Paris Journal...
For class I had to write a journal of my trip to Paris. It is a good recount of everything I did, with very little censoring. I'm posting it for your reading enjoyment:
One of the things that I have wanted to do my whole life is travel. My number one destination? Paris! I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to go to Paris practically thrown at me. As soon as I found out about the trip I did all that I could to make sure I got there. By signing up for the trip I was enrolled in a weekly course designed to acquaint us with Parisian history, architecture, and even how to get around using public transportation. Although I do not know much French at all, I was fairly confident that I would have a great time in Paris and somehow manage to not get lost.
As the trip date approached, I could still not even believe that I was actually going. In fact, it did not even hit me that I was IN Paris until the moment I stood beneath the Eiffel Tower- something I had dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember.
Flying overseas made me extremely nervous, but once we were in the air I found that I could easily forget about it. I was even a bit upset that I did not have a window seat so I could look down at the clouds. When we landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport I had been awake for nearly fifteen hours and it was only eight in the morning there! I was pretty sure I was not going to stay awake the whole day, but the excitement of everything around me kept me wide awake!
The first places we visited were the Sorbonne and the Panthéon. The Panthéon was pretty amazing. The Foucault Pendulum hanging from the center dome along with the burial places of Rousseau and Voltaire in the crypt were pleasant surprises for my first hours in Paris. After we left the Panthéon, the group split up for lunch. I tried a monsieur sandwich and a café olé. Both were good, but after that meal I mostly stuck to Italian restaurants as I am an extremely picky eater.
Later on in the day we went to Centre Pompidou which was very interesting to see in person. An “inside-out” building is not something you see everyday, but perhaps the most impressive part of the building was the view of the city from the top. My first view of the entire city. When we left Pompidou, we wandered around the city and saw some great examples of Baron Haussmann’s remodeling of the city back in the 1800s. After getting acquainted with the city all day it was time for relaxing. I had a friend from home who happened to be studying in Paris at the time of our visit, so she came over and we had a few glasses of wine while we caught up on lost time.
The next day, we went to the Palais Royal which seemed to be a great example of the corruption in religion at the time. New additions of pillars in one of the courtyard were an interesting example of the art nouveau which has some interesting touches throughout the city. Next stop was the Opera Garnier which was very impressive! The center staircase leading up to the theatre were gorgeously adorned with tons of marble and wood engraved figures, lit up with chandeliers and filled with art students eager to replicate the beauty on their sketchpads. I was fascinated by the entire building, but my favorite part was the library wing that had miniature diorama’s of set designs for some of the shows that have been shown there. After taking a break to shop and eat lunch we headed to the Madeleine. It was modeled after a Greek temple which was so interesting.
When we left the Madeleine, we began walking toward the Seine and found ourselves at Place de la Concorde. We had great views of the Louvre, the Madeleine, Palais Bourbon, and the Arc de Triomphe from here. Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower! I was so excited to go. I remember coming out of the metro station and just looking up and seeing the tower. It was beautiful. Finally I had fulfilled my dream. As I stood in the shadow of this huge tower I was in such awe that I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. Although I decided not to go up the tower, I got a sufficient amount of pictures of it from the ground and being there is definitely something that I will remember for a long time. It took awhile to drag me away from the tower (I think we eventually left because the rain got worse, actually), but after we left we trekked to the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately, something was going on and there were police who were not letting people go over to the arc, but that was okay with me. It had been a long day so far.
After those adventures, I briefly relaxed at the hotel before going to meet my friend, Rebecca, at the hand/face stone sculpture at Les Halles. This was yet another example of the randomness of Paris that I simply adored. We grabbed a quick meal nearby and then hopped on the RER over to La Defense where Rebecca was staying. I wanted to see the Grand Arche so that’s where we went. Since it was dark out by now, the whole arch was lit up and was absolutely fascinating to look at. I loved how it was right in line with the Arc de Triomphe. As we walked away from the arch and back toward the hotel we passed by a giant thumb sticking out of the ground! Paris sure has a lot of character.
The next day was our trip to Versailles. The RER ride to Versailles was so neat. I loved seeing the French houses and the huge difference between being in the city and being outside of the city. Versailles itself was not all that exciting to me. My favorite part was the painted ceilings especially when it looks like there is plaster stretching above the molding, but it is really just paint! I did enjoy the gardens as well, but I did not like the elaborate gold everywhere. Mostly because I’m not a fan of gold in general, but also because it was a reminder of how well off the royal family was while tons of people were starving to death!
