Week 14: An Adventure in Paris

This week ended up being very condensed due to going to Paris over the weekend, so I had to cram a significant amount of schoolwork and other activities into about 3.5 days. The extra effort was totally worth it for the wonderful opportunity I had to spend time in Paris with Catherine, along with a friend of hers and a friend of mine.  Truly another weekend that I will not soon forget!

13 April

As I remember back on this morning, I think I had the feeling that I did not want to go to my teaching internship that day.  I continued building on my lesson using adjectives and landscapes which I made for the Thursday before.  Class was as usual in the afternoon with Managing Behaviour in Organizations and our teaching internship class.  Researched for Paris and continued to edit papers in the evening.

14-15 April

During Tuesday and Wednesday, I crammed in schoolwork alongside researching places to visit in Paris and hanging out with a few friends. My schoolwork mainly involved finishing up my essays due for Cultural History of Austria and writing a theater scene for my Viennese Theater course's performance of our own original theater piece in a talent show at the end of the semester.  I also quickly put together a lesson on popular sports in the USA for my English teaching internship. On Tuesday night, my English friend Katie invited me over to her house for supper to catch up.  I rounded out our Italian dinner by bringing some tiramisu from Aida, a successful Austrian bakery with several locations throughout Vienna.  I appreciate Katie's friendship so much as we both face challenges together in Austria and grow with God in our time abroad.

In Cultural History of Austria today, we made an excursion to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.  I met with a helpful contact in the afternoon, who gave me better guidance than anyone else so far as I think about applying for a Fulbright Grant, in order to return to Austria.  In the evening, I headed over to Bible study at Katie's house with several girls from our church.  I love being able to express myself more fully in situations like this and understand better, now having practiced German in Austria for about 3 months.

16 April

I woke up early on Thursday, in order to cram in all my responsibilities before I headed out for Bratislava, from where I would fly to Paris.  Finishing up schoolwork in the morning, going to class, and cleaning our apartment made the morning fly by.  I was sitting on the bus to Bratislava before I knew it, rather excited for my adventures in Paris during the weekend ahead.  My trip to Bratislava went smoothly, although the RyanAir flight to Paris was a slightly new experience.  They often try to sell you lots of items on the plane and the seats are a little hard, but it's definitely worth it for less than 30 Euro!  When I arrived in Paris, I easily followed my sister's very exact directions to the airbnb where we would stay.  I arrived safely and was greeted warmly by Catherine and our welcoming host, Felix.  Catherine and I immediately fell in love with our flat, which was 4 floors up in an old French apartment building and lined with old wooden beams and plaster on the walls and ceiling.  We grabbed a bit of food at a supermarket next door and then sat down to a quick snack, before heading to bed to catch a few winks before our big day on Friday.

17 April

Catherine and I spent a lazy morning in the apartment planning out our sight-seeing for the day and then headed off on a wonderfully long walk to take in the city of Paris.  We first headed down to the Place de la Bastille, which became plastered with posters and graffiti (in typical French fashion) after the political unrest earlier this year.  We wandered on down along the Seine, past more monuments and Pont Neuf, a main bridge crossing the Seine.  After crossing the river, we passed through Notre Dame cathedral and ate a delicious galette in a little shop along a side street nearby.  Notre Dame was truly beautiful and breathtaking, especially the painted and decorated chapels lining the inside walls.  Our galette with melty goat cheese and fresh tomatoes rounded out our wonderful visit!  We continued on past a bridge with thousands of "love locks," then through the Tuilereis Gardens and Champs Elysees, which contained the entrance to the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe.

Place de la Bastille, covered in grafitti and posters

Beautiful Notre Dame

Sun glimmering at Notre Dame

Typical tourist pic at the Louvre entrance, 'nuff said

Hanging out at the Arc de Triomphe

For the evening we headed over to the apartment of Catherine's friend from Kenya, Matthieu.  I loved getting to see a more personal side of Paris as we heard about the life of Matthieu and his cousin, then later went out to a bar to meet several of their friends.  Things got a little slow at the bar, since most of the friends knew each other from business school and had reunited to visit Matthieu's brother as he passed through Paris.  We chose not to stay out super late and went back home to eat a little and then head to bed, where I crankily tried to make a few decisions about the next day's plan with Catherine.

