Week 2 Recap

(for Daddy)

1. Went out several nights in a row. Had a picnic at night by the Seine and was bored. Went to a Fireman's Ball and was bored.

2. Went to the Bastille Day military parade and was soaked. All I saw were planes. Had dinner at a very cute cafe. Went to the fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower and was amazed.

3. Went to Les Galeries Lafayettes and was blown away by this gorgeous, huge huge HUGE shopping establishment, full of designer clothing, accessories, home goods and more.

4. Did not go on bike tour for fear of rain.

5. Went to London. Was confused by English accents. Saw basically almost all of the important places in a very short time span. Met up with two old friends. Ate non-English food. Slept on the Eurostar. Got mistaken for a French native. Didn't really see the Changing of the Guard. Took lots and lots of pictures.

6. Went to a cute little sleepy French touristy town named Chartres, famous for its beautiful cathedral. Saw some really adorable sights. Was blown away by the scenery as well as every single church (how many do you need for a small town?). The main attraction, the Notre Dame de Chartres: the most beautiful and the largest church I have ever seen. More on that to come tomorrow.

Disgusting gourmet marshmallow update: had my third on Saturday. Tasted like toothpaste and chalk. Had another one last night (yes, I am hopeful): tasted like nothing, a vast improvement from tasting like crap.

Until tomorrow!

Was that even in English?

So, a long, long post (perhaps even TWO posts) about my fabulous weekend. Starting with Saturday morning.

Woke up at 4:30, stressed that I wouldn't wake up in time to get to Gare du Nord at 6:30am for my 7:15am Eurostar to London-St. Pancras International. Went to go take a shower and the lights in the shower short-circuited. Perfect. Had to go to another floor's showers. Got into this new shower, undressed and all, only to find that I had half a shower door. Just getting better. Showered, dressed, hair-combed, tooth-brushed, went downstairs to have breakfast (at about 5:45 now). Took a swig of my soy milk from the carton, only to find it to be the consistency of cream. Delightful. Had to throw half a carton of milk down the sink. Thankfully, I had enough pain de brioche au raisin to last me for breakfast (as well as an apple).

Took a metro (filled with mostly non-seedy people...really just people who had partied too much Friday night) to Gare de L'Est where I switched lines and go to the HUGE Gare du Nord. Navigated through the station to find the international departures, filled out an immigration card, passed security/customs and finally boarded my Eurostar car. That train was freakin' packed. I was super tired so despite the beautiful hills of Northern France rolling past my windows, I took a nice 2-hour nap.

Reached London and stepped out of the Eurostar. Immediately cold. At least it wasn't raining. Made my way out to the Arrivals terminal and who was waiting for me? My old friend Adam! I was absolutely delighted to see him. Haven't seen him in about two years, so that was a really nice reunion. If you want to know, this is Adam:

Yes, beautiful. So we took the Tube (vastly more comfortable than the Parisian metro) to Piccadilly Circus, where we found a ridiculous-looking souvenir kiosk where a man was selling tickets for The Original Tour, London's best hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tour by bus. We bought a couple of tickets, found the nearest stop and hopped on the bus. Sat on the top and toured London for about an hour on the bus, taking pictures of one old building after another (that was basically the extent of Adam's commentary on his hometown--"I don't know what that is. An old building?" Or maybe that's just what it sounded like. Impossible to tell through that British accent). We passed a whole lot of neat sites but ended up getting off at St. James Park, from where we then had to walk all the way to Buckingham Palace, already packed with people for the Changing of the Guard.

Being small, I pushed my way to the front of a crowd blocked off by rails but, as we were not next to the gates leading into the courtyard, we saw none of the actual 'changing,' just people marching in and out in funny-looking guard uniforms. Some woman commented, "What good traveling pair! She fits anywhere and you're so tall" about me and Adam, as I had handed him my camera and he was taking pictures from his much-higher vantage point (he's about 6'3"..where do I find these tall friends???).

