Originally Posted 11-18-2003
After a non-stop trip in Italy, I had just a little over 24 hours to go to class, do laundry, grocery shop, mail post cards, attend a mandatory meeting, call internship coordinators for next semester, fax credit approval sheets, pack, and write my Italy journal entry before leaving for Paris. Wednesday was as hectic as a full day of sightseeing in Italy. I wasn’t even looking forward to Paris all that much. I had been there before, I am going to be there all next semester, I felt like I was wearing it out before I even got there. But AIFS paid for the trip, and it was a good excuse to miss class, so I went.
Our itinerary was very different from the other two AIFS trips. Very unstructured, it provided options for day trips and excursions, but we could break off at any point or not join up at all. We were given our train tickets, an unlimited metro pass, some spending money, and three nights in hotel; the rest was up to us. I had coordinated with my “uncle” (technically a second cousin, I think) who lives just outside of Paris and he invited me to come spend a night out at his home in the suburb of Boran-sur-Oise. I figured if nothing else, at least I’d be able to escape the city for one night.
Thursday morning after staying up very late trying to get caught up with things I needed to do and writing about Italy, I was tired, but ready to go to Paris. Christi and I were rooming together by luck of the draw and I was worried we’d get sick of each other after 5 days of non-stop company. I was also worried about facing my fears of living in such a huge, cosmopolitan city like Paris. I love the mountainous, lively city of Grenoble. I feel like there’s a little bit of everything and I’ve made a home here. Going to Paris would be like a foretaste of next semester and I was afraid that picturing myself living in the city, I wouldn’t fit.
I got on the TGV and we began the three hour, non-stop journey to Paris. It was uneventful and peaceful. I slept for some of it, the rest I used to look through a 300 page, weekly publication of things to do in Paris. Clearly we wouldn't lack for options. It was full of operas, theater, concerts, clubs, parties, exhibitions, parks, fairs, antique shows, and countless other varieties of diversions that are found within the city limits.
Our AIFS coordinator has a 4-month-old which prohibited her from coming with us so she sent two colleagues of hers to guide us. The two of them had been to Paris before, but neither of them really knew what they were doing and they weren’t really guides at all. They were just reading maps that Miranda (the coordinator) had marked, regurgitating information they had photocopied about monuments, and information Miranda had told them. Our first activity was a walk around the Quartier Marais. It’s an eclectic and wealthy section of Paris with lots of artsy shops, and also the house where Victor Hugo lived. Our guides, a naïve and funny newlywed Irish woman, and her savvy, sarcastic Californian best friend led us through the streets haphazardly and without any real sense of purpose or direction. I was getting frustrated and wanted to break off. We stopped for tea at which point Christi and I decided to go on a walk along the Seine. We alerted our leaders who told us that was fine, and we had the rest of the afternoon to do as we pleased. We were going to a play that night for which we would meet everyone at the theatre. I was up for a stroll, so stroll we did. We walked two miles to the center of the town where Christi got her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. We walked past the art and used book vendors that line the quays. As we were walking, the magic of Paris slowly started to draw me under its spell. There’s a reason that people flock there. There’s an intangible mystery and romanticism that is wholly unique to Paris. Walking past the Napoleonic architecture, the countless monuments, the Louvre, through the gardens and parks, seeing the Arch de Triomphe stand solidly smack in the center of a gigantic swarm of tailights and street lamps on the Champs Elysees; these are sights that cannot be claimed, nor imitated, by any other town. Even if they could be, something about Paris makes it the only place in the world where it all works. I knew walking along the Seine as the sun began to sink low on the horizon that Paris was the place for me next semester. My fears of fitting in began to fade with the daylight.
After a non-stop trip in Italy, I had just a little over 24 hours to go to class, do laundry, grocery shop, mail post cards, attend a mandatory meeting, call internship coordinators for next semester, fax credit approval sheets, pack, and write my Italy journal entry before leaving for Paris. Wednesday was as hectic as a full day of sightseeing in Italy. I wasn’t even looking forward to Paris all that much. I had been there before, I am going to be there all next semester, I felt like I was wearing it out before I even got there. But AIFS paid for the trip, and it was a good excuse to miss class, so I went.
