Friday after packing Anna and I went to the train station a little early to activate our Eurail passes and to look into traveling next weekend. We got reservations for a train to Marseille for the day on Saturday! We’ll leave at 7:01and then leave Marseille at 7 something at night to come back. It works out perfect: we’ll have the day at the beach and then still have time to explore a little :-)
So the train was good, it got there about an hour late which was a bummer but we just moved along on to the métro and tried to find the first thing on our “agenda” for the weekend (which was made specially by me and Jeffrey, we rock). We got off the métro stop that was supposed to take us to the Eiffel Tower but when we got off we didn’t see anything. We decided to walk down the street and then we saw it around a building! It was AMAZING. We might have freaked out a little bit (but with class, don’t worry). We just stood in Trocadero Square and looked at the tower, got creeped out by a few people, asked a family to take our picture, and then moved along to find the rest of our friends at the base of the tower. We got a couple of harmless bon soir-s, ran into several obnoxious Alergians who were excited that they were tied at 0 at the half, pathetic. But then I saw a guy wearing a USA scarf and yelled to him to see if we won. He and his friend are from the US but now they live in Paris and go to the American high school there. One was from Charlotte and the other from Boston, then we ran into some of their other friends and one was from Ithaca! Small world…When we got to the base of the tower we got straight in line for the stairs to the second floor (since we didn’t have too much time and it’s way cheaper that way). While waiting Jeffrey and Hope came over to see us and took our backpacks so we wouldn’t die while walking up the stairs, they already went before we got there. It was AWESOME. Totally worth the 3,50 Euros and burning calf muscles from the stairs. We got to see the city light up as nighttime came and it was just beautiful.
After that we met up with Jeffrey, Hope, Mike, Yvonne, Jordan, and Brooke. We walked far enough away before the tower did its whole sparkly light up thing. Again, it was AMAZING! We walked around some more near the Eiffel Tower, got annoyed about more obnoxious Algerians (who by then had only tied 0-0, how do you get that excited about that?! ), and then got on to the most crowded subway car ever! It was awful, and I’ve been on the el during rush hour a few times in my day…
We finally got off to our stop for our hostel. I’ve never stayed in a hostel and this was a pretty good first experience. Me and Anna were in the same room as a girl from our group, we headed to bed shortly after arriving at the hostel (it was almost 1!).
Saturday we got up pretty early, the plan was to be off by 8:30 (but as I’ve been finding out, plans don’t always happen the way I’d like). On our way to breakfast we saw Yvonne in the hallway, she had gone with some of the people in our group the night before, and she wanted to come too so we waited for her and were off a little after 9. First stop: Versailles. It took about 30 min to get there on one of the trains but it was AMAZING. I did a project on Versailles my senior year in French class and it was just crazy to finally see it in person. The castle was insane, there was gold everywhere and most of the rooms had ceilings that were painted with such detail. Just amazing…We walked through the whole castle and then moved along to the gardens. We decided not to go in, they were 8 extra Euros and not covered by the handy museum passes we bought (which was the greatest deal, it was 32 for a two day pass and the parts of Versailles that we went to would have cost 23.50, and then we did tons of other stuff too…). We then found our way to Marie Antoinette’s domain, it was beautiful. The at least 30 min walk was worth it. We walked around there some and then it was back into the city for the rest of our day.
Back in Paris we headed for the Louvre. The outside was so cool looking! And of course there were people everywhere. Our museum passes got us in a special line with basically no wait time. We wandered around inside for a while and found our way to the Mona Lisa, and after that we were pretty much done with the Louvre, I’m just not a fan of that kind of art. Mike really wanted to see Monet so we decided to head back across the river to the Musée d’Orsay. But first we had to stop for some food, many of us were getting a little crabby (it was 4 PM and we hadn’t had a meal since 8ish…). After what seemed like forever of walking we found a Boulangerie and everyone was able find a little something that we liked. Then it was off to the Musée…
And thank God that we went! It was amazing. I loved everything I saw, it was definitely more my type of stuff. AND I saw some of the work of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, the artist I did a project on for my 11th grade French project. It was awesome to finally see the paintings up close! And obviously seeing Monet and Renoir and all the other artists we learned about was sweet too. The Musée d’Orsay is 500 times better than the Louvre. The work there is so much better and I’m pretty sure all 6 of us liked it so much better than the Louvre, whoopdeedo the Mona Lisa is there, and that’s not even that cool we just saw it to see it. The only thing disappointing about d’Orsay is that you can’t take pictures inside to remember all the great things. Good thing we had the museum pass so we didn’t really pay for it (well we did but not individually…).
Jeffrey and I went to the bookstore to get some prints of some paintings and then we all sat and just enjoyed being there until the museum closed. Next it was off to the Champs Elysées… That was just insane. The stores are ridiculously over priced and I just didn’t care for the crowds of people. We tried to get to the Arc de Triomphe but it was blocked off for some sort of military thing so we turned around and found somewhere for dinner.
