"i am the green fairy!"

Here it is folks...after much anticipation, another long-delayed post about Paris!  My goal is to wrap up spring break over the weekend because next week we are all headed to Rome (and in my case, Venice as well) for Easter!  I can't believe it's that time already.  I can't believe how fast this semester is going by.  It's crazy!

As I mentioned in the post on Versailles here, after our day-trip out of Paris we met up with my flatmate Nicolle and her travel companions Siobhan and Julie for drinks.  As we were in Paris, after all, we decided we needed to be adventurous and bad-ass and all those other good things, so we looked up absinthe bars in the district we were both staying in.  There was one that seemed about equidistant between their hostel on République and our home in the 10e, so we Google-mapped walking directions and headed there.  We assumed it would be an easy walk as it only required two turns, but we managed to do both of those two turns wrong and walked almost all the way to République instead of getting to the place in the middle like we should have.  Lots of wandering around Parisian streets at night, but thankfully it was a decently nice area so there was no apprehension like there would have been, say if we were walking around Montpellier at night ;)

At any rate, we all finally got to this bar around the same time (the others had gotten really turned around too), and it turns out it either is, or claims to be, the oldest absinthe bar in Paris, Cantada II.  (Look at that link, and then you will be able to scoff at me for the rest of this story about what an idiot I am for taking us there in the first place :P )  

Turns out Cantada II was a goth-Satanist-Spanish fusion bar...yeah.  Wrap your head around that one.  Goth-Satanist-Spanish fusion.  It was as weird as it sounds...fake skulls on the wall, lots of pornographic-ish manga-style art that I could see people having tattooed on them in some countercultural effort to rebel.  I was a little weirded out, rocking my J.Crew sweater set and dragging four non-French speakers (Nicolle speaks a decent amount) in with me.  Everybody's reaction was a little skeptical as we grabbed a table, but it was handled with good grace and, in hindsight, it was a just-plain-hilarious situation.  I mean, it sounds like the opener to a bad joke: "Six Notre Dame students walk into a goth-Satanist-Spanish fusion absinthe bar in Paris..."

As the best French speaker of the crew, I headed bravely to the bar while the rest held down the fort...Charlie followed me thank goodness, which later was very fortunate.  I ordered six "mitres" of absinthe (a play on words based on the Satanist nature of the bar and the shape of the glasses...a mitre is a hat used by religious officiants) and settled in to wait...it takes about ten minutes to prepare absinthe correctly, because the actual alcohol has to be poured from the bottle over a sieve containing sugar cubes, dissolving the sugar completely and filtering down into the mitre before it is drinkable...it forms kind of a slurry-like texture.  

While we waited, two big tattooed vest-wearing biker-looking French men at the bar started a conversation with me, with the by now all-too-predictable opening line: "Your French is very good, where did you learn?"  Naive as I was, I explained that I was in university and had learned "au lycée" (high school) and at college.  They took this to mean effectively that I was young (yes) and wild (no), as is the French pre-conception of American college students.  They were hitting on me pretty hard, but in a very good-natured way, and if they wouldn't have looked like they were Hell's Angels lost in France, I wouldn't have made Charlie be my fake boyfriend while the absinthe filtered.  As it was, he stood with me and was a very good bodyguard/pretend BF for the next ten minutes.  My biker friends, whose names I have forgotten, were very assiduous in inviting me to return to La Cantada the next night, Friday, for the weekly orgy concerts.  That's right.  Orgy concerts.  I thought I had misheard them and thus told them that I had misunderstood.  They then explained, very explicitly, that every Friday night there were raging concerts in the basement that then turned into "lots of sex."  I politely said that we would consider checking it out, and our absinthe was fortunately done filtering so we took everyone's drinks to the table.  

Later, my nouveaux amis came over and one of them showed me his sketchbook, which was actually remarkably beautiful pen-and-ink drawings of Paris landmarks, Métro stops, and architecture...with naked women interspersed throughout.  Still, we had a wonderful look-through them as we sipped our absinthe, which tasted JUST like black licorice.  Overall, a very successful absinthe experience, free of hallucinogens (we went to a "safe" absinthe bar, apparently) and green fairies :)  After we all finished, we bid adieu to lovely Nicolle, Siobhan and Julie, and headed home, only to get lost again.  Thanks to Charlie on that one as well for good navigation...he finally figured out where we were and got us home!  

Long story short: if you are going to drink absinthe, check your bar out first so that you don't get propositioned at the bar by French bikers.  And when six Notre Dame students walk into a goth-Satanist-Spanish fusion bar, hilarity is sure to ensue :)

my absinthe: it glowed in the dark when I took a photo!