Anyway, we got bored after about an hour or so of standing around and seeing nothing so we peaced and walked towards Hyde Park Corner, where we intended to meet Spencer (another friend from Harvard Summer Program, which is where I met Adam). We got there and waited for about twenty minutes or so for a very-lost Spencer to arrive. Adam got lazy and sat down, but I demanded we take pictures. (Me in front of Wellington Arch)

Spencer finally found us, and we started off on a long trek to Brompton Road, which is apparently the only place to eat in London (not really, but it seemed that way). We ate at some random sandwich eatery and all I had was a Moroccan falafel, which took just as long for me to eat as it took the boys to each eat several meals (or so it seemed to me). Incidentally, we happened to be eating right across from Harrod's (a huge and famous department store, as well as the only place in London nearly as photographed as the Buckingham Palace). So, of course, we took pictures.

Adam, that jerk, squatted for every picture he was in with me. Should have slapped him.

Didn't.

Then, we were off! To find Spencer tour bus tickets and to get on at the nearest bus stop. Once on the bus, the rest of the day was basically touring, finding places to get off and take pictures in groups of two. Marble Arch:

Buckingham Palace:

Memorial statue thing in front of Buckingham Palace:

London Parliament building:

Westminster Abbey:

Big Ben:

London Eye (and some bridge..Westminster Bridge?):

St. Paul's Cathedral (where Diana and Charles got married):

London Bridge:

London Tower: (incredibly incredibly old castle/fortress, now holds the crown jewels)

And me in an English telephone booth:

So at about 4:30, our tour ended (sadly) and I took a very early Tube (several Tubes in fact...got lost) to get to the train station about 1.5 hours early. Boredom. Bought a sandwich and a hot chocolate. (Also, tried to pay in Euros, French currency, for the hot chocolate and the cashier had to call over her French-speaking co-worker to speak to me, thinking I preferred speaking French...LOL) Took another nap on the Eurostar. Took the far-less-complicated Parisian metro back to the Foyer, had a yogurt and voila! Went to bed. Such was my night.

Blog post about Chartres to come.

Also, update about tonight: went shopping for a bathing suit and sunglasses. Bought fabulous Galeries Lafayettes sunglasses for 20 Euros. Also, while shopping, bought a pain aux raisins. Yes, two pastries in one day. Means no pastries until Friday. Sigh me.

Quick Update about French Life

So tonight I will update about my wonderful, fabulous, exciting weekend in London/Chartres (and also post a recap of my last week for Daddy) but right now, I thought I'd talk a little a bit about some interesting tidbits about Parisian life...

1. Clothing must be below the knee.
2. Your groceries will not be bagged for you. Bag them yourself.
3. The Parisian metro is the most convenient transportation system ever.
4. Sun rises at 6. Sets at 10. (What the hell????)
5. Every five steps you take is another place to eat.
6. Coffee after lunch. COFFEE RIGHT AFTER LUNCH. Practically mandatory.
7. Do not buy the artisan marshmallows. DO NOT.
8. French pastries: bread with chocolate and other tasty goods.
9. French meringue: basically cream.
10. French baguettes: the best thing you will ever get for 43 cents.
11. French boutiques: no. Robbery.
12. American chains in France: no. Heart attack.
13. French coffee: small cups. No milk/cream. Lots and lots of sugar.
14. French breakfast: bread and jam, bread and jam. Bread and Nutella if you're lucky.
15. French snack food is gourmet snack food.
16. Parisian bathrooms are in no way high-end.
17. Don't try to drive through the streets of Paris. Definitely don't try to park on the streets of Paris.
18. Paris at 6am? Alive. Paris at 11pm? Jumping.
19. French people hate working. Most stores are not open on Sunday. Many (if not all) stores have specific days during which they are open (like the bakery down the street from me, which is only open Thursday-Sunday. sigh.) Lunch breaks are (legit) two hours long.

Pastry update: Had a petit pain choco pistache this morning for .50 Euros. So so good.

That's all for now. Expect a long, long post later tonight! Also, check your emails. All my photos are now online!