18 April

We headed out fairly early in the morning after eating breakfast and showering, since we wanted to go visit Musee de la Orangerie.  The museum ended up being a beautiful place right beside the Tuileries Gardens, where we could see several artists from the impressionist period up through modern times.  Catherine and I both loved the "Water Lily Rooms" in the top floor of the museum, which are two oval-shaped rooms containing Monet's panorama pictures of water lilies at different times of the day.  The artists in the lower museum floor ranged from impressionistic to pre-modern, showing the development of French art throughout this period and the cultural influences upon it.  I particularly appreciated the manageable size of the museum - easily viewable in 1.5-2 hours, rather than feeling like you could only scratch the surface of a massive collection in the Louvre.

Favorite painting at the museum

Louis Vuitton's "floating cloud"

Catherine and I met up with Matthieu again in the afternoon to go see a new exhibit in Paris, a huge cloud-like building and museum recently built by the fashion company, Louis Vuitton.  The building and the art inside formed a Gesamtkunstwerk, or an artistic synthesis.  The structure itself blended in with the surrounding park atmosphere with its gently bending arches and the waterfall splashing down the steps in front of the building. The building supposedly represents a floating cloud, which contained several modern artwork exhibits inside.  A particularly special piece was "The Scream" by Mönch.  I find modern art often hard to understand, but the museum provided a thorough explanation of each piece to help explain its importance in history.  I ended up becoming rather cranky towards the end of the museum, since we skipped lunch earlier.  I began to regret that I had not seen more of the classical sites in Paris, especially since I could enter for free and avoid their exorbitant prices due to my status as a student.  Catherine and I chatted a bit about it throughout the day and looking back, I now more thoroughly appreciate seeing Paris off-the-beaten track and getting to know real Parisians.  Catherine mentioned that wanting to experience cities in this way often comes with more traveling experience, after you have seen many of the old buildings and museums which exist in Europe. It simply becomes more fascinating to know a city intimately through its people and local places.

We experienced a bit more of "local Paris" in the evening when we hung out with my friend, Tom, who currently works for a nonprofit located slightly outside of Paris.  He helped Catherine and I find a Senegalese restaurant so that Catherine could reminisce about her Peace Corps times, by eating the type of food she "gets once every 5 years." Tom gave us a tour of the African quarter in Paris, showing us places where West African fabric and food were sold and chatting it up with the store owners in about three different languages.  I felt as though I were in Senegal again.  Funny how 10 years ago, Catherine and I saw each other in Senegal.  Exactly 10 years later, we ate Senegalese food in a restaurant in Paris.  I would not have exactly expected that as an 11-year old; funny how things change...

 

Hanging out at Sacre Coeur

We ended the evening by heading up to Montmartre and the gorgeous church of Sacre Coeur.  After wandering around the quaint streets of Montmartre, Cat, Tom, and I bought a bottle of wine and found a staircase on which to sit and watch the sunset of Paris.  I insisted that I had to eat a chocolate crepe while in Paris, so Cat and Tom found me a cheap shop and I bought myself a delicious, genuine French crepe.  It was worth every penny!  Cat then proceeded to make fun of me for taking the following silly picture with my crepe...

Chowing down on a Parisian Nutella crepe

Apparently she doesn't understand the necessity of taking all food pics with a wide open mouth...

After saying good-bye to Tom, Cat and I headed back towards the Seine in order to go visit the Eiffel Tower.  Our route took longer than we expected and we both ended up needing to go to the bathroom really badly, but the Parisians apparently close their public toilets at 10 pm.  We eventually found one and then could enjoy a beautiful walk around the lighted Eiffel tower, gazing up into the giant feat of construction soaring above our heads.  What a magical end to a beautiful day!

The Eiffel tower

19 April

Catherine said good-bye to me in the morning and headed out to catch her flight back home to Scotland.  I fully woke up an hour or so later and packed my things to head out to attend church with Tom.  After a slight mishap with the train in the morning, I eventually reached a suburb near where Tom lives.  We drove over to the church together and I attended my second French service while here in Europe.  I find it fun to hear the different words I can pick out of the songs and occasionally conversations, based on my knowledge of German and Spanish.  Tom introduced me to some of the people he knows at the church and then we headed over to his host family's house for a birthday lunch and party for their daughter.  After going on a short hike in the surrounding woods, Tom drove me over to the airport.  I safely arrived on my flight and headed home to Vienna after a wonderful weekend with family and friends.