Our itinerary was very different from the other two AIFS trips. Very unstructured, it provided options for day trips and excursions, but we could break off at any point or not join up at all. We were given our train tickets, an unlimited metro pass, some spending money, and three nights in hotel; the rest was up to us. I had coordinated with my “uncle” (technically a second cousin, I think) who lives just outside of Paris and he invited me to come spend a night out at his home in the suburb of Boran-sur-Oise. I figured if nothing else, at least I’d be able to escape the city for one night.
Thursday morning after staying up very late trying to get caught up with things I needed to do and writing about Italy, I was tired, but ready to go to Paris. Christi and I were rooming together by luck of the draw and I was worried we’d get sick of each other after 5 days of non-stop company. I was also worried about facing my fears of living in such a huge, cosmopolitan city like Paris. I love the mountainous, lively city of Grenoble. I feel like there’s a little bit of everything and I’ve made a home here. Going to Paris would be like a foretaste of next semester and I was afraid that picturing myself living in the city, I wouldn’t fit.
I got on the TGV and we began the three hour, non-stop journey to Paris. It was uneventful and peaceful. I slept for some of it, the rest I used to look through a 300 page, weekly publication of things to do in Paris. Clearly we wouldn't lack for options. It was full of operas, theater, concerts, clubs, parties, exhibitions, parks, fairs, antique shows, and countless other varieties of diversions that are found within the city limits.
Our AIFS coordinator has a 4-month-old which prohibited her from coming with us so she sent two colleagues of hers to guide us. The two of them had been to Paris before, but neither of them really knew what they were doing and they weren’t really guides at all. They were just reading maps that Miranda (the coordinator) had marked, regurgitating information they had photocopied about monuments, and information Miranda had told them. Our first activity was a walk around the Quartier Marais. It’s an eclectic and wealthy section of Paris with lots of artsy shops, and also the house where Victor Hugo lived. Our guides, a naïve and funny newlywed Irish woman, and her savvy, sarcastic Californian best friend led us through the streets haphazardly and without any real sense of purpose or direction. I was getting frustrated and wanted to break off. We stopped for tea at which point Christi and I decided to go on a walk along the Seine. We alerted our leaders who told us that was fine, and we had the rest of the afternoon to do as we pleased. We were going to a play that night for which we would meet everyone at the theatre. I was up for a stroll, so stroll we did. We walked two miles to the center of the town where Christi got her first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. We walked past the art and used book vendors that line the quays. As we were walking, the magic of Paris slowly started to draw me under its spell. There’s a reason that people flock there. There’s an intangible mystery and romanticism that is wholly unique to Paris. Walking past the Napoleonic architecture, the countless monuments, the Louvre, through the gardens and parks, seeing the Arch de Triomphe stand solidly smack in the center of a gigantic swarm of tailights and street lamps on the Champs Elysees; these are sights that cannot be claimed, nor imitated, by any other town. Even if they could be, something about Paris makes it the only place in the world where it all works. I knew walking along the Seine as the sun began to sink low on the horizon that Paris was the place for me next semester. My fears of fitting in began to fade with the daylight.
At five o’clock we had made it all the way to Place de la Concorde, which is in the heart of downtown Paris, right on the Seine River with a good view of the Eiffel tower from the big bridge. I stood looking at the icon of Paris waiting for Christi to get a drink at a nearby stand, when all of a sudden the tower began to sparkle with thousands of flashbulb-like bursts of light coming from every side. It was like there were 6 million tourists positioned all over the tower, frantically photographing at once. It lasted for 10 minutes and I wondered if I’d ever see it again. There are so many random acts of beauty in France, you never know when you will come across them. Fortunately, this one occurs for ten minutes every hour on the hour from 5pm until midnight every night. This time will forever be remembered by me as “sparkle time”.
After that lovely sight, we decided to make our way to a pasta restaurant recommended to us by Miranda which was right across the street from the theater where we would end up that night. We got there before it opened so we went to a bar across the street, met up with some other girls, got a drink and chatted about how much we love Paris. We ate well and cheap at the restaurant and then headed across the street to the theater to meet up with everyone else for a musical comedy called "Frou-Frou les Bains”.
