Paris 3: Beyond the City of Lights
HAHAHAHA when I thought of that terrible title on a whim, it was so damn cheesy that I just had to use it! I should go work for a travel book company! XD
Here we go, kids! ^_~
So I've been writing about everything I did in Paris, but I got to see a little bit outside of Paris too. My first weekend there, Sarah A. and I took a trip North to Normandy to visit her friend Carley, who was living in a little village for a year, teaching English at a French high school. We took a drive along the Normandy coastline that weekend with Carley, her roommate, and a friend of theirs from their village. It was very very different from Paris--obviously! It was countryside and little villages, and wide open blue skies and fields. Very beautiful, and still riddled with WWII history: we saw old army bunkers and bombed out buildings left to stand--whether in memory or as a reminder, I wasn't sure. And there were perfectly round ditches peppering the hills in some areas. Carley said they were from where bombs had dropped and exploded, taking scoops from the ground and even decades later--hadn't filled in. It was eery... We also had a shrieking good time walking as close to the English Channel as we dared--it was so windy there that I swear you traveled a couple feet sideways if you jumped into the air! There was so much wind, it was hard to breathe--which wasn't good for me because I was in the midst of a cold. Being on the coastline gave new meaning to the expression 'get the wind knocked out of you.' ><;;
And I suppose Giverny counts as outside Paris--it is outside Paris--it's just not very far outside Paris (50 miles or so), but I'll write about that, too. :) The only reason that Giverny is on the map, so to speak, is thanks to dear old Claud Monet--and about a bajillion tourists who have now officially turned Giverny into a Tourist Attraction, for better or worse. That is because Giverny is the charming little village that holds not just Monet's house, but the gardens that are the subject of so many of his paintings. That would be the garden with the waterlily pond and that famous green Japanese bridge.
Now, you know that when a little sidewalk has been built leading into the village, made especially for tourists--you are in Tourist Town. Luckily, it was early spring when Sarah A. and I went, and it was enjoyably NOT crawling with tourists. That's probably because Monet's garden was far from being in full bloom--like in his paintings. But it was fun to walk around the garden and eat lunch (we seriously made lunch last 4 hours XD) and take lots and lots of pretty pictures. It was early april, and already the garden was lush with greenery and lil budding flowers. I imagine that coming in summer, when the waterlilies are grown (zero waterlilies in April sadly :( )and all the swooping flower 'arches' you can walk under have bloomed--it would be breathtakingly beautiful. Unfortunately, that's peak time for people to visit, so it also must be packed--and I don't think that would be so enjoyable. Seeing Monet's Garden is not a French pasttime apparantly either--Sarah A. said she never heard so many American accents in one place since she left Michigan! ^^;;
The Palace of Versailles also isn't technically in Paris--heck, the king of France deliberately moved to Versailles in the mid 1600s to get away from Paris. And he (and a bunch of kings after him) did just that for about 100 years--until this lil thing called the French Revolution changed things up a bit for the French nobility. I don't have tons to write about Versailles--it was of course impressive, but it's uninteresting to talk about. It was massive and gold and rich looking--inside and outside. The gardens had pristinely cut vegetation, and fountains and statues of Roman gods and goddesses magestically posed all over the place. I cannot imagine living there. I cannot imagine living like that. o_O
My favorite part of seeing Versailles was seeing the surreal little hamlet that Marie-Antoinette built so that she could run away from her 'royal duties' and play Shepardess in the Countryside. I am not making this up. There really is a mini village on the Versailles grounds. It looks like something out of a storybook, too. O_O Think of Disney Amusement Park Perfect Village Look. Because dear M.A. didn't want the grim reality of what it's really like being a shepardess in a country village. She wanted to play dress-up! <33 (I'm being extremely sarcastic with those hearts.) I believe she also had other people doing all the actual work, and she just supervised. 9_9 But Marie-Antoinette loved the simple country life, and even had her own little farmhouse. And she was really roughing it because her house only had a billiard room, library, and dining hall. T_T
So there you have it! My trip to Paris was very good. And now I am in fantastic walking shape (I feel like I hiked for two straight weeks, and I probably did O_O), artistically cultured, and happy as a clam because I got to eat yummy French food...like pastries. Daily.