Skirting the Issue, and a very golden day!

Finally, another long-awaited Parisian post, but first, a note on London men.

They are creeps!! At least a lot of them are, or at the very least, a lot of them in our part of the town are.  Today was warm enough to go out in a skirt with bare legs (55-60 degrees during the day, sunny skies, GORGEOUS) so I did when I had to go get groceries.  Not only did I get honked at twice (in a totally respectable knee-length skirt with a cardigan), but a cab driver rolled down his window and asked if I wanted to take a ride with him later.  Ew, sketch.  Why does this bug me, after getting hit on multiple times in Paris?  I don't really know.  Mostly because it's so asinine, unnecessary and unflattering on both ends.  I guess I need to keep the tights on for the time being.  Sigh.  

Anyway, I digress.  We're up to Paris Day 3: Versailles!  

Team Hot Route (formerly known as Team Tuscalonis) departed for Versailles around 11:30 am after a leisurely and lovely morning in which the ladies took cold showers (Claire's building was having the heaters worked on, which we didn't learn until the day we departed) and Charlie made us breakfast and tea.  What a man, ladies, what a man.  The train to Versailles was fast, cheap and easy, much like its former residents...from what I knew and later learned on Wikipedia, it sounds like the Bourbons didn't worry about messing around at ALL.  We arrived on a beautiful sunny, if blustery-cold, day.  The castle is absolutely unlike Windsor in every way on the outside...palace describes it better than castle.  To me, a castle always implies moats and stone and dungeons and fortresses; a palace is somewhere with expansive gardens and excessive windows and ornamental fences, not defensive walls.  Versailles is the epitome of a palace.  Gold EVERYWHERE.  Windows EVERYWHERE.  Gardens EVERYWHERE.  I already knew I was going to like it a LOT.

Too bad the ticket-vendor had to sour me on the experience right away!  We had been informed by Peter that it was possible to get free admission to Versailles with our student visas; I asked accordingly when we were purchasing tickets.  Not only did the man we were buying from totally deny us, but he was a complete and utter asshole about it.  After I attempted to explain that our visas had been accepted at the Musée d'Orsay and the Louvre (a petite white lie), he gave me the snottiest, snootiest look ever and said, in the most patronizing tone I have EVER heard in my life: 

"Madame, this is not the Musée d'Orsay, this is not the Louvre.  THIS...is Versailles."

To hear him talk, you would think I had marched in there in a fannypack and cowboy hat and demanded rudely in English to have tea with Marie Antoinette herself.  I was speaking fluent French and made a perfectly reasonable request, to which he responded with utter rudeness and snobbishness.  It was my first experience with real French xenophobia and it completely put a damper on the rest of my day.  We instead paid the fee of 15 euro to enter, then ate our lunch in a café overlooking the gardens, which cheered me up a bit.  Nothing like Nutella and Bonne Maman jam on baguette to give you a little sugar rush and make your day brighter!

We finally entered the palace for real and picked up our handy dandy audio guides!  The palace itself was beautiful.  Fantastic parquet floors, marble, gold, and carving everywhere, and ceilings of every room gilded, painted and decorated to the nines.  The chapel was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen.  This was becoming a theme with my spring break...

After walking through a random photo retrospective on Versailles over the past 150 years (umm wtf?!) we finally reached the State Departments.  Much prettiness.  A lot of art.  A lot of gold.  A lot of really expensive decoration and furniture.  I was loving it, although I have to say the interior was almost a bit underwhelming compared to Windsor...and compared to the beautiful views of the palace gardens!  We finally reached the Hall of Mirrors and it was...well, everything I thought it would be...enormous, mirrored, absolutely majestic.  It was also, however, totally crowded with tourists.  I suppose that's how it would have been back in the day as well, only everybody would've been wearing awesome gowns and jewels.  Haha...that's how I always imagined it.  Silly me.  :)

I may or may not have taken a Myspace mirror pic in the Hall of Mirrors.  But I'm embarrassed about the fourteen-year-oldishness of that so it's not going on my nice blog.  :)  The State departments continued and Coleen and I saw Marie Antoinette's rooms, including the bed where she gave birth to her children in front of a bajillion-and-two members of the court:

We then headed outside to walk around and explore the beautiful grounds.  It was a fantastic sunny day and we had a really good time walking around and exploring!  The gardens weren't in bloom or anything but there were buds on all the trees and I bet the exterior is absolutely stunning in the summer.  

