Becky and Amy go to Sacre-Coeur!

Today was a beautiful day! We had the day off because we had been away the whole weekend. Hooray for no classes! Becky and I head out on a date filled with happiness and fun times. We woke up at a somewhat reasonable hour, and after doing some homework, I met up with Becky, and we began our date. We took the metro to Lamarck-Concourt, and from there walked over to Sacre Coeur. This beautiful church up on a hill is one of the places I have always wanted to go to since I studied it in French class back in 8th grade. It was indeed breath-taking, and we got a beautiful view of Paris. The weather was also gorgeous, so we got some really great photos.

Sacre-Coeur, Montmartre

Then we headed back down to the metro stop Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre, and we began our shopping adventure down Rue de Rivoli. Successful purchases were made! Hooray. 

Then we began our laundry experience. Doing laundry here is a bit of a pain. Even though I can speak and understand French fine, I don't know why I have so much trouble when it comes to reading French directions (and navigating French websites). We hauled our giant trash bags of laundry to the laundromat, and we spent minutes just staring at the machines and the instructions board. Nothing made sense!! 

There was something about buying soap. But then we didn't know which slot the soap went in…and there was something else about pressing the central pay machine to get the machine started. It was a confusing time in my life. But this kind man who spoke English finally helped us out, and we were able to get our clothes washed. 

While laundry-ing, Becky and I took turns going to run errands - Carrefour, baguettes, etc. 

After laundry, we returned to the Citadines, and spent the evening doing homework and cooking dinner.

Tomorrow will be a visit to the Musée d'Orsay, and class in the afternoon!  

Bonne nuit mes amis!

Weekend in Normandy, Mont St. Michel, and St. Malo

We have now been in Paris for two weeks! Only one more week in Paris before we head down to Aix on September 12th. I do think Aix will be very different, since we will be more settled and taking classes regularly. I have loved Paris, but it will be nice to settle down to a more regular routine in Aix and enjoy being out of the big city!

This past weekend, we all went to Normandy, Mont St. Michel, and St. Malo! What diverse, interesting, and fascinating places. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 8am on Friday morning, but having been well-trained by Masson, the whole group was on the bus and ready to go by 7:45am. The drive wasn't too bad, and by noontime we had arrived at the Arromanche Bay. This quaint little town is known for the D-Day invasion at the end of World War II and Operation Overlord. We spent some time by the beach and walking around before going on our museum visit.

Arromanche Bay

After our afternoon in Normandy, we head over to Pontorson - a small village near Mont St. Michel - where we spent the night. Dinner was at the hotel, and of course it was spectacular because Masson ordered it. We had a 4-course meal, along with bread, white wine, and red wine. It was delicious!

Saturday morning, we were up and about by 8am, and we made it to Mont St. Michel before most other tourists. This community village was truly a fascinating place to visit! It looked just like the castle in Disney, and walking in the village itself was like jumping back in time. At the top of the isle is the abbey. When there is high tide, the water floods over the land, and Mont St. Michel becomes an island. But during low tide, there is a single road that leads to Mont St. Michel. What is very interesting is that there are only 26 inhabitants in the entire place! Everybody must know each other.
Also - Masson had warned us ahead of time that we would be very very cold at Mont St. Michel, so we all packed like we were heading to Antartica. (Sidenote: Almost un-vacuumed packed my big red winter jacket, but later decided against that, for fear of being unable to vacuum pack it back in. Correct choice). Upon arrival, we realize it was simply a nice, breezy, foggy day, and our winter jackets, hats, and cashmere scarfs were all too much. As the lovely Kirstin said, she was "sweating through [her] head."  :)

Mont St. Michel

Inside the abbey, there were models of how Mont St. Michel developed over the years. This model shows Mont St. Michel in its present state

Here is Mont St. Michel when it was first discovered in the 8th century!

After our visit to Mont St. Michel, Madame took us to get delicious crepes in Pontorson. For my main course, I had une galette super complète, with egg, ham, bacon, mushrooms, cheese, and onions. For dessert, I had Amantine, with almonds, crêpe au chocolat, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream! Yummy.

Amantine

After lunchtime, we drove another hour-ish to St. Malo, a quaint little town on the coast of Bretagne. We had lots of free time for the rest of the evening, so we mostly just walked around in the old city. And today, we got to sleep in, and finally left to return to Paris at 11am. Because of the rain and bad traffic, we didn't make it back home until 6pm-ish! But all in all, a very nice weekend.

Tomorrow: Sacre-Coeur, shopping, and laundry!

And I will end with this beautiful picture that has nothing to do with Normandy or Bretange....but it just makes me smile!

Cooking Adventures, Versailles, and Giverny!

Sorry for the late blog post! These past days have been busy, but adventurous! Here are some of the things we've been up to!