After we left Versailles, we were on our own for the rest of the day. I had planned to go to Père Lachaise, and luckily I had the company of Natalie and Hailey. The cemetery itself was amazing. There were so many monuments everywhere you turned. It was very easy to get lost there so I bought a map! First we stopped at the tomb of Abelard and Heloise where Natalie and I left love notes in hopes of good luck in love for the future. Then we went to Jim Morrison’s grave which, not surprisingly, was surrounded by quite a significant amount of people. From there we wandered around and found Oscar Wilde and Chopin and even stumbled upon the tomb of Brongnaird who designed the cemetery! It was a lot of fun sharing my random knowledge about the cemetery.
We left Père Lachaise and Natalie and I got ready to meet Rebecca at the Arc de Triomphe. We planned to meet at the stairway going down to get to the arc, but we did not realize that there were TWO of these so we ended up waiting for a half hour on the one side without knowing that Rebecca was on the other side! Eventually, Natalie and I decided to check and see if there was another side and when we did, we found Rebecca. After we ate dinner we went up on the arc. Since it was night by now we could see the city of light at its best. The Eiffel Tower even glittered while we were up! The view was simply beautiful. This was one of my favorite memories of Paris. I absolutely loved the symmetry of the city from this point.
The next day was Wednesday. We started off the day at the Cluny Museum which is home to the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries. Next stop was Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a long way up winding staircases to the top, but a few of us ventured up. It was so neat to be so high up. We got to go into one of the bell towers and we got to see gargoyles close up! It was definitely worth the tired legs afterward. We stopped briefly for lunch after this and then I went with Christina and Natalie to go to the wax museum. Unfortunately, it was much more expensive then we realized so we decided not to go in. Instead we wandered around the Hard Rock Café Paris and took pictures of some of the cool things they had there like Angus Young’s school boy outfit and guitar, and a couple of John Lennon’s jackets! From here Natalie and I made our way to the Picasso Museum which I did not find to be all that impressive. On our walk back to the metro station, however, we were offered cookies and lemonade by some cute little girls, one of them even spoke English very well. Both were delicious of course.
Around six we met up with the rest of the class at the Louvre. Natalie and I bought the tour guide headphones and wandered around. We eventually found Cupid and Psyche, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and Mona Lisa. Wanting to explore more, we decided to find Hammurabi’s Code. Unfortunately, after about forty minutes of getting lost in the Louvre, we found the section only to be informed that is closes at six on Wednesdays. We were very disappointed. We were also very tired out from all the walking we did that day.
After going back to the hotel to relax for a bit, my friend Rebecca came by with her friend Kelly and the three of us went to Café de Flore which I had wanted to go to since I found out that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to drink there and discuss existentialism (I’m a philosophy major). We had a bit to eat and relaxed for an hour or so. While we were there we met this boy who is in a local band in Paris. He was telling Rebecca about an upcoming show. It was pretty neat. He even showed us his English homework which was kind of interesting to see.
On Thursday we went to one of the places I had seen all week from so far away. Sacre Coeur is located on top of Montmartre so it is easily seen from many places in the city. The stairway up to the basilica was ridiculously long, but it was definitely worth it when we got to the top. Not only was the building gorgeous on the outside, it was equally as breath-taking inside! I was a little bit upset that we could not take pictures inside, but I took some amazing mental pictures instead. The surrounding village at Montmartre was pretty interesting. There were many people trying to get us to pose for drawings, but I did not want one. Instead I trekked down the mountain with Prof. Stagl and headed to A L’Etoile D’or, a very cute chocolate shop! The lady that owned it was very excited about everything to do with chocolate. I think she was upset that I only spent twenty Euros! But the chocolate sure was delicious.
Later in the day after some souvenir shopping, the group met up again at Musée de l'Orangerie. In the museum there were galleries built specifically to house Monet’s water lily painting which are each at least twenty feet long and five feet high. The rest of the museum displayed impressionist and post-impressionist paintings by artists such as Renoir, Sisley and Matisse. The museum was quite small and I got antsy very quickly as I was much more excited about going to Musée d'Orsay. d’Orsay is an art museum in what used to be a railway station. There were many wonderful paintings by impressionist artists, along with some more classical pieces. I was mostly excited to go to d’Orsay to see Seurat’s unfinished painting, The Circus, but I found myself spending quite of bit of time perusing the galleries. After I was done with my exploration I met up with Rebecca again for dinner after which we retired to the hotel to watch French TV for the rest of the night.
Friday was our last full day in Paris. I could hardly believe that it was time to leave. We started off the morning with a casual walk through Paris passing by Theatre Odèon and the Institute de France. We went into La Sainte Chapelle, a gothic chapel on the Ile de la Cité. The chapel, though small in size was magnificently beautiful. I took many pictures of the stained glass windows because I have never seen anything like them! The windows were huge and every square inch was a different color glass it seemed.