There are three other chateaux on the Versailles grounds...the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon and the Hameau of Marie Antoinette.  We walked out quite a ways to go visit those as well; I really wanted to see them as they were famous as being Marie Antoinette's favorite personal retreats from the busy and public life in the main palace.  Once we got to the Petit Trianon, however, we were dismayed to discover that each of the three attractions cost an additional fee!  At that point, everybody was so sour on the previous ticket-vendor's attitude that I didn't even bring up paying more to see the rest of the chateaux.  I guess it's just an incentive to go back someday when I have lots and lots of spare change...after all, who wants to do and see everything?  Then there's nothing left to live for!  It's just like with Cinque Terre...since we didn't make it to Monterossa, the fifth town, I have a reason to go back.  Now I have one for Versailles as well!  :)

After some more wandering around the garden, and some awesome/moderately embarrassing Team Hot Route photos in front of the Grand Trianon (it's PINK! I was in heaven!), our group walked back to the main palace to catch the train back to our Parisian home for the week.  We ate our dinner and met up with Nicolle, Siobhan and Julie later...but that's a different story for a different post, as it's getting late here.  Bonsoir, chéries!!  Bisous!  (Goodnight and kisses, dear friends!)

bonjour paris, ça va?

Our first full day in Paris, Wednesday the 10th, started as we ate a spare and nasty breakfast in our hostel, then went to meet Peter at the République Métro stop to go drop our things at Claire’s apartment.  Her place is adorable!  Small, perfectly clean and decorated very eclectically, just as I always thought a French girl’s house would be done.  It was beautiful outside!  Very sunny and pretty.  We took the Métro to the Musée d’Orsay as soon as we had all dropped our things off, looked around and geared up to head out.  The Musée d’Orsay used to be a train station, and was almost demolished to make way for new construction, but thankfully was converted to a museum instead…it’s absolutely beautiful!  The focus of the museum is mainly on Impressionist art.  I was in heaven…Impressionism is my favorite! 

We saw works by Renoir, Monet, Manet, Degas (I love his ballerinas!), Sisley, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and so many others I can’t even remember all of them.  I was in absolute heaven wandering around by myself…we all split up to do the museum right and just enjoy it on our own, at our own pace.  One of the best parts for me was talking to one of the museum's head curators, in French, for about half an hour about how the d'Orsay was renovating gradually in hopes of being able to attract donations from private art collectors and add to their Impressionist collection.  I felt like such a bad-ass, using my French and actually having an intelligent, cultured conversation...aaah!!  :D

It was really cool especially to see some overlap between the Van Gogh museum, which I visited in Amsterdam, and the Musée d’Orsay.  There were more paintings by the Barbizon School, a French pre-impressionist movement that majorly influenced Van Gogh and focused on painting nature and capturing light.  There was also another big feature on Van Gogh…I feel like everything these days is focused on him, with the museum in Amsterdam, the big exhibit at the d’Orsay, and now the huge exhibition in London at the Royal Academy of the Arts, which I still have to get to. 

The sculpture at the Musée d’Orsay was remarkable as well!  It took up the entire main part of the gallery, which used to be the central part of the train station and was consequently enormous, sun-drenched and beautifully open.  I love sculpture, but to be honest, everything sort of paled in comparison to the amazingness of The David in Florence.  Still, it was so beautiful and I loved it. 

After the d’Orsay, we headed back to Claire’s to bid Peter farewell, as he was heading to Perpignan, her hometown, to spend the rest of the break with her.  We got some baguette, sausage, cheese and jam on the way to make our usual lunches of sandwiches (nowhere NEAR as good as the coppa and pecorino in Lucca, but still), and all too soon it was time for him to go…it was so sad to break up Team Hot Route!  We spent the rest of the afternoon settling into Claire’s and catching up on some much-needed rest, relaxation and correspondence with families. 

Later that afternoon Nicolle texted us to see if we wanted to meet up for dinner, so we offered to cook.  After meeting their group at Goncourt, the Métro stop closest to Claire’s, we cooked a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese, salad, toasted bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and a cheese platter for appetizer/dessert.  Not to mention several bottles of amazing red, white, and rosé wine…yum!  We went to bed really early after they headed out for the night, totally exhausted and looking forward to our planned trip to Versailles the next day! 

it's a small world after all :)

Hello...so, as you can see, that was the last blog post I actually drafted out while we were spring-breaking, as Paris required so much of my rapture, devotion and attention that by the end of every day I was in such a euphoric state of exhaustion that I simply collapsed into bed grinning from ear to ear.

