Bonjour, and Happy Birthday to Me!

 

My posts, it seems, have become more and more sporadic – I can’t believe so much time has gone by already!  I know I say that during every post, but it shocks me every time I begin a new blog. 

 

It seems like this particular time of the semester is pretty rough for a lot of study abroad students (at least from what I can tell).  After all, it is the middle of the semester, getting colder, and mot American students will be heading home soon for Thanksgiving break and some good-ole turkey dinners.  I, for one, am feeling this along with the other exchange students.  I’m sad that I won’t be home for end of the season football, the first snow, Thanksgiving (may have to improvise that one here), and Corning’s annual Pie and Glove race. 

 

After Halloween here (which is not nearly as big as in the U.S. – though I did have a pretty incredible Michael Jackson costume), the next big holiday is Christmas.  I’m pretty sure that Christmas decorations and merchandise began appearing in stores at the end of October.  I’m trying to get wrapped up in all of the Christmas hype yet, we still have Thanksgiving!  I will be attending a Thanksgiving dinner somewhere, either at a neighbors or at one sponsored by the University.  I know it won’t be the same, but I guess that’s the point of studying abroad, right?  More to come with pictures later, I’m sure.

 

And now, what you’ve all been waiting for…PARIS!  I cannot even begin to describe how amazing and beautiful it was.  Perhaps I will start with the journey there.  Our bus left at 11 PM on Friday and was scheduled to arrive at 6:30 in Paris the next morning.  Little did I realize that we would have to exit and board the bus about 7 times during the journey.  There was the passport checkpoint, and then the ferry ride, and then a rest stop, etc. etc.  As a result, I was only able to get about an hour of sleep, before arriving at 6 AM.  My morning was made EVEN better by the fact that we couldn’t arrive at our accommodation until 10.  So, four hours to kill in Paris, no shops open, all of our baggage and rain?  No problem…

 

I, for one, was very cranky.  Unfortunately for my two travel companions (two boys, both International students as well), I am hard to deal with on a normal basis when I don’t have coffee.  With all of these other factors, I was a downright gem.  Our housing was directly in the center of Paris, about a three-minute walk from the Opera and ten minutes from the Louvre.  This was amazing, but also meant that EVERYTHING was insanely expensive.  I’m sad to say that my first coffee in Paris (and second, third, fourth, etc.) was at a Starbucks.  Espressos (generally the cheapest item on a typical French menu), ran about 3 euro a piece, whereas I could get a nice Grande for half the cost.  Plus I just love Starbucks, and am still on a quest to visit a Starbucks in every foreign city I can manage.  It turned out to be a good choice, because my coffee took about 20 minutes to brew, so the lovely French people upgraded it to a Venti.  And then gave me another one – for free!  I gladly accepted this gift, and was completely wired for the rest of the day. 

After I finished my vat of coffee, it was time to walk over to our apartment.  We dropped our stuff off, and headed straight back out to sightsee.  Stop number one: outside of the Louvre.  I took about one million pictures, and we didn’t even make it inside (that was for another day).  Next stop, Notre Dame.  Everything from the walk over to the outside of the church was incredible.  This might be why my camera was nearly dead by the end of day one.  Every time I turned or looked up, there was a completely new view, each more breathtaking than the last.  It was just so Parisian.  You might be saying “well, duh,” but nevertheless, I was awe-inspired.  Notre Dame was more beautiful than I could have imagined, and I was deeply moved by it’s beauty, history, and spirituality.  After this, we walked around the “Jardin des Tuileries” (gardens outside of the Louvre), and over to the National Galleries.  There was a Monet exhibit going on, which I was very excited about.  The wait to get into the galleries was over an hour though, and it was raining.  Needless to say, the boys were not nearly as thrilled as I was to wait for entry.  We ended up leaving and walking down the Champs Elysees, aka, the most famous street and shopping area in Paris. 

 

We arrived/were walking down the Champs as it was getting dark, so we were able to see the transition from day shoppers to the bright lights of the evening.  As we reached the end, the Arc de Triomphe had just been lit, and was breathtaking.  It is so large!  It stopped raining long enough for us to walk around the Arc and get some beautiful pictures.  After this, my feet were seriously hurting and we were all growing pretty tired.  We headed back to the apartment (we stayed with the friend of one of the guys I was traveling with) to relax before going to a dinner party.  Our host took us to a nearby dinner party, which was very French and involved lots of cheese, bread, and wine.  I was ready to pass out at this point, and did so by about 11 PM. 

 

The next day began with a trip to Montmarte, home of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Moulin Rouge, and the artist district.  We visited all of these, beginning with the Basilica.  Again, a breathtaking scene.  This, of course, was only enhanced by the activities going on around the Basilica, including an awesome kid doing sweet soccer (‘football’) moves and an accordion player.

At this time I’m going to have to interrupt myself, and say that in the interest of time, and keeping my blogs semi-regular, I’m afraid that I will have to end this post here…

Additionally, my GeoBlog is having trouble uploading pictures, so there is not much I can show in the way of images at this point.  I will be traveling to Zurich this weekend, and will finish describing my Paris trip and birthday when I post about this upcoming trip!  Sorry for the abrupt ending.  More to come soon (famous last words, I know)!

 

Location: Paris, France