Une nuit avec de beaux pompiers

So it's been a few days, but it's been an exciting few nights so I'm here to tell you all about it.

Monday night, I was planning on staying in and perhaps reading or streaming online tv, when I met a few girls from the foyer in the common room. They told me they had plans to go out with friends and friends of friends later on that night to have a picnic by the Seine and invited me along. It was a beautiful night so I willingly obliged and went out with them for a couple of hours later that night.

The night was gorgeous, Paris was all lit up, we could see the strobe lights from the Eiffel Tower, the bridges were teeming with tourists, music was playing. It was very nice. Also met people from England, Spain, Russia, Norway, Belgium...and two Princetonians! What are the chances? Apparently Paris is simply teeming with Princetonians. After a couple of hours though, a friend of mine and I decided to go in search of food and got back to our rooms no later than midnight after a quick stroll through our neighborhood from an open creperie (there were none).

Tuesday night was the veille de quatorze juillet, which means the eve of 14th July, in essence France's Independence Day. So there were parties all over the city. There was a concert happening at the Bastille, which was free and apparently full to the brim with people, but there were also dances happening at fireman's houses all over the city. So a couple of my friends and I hopped on the metro and rode on over to the 13th for a dance. We were pretty early and it was pretty dry when we got there. After about half an hour of sitting around chatting, we decided to get up and dance. For about an hour and half, we enjoyed ourselves. Then we decided we were a) bored, b) annoyed that the firemen were not dancing and c) tired. The music was pretty terrible anyway, so we left very early (about 11:45pm) and, unfortunately, got back to the foyer several hours before we had planned.

In a way, this was good, as I had to be up at 6:30 the next morning to get to the parade at Les Champs Elysees with fellow Princetonian Maria and her friend (Harvard student) Pamina).

We got to the Champs Elysees and walked several blocks (everything was blocked off) before finally finding pretty terrible standing room. I'm small as it is, so you can understand that I basically saw nothing. Pamina luckily had a connection at the Ministry of Defense who got her prime seats (she even got to meet Sarkozy and Carla Bruni!!! SO jealous). Maria and I and everyone else in the huge dense crowd waited several hours before the parade finally started with some men and horses. Then stopped. Then some men in uniform with flags. Then more nothing. Then finally planes flew overhead. With red, white and blue streaks in their wake. That was my favorite part. Except for when it started pouring rain. Wonderful. We, of course, had not thought to bring umbrellas. So we hid under a tree for a couple of minutes before decided to brave the rain and find the nearest metro home.

Chocolate pastry update: seeking shelter from the rain, and salvage for my hungry hungry body, ducked into a great boulangerie and bought pain au chocolat.

Once home, I washed all the dirt off my feet and took a nice nap while it continued to pour outside. At around 6:30pm, Maria and Pamina and I went out for dinner to a very nice cafe very close to where I work. Like all waiters in Paris, our waiter here also decided to tease me endlessly. Sigh. Dinner was absolutely magnificent, and not as expensive as I would think.

We finished by 8 and took the metro to Champ de Mars, the field right in front of the Eiffel Tower. That thing is huge. We found a nice, cold but dry clearing in the grass to sit on but decided we did not want to be cold for three hours while waiting for the feux d'artifices. So we took a walk to find me some hot chocolate (I was quite cold) and Pamina some crepes. At that point, Maria decided she wasn't feeling well and went home (quel dommage!). Pamina found cheap crepes and we found a nice cafe to shelter us from the cold and bring us some cafe au lait. I swear, cafe au lait will suck all my money away this trip. So expensive.

Pamina and I chatted and monitored the ever-increasing cigarette-purchasing line in the tabac right next to us until about 10:30pm when a mad rush of people started walking towards the Eiffel Tower. We quickly finished up and grabbed our stuff and joined them. Thankfully, we're small, and squeezed through the crowd until we found a pretty decent viewing area. The Eiffel Tower was lit up and sparkling and simply magnificent. But that was nothing in comparison to the fireworks in conjunction with the backdrop.