I am in LOVE with Paris.  The city...aaah.  It wasn't everything I dreamed it would be...it was better, it was worse, it was different, it was how I imagined it...the city defies imagination just as much as it inspires it.  I kept feeling like everything was surreal and I seriously couldn't believe I was there for most of the six days we had there.

When we arrived at Gare Lyon, we went to the Ministry of Economics and Finance to meet our lovely hostess for the week, miss Claire Botella.  She was kind enough to lend us her beautiful little apartment in the tenth arrondissement (neighborhood) for the week!  After we got her keys, we went to drop our things at the hostel we were staying at for one night (while she was still in Paris and needed her apartment).  The hostel was way the heck out in the middle of the 18th, and was a total shithole, but we literally changed clothes and headed straight for the #1 Parisian icon tourist destination...the Eiffel Tower!

We took a Paris Métro to get there and my first official sight of the tower was as the train exploded out of the underground to street level, with the tower directly outside the window.  I seriously teared up and almost died right then and there of satisfaction.  We got there around 4:00, just in time to climb it for sunset.  That's right...CLIMB it.  We CLIMBED the Eiffel Tower.  Let me tell you, that is one hell of a natural Stairmaster...my legs were killing me for the next 48 hours!

This is where the "it's a small world after all" part comes into play: As our group reached the top of the second level, out of the souvenir shop popped my one-and-only flatmate Nicolle and the rest of her spring break group!  I stopped dead in my tracks and immediately shouted "NICOLLE" right in her face.  She turned, did a HUGE classic double-take, and shouted right back in my face, "LIZZIE!"  Then we ALL started jumping around and shrieking and laughing about how small the world really is when you're tourists in Paris.  We were super super super excited about it, as we weren't supposed to overlap our time in Paris by much at all...I guess the whole Montpellier debacle was a little God moment helping us get to that awesome encounter on La Tour Eiffel :)

Anyway, we watched the sunset on the tower, took a million gazillion pictures (literally, I promise you), and were getting ready to head down when all of a sudden the lights show started.  I was breathless the entire five minutes, just completely in awe of where I was and what I was doing and how so many dreams had all culminated in just one day.  We descended and I literally felt like my insides were having their own little light show, I was so happy!

Peter led all of us to an amazing restaurant he had eaten at on his first trip to Paris, called Le Royal.  For 12 euro we got an appetizer, entrée, dessert, and three glasses of wine apiece...I had a chevre crépe with salad for my appetizer, choux (spinach, cheese and meat made into a sort of layered soufflé type thing) with rice and tomato remoulade for my main, and a to-DIE-for pear tart for dessert.  Not to mention I had an amazing time conversing with the proprietor, waiter and bartender, all of whom thought my French was great and had many helpful tips and suggestions about what we needed to see and do in Paris!

Exhausted, we headed back to our hostel for a night of sketchy sleep...I covered my pillowcase with my towel and made sure every inch of my skin was out-of-contact with the questionable sheets...but it was so much more than worth the ickiness to dream about the fact that I was in the City of Light and my adventures had just begun!!

That's enough for now, and Paris is too amazing to be wrapped into one post...expect more soon :)

Observations de train…

Originally written on 3/9, en route to Paris…it was a 4 hour train ride.  Cut me some slack, I needed something to do!  : )

10:37: Leaving Gare St. Roch, Montpellier.  Sigh of relief, prayer of thanksgiving.

10:53: Lots of vineyards.  And snow.  And you can tell that they are not super-used to snow here. 

11:09: The other four are passed out dead asleep.  We’re stopped at Nimes, another South-of-France small town.  French women are irrepressibly chic.  Makes me wish I could rock short hair. 

11:34: Countryside.  This train has a bar, apparently…I’m tempted to go find it.  The guy sitting diagonal from me has the most Gerard Depardieu-esque nose I’ve ever seen, and it’s making me happy.  Lots of hills…contemplating falling asleep, but I’m afraid I’ll miss announcements or something.  Hmmm….

12:09: Kate and I just ate an entire tube of Pringles.  With minor assistance from Charlie and Coleen.  Très gourmands. 

