springtime in paris

Ever since my return from spring break, the weather in Paris has been very hot and sunny, and everything is in bloom. I appreciate the beauty but I don't appreciate sweating all day no matter where I am, especially in the metro. It's funny to think of how fast the weather has changed, from cold, rainy days, to relentless sunshine.

Anyway, Josh visited this week from Tuesday through Sunday, and we had a great time. Although the weather was a bit much, we were able to explore most of the city. We visited the Louvre, the Jardin des Tuileries (beautiful gardens around the Louvre, I had never been in that part before, let alone with leaves on the trees), Les Invalides (Napoleon's tomb/military museum), the Rodin museum garden (we were lucky and got in for free that day since there was a bit of work being done in the garden) which is home to the Thinker, the Gates of Hell, and other sculptures, the Marais (oldest district of Paris), the Places des Voges (lovely square with grass on which we laid), L'Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower of course, and others in between.

Louise made dinner one night for Josh, Anna, and I, and it went well, even though for some reason we all took shots of tequila as an apertif. She claims that she doesn't like to cook when it's hot out, so she bought a rotisserie chicken, because she thinks that Americans are obsessed with chicken (maybe we are). We mostly talked politics, as Louise is fully engrossed in the presidential election that will be decided in the coming weeks. We learned some scary facts about the candidates, most of which would never be tolerated in the US, as our press has such a strong influence, unlike the press in France who are scared and easily censored.

Tomorrow is the Labor Day of France, so we don't have classes. A few friends might try and go to Giverny, which is the home of Claude Monet, I think there are gardens and a museum. Mom and Sam arrive on Friday for their short stay which I am looking forward to. My laptop battery is about to die so that is all.

Back in Paris

Finally back in Paris after a very exciting yet long 2 weeks of traveling. In retrospect, we could have done a little bit more planning/research before we left, but I guess that’s the “fun” of backpacking. I think that I used every mode of transportation during my journey: plane, train, bus, metro, boat, taxi, 4-wheeler…what else is there? I’ve never spent so much money in my entire life, but I think it was worth it. It’s definitely great to be back in Paris though, everything seems to have bloomed while I was away, and the city looks completely different. It’s amazing to be able to speak French again, I never thought I’d be so happy to do that.

I wish I could outline my entire trip, but that would take forever and probably bore you. Some highlights, however were: Discovering a beautiful beach among the cliffs in Italy, the group of Russians that Dane and I met and traveled with, eating the best pasta ever, realizing that we were staying in trailers for 3 nights then getting over it, discovering the Acropolis in Athens, squeezing 9 people into a tiny apartment for 2 nights, the boat rides between Athens and Mykonos, renting 4-wheelers and using them as our primary mode of transportation for the island, the beautiful beaches of Mykonos, getting free drinks from Greek men, making crepes in the hotel, Anna and my “honeymoon suite,” and eating great Greek food all week (moussaka, souvlaki, Greek salad, Greek yogurt with honey, and gyros of course, among other things).

Josh is coming to Paris tomorrow and I am obviously beside myself about it, I think I can figure out where to meet him in the airport by now. I plan on hitting the city full force, seeing all that can be seen and hoping that the weather will stay as lovely as it is now. I realized that I haven’t even seen all of Paris, so it will be nice to discover new parts of Paris with Josh, maybe going to a class or 2 in between.

Yesterday was the preliminary voting for the French presidential election. They do it in 2 turns, the first eliminates all but 2 candidates, and the final vote is in early May. The 2 candidates who are on top are Sarkozy and Royal, neither of which I particularly care for. Sarkozy is basically a communist and Royal is a priss, but either way I think all hell is going to break loose in Paris at the end of the elections, as the followers of Sarkozy are militants, aaaand Sarkozy is friends with Bush, which can never be a good thing. Anyway, Louise was so glued to the television last night that we had to eat dinner in front of it which was weird.

This morning I decided to get up early to go to the bank to cancel my French bank account that I've never used. I go all the way there to find out that you need an appointment to do so. Really all I want to do is hand them the letter I've written requesting cancellation and pay them the 35 euros or whatever and be done with it, but I now have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. It should be interesting to see if I can succeed doing this all in French. I'm posting pics from spring break but I probably won't have time to do them all at once, so keep an eye out for more if you're interested.

Greece

After our stint in Italy, we traveled to Athens and spent 2 nights there, visiting the acropolis area as well as some other ruins. The city is absolutely beautiful (at least the area we were in) and so different from othe European cities I've visited. The weather was great too. We woke up at 5 am on Monday morning to get on a boat (basically a mini cruise ship) to Mykonos. We've been in Mykonos for the past few days having an amazing time, the island is insanely gorgeous, although it's been a bit windy. We rented 4-wheelers which we drive everywhere (they're allowed on the regular road) which is really great. The island is kind of dead though, as it's not at all tourist season yet. We hit a few nightclubs last night which were fun, the music was great as opposed to the clubs in Paris. We'll be here until Friday, then Saturday morning we have an early flight from Athens to Paris. Just wanted to update a bit on my whereabouts, I can't wait to post my pictures when I get a chance next week.