We found a fairly reasonable place for dinner and just relaxed for a little while. After dinner and a disappointing dessert we went to the Arc again and this time we were able to cross to it (through an underground tunnel) and then we went to the top of it (which was also included in the museum pass, best deal ever!). After that we were all SO tired so we headed back to the hostel and were in bed by midnight.
Sunday was AMAZING (I wonder how many times I have used that word…)! We started off with breakfast at the hostel again (it was free so we figured we should load up). Then we were off by 8, we had a lot to see and do! First we went to Sacre Coeur. Beautiful! And it was pretty early still so there weren’t a ton of people so it was just quiet and peaceful. We also weren’t allowed to take pictures inside here but I think that made it a little less tourist-y. WE got there just in time because as we were leaving a bus load of people arrived and I had a feeling that the “silence” rule just wasn’t going to be followed. We enjoyed the view for a little bit and then headed down for some shopping time. We left the area around 10 in order to get to church at 10:30. Get this…we went the the Hillsong church in Paris! It was an adventure to find it but we made it…
I looked up churches online before we left and found that there is a Hillsong church in Paris, after getting Jeffrey’s approval (ha) I looked up directions on the website and it seemed simple enough…fast forward to Sunday. We arrive at the church with 10 minutes to spare before church started. A REALLY nice man greeted us and apologetically informed us that this particular Sunday the Hillsong church was meeting elsewhere. He said it normally is in the theater we were at but they were at another place in Paris that weekend (which I did remember seeing on the site, but I thought it was just a special event and real church met where we went to. The man was so nice and said something to us in English about us all being brothers and sisters, it was so sweet. Luckily there was the male, American version of me also at this wrong place. His name is Dane and he and his friend Frank were looking for church too. They’re from Wisconsin and studying in Paris for 2 months. Dane had looked up the church and had the same thought process as me but luckily he had a little notebook of addresses in Paris, including the other address from the Hillsong site. And luckily church there this week started at 11, not like the 10:30 service at the wrong place we went to. And then he had a little book of Paris maps so we easily found our way to church and we were 5 minutes early!
Church again was amazing. It is SO great going to church in France. It just gets me every time. And this one was cool too because it was in French and English. They sang several songs in French and then a couple in English too. Sadly they don’t have Hillsong CDs in French (although I did use my French to ask). We said bye to Dane and Frank and went to grab something to eat across the street from church. Kebabs and Paninis and French fries!
Then it was off to Notre Dame! We tried to go to Saint Chappelle first but the line was kinda long and there was no special entrance for museum pass holders. We waited in the wrong line for about 5 minutes and then Brooke pointed us in the right direction. Notre Dame was to Sacre Coeur as the Louvre was to Musée d’Orsay. It was cool and all but too touristy for me. But the stained glass windows were beautiful! Then we headed off to get some ice cream as recommended in the “guide Fred” from Madame O’Hara. It was SO good!
The others had to be back to leave with the group by 4:30 so we left from there. Mine and Anna’s train didn’t leave until a little after 11 so we had time to just chill and shop. We got off at a stop where a mall was supposed to be but silly us, we forgot that France basically shuts down on Sundays, even in Paris! The mall was closed so we just walked around and ran into a market type place. I got some perfume for me and a couple gifts for a couple people and then me and Anna just sat and relaxed for a little longer.
We still had a lot of time but I consulted my Rick Steves Paris book (greatest book ever made) and saw that the Centre Pompidou is open until 9 PM on Sundays! So we headed there. It was so sweet. And the art was pretty cool too, a few too many naked things on the first level we went to but then there were some pretty cool things the next floor up. I was glad we got to go there. We walked around that neighborhood after and talked to a couple people in a tourist shop, the man was from Italy (I was proud of myself that could tell by his accent). And then we were off to explore some more. That area is so nice! The various bars and cafés were crowded with people watching the world cup. I love that that is going on while we’re here; it just adds so much more life and excitement to everyday life (as if it needed more…) And there were a lot of little shops that were reasonable, we stopped in one and looked at clothes.
Then we headed to the train. Our train back to Chambéry wasn’t a TGV, it was a regular speed, almost 6 hour, overnight train. We arrive in town at about 5 AM and then walked back with some others in the program who had switched their tickets to a later time. Then it was a much needed shower and 2.5 more hours of sleep!
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Today was rough, I was so tired. And I had to give a presentation in class. Miserable. But class went by faster than I thought and before I knew it we were headed home. Anna and I made lunch today, the stuff at the cafeteria just didn’t look worth it. Then I just relaxed and began typing this up. We went to the store for some groceries this afternoon, we found some reasonable priced chicken patties that don’t need an over to cook! Then I relaxed some more before we made dinner and then we were off into town for la fête de la musique. It was cool. Lots of people out and about, but I was really tired so I sat down to watch a little of the Spain game and then came home. Now it’s off to bed! Bon soir!
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