It was about a group of hapless employees at a resort/spa in the early 20th century that in the course of the evening have to hide the fact that the water which made the spa famous had stopped running, and sort out a number of humorous love triangles between them. The main character, the director of the spa, was played by the same actor who was Monsieur Colignon, the mean grocer, in Amélie. He was fantastic and he can sing and dance, as well as act. I enjoyed myself but was so tired I began to nod off at the end. After the play I went straight back to the hotel to sleep.
The next day, I went running along the Seine and past all the famous landmarks before the town was truly awake, had a great breakfast, then started out the day with a trip to the National Opera. The group was all together at the beginning but I knew I couldn’t handle an entire day with the guides so Christi and I again broke off and decided to tour all the museums we could in one day. You can buy a one-day museum pass which will get you into any museum or monument in Paris. We made it to Saint Chapelle, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Hôtel des Invalides, and the Grand Palais. We only had time to hit the main points of each, with such an ambitious lineup. I knew I would have time all next semester to go see all the little things that I missed. It almost became a game to see how many we could squeeze in.
The Grand Palais was closed but they have two temporary exhibitions on display, one of which is a nearly exhaustive collection of all of Gaugin’s paintings from his two séjours in Tahiti. Gaugin and Cézanne run together for me but this collection made the disctinction of Gaugin's brighter colors, human subjects, and tighter perspective a little clearer to me. But the shared techniques from the Post-Impressionist school are apparent in both artists' work.
We were really tired after all the museums closed for the night and we wanted to get something to eat, but we met up with some other friends from the group and decided to take the Bateaux Mouches tour of the Seine at night before dinner. It was nice, but we were all really cold and ravenous by the time it was over, so we didn’t enjoy it as much as we could have. We found some food at a bar and while it was good, it was overpriced, like everything in Paris. After that I was again ready for bed, so I retired to the hotel, but Christi decided to try to go see the Moulin Rouge. She’s a machine.
The next day I exercised the option to take an excursion to Chartres, the most intact medieval cathedral in France (thanks a LOT, WWII). The stained glass windows are among the most celebrated in the world. It was a worthwhile trip. We got to hear a detailed explanation from an old Brit who has spent his life studying the church. After listening to all the amazing things he had to say about Chartres, even the most disinterested and indifferent person would have been intrigued. He spoke for an hour and a half and only made it through a brief architectural overview, one door, and two windows. He never turned around to look at what he was describing to us because he could recite every panel of every window by heart.
We walked around the town for a while afterwards and that was nothing special. We sat down for some tea to warm up from the damp, foggy cold on the outside, and then got back on the bus. I was going straight back to the hotel to collect my things and catch a train out to my uncle’s house. His directions were easy and I got to the station no problem. He picked me up and took me out to their quaint little house in the northern French countryside. Being there, you’d never know you were 40 minutes from Paris. You are “en plein de campagne” in Boran-sur-Oise. They made a wonderful dinner and it felt good to be around family, even ones I don't know all that well. I enjoyed getting to know Tom and Margaret better. Family is an amazing thing. You can barely know someone, share their last name, and end up spending a weekend with people who have only seen baby pictures of you in a foreign country.
I spent the next morning at church with them, then we went out to lunch. Before dropping me off at the train station they drove me around the town. It’s the horse capital of France and they have an 18th century chateau which has been turned into the jockey’s club and stables for thoroughbred racing horses. There was a lake and a lush green racing course. Everything exuded wealth and opulence. After the tour, it was time to bid the city and the suburbs of Paris goodbye and get back to Grenoble. After almost 10 solid days of travel, I was looking forward to staying put for a while. I have no more trips planned that will take me away from overnight. I will spend a day in Lyon, a day in Geneva, and a day in wine country celebrating the new season before I depart on Dec. 19th. In the interim between those small excursions, I hope to enjoy my last month in this lovely city and linger on the memories it has given me.
I know I've written a lot here, so thanks for reading if you've made it this far. I also know finals are coming up for kids in the states so good luck with that and I hope to see the better part of all of you at Christmas. A la prochaine!
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