After the chapel, Rebecca and I went to Père Lachaise since she did not get to go when I went earlier in the week. We stopped at a flower shop on the way and bought flowers to leave at Jim Morrison’s grave. We made our way up the hill to see Jim and along the way I told her stories about the cemetery through the years. While we were at his monument we met these two boys from California who let us listen to their iPods (with Doors music of course) with them. It made me very happy. They even offered to take pictures of us with Jim which we were pretty grateful for so we returned the favor.
After we left the cemetery we headed back toward the hotel for some more souvenir shopping. I finally got some great gifts for people so that was good. Not long after, it was time to get ready for our farewell dinner at La Coupole. My roommates, Leila and Tina, and got ready together and headed to the restaurant. Dinner was delicious. Some of the girls tried escargot, but I was not feeling too adventurous that night so I declined. The dinner was fun and sad at the same time because it was pretty much the last time we would all be together in Paris.
When dinner was over we went back to the hotel to pack a bit and then a group of us went out to a bar nearby. The bar was called La Urgence and I guess it had a medical theme because the medical school was across the street. It was pretty neat because they had a variety of mixed drinks that they served in baby bottles! We all got to sit at the bar which was great since the bartender would do tricks with flipping bottles and even levitated a cigarette at one point. I’m still not sure how he pulled that one off, but it was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the night had to end so we all made our way back to the hotel for the last time. In the morning we ate a quick breakfast and then headed out (after everyone paid their room bills, that is). It was really hard leaving Paris because I had absolutely loved being there. It was equally as hard saying goodbye to Rebecca since the next time I see her will be in August! She was very sad to see me go. Driving back to the airport from the hotel reminded me of my first view of Paris, driving in. I gradually said goodbye to all of the places I had seen during my stay. Lastly staying au revoir to the Eiffel Tower which I hope to come back and see someday.
Overall my trip to Paris was an amazing experience. I am so glad I decided to
go. Even though the language barrier was tough to deal with at times, I found it quite easy to get around. I miss the excitement of Paris and how every time you turn a corner there is something interesting to see. Paris as a city has so much history all around that you cannot escape it. I really cannot wait to go back. I miss Paris everyday of my life.
One of the things that I have wanted to do my whole life is travel. My number one destination? Paris! I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to go to Paris practically thrown at me. As soon as I found out about the trip I did all that I could to make sure I got there. By signing up for the trip I was enrolled in a weekly course designed to acquaint us with Parisian history, architecture, and even how to get around using public transportation. Although I do not know much French at all, I was fairly confident that I would have a great time in Paris and somehow manage to not get lost.
As the trip date approached, I could still not even believe that I was actually going. In fact, it did not even hit me that I was IN Paris until the moment I stood beneath the Eiffel Tower- something I had dreamed of doing for as long as I can remember.
Flying overseas made me extremely nervous, but once we were in the air I found that I could easily forget about it. I was even a bit upset that I did not have a window seat so I could look down at the clouds. When we landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport I had been awake for nearly fifteen hours and it was only eight in the morning there! I was pretty sure I was not going to stay awake the whole day, but the excitement of everything around me kept me wide awake!
The first places we visited were the Sorbonne and the Panthéon. The Panthéon was pretty amazing. The Foucault Pendulum hanging from the center dome along with the burial places of Rousseau and Voltaire in the crypt were pleasant surprises for my first hours in Paris. After we left the Panthéon, the group split up for lunch. I tried a monsieur sandwich and a café olé. Both were good, but after that meal I mostly stuck to Italian restaurants as I am an extremely picky eater.
Later on in the day we went to Centre Pompidou which was very interesting to see in person. An “inside-out” building is not something you see everyday, but perhaps the most impressive part of the building was the view of the city from the top. My first view of the entire city. When we left Pompidou, we wandered around the city and saw some great examples of Baron Haussmann’s remodeling of the city back in the 1800s. After getting acquainted with the city all day it was time for relaxing. I had a friend from home who happened to be studying in Paris at the time of our visit, so she came over and we had a few glasses of wine while we caught up on lost time.
The next day, we went to the Palais Royal which seemed to be a great example of the corruption in religion at the time. New additions of pillars in one of the courtyard were an interesting example of the art nouveau which has some interesting touches throughout the city. Next stop was the Opera Garnier which was very impressive! The center staircase leading up to the theatre were gorgeously adorned with tons of marble and wood engraved figures, lit up with chandeliers and filled with art students eager to replicate the beauty on their sketchpads. I was fascinated by the entire building, but my favorite part was the library wing that had miniature diorama’s of set designs for some of the shows that have been shown there. After taking a break to shop and eat lunch we headed to the Madeleine. It was modeled after a Greek temple which was so interesting.