Mi scuzi

The last few days have been fun/frustrating/interesting/amazing. On Sunday, since it was Easter, the entire town shut down and we did nothing all day except discover that the "beach" of Portici is the smallest, dirtiest, rockiest "beach" ever. Since we couldn't take the train to Sorrento, we just napped and hung around the hostel, walked around the town a bit and watched people go to church.

Yesterday was a lot more exciting. We hopped on the train (dramatically named Circumvensiavania) to Sorrento, where we hoped to find beaches and beauty. We found beauty, but not much beach. The tourist-y town was really nice but it was packed with people (we were told that "today is day where Italians make picnic" whatever that means). We headed for the shore and found that the only beach amongst the ports was filled with rowdy Italian teenagers. We decided to try and find the Amalfi coast, of which I've heard good things. In waiting for the bus, we met a 20-something sassy-as-hell New Yorker and her husband. It was nice to be angry Americans together (and Dane swears my New Jersey accent and her NY accent got thicker the longer we talked). She suggested that we go to Positano, a town that was a lot closer than the Amalfi. So we get on the bus and swerve down the cliffs into Positano, where we have to descend many stairs/follow the main road to the shore. Finally we found a beach and it was nice to finally lay in the sun and put my bathing suit to good use. I didn't go in the water though beacause a) the water was cold and b) I didn't want to leave my backpack alone. On the beach there were a good amount of obese Italians who had no business sporting bathing suits, and some who went topless. When we were ready to leave, we had to go back to the middle of the cliff where the bus had dropped us off. We waited for quite a while, then some extremely nice Russians came along who spoke English very well and we talked to them for a while. There were also some younger Italians from whom we asked directions for the bus, they were very nice/intense and didn't speak much English. However, the one girl spoke some French (hilarious with a thick Italian accent) so we were able to communicate a little. I miss French/Paris and being able to communicate. After a 2 hour process of trying to get home, we visited our 300 pound pizza man. The pizza and pasta here are really good obviously but I'm getting sick of them and need some vegetables in my life. There is a semi-restaurant at the hostel though, and their food is really good, had a great gnocci dish with eggplant and fresh mozzarella.

Earlier today we decided to walk around downtown Napoli, which ended up being really disappointing and I decided that Italy is relatively dirty and I'm kind of over it. The coast is really beautiful, but the city areas are worse than New York. It's hard to get around because there are never ever signs explaining what things are or where they are, so you either have to know, ask someone (if you know the language, that is), or guess. Tomorrow we leave for Rome to meet up with Anna and Reese, it will be nice to reunite with our fellow "Parisians." Then we leave for Athens on Saturday to meet up with even more of our group. I probably won't be able to get online after tomorrow.

Il conto per favoro

We arrived in Italy yesterday after almost 12 hours of travel (2 planes, a train, and then some intense hiking). It turns out our hostel is actually in the quaint outskirt of Napoli, called Portici. It's one of those towns where old men hang around in the street playing cards. Everyone is really nice here even though we don't speak any Italian and no one speaks French or English (very very little). Our hostel is amazingly nice/clean which I'm happy about.

Today we discovered the Pompeii ruins and then climbed Mt. Vesuvius. I don't really have many words to say about either, other than that they were amazing and I can't even believe it. I'm exhausted though and can't wait to chomp into some pizza. Oh, and there aren't restaurants in Portici, only pizzerias, although we found a place last night where we got a 300 pound man to make us pasta (it wasn't even on the menu, he and the food was amazing).

That's all for now, I don't have much time on the computers at the hostel.

Italy in 2 days

Hello friends and lovers. So apparently not only did Louise's parents come for dinner on Monday night, but they stayed at the apartment with us until today. It wasn't too bad, but semi-awkward and the first morning Anna and I slid out the door so we wouldn't have to speak intense French so early in the morn (Louise is usually not awake when we eat breakfast, she does what she wants). I think her father is at least 10 years older than her mother, probably 80 and 70 or maybe even a bigger gap. "Mama" is a very distant and proper Chinese woman yet has moments of warmth where she seems like a real grandma. "Papa" is very sweet and tries to make conversation with the two of us. He is also much like Ozzy Osbourne (these days, not biting heads off of bats) in the way that he moves. The mother is Thai and father is Chinese, they met in China but moved to the tiny French island "La Reunion" in the Indian Ocean. That's where Louise grew up, then she moved to France when she was about 13. They speak French but with very Chinese accents and also Chinese when it's just the 3 of them.