Oooooooops... ^________^;; <--me, fat 'n happy from pastries. It was totally worth it, and though pastries don't travel well, I was able to bring some chocolate home for my family. My mom says she will gladly pay for my plane ticket back to France if I bring her more chocolate souveniers. ^_~
The food really was amazing--I loved looking in all the 'bolaugerie' (bakery) and 'patisserie' (pastry shop) windows--and just marveling at those incredibly crafted breads and desserts. It was a feast for the eyes, and I sometimes took pictures because this cake or that pastry puff was so pretty. ^^ I'd like to say that I took more pictures of desserts etc than actually eating them--but I had a fair amount of sweets! Still, I don't regret it once because they were always delicious! My last day in Paris I went to the cuuuuuutest pastry shop with Sarah A. and ate a piece of strawberries and cream 'gateau' ('gat-toe')--also known as cake. Not that this was ordinary cake with it's layers of strawberry creamy goodness! :D~ Sarah A. and I ate our gateaux (pronounced the same way, the 'x' just means it's plural ^^) in the little courtyard outside Saint Germain de Pres--the oldest church in Paris. It was a very satisfying last pastry, and a pleasant surrounding to be in to boot.^^
But as sappy as this sounds, the best part of going to Paris was getting to see Sarah A. and seeing it with her! <333 I missed visiting with her, and my best memories of that trip are simple things like eating baguettes in a park and talking about...everything. As happy as I am to get into JET, I'm not sure the next time I'll see her--since I fly out August 5th, and she flies in August 16th. :( I have no idea if Japanese school trimesters allow for visits home, like during the holidays--or hell, if I'll have to money to do so. Ohhhh well, I just told her to COME VISIT ME when I'm in Japan. ^_^ Hopefully it will all work out in the end. :)
Here we go, kids! ^_~
So I've been writing about everything I did in Paris, but I got to see a little bit outside of Paris too. My first weekend there, Sarah A. and I took a trip North to Normandy to visit her friend Carley, who was living in a little village for a year, teaching English at a French high school. We took a drive along the Normandy coastline that weekend with Carley, her roommate, and a friend of theirs from their village. It was very very different from Paris--obviously! It was countryside and little villages, and wide open blue skies and fields. Very beautiful, and still riddled with WWII history: we saw old army bunkers and bombed out buildings left to stand--whether in memory or as a reminder, I wasn't sure. And there were perfectly round ditches peppering the hills in some areas. Carley said they were from where bombs had dropped and exploded, taking scoops from the ground and even decades later--hadn't filled in. It was eery... We also had a shrieking good time walking as close to the English Channel as we dared--it was so windy there that I swear you traveled a couple feet sideways if you jumped into the air! There was so much wind, it was hard to breathe--which wasn't good for me because I was in the midst of a cold. Being on the coastline gave new meaning to the expression 'get the wind knocked out of you.' ><;;
And I suppose Giverny counts as outside Paris--it is outside Paris--it's just not very far outside Paris (50 miles or so), but I'll write about that, too. :) The only reason that Giverny is on the map, so to speak, is thanks to dear old Claud Monet--and about a bajillion tourists who have now officially turned Giverny into a Tourist Attraction, for better or worse. That is because Giverny is the charming little village that holds not just Monet's house, but the gardens that are the subject of so many of his paintings. That would be the garden with the waterlily pond and that famous green Japanese bridge.
