au paris!

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow,
learn as if you were to live forever."
-Mahatma Gandhi

Hello world! I'm back from my extended foray into Mediterranean culture, and once again enjoying Kingston on a surprisingly sunny afternoon. I've actually been home for a few days, but blogging has been pushed off by mechanism writing for the Fischer synthesis of an indole all weekend. (Sounds exciting, hm?) I'm actually supposed to be writing up a lab report for tomorrow, but as the Kingston site isn't currently loading, I have a wonderful excuse to write about a city or two instead! Spring break was absolutely fantastic. I'm sure that I'll never again get the chance to travel for three weeks straight, so I tried to make the best of every moment! It's amazing how long three weeks is though, especially when you're living out of suitcases in hostel after hostel, so it's nice to be in a real bed again. And after only three weeks, I'd already forgotten which way to look for traffic on the roads, and seeing pounds instead of euros threw me for a loop. But now I'm back into the swing of things in England, though the laundry pile I have waiting for me tells me otherwise.

Anyway, since I'm a bit OCD about chronological order, I'm going to reverse in time and post about Paris first. Knowing how terrible my memory is, it won't take too long to post what I remember from this trip. The four of us (Erica, Sara, Kaitlin, and myself) left at some ridiculously early hour on Friday to get to Luton Airport for a 6AM flight. Yeah, we're nuts. We got into Paris mid morning, and after finding our hostel and grabbing some lunch, we headed to Notre Dame Cathedral! Considering its status as one of the most famous cathedrals in the world (even kids know about it thanks to Disney!), it was awesome to walk through the interior, but it was the exterior that I really loved. And it was even more beautiful when it was illuminated at night. The climb to the bell tower was closed when we went, so I had to settle for waving hello to the hunchback instead.

Our next stop? Ms. Eiffel, of course! The walk along the river from Notre Dame to the tower was far longer than we expected, but it gave us a good chance to see some of the beautiful architecture in the city. But really, little else in Paris besides Notre Dame can compete with the beauty of the Eiffel Tower. Seeing it up close is an experience, it's huge! And sitting underneath the tower is another experience, because every two seconds you get someone shaking a huge ring of Eiffel Tower keychains at you saying "one euro, one euro!". It's nuts how many of them were in the small area beneath the tower...clearly that many were not necessary. Or you get women asking if you speak English to read a card about how disastrous their life is and asking for money. Eventually, saying no when they asked if you spoke English didn't even work, so I settled for "no hablo ingles!". For anyone visiting Paris soon, be advised that you're better off admiring the tower from a distance if you want any peace.

That night, Sara and Erica went to see Dita Von Teese, so Kaitlin and I were on our own for the evening. I believe we had crepes at a cafe and dinner at an American restaurant. Yup, we go to France and eat American. Oops.

The next morning, Erica and I had French bread for breakfast, and were beyond excited for it. My baguette certainly met expectations, and was pure deliciousness.

Then it was time to hit up the Louvre! Now, I may not be an art person, but my love for The Da Vinci Code had me almost as excited as the artsy kids for the infamous museum. After a photo shoot in front of the pyramid (the featured picture here is Kaitlin and myself imitating fountains), we headed in. An apology to any art fanatics, but I thought the best part of the museum were some of the ceilings. In truth, I much preferred some of the art in the Prado, but that's a future post. But to be fair, there's a whole lot of Louvre that I didn't cover, so maybe I just didn't get to the right sections. There were a few paintings I really liked, mainly depictions of the crucifixion, and it was cool to see Hammurabi's Code, as it's one of the few things I remember learning about in global history, but even Mona Lisa wasn't very interesting. She's tiny! Thanks to Dan Brown, I was much more interested in the point where the two pyramids touch than I was in Mona. But I'm glad I went, as my mother put it: "It's good to get some culture." Yeah, yeah. I got my culture in for the weekend.



Our next visit was to the Arc de Triomphe. We passed by some interesting street performers on the way, and I think somewhere in here we stopped for lunch and ice-cream. The arch was pretty, but it was another one of those things that looked even better at night lit up. We walked down to a park nearby, and Sara and Erica fed the pigeons and then acted as lawn mowers and threw some grass around. Yeah, we also go to Paris and act like six year olds. =)

The four of us explored the city for awhile, and then headed back towards the Eiffel Tower for dinner. (Doesn't Eiffel look good at sunset? Yum.) Then it was back to the Eiffel Tower to ride up to the top! (Yup, Eiffel looks fantastic at night, too!) While waiting in line, I actually met a graduate of Whitesboro, thanks to the jacket I was wearing. Small world, hm? The view from the top was amazing. Some may call Paris the "City of Love", but I prefer to think of it as the "City of Lights". Everywhere you looked, the city was ablaze with light, and beautiful to see. But I heard there was an engagement while we were up there, so maybe it's the "City of Love" too. Oh yeah, and on the hour, Eiffel even sparkles! I just could not get sick of seeing that every day of my life.


The next morning, Kaitlin and I went to Versailles to see the palace and gardens. The palace itself was overly gaudy and lavish, as expected, but fun to see. Once again, I think I prefer the Palacio Real in Madrid, but that could just be my bias for Spain showing through. The gardens were beautiful, but it was too cold to enjoy them for long, so we weren't outside for more than a few minutes.

I can't for the life of me remember what we did that afternoon, but in the evening, we set out to see more of Paris at night. One of my favorite things to do in a city is see the monuments when they are lit up at night, and Paris certainly was a good place to do just that. We started by walking through the Latin Quarter (on accident, I think), which I wish we had discovered earlier. It was a fantastic block full of all sorts of interesting people and places (including a takeaway crepe place that made me a happy camper), lit up by neon signs for bars and clubs, restaurants and ice-cream places everywhere; it just looked like a fun hangout in general. Then we walked to Notre Dame again, which was quite peaceful. I much preferred it to the bustling crowds of the daytime. We walked back through the Latin Quarter so I could get my chocolate crepe and then hopped on the metro to see the Arc de Triomphe. This time, we actually crossed the street and walked through it, which was definitely worthwhile. Paris just seems to sparkle at night (literally and figuratively). Then after one last wave to Eiffel, it was the end of my weekend trip to Paris.

All in all, Paris was one of my favorite cities to visit, but I think it wins as number one on my list of cities that I would not want to live in. It's beauty, especially at night, trumped any city I'd been to before (though I hadn't seen Venice yet!), but there was just something about it that didn't feel welcoming. Maybe it was because I was American, and we all know that the French despise us. Maybe it was because I was going in with preconceived notions that because I'm not a fan of the French language I wouldn't like Paris. Either way, Paris was worth a visit, but I wouldn't want to return too soon. (I know that's heartbreaking for some of you Paris fanatics.)

But then again, they DO have crepes...