12:42: Taking advantage of our train captivity to clean out and organize the 10,000 photos in my iPhoto library.  We just passed a ruined castle, and some grazing sheep and cattle.  Very provincial France.  I feel like I should be listening to “Beauty and the Beast” right now…

1:41: The bathrooms are smaller than airplane bathrooms, the French countryside we’re riding through right now looks like Nebraska, and my iPhoto library has been so far condensed to 9275 photos.  Productive trip…

2:04: They just announced Gare Lyon, Paris.  My heart is absolutely palpitating right now.  AAAAAAH PARIS!!!!  I'm finally here!!  Updates soon!

alone in the flat and in a bloggy mood :)

Good morning!  It's currently 11:00 on Thursday a.m. and I am so happy this morning...everything is sort of going my way right now.  Classes are shockingly easy compared to the ND equivalents I would be taking...probably means I'm in for a bitch of a senior year, but that's fine and it is totally worth it to be here.  I'm starting to figure things out around here and this place is really starting to feel like "home," which is so weird because up until now it's kind of felt like a very odd vacation.

The primary reason I'm so happy?  Last night a group of us started preliminary planning for our SPRING BREAK, and all I can say is that it is going to be absolutely, unbelievably epic.  Thanks to a series of weird and fortunate coincidences, we started off with one plan (which, yes, would have been awesome) and ended up with a totally different, totally awesome plan.  Peter, one of the three guys in our group of six, happens to have a former teacher with a villa in Tuscany (here's where you pause, breathe in, breathe out and read that sentence again.  A VILLA.  In TUSCANY.), which we would be able to get for one of the weekends of our break.  We'll be starting our travels there, flying into Pisa, Italy (as in, Leaning Tower of!) and traveling to Lucca, the location of our villa for the weekend.  From Lucca we can conveniently day-trip to Florence (about an hour), Pisa (about 1/2 an hour) and Cinque Terre, not to mention the gorgeous Tuscan countryside...we're in the heart of Chianti Country and does that ever sound good!

After several days in Tuscany, we were looking into going to Nice, France (near Cannes, Monaco, etc), but then we discovered that it is pretty much impossible to get anywhere from Nice for a reasonable price...so we started frantic-searching for somewhere to go from Pisa.  I'll admit there were more than a few moments of panic, and my stress level came somewhere near going through the roof, but with the help of a little 1.50 pound wine and some ingenuity on RyanAir, I happened on a flight from Pisa to Barcelona, Spain...for only 22 euro per person!!  (For those of you unfamiliar with the costs/intricacies of flying around Europe: it CAN be done cheaply, but Barcelona has...until now...seemed to be one of those places that are impossible to get to for a reasonable price.)  I immediately started freaking out; it seemed too good to be true but fortunately it WAS true, and we will be spending the next three days of our spring break on the beautiful streets and beaches of Barcelona!!  I can't wait to see the place, everybody I've talked to has said it's beautiful.

After the three days in Barcelona, we will be finishing up our journey in what I personally think is the best most wonderful amazing possible way imaginable...with four days in........

PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I found us flights from Barcelona to Paris for 10 euro apiece.  I seriously almost had a heart attack with excitement.  One thing that I had been really worried about was seeing everything I want to see in Paris with only a weekend to do it.  Now it seems like that will be totally possible...four complete days in the city I've been obsessed with seeing for...hmm, I don't know, most of my adolescent and young-adult LIFE?!  I can't wait to sit down and spend some quality time with Google planning this leg of the trip!

As I said, though, this is all preliminary, and needs way better/more thorough planning.  Thankfully, I think we've got a really solid travel group with pretty similar interests and desires re: how we want to spend our time in these amazing cities, so I have a feeling that once we can sit down and really hammer out details, everything will come together beautifully.  :)  I am honest-to-goodness SO excited and thrilled about this that I can hardly articulate it.  The best part is that it's looking like we will be able to do this trip so cheaply from the standpoint of traveling and living arrangements that I will be able to add a weekend trip somewhere I wanted to go but didn't think was fiscally possible, so I'm really excited to start looking into travel to Prague, Germany, or Austria.  This spring break brings the list of places I will be going to:

-Pisa, Italy
-Florence, Italy
-Tuscany/Cinque Terre, Italy
-Venice, Italy
-Rome, Italy
-Paris, France
-Barcelona, Spain

And that's only over Spring Break and Easter!! :)  I definitely want to make it to somewhere like Prague or Germany or Austria to get a taste of somewhere NOT Romance-Language-speaking, Westerny, etc.  Aaah.  Life is molto bene, très bien, muy bueno, VERY good.

I do have to leave for class in about half an hour though, so I am going to go make myself a sandwich and some carrots and a banana or something for a quick lunch before leaving the flats.  Have a lovely day (once you all wake up, haha!) and remember to mind the gap.  :)