Now, you know that when a little sidewalk has been built leading into the village, made especially for tourists--you are in Tourist Town. Luckily, it was early spring when Sarah A. and I went, and it was enjoyably NOT crawling with tourists. That's probably because Monet's garden was far from being in full bloom--like in his paintings. But it was fun to walk around the garden and eat lunch (we seriously made lunch last 4 hours XD) and take lots and lots of pretty pictures. It was early april, and already the garden was lush with greenery and lil budding flowers. I imagine that coming in summer, when the waterlilies are grown (zero waterlilies in April sadly :( )and all the swooping flower 'arches' you can walk under have bloomed--it would be breathtakingly beautiful. Unfortunately, that's peak time for people to visit, so it also must be packed--and I don't think that would be so enjoyable. Seeing Monet's Garden is not a French pasttime apparantly either--Sarah A. said she never heard so many American accents in one place since she left Michigan! ^^;;
The Palace of Versailles also isn't technically in Paris--heck, the king of France deliberately moved to Versailles in the mid 1600s to get away from Paris. And he (and a bunch of kings after him) did just that for about 100 years--until this lil thing called the French Revolution changed things up a bit for the French nobility. I don't have tons to write about Versailles--it was of course impressive, but it's uninteresting to talk about. It was massive and gold and rich looking--inside and outside. The gardens had pristinely cut vegetation, and fountains and statues of Roman gods and goddesses magestically posed all over the place. I cannot imagine living there. I cannot imagine living like that. o_O
My favorite part of seeing Versailles was seeing the surreal little hamlet that Marie-Antoinette built so that she could run away from her 'royal duties' and play Shepardess in the Countryside. I am not making this up. There really is a mini village on the Versailles grounds. It looks like something out of a storybook, too. O_O Think of Disney Amusement Park Perfect Village Look. Because dear M.A. didn't want the grim reality of what it's really like being a shepardess in a country village. She wanted to play dress-up! <33 (I'm being extremely sarcastic with those hearts.) I believe she also had other people doing all the actual work, and she just supervised. 9_9 But Marie-Antoinette loved the simple country life, and even had her own little farmhouse. And she was really roughing it because her house only had a billiard room, library, and dining hall. T_T
So there you have it! My trip to Paris was very good. And now I am in fantastic walking shape (I feel like I hiked for two straight weeks, and I probably did O_O), artistically cultured, and happy as a clam because I got to eat yummy French food...like pastries. Daily.
Oooooooops... ^________^;; <--me, fat 'n happy from pastries. It was totally worth it, and though pastries don't travel well, I was able to bring some chocolate home for my family. My mom says she will gladly pay for my plane ticket back to France if I bring her more chocolate souveniers. ^_~
The food really was amazing--I loved looking in all the 'bolaugerie' (bakery) and 'patisserie' (pastry shop) windows--and just marveling at those incredibly crafted breads and desserts. It was a feast for the eyes, and I sometimes took pictures because this cake or that pastry puff was so pretty. ^^ I'd like to say that I took more pictures of desserts etc than actually eating them--but I had a fair amount of sweets! Still, I don't regret it once because they were always delicious! My last day in Paris I went to the cuuuuuutest pastry shop with Sarah A. and ate a piece of strawberries and cream 'gateau' ('gat-toe')--also known as cake. Not that this was ordinary cake with it's layers of strawberry creamy goodness! :D~ Sarah A. and I ate our gateaux (pronounced the same way, the 'x' just means it's plural ^^) in the little courtyard outside Saint Germain de Pres--the oldest church in Paris. It was a very satisfying last pastry, and a pleasant surrounding to be in to boot.^^
But as sappy as this sounds, the best part of going to Paris was getting to see Sarah A. and seeing it with her! <333 I missed visiting with her, and my best memories of that trip are simple things like eating baguettes in a park and talking about...everything. As happy as I am to get into JET, I'm not sure the next time I'll see her--since I fly out August 5th, and she flies in August 16th. :( I have no idea if Japanese school trimesters allow for visits home, like during the holidays--or hell, if I'll have to money to do so. Ohhhh well, I just told her to COME VISIT ME when I'm in Japan. ^_^ Hopefully it will all work out in the end. :)