Landing at the Paris airport at 11:30 at night, just the three of us girls, I was a little nervous about us getting to our apartment. We have always been told that the Parisian are mean and that as a whole, the city is very unfriendly to Americans. As the three of us were standing in the taxi area and blindly staring at the sign with the explanation of different taxis (of course in French with no English translation), we had no idea what to do. After a minute, a lady who was waiting with what looked like her friends or family saw our struggle and came over. She asked us first in French and then in English if we needed help. As a random act of kindness, she told us where to go and what kind of taxi to get into. With her information, we set out on our way to the apartment. This was the first individual of many to disprove the French stereotype over the next four days!
Not even more than five minutes later, we ran into our next issue… While on our way to the apartment we found out that the man we were supposed to contact when we arrived did not have a reservation for us! Considering at this point it was after midnight, we were in a foreign city, had no internet access to look up other places to stay, and didn’t speak a word of French, the situation didn’t look very promising! Luckily the crisis was averted when he contacted us again and said he did have an open room for the nights we needed. The only catch was that we would have to spend 2 nights in one room and then move to a different room for the remaining time. Although small, the apartments were really nice and perfect for the week.
Despite never finding a map of the city, (ironically, until the day we left Paris), we found our way around the city perfectly fine. The first day we went on a walking tour of the city and to get to the meeting point, we took 3 different metro trains! I have to say that by the end of the trip we were pretty proud that we could get anywhere in the city without speaking any French or owning a map.
We decided to go on the Sanderman’s walking tour of Paris and I’m so glad that we did! It was a great way to orient ourselves with the city, find out the history of the city and hear short stories that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. My favorite story was about the first “Facebook.” King Henry IV was known to have lavish parties. For the inauguration of the stone bridge he had constructed, he had an artist sketch all of his guests at the party. Waking up he realized that most of the guests weren’t shown in their best light having all drank too much. Instead of showing around the images, he decided to have a sculptor take the hilarious images and creates faces to line the bridges. Our tour guide pointed out how these hilarious ‘faces’ were ‘posted’ to a ‘public wall’ for all to see how much fun the King and his guests had at the party. Another interesting fact we learned was that croissants aren’t actually French- they’re Italian!
 |
| Notre Dame and Seine River |
 |
| Our Scottish tour guide Naomi wearing her "wellies" |
 |
| Pont Neuf- first "Facebook" |
 |
| Bridge of Locks- watch out for those combination locks... |
 |
| Louve and Tuileries Garden |
I think one of the things I loved most about Paris was the food! Not that it was necessarily that amazing, but for the first time there were things other than pasta or pizza on the menu! Things like meat, potatoes, French fries (!!), and even Heinz ketchup were so refreshing to have after subsisting on Italian food for 2.5 months. Sure Italian food is really good, but the French menus were a nice reminder of home. Also, the fresh baguettes that we bought every morning at the local patisserie were sooo delicious!
I wasn’t very impressed with Paris as a whole, probably because it reminded me a lot of New York with the wide avenues and also because the architecture varied little from building to building. We also wore ourselves out with sightseeing for eight to twelve hours a day each day. I feel that I would like Paris a lot more if I got to go back at some point and see some of the non-touristy spots.I did however really enjoy climbing Notre Dame and the area around the Pompidou!
 |
| Notre Dame |
 |
| Gargoyle and view of Paris from Notre Dame |
 |
| Pompidou Center |
 |
| We saw the real Moulin Rouge on our bar tour! |
One of my favorite things was the Louve. I can only look at art for so long, but I definitely appreciated walking through the museum. It was exciting to see how many cities and landmarks I could recognize in paintings before attempting to read the French captions. The sheer number of things I recognized by sight and name revealed how much I have truly learned and seen this semester! The room of paintings of Venetian festivals was definitely one of my favorites. Having learned many stories about Paris on our walk the first day, it was exciting to happen upon a painting and recognize it. This happened a few times such as with the paintings of the rape of the Sabine women and also the coronation of Napoleon. The experience of the museum was also made better by the fact that we got in for free as architecture students, and our tour guide had pointed out a gate where there is never a line. Other tourists probably stood in the line for over an hour at the main entrance, but we walked in with no one ahead of us at the ticket office!
 |
| Louve |
 |
| Classic tourist shot |
 |
| Painter inside the Louve |
 |
| Mona Lisa- its impossible to get close because of all the other tourists! |
 |
| Napping on the lawn of the Louve/Tuileries exhausted after seeing the Louve |
For our last day in Paris we headed out to Versailles, which is about a 30-minute train ride outside the city. The main palace was very impressive in size and décor, but my favorite was definitely the gardens and other buildings on the property. The Grand Trianon, one of the other homes on the property, was very elaborate yet simple and pleasing in plan. Marie Antoinette’s area was very pretty and it even had its own zoo. I swear the pig there is the fattest little thing I have ever seen! His belly dragged on the ground as he walked!
 |
| Palace of Versailles |
 |
| Chapel within the palace |
 |
| One of thousands of chandeliers hanging in the palace |
 |
| Hall of Mirrors |
 |
| Versailles Gardens |
 |
| Hall of the Grand Trianon |
 |
| Marie Antoinette's house on the grounds |
 |
| Chubby pig!! |
 |
| End of the day at Versailles |
We had booked our tickets for the Eiffel tower for the evening of our last night in Paris. Seeing the city all lit up at night was definitely a great way to end the trip!
No comments:
Post a Comment