When we left the Madeleine, we began walking toward the Seine and found ourselves at Place de la Concorde. We had great views of the Louvre, the Madeleine, Palais Bourbon, and the Arc de Triomphe from here. Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower! I was so excited to go. I remember coming out of the metro station and just looking up and seeing the tower. It was beautiful. Finally I had fulfilled my dream. As I stood in the shadow of this huge tower I was in such awe that I could feel my eyes welling up with tears. Although I decided not to go up the tower, I got a sufficient amount of pictures of it from the ground and being there is definitely something that I will remember for a long time. It took awhile to drag me away from the tower (I think we eventually left because the rain got worse, actually), but after we left we trekked to the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately, something was going on and there were police who were not letting people go over to the arc, but that was okay with me. It had been a long day so far.
After those adventures, I briefly relaxed at the hotel before going to meet my friend, Rebecca, at the hand/face stone sculpture at Les Halles. This was yet another example of the randomness of Paris that I simply adored. We grabbed a quick meal nearby and then hopped on the RER over to La Defense where Rebecca was staying. I wanted to see the Grand Arche so that’s where we went. Since it was dark out by now, the whole arch was lit up and was absolutely fascinating to look at. I loved how it was right in line with the Arc de Triomphe. As we walked away from the arch and back toward the hotel we passed by a giant thumb sticking out of the ground! Paris sure has a lot of character.
The next day was our trip to Versailles. The RER ride to Versailles was so neat. I loved seeing the French houses and the huge difference between being in the city and being outside of the city. Versailles itself was not all that exciting to me. My favorite part was the painted ceilings especially when it looks like there is plaster stretching above the molding, but it is really just paint! I did enjoy the gardens as well, but I did not like the elaborate gold everywhere. Mostly because I’m not a fan of gold in general, but also because it was a reminder of how well off the royal family was while tons of people were starving to death!
After we left Versailles, we were on our own for the rest of the day. I had planned to go to Père Lachaise, and luckily I had the company of Natalie and Hailey. The cemetery itself was amazing. There were so many monuments everywhere you turned. It was very easy to get lost there so I bought a map! First we stopped at the tomb of Abelard and Heloise where Natalie and I left love notes in hopes of good luck in love for the future. Then we went to Jim Morrison’s grave which, not surprisingly, was surrounded by quite a significant amount of people. From there we wandered around and found Oscar Wilde and Chopin and even stumbled upon the tomb of Brongnaird who designed the cemetery! It was a lot of fun sharing my random knowledge about the cemetery.
We left Père Lachaise and Natalie and I got ready to meet Rebecca at the Arc de Triomphe. We planned to meet at the stairway going down to get to the arc, but we did not realize that there were TWO of these so we ended up waiting for a half hour on the one side without knowing that Rebecca was on the other side! Eventually, Natalie and I decided to check and see if there was another side and when we did, we found Rebecca. After we ate dinner we went up on the arc. Since it was night by now we could see the city of light at its best. The Eiffel Tower even glittered while we were up! The view was simply beautiful. This was one of my favorite memories of Paris. I absolutely loved the symmetry of the city from this point.
The next day was Wednesday. We started off the day at the Cluny Museum which is home to the Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries. Next stop was Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a long way up winding staircases to the top, but a few of us ventured up. It was so neat to be so high up. We got to go into one of the bell towers and we got to see gargoyles close up! It was definitely worth the tired legs afterward. We stopped briefly for lunch after this and then I went with Christina and Natalie to go to the wax museum. Unfortunately, it was much more expensive then we realized so we decided not to go in. Instead we wandered around the Hard Rock Café Paris and took pictures of some of the cool things they had there like Angus Young’s school boy outfit and guitar, and a couple of John Lennon’s jackets! From here Natalie and I made our way to the Picasso Museum which I did not find to be all that impressive. On our walk back to the metro station, however, we were offered cookies and lemonade by some cute little girls, one of them even spoke English very well. Both were delicious of course.
Around six we met up with the rest of the class at the Louvre. Natalie and I bought the tour guide headphones and wandered around. We eventually found Cupid and Psyche, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and Mona Lisa. Wanting to explore more, we decided to find Hammurabi’s Code. Unfortunately, after about forty minutes of getting lost in the Louvre, we found the section only to be informed that is closes at six on Wednesdays. We were very disappointed. We were also very tired out from all the walking we did that day.