Oh. My. God. I've never seen anything that beautiful. Fireworks and French music and the Eiffel Tower. Just amazing. So so epic. It just made warm inside to see something that gorgeous. It was the perfect end to a great day.

Today actually was also pretty great. I finished work early so I peaced out and went to Les Galeries Lafayettes, (the biggest designer department store I will ever see) with my roommate. So many nice clothes and bags and shoes and jewelry and oh my! Even the place itself is gorgeous. It's seven floors and simply magnificent on the interior. Kind of like every shopper's heaven.

So that's my update. (Also, I spent about $11 today on handmade artisan marshmallows...one of which I tasted earlier and found to taste like nailpolish. Sigh. Hopefully the other seven flavors I bought taste better.)

Until tomorrow! (Bike tour. Finally)

View from the Top and Domaine de Versailles

Okay, on to the Notre Dame. Even at 9, there was a long line. Thankfully, during the summer it doesn't close until 11pm (probably so people actually have a chance to see Paris in the dark, as opposed to in perpetual sun). The line moved pretty quickly and, before we knew it, we were climbing the never-ending, slowly-tightening staircase. When you thought it was over, nope! There was more. Stairs that went forever and ever and ever. How did the monks ever get up there? I thought my legs were going to fall off.

Finally, we get to the top. We can see basically all of Paris, as well as the famed Notre Dame gargoyles and several beautiful parts of the Notre Dame that we could not see from the bottom. Huge arches and columns and overall amazing architecture.

A few pictures follow:

Of course, we thought that was it. But when we tried to go down, there was a huge crowd in front of us. Confused, Joy conjectured that it was a tour group. We pushed through and, at the top of the stairs, a man demanded if we were going up or down. Up? I thought. And then sad. Il y a plus en haut? So Joy and I turned around and got in line to go up more flights of stairs. Even tighter this time. I swear, this stairs were made to kill.

But so so worth it. The view at the top is just incredible. Its a tight squeeze, with the wire framing and all those people. Very small viewing deck. But very very nice. The wind, the sunset, th view. Picturesque at its utmost.

We also saw the famous Notre Dame bell. Not very interesting. But very large. Very old.

Unfortunately, we had to leave. The stairs down: much faster, much easier. I was supremely gross from the long day of walking so I took a quick shower and that was it for the day!!

6 Euros for a bottle of water??

Really quick entry about Versailles, because now I'm getting behind on my posts.

Took the metro to a mutual meeting point where I finally met up with a fellow rising sophomore at Princeton. We had made no plans about how we would found each other but, using some fabulous Princeton logic and common sense, managed to find each other in the crowd and board the train de grand vitesse to Versailles Rive Gauche.

Got there and there was already a huge line for tickets. Tourists, I swear. Waited an hour and a half in the heat. (Thankfully, only until 1pm; we got there early enough so our flesh didn't melt off our faces) Finally got tickets and went inside. I swear this place is made of gold. HUGE.

We saw a bunch of unimportant rooms, tons of galleries of art, a chapel and a few ridiculously ornate bedrooms. One thing of note in Versailles: the ceilings. Every single ceiling is ridiculously lavish, decorated with paintings and gilded carvings and the like. Examples:

My favorite room in the Chateau: Galeries des Glace. Hallway of mirrors.

After exiting the Chateau, we went straight to the gardens. The gardens are enormous. They stretch forever. And have a fountain about every 10m.

We found a little cafe in a maze (there are lots) and all I bought was a perrier because a) I thought I was about to die of thirst and b) I was too excited to be hungry. Also had a big breakfast.

Onwards: after walking around a bit more, we saw the Grandes Eaux Spectacle, which sounds really great, but is really only them turning the fountains on. Woopee. So Rebecca (the girl with me) left to go meet up with her friends and I left the gardens to go see the rest of Versailles (like I said, it stretches FOREVER). I realized that I would pass out if I tried to walk through the rest of the land so I found a bike rental stand! BEST IDEA EVER. Biking through Versailles: beautiful, carefree, inexprimable. It was so nice to be in the shade, zipping through the trees, passing along the picnicers, stopping only where I wanted. The people even gave me a kids bike after I very shamefacedly asked for one. (What?? I'm small...)