Cooking!
We are quickly realizing the expensiveness of living in France, and the amount of money it costs to eat out. Though we are given a generous stipend, we all want to save up that money for trips out of the country, clothes, dessert, and other very exciting things. SO. We have decided to start cooking ourselves! Our rooms all have a small kitchen built in, fully equipped with pots, pans, plates, utensils, and the like. Carrefour has been a favorite, and so we stop by the supermarket every few days and buy groceries for lunch and dinner. Usually we cook up some pasta, and some vegetables. We've also done some omelettes and french fries. Nothing too adventurous yet, but we have plenty of time left! Here are pictures from my first cooking expedition!

Spaghetti, rotisserie chicken, sautéed vegetables, peach champagne!

Versailles
On Saturday, we had a free day, so Kirstin, Evan, Evan's friend Matt, Becca, Adaora, and I took the RER and headed out to Versailles! What a beautiful beautiful place! We had such a perfect day - despite the schizophrenic thunderstorm that followed us around and flashed us with minutes of rain at a time. We saw the beautiful palace, including La Gallerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors). The gardens were the best part though, with the fountains and the water shows. After walking around a bit, we rented out boats and rowed out onto the Grand Canal, and got a spectacular view of the palace and gardens. The weather was beautiful then, and we enjoyed a beautiful boat ride. I was lucky to be in the boat with Evan and Matt, so I just sat back, relaxed, and let the men do the rowing. Poor Becca, Adaora, and Kirstin struggled their way through the waters with the heavy paddles...
We ended the day at Versailles with dinner at one of our favorite crêperies - Little Beizgh - with our favorite waitress! After dinner, we even came back and enjoyed peach champagne, games of spoons, bananagrams, and cards. Funtimes. It was one of my favorite days in France so far :)

Chateau de Versailles

Giverny
We spent most of the day at Giverny with the whole group and Masson. Giverny is the town where Monet painted most of his work, so we got to see Monet's house and gardens! It was cool to see the different paintings in real life! Afterwards, we also had time to see the town of Giverny, and the different tourist attractions.

For now, that's all! Classes are going well, and we are continuing our guided visits throughout Paris. Tomorrow we will be visiting Le Quartier Latin!

With love from Paris!

Our Neighbors - Picasso, Champs-Élysées, et Le Louvre!

These past two days we've really gotten to know our neighbors and the quartier that we live in! After dinner last night with Madame Masson and Monsieur Beauclair at the fancy Vagenende, we took a stroll around St. Germain de Pres, and Madame showed us when Picasso lived when he painted the Guernica! C'est très bizarre! His apartment is located just behind our hotel! It is also where Balzac stayed for a while to write his book "Le Chef D'Oeuvre Inconnu".

Today we also walked across the bridge and visited another one of our neighbors - Le Louvre! It was an incredible museum, and while there, Lucille took us to see the three famous women of the Louvre. L'Aphrodite - Venus de Milo, La Victoire de Samothrace, and of course, Mona Lisa - La Jaconde. There were a gabillion people at the Louvre, so taking pictures was hard since people kept walking into them. It was also just very cool to be so close to such important pieces of art in history! Lucille did a wonderful job telling us the history of it all.

Le Louvre 

L'Aphrodite - Venu de Milo

La Victoire de Samothrace

Blurry, but there she is! Mona Lisa! There were just too many people 

Outside the Louvre with Kara!

After a morning spent in the Louvre, we left and took a stroll down Champs-Elysees! We passed by Les Jardins de Tuilleries on the way, and also Place de la Concorde.

Les Jardins de Tuilleries - Le Louvre in the background!

Avenue de Champs Élysées! L'Arc de Triomphe in the background

Even after almost a week in France, it's hard to believe we're in Paris. We are surrounded by all these historical monuments and beautiful sights - it is all so surreal! We only have two weeks left in Paris, and there is still so much to see! Stay posted!

L'Île de la Cité, Notre Dame, Les Jardins de Luxembourg

Another lovely day in Paris, filled with long walks, the best ice-cream in the world, the beautiful Jardin de Luxembourg (Luxembourg Gardens), and yummy food!

The incredible Notre Dame - most visited place in Paris!

We also walked across the bridge L'Archevêché, where there were thousands of locks, all locked to the sides!

After our visit to l'Îles de la Cités, we walked over to Les Jardins de Luxembourg, where there was the beautiful Palace.

We have class tomorrow morning, so we must go do our homework now! Then Thursday we will be heading over to the Louvre, right across the bridge.

À bientôt, mes amis!

A Day in the City!

Update of past two days!