After going back to the hotel to relax for a bit, my friend Rebecca came by with her friend Kelly and the three of us went to Café de Flore which I had wanted to go to since I found out that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir used to drink there and discuss existentialism (I’m a philosophy major). We had a bit to eat and relaxed for an hour or so. While we were there we met this boy who is in a local band in Paris. He was telling Rebecca about an upcoming show. It was pretty neat. He even showed us his English homework which was kind of interesting to see.
On Thursday we went to one of the places I had seen all week from so far away. Sacre Coeur is located on top of Montmartre so it is easily seen from many places in the city. The stairway up to the basilica was ridiculously long, but it was definitely worth it when we got to the top. Not only was the building gorgeous on the outside, it was equally as breath-taking inside! I was a little bit upset that we could not take pictures inside, but I took some amazing mental pictures instead. The surrounding village at Montmartre was pretty interesting. There were many people trying to get us to pose for drawings, but I did not want one. Instead I trekked down the mountain with Prof. Stagl and headed to A L’Etoile D’or, a very cute chocolate shop! The lady that owned it was very excited about everything to do with chocolate. I think she was upset that I only spent twenty Euros! But the chocolate sure was delicious.
Later in the day after some souvenir shopping, the group met up again at Musée de l'Orangerie. In the museum there were galleries built specifically to house Monet’s water lily painting which are each at least twenty feet long and five feet high. The rest of the museum displayed impressionist and post-impressionist paintings by artists such as Renoir, Sisley and Matisse. The museum was quite small and I got antsy very quickly as I was much more excited about going to Musée d'Orsay. d’Orsay is an art museum in what used to be a railway station. There were many wonderful paintings by impressionist artists, along with some more classical pieces. I was mostly excited to go to d’Orsay to see Seurat’s unfinished painting, The Circus, but I found myself spending quite of bit of time perusing the galleries. After I was done with my exploration I met up with Rebecca again for dinner after which we retired to the hotel to watch French TV for the rest of the night.
Friday was our last full day in Paris. I could hardly believe that it was time to leave. We started off the morning with a casual walk through Paris passing by Theatre Odèon and the Institute de France. We went into La Sainte Chapelle, a gothic chapel on the Ile de la Cité. The chapel, though small in size was magnificently beautiful. I took many pictures of the stained glass windows because I have never seen anything like them! The windows were huge and every square inch was a different color glass it seemed.
After the chapel, Rebecca and I went to Père Lachaise since she did not get to go when I went earlier in the week. We stopped at a flower shop on the way and bought flowers to leave at Jim Morrison’s grave. We made our way up the hill to see Jim and along the way I told her stories about the cemetery through the years. While we were at his monument we met these two boys from California who let us listen to their iPods (with Doors music of course) with them. It made me very happy. They even offered to take pictures of us with Jim which we were pretty grateful for so we returned the favor.
After we left the cemetery we headed back toward the hotel for some more souvenir shopping. I finally got some great gifts for people so that was good. Not long after, it was time to get ready for our farewell dinner at La Coupole. My roommates, Leila and Tina, and got ready together and headed to the restaurant. Dinner was delicious. Some of the girls tried escargot, but I was not feeling too adventurous that night so I declined. The dinner was fun and sad at the same time because it was pretty much the last time we would all be together in Paris.
When dinner was over we went back to the hotel to pack a bit and then a group of us went out to a bar nearby. The bar was called La Urgence and I guess it had a medical theme because the medical school was across the street. It was pretty neat because they had a variety of mixed drinks that they served in baby bottles! We all got to sit at the bar which was great since the bartender would do tricks with flipping bottles and even levitated a cigarette at one point. I’m still not sure how he pulled that one off, but it was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the night had to end so we all made our way back to the hotel for the last time. In the morning we ate a quick breakfast and then headed out (after everyone paid their room bills, that is). It was really hard leaving Paris because I had absolutely loved being there. It was equally as hard saying goodbye to Rebecca since the next time I see her will be in August! She was very sad to see me go. Driving back to the airport from the hotel reminded me of my first view of Paris, driving in. I gradually said goodbye to all of the places I had seen during my stay. Lastly staying au revoir to the Eiffel Tower which I hope to come back and see someday.
Overall my trip to Paris was an amazing experience. I am so glad I decided to
go. Even though the language barrier was tough to deal with at times, I found it quite easy to get around. I miss the excitement of Paris and how every time you turn a corner there is something interesting to see. Paris as a city has so much history all around that you cannot escape it. I really cannot wait to go back. I miss Paris everyday of my life.