So I left Capernwray on Thursday Dec. 18th and traveled with Karena (my Oregonian roommate from last term) and Anne-Sophie, the single French student here at school whose house we were staying the first night with. So the 3 of us flew to Paris together where Anne-Sophie's parents picked us up. The next day, we spent with Anne-Sophie as she showed us around her town which is 45 minutes outside of Paris. She is a very active girl and had us roller-blade everywhere! That was an experience since I hadn't roller-bladed since I was probably 10 and my short legs don't go nearly as fast as Karena's and Anne-Sophie's (they're both a lot taller than me).
Karena, me, a statue of our father Ben Franklin, and a baguette!
~oh! Steve, I remembered what you said about getting to see the girls' dorms at Christmas break when they were all gone, so I did the same thing! I was on the last bus out of school and everyone had emptied out of their dorm rooms so 2 of the guys gave some of us girls a tour of all the guys' dorms and then we gave them a tour of ours. (because girls are not allowed in guys' dorm areas and vice versa during school) It was fun to see their rooms and made me thankful even for the crummy girls rooms because the boys' rooms all have bunkbeds and feel really claustrophobic compared to the girls', only 2 of which have bunkbeds and all the girls' rooms have a lot more storage! I'm wondering what some of the guys did with all their stuff because at the beginning of school i saw many of them that had as much luggage or more than me!
So, back to my travels:
After 1 day with Anne-Sophie, we traveled to another town on the opposite side of Paris where Karena and I stayed for a week with old family friends, the Lippoldts, from when we lived in Paris. It was fun to see friends from when I was 9. I remembered there house and immediately recognized the spot we used to have sleep-overs in when we were little! During our time in Paris, Karena and I tried to make the most of our time by balancing wanting to see everything and not killing ourselves in the process!
I know there will always be items you miss and there were several things I wish we could have done in Paris, but all in all I'm really happy we managed to see the top "to see" tourist spots. We did tons!
Our first day with the Lippoldts, we went into the city to have a lunch of crepes and after a long wait to eat in a very cute, crowded old crepery, we went to the Petit Palais, a beautiful old Parisian building that had an interesting photography exhibit. Afterwards, Karena and I enjoyed walking down the infamous Champs Elysees. At Christmas, they light up all the trees along the street(one of the main reasons I wanted to come to the city during Christmas time). It's beautiful.
The next day, Karena and I attended church at the American Church in Paris (the church that my family attended when we lived in Paris). Although I didn't recognize anyone there (since almost everyone we knew at that church has moved), I enjoyed even just seeing the building. It flooded my mind with memories. I realized it was exactly 10 years, to the DAY(!) since my family had lived there. We moved from Paris on Dec. 20, 1998, right before my 9th birthday. And here I was back in Paris, almost celebrating my 19th birthday! This Sunday was the last Sunday of advent. We watched a young family with children light the last candle and read the designated passage ---The same exact thing my family had done 10 years earlier before we moved. I could remember so many things as we sat in that church. It was almost overwhelming.
After church, we took a walking tour of the city. It was run by the same company that did the tour we took in Edinburgh. It was a really nice free(the best kind!) 3hr tour. Karena especially enjoyed the tour since she didn't know any Parisian history before the tour. We ended the day by walking to the eiffel tower and enjoying some warm nutella crepes for dinner.
The next day, Monday the 22nd, we went to see Notre Dame, and walked past the ice rink at the Hotel de Ville, a place I remembering ice skating when we lived in Paris! We also walked past the Pompidou Center building (a building famous for having all of its plumbing on the outside of the building!), and the Musee D'Orsay. We visited the Louvre, seeing the famous Mona Lisa, as well as the 2 other most famous attractions of the museum: the Venus di Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace (apparently you have to be broken in order to be a famous statue).
Me & Mrs. Mona Lisa
The museum is so incredibly huge and it was closing soon, so Karena and I decided to walk through the statue galleries trying to imitate statue poses. It may sound a bit silly, but now we totally remember what we saw way better than if we had just passively walked through galleries!
Then, the next day, Tuesday the 23rd, we went to Sacre Coeur and caught it at a perfect time! The sun was setting as we came out of the beautiful cathedral and it was sooo pretty. and even prettier in person!
However, the low point of the day was when I dropped my camera! I dropped it on the side walk of Sacre Coueur and broke it on our 5th day of traveling! I couldn't believe that I dropped my camera, usually I'm "miss careful". I was so mad at myself! But life goes on, and Karena had her camera so we were at least fine for our travels.
~by the steps of Sacre Coeur with its tower in the background
The day after that, Christmas Eve(!), we had brunch with one of my friends, Anna, from school in Paris. It was really nice to see her and her family and it was funny to see the place we used to play, have sleep-overs, etc. After brunch, Anna walked around my old neighborhood with Karena and me. We saw my old house, the bakery down the street where we'd buy our bread daily and the bookstore we I'd buy my school supplies, comic books, etc. We walked down the street I used to ride my bike on, down through the park we played in, and all over the neighborhood.
Anna and me outside our old school!
We then had a couple of hours before the Christmas Eve service at the American Church in Paris, so we walked down to the Trocadero again (by the Eiffel Tower), bought a dinner of crepes, and enjoyed the blue lights of the tower. Then we went to the Christmas Eve service at the church and went home to the Lippoldts singing Christmas carols on the metro (the train was empty)! Then a lady and her young son got on the train and came and sat down by us and listened to us singing. =)
Christmas morning we treated ourselves to sleeping in and then went to the Eiffel Tower thinking not many people would be climbing it on Christmas day, right? haha wrong. There were tons of people just like any other day. However I discovered that there was a separate, much shorter line that we could go in if we just climbed up the tower. And it was cheaper! How's that for a deal, you remember the experience more by climbing all those hundreds of stairs, skip a huge line, save money, and get exercise all at the same time! =)
La Tour Eiffel!
We did tons more not only in Paris but also in Luxembourg, Brussels, the Netherlands, and Austria!! So this post will have to be the 1st installment.
I've posted pictures on facebook that you can check out.
Love to all!
I'm glad to be in touch again. =)
p.s. Last night we had a "caveman" party and all dressed up as... you guessed it, cavemen! i didn't have any leopard print or something conducive to cave-woman wear, so I dressed up as a cave! =) Everyone was so creative with their costumes. It was a lot of fun.
Here's two of my dorm mates (in the room next to us, we often hang out together): Laura, Hannah, and me!
Most of the caveman group =)
And so that you can see more pictures from Paris, check out my facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=84495&l=dfefb&id=720019947
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