Sunday

What a day! After waking up at 5am due to jetlag, I fell back asleep at 7am, and woke up around 10:30am. Kirstin and I had a small breakfast in our room (note: I have apparently become lactose intolerant! Cereal this morning did not sit well in my tummy...), and then we went to the organic market with Becca and Sarah. Was funtimes! I bought a peach.
We headed back and rested a bit before meeting the group for our tour of the city. Lucille, our wonderful, lovely tour guide joins us and we take the Paris metro over to Trocadéro, where we see the Eiffel Tower! It was a beautiful day, but very very hot. Did you know that 6 thousand people visit the Eiffel Tower each day?! There were tons of people. Then we headed on a boat tour along the Seine, and saw many large sites - Le Louvre Museum, Le Palais Royal, Assemblée Nationale, Notre Dame, and others. We were all very sunburnt though by the end. After the boat cruise, we went to the first level of the Eiffel Tower and had dinner at the prestigious 58 Tour Eiffel! It was an incredible three-course meal, fully paired with a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white wine, and a glass of champagne (side note: peach champagne is absolutely delicious!). Our appetizer was foie-gras de canard (liver), and then the main course was un filet de pintade rôti. For desert, we had la craquant chocolat (chocolate mousse), with a real gold leaf on top! (?!?!) Masson assured us that there wouldn't be any chemicals in it though, so we ate it. After dinner, we took a tour around the first floor of the Eiffel Tower, before splitting up. A few of us climbed to the second floor, and then we got in line for the elevator to the very top! After hours of wait, we finally made it! It was incredible, and while waiting, the lights also lit up on the tower, and we could see all of Paris. It was spectacular. Finally we made it back to Pont Neuf around 12:30am, and we spent some time sitting by the Seine, before heading back inside into the hotel. What a day!

La Tour Eiffel!

Gold leaf on my chocolate mousse?!

View from the Eiffel Tower - you can see l'Arc de Triomphe there in the distance!

Monday


Class begins! We have class from 9-12:30pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. We split up into two groups, and have literature and stylistique classes. Monsieur Boyer, the professor of our literature class, talks very very quickly, but he seems very educated. When we asked him to write something on the board, we also couldn't read his hand-writing. But it's ok! We're all going to study together!
After class, a few of us head to Café Buci for some lunch, and then headed to l'Orange to buy our phones and SIM cards. After, we head to Monoprix! The french version of Target. We bought a few things, and then headed to Carrefour for some groceries and wine!
This afternoon, we also had our class visit to Le Marais - the Jewish quarter. We walk lots and lots, all over the whole quartier. We saw lots of beautiful places, including La Place des Vosges - a lovely park where people lounge around and read and hang around. After the 2 hour tour, we say goodbye to Lucille - our lovely tour guide, and we head back into the Marais to find dinner. After dinner, we took a giant walk all the way past Hotel de Ville, past Notre Dame, le Quartier Latin, and all the way back to our hotel! Our feet were super sore by the end. So we ended the night with some wine and cheese!

La Place des Vosges

L'Hotel de Ville

Being French

It's crazy all the things we get to do here! We look out the window, and we are on the Seine, looking out at Notre Dame, and feeling the breeze of the fall Paris air. Everything is so beautiful, and I am so lucky to be on this trip! We have also been speaking French all day (even texting in French!) - though we do make it a rule to stop the French after 11:30pm...But everything is wonderful so far, and I am so blessed to have this opportunity.

I'm sure there'll be more adventures to come, so stay posted! À demain!

Nous avons arrivé!!

We have arrived!! France is beeaauutiful!

After a long four-hour wait in Logan, we were finally on the plane to Paris, Charles-de-Gaulle. There were 18 of us traveling from Logan, and 3 more who were meeting us in Paris. Everyone is super friendly and awesome! The plane ride wasn't too bad - just 6 hours. I had planned to continue working on my planner book (I still have to draw in the lines for each day!), but unfortunately, as I was working, my pen exploded on me. Not good. The two people next to me were both sleeping though, so I just wiped off my hands with paper and hand sanitizer. Yikes!

We arrive in Paris around 8am, and it is beautiful, clear, and sunny. Professor Masson meets us, and we  head off on a bus towards our hotel, La Citadine. The drive was beautiful, and we passed by many big sites - Le Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame, La Seine, La Bastille...and then we arrive. Right by the river, La Citadine is a very big, modern, apartment/hotel. We are living in doubles, and the room has two single beds, a bathroom, and a mini kitchen. It's super cute!

After some downtime to relax and take showers, the rest of the day was spent in a marathon of a meeting with Masson, before we all split up in groups to eat dinner and walk around. Paris is beautiful! It is bustling with people, music is playing in the streets, people are all eating outside restaurants and cafes, and boats are cruising down the Seine. We are all very jetlagged and exhausted, so we didn't do too much walking around after dinner. But it's okay, because it's only the first night of many. So for now, goodnight Paris!