Saw Le Grille de Neptune. More fountains. Realized that all you need to do is speak French or English to ask some random passerby to take your picture. If they speak neither, motioning with a camera in your hand and a big smile on your face will usually do the trick. Tourists are quick to catch on. And they will demand the same favor in return. It's only fair.

Next: Le Petit Trianon, part of Marie Antoinette's estate. Also saw the jardin anglais. More fancy stuff. Nothing extraordinary (except for the fact that she had a whole space in Versailles all to herself, complete with several large castle-like structures. Unjust). Sadly, I didn't get to see the main attraction of her estate because I had to return the bike. Somehow, I managed to get back to the rental stand at exactly the time I was due. I am just amazing sometimes. Fabulous.

The rest of the night was pretty crazy. Took the metro to Trocadero, where they had a huge screen set up, and hundreds of soccer fans had filled the park and the space in front of the screen to watch the match, donning yellow and red all around. I was so mad for forgetting my jersey. Crazy, loud, intense atmosphere. Thankfully, I left after halftime. Leaving after Spain had just won the World Cup would have been impossible and probably dangerous. But it was a crazy fun experience, being surrounded by all that Espana pride. Would have forgotten that I was in Paris and not Spain, had it not been for the bulwark of the Eiffel Tower in my plain sight.

VIVA ESPANA!!

Recap of my first week

(for Daddy)

1. found the equivalent of Target: the Monoprix

2. met my employer, found my office, and was introduced to my very tedious, very laid-back job

3. went to a local bar with a Princeton grad, watched the World Cup in style

4. bought a few cheap french pastries. found a famous used/new English-language bookstore called Shakespeare & Co. bought a book.

5. went shopping. bought a very expensive leather designer handbag. saw the actual Sorbonne (I work at on off-campus site)

6. visited Le Pantheon, Ste. Chappelle, La Conciergerie

7. ate crepes by the Seine

8. climbed the steps of the Notre Dame

9. went to Versailles. walked through the Chateau. Biked through Marie Antoinette's domain. Saw lots and lots of fountains.

10. went to Trocadero with hundreds of ESPANA fans. Saw the World Cup final in even more style, surrounded by French Spain fans and Spanish Frenchmen.

Daddy, asking me to sum up my life in Paris in a few bullet points is simple cruelty. Also: details and pictures of points 8/9/10 to come.

Il y a plus en haut? pt. 2

Today was a crazy day but first I have to finish talking about yesterday.

After visiting Ste. Chappelle, Joy and I walked over to La Conciergerie which is basically connected. Like I said, the two, along with some other awesome buildings, make up the ancient courthouse/prison thing. Yes, I'm not explaining very well but it's really irrelevant. The Conciergerie also used to house armed soldiers/guards/policemen. Thousands of them. Its beautifully preserved and was very nicely constructed. The King also sometimes met there with parliament. We saw reconstructed prison cells, the women's court, the expiatory church, and the floor of the cell of Marie Antoinette. Also, a window with her seal. And two plaques commemorating her and her husband, Louis ...something. Anyway, some pictures:

Marie Antoinette's reconstructed cell:

The last words of Maximilien Robespierre, revolutionary:

Okay, on to the Notre Dame.

After a quick break so Lucille (from the foyer) could do a room inspection, Joy and I went out again. Saw a huge line at Notre Dame so we decided to grab some delicious delicious crepes, super cheap, by the side of the street and eat them by the Seine on the keys. Beautiful scenery. So many people. Very nice experience.

All the boats with the tourists passing by..beautiful. Very nice place to be, Paris in the summertime.

Notre Dame: tomorrow. Pritha is again very, very tired. Also: Chateau de Versailles and VIVA ESPANA!!!!

Night.