.
On Friday, we walked down the Champs-Elysées (awesome) to the Arc de Triomphe (equally awesome). It’s hard to fathom how big things are until you’re actually there—it was amazing. All the sculptures, all the plaques, all the monumental things. We had lunch back in the Marais for under 5 euros (proving that it can be done!), and then Chance and I went off to Père Lachaise. We proved that it is more than possible to spend four hours in a cemetery. It may sound kind of morbid, but it was really, really cool. Very fascinating, to see all the graves of the famous people (we found Balzac, Proust, Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Chopin, and several others) as well as all of the very powerful Holocaust memorials. And we probably met some of the nicest people in Paris at Père Lachaise, a sweet Belorussian woman who we found while questing for Jim Morrison, and two really nice American foreign exchange students like ourselves, studying at les Sciences Po (the university for political science, which I’m not sure I spelled correctly), and we toured the rest of the cemetery with them. It was huge! We walked around (a lot) and went to an evening service at Notre Dame (which was extraordinarily beautiful), had dinner at the hostel (and got yelled at in French by a cafeteria worker, because apparently there was a schedule for groups, which no one had informed us of), and went on a nighttime river cruise tour of the Seine, seeing all sorts of landmarks, including the super-famous Eiffel Tower. It was so amazing at night, so beautiful, all lit up and sparkling. We wandered around the district for a while and found a restaurant that was still open, and had very delicious (but slightly expensive) crêpes. It was awesome.
Arc de Triomphe
Oscar Wilde has many admirers.
The Eiffel Tower!
Crepe Citron. Translation=Delicious.
On Saturday, Basil, Mark and I went to Montmartre (which has probably become my favorite Parisian district so far), touring Sacre Coeur and walking around the top of the dome for a panoramic view of Paris. It was breathtaking, and well worth the 6 euros and 300-stair climb. (By the end of France, we will all have calves of steel.) I don’t think you really realize how big Paris is until you see it from a high vantage point, and notice that it stretches in all directions. We walked around Montmartre for a little bit, and had lunch from street vendors (the very healthy combination of Basil’s “huge piece of bread”, pralines—which are different from Charleston pralines—and something called gateau Breton, which is delicious), and just absorbed the scenery. We didn’t find the Moulin Rouge (though we found another windmill), but I think I’m going to further explore this artsy district when we come back. Mark and I then went to the Louvre, which was phenomenal. The Louvre should be synonymous for sensory overload; it’s impossible to see everything. We went through the Italian painters and Northern School and the small collection of Native American/Oceania art (they have an Easter Island head!) in two and a half hours, and that was skimming through some sections. It was exhausting but wonderful.
A sign in Montmartre, the very artsy district in Paris.
Sacre Coeur, an amazing Basilica.
The view from the top of Sacre Coeur--or at least, one of many views of the city.
In the evening we left Paris for Tours by the TGV. I think we were all a little nervous to meet our host families, scared that we would make a bad impression. My host family is wonderful. Très gentille, and very welcoming. They’re very friendly and are always encouraging to make myself feel at home. I’m a little afraid my shyness and lack of language skills might seem standoffish, but they’ve had multiple foreign exchange students before and seem very understanding and approachable. They live in an apartment that was some sort of building built in the 18th century (if I understood them properly), and it’s very adorable. My host mother (is that even the proper term? Hmm) and her daughter took me to see the Institut de Touraine today, where I’ll be studying for the next four weeks, and we sat in a little café at the Place de Plumerot for awhile and talked. It was very nice. I explored Tours a little today on foot, but it’s unseasonably hot outside so I abandoned that endeavor to finish writing this post. Tours is so lovely! I can’t wait to look around further, and I’m even more excited for when I’ll be able to walk around as more of a local, and less of a tourist.
My French is very rusty, since most of the classes I've had in high school focused on writing and literature. I'm pretty sure the word I've used the most with my host family is "d'accord", which will hopefully soon change, haha. When people talk to me, I can for the most part understand them very well, but it's hard to understand conversations I overhear unless I listen very, very closely. C'est difficile. But hopefully it will get better.
I'm sorry this is mostly text and not many pictures, but it takes forever and a day for the pictures to load. Oh well.
Ciao! :)
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