The first dinner wasn't too bad, not too much conversation besides "Papa" spitting out random U.S. state names and us replying with "yes," as if he was testing his knowledge (maybe he was). We had fois gras (of course I hated it and can't even talk about it), salad, bread, wine, salmon, and an apricot tart. I'm not usually one for fruit tarts, but it was delicious. Last night was a little more eventful. As Louise and her mother finished preparing dinner, her father very proudly showed us the Chinese newspaper that he picked up in the Chinatown-ish area of Paris. He kind of did a "repeat after me" and was reading/explaining to us the meaning and sounds of the characters. It was very cute how he was excited about teaching us (he also taught us how to count, but I of course couldn't pay attention), and Louise would come in every so often and roll her eyes. I thought about the situation abstractly for a moment (as I always do) and realized that I was sitting in a Frasian woman's luxurious apartment in Paris at the dinner table while she prepares us a meal and her father translates Chinese into French for us and we understand because we speak French. Wow. We had steamed leeks, pork, potatoes, and some sort of melange of flat beans and carrots. When Louise went to cut the pork (the pork plate was right in front of me), I got squirted in the eye with pork juice. I yelped and she goes "oh, pardonnez-moi!" and after I got over the immediate shock of being pelted in the cornea by warm (albeit, strangly not so unpleasant) meat juice, Anna and I couldn't control our laughter and I had to sit there with my hand over my mouth not looking over at her. Everyone else had moved on by that point.

The three of them left this morning for Italy, that means that Anna and I have the place to ourselves. She left us a ton of food (including frozen flammekouches, holler) and cookies to take with us on our journey. I came down for breakfast this morning to find 2 croissants in a bag on the kitchen table for us. I love the random surprises she gets for us which make up for the awkward times.

That's all for now, I must start packing for my 2 week European adventure.

P.S. Rollerblades are an acceptable form of transportation in France. Over.

Loire Valley

The weekend began on Friday, another cold rainy day in Paris. Anna Kerri and I went to see a French movie, “Ensemble, c’est tout” with Audrey Toutou (from Amelie/DaVinci Code). It was pretty good, kind of random/predictable but it was all in French with no subtitles and we understood which was exciting. For some reason they wouldn’t take my Visa card there, only American Express which was really opposite and unnerving. Also, once we bought the tickets we had 15 mins until the movie started, and they wouldn’t even let us downstairs to stand outside of the theatre until 5 mins before, very strange. On Friday I also received my backpack that I purchased on eBay France, only 1.5 days after ordering, yay.

We left for the Loire area extremely early in the morning on Saturday. We had a brand new tour bus with the same salty bus driver named Didier. This time both Gabriel and Annamaria came (not Sylvie unfortunately) and they brought their adorable toddler son, Mattheiu. The whole time I couldn’t get over how well-behaved and cute he was, obviously he speaks French and it’s amazing. This bus had areas where there were seats facing inwards around tables, and although it was nice to have a table to put stuff on/do crossword puzzles (of course), I was looking forward to having iPod/sleeping/don’t bother me time which never happened because everyone was talking.

The first chateau we visited upon arrival was Chambord, built in the 16th century, the pamphlet claims 77 staircases, 282 fireplaces, and 426 rooms, wow. The chateau is known for it’s Italian-style double staircase. Parts of it were under construction, but it was interesting and the rooms that were available for viewing were beautiful. We ate lunch at the café that is situated just outside the chateau (this one was out in the wilderness, not in a town area), I got onion soup, it wasn’t that great, Mom’s is better. The next chateau was Blois, this one we had a guided tour for. Our tour guide was an American who has been living in France since 1973 and never goes back to America, I’d love to know his life story. Apparently the Duke de Guise was stabbed to death in his bedroom there. I was secretly hoping to see some dried blood or something, a little proof, but unfortunately there was none.

After the 2nd chateau, we had a “surprise” which ended up being a short tour of a local vignoble (vineyard) with a tasting afterwards. It was a great treat, we were able to sample at least 6 different kinds of wine, complete with appetizers. It’s important to mention that each glass we were given was almost full. In about 10 minute’s time, we all were in extremely good spirits. I won’t go into the details, but it ended up being quite a wild afternoon. I bought 2 bottles, one of a delicious rose that is like juice and a sweet white. Each bottle cost less than a glass of wine in Paris, c’etait formidable!

We retired to our hotel, a lovely Holiday Inn, a million times nicer than the last hotel we had. Went out to dinner, ordered a flammekouche of course, and a great crepe. Some wanted to go to a bar, I didn’t want to, but felt that I had to at least go and be social even though I/everyone else was exhausted (they just weren’t admitting it). Christina called while people were trying to find a bar and we had a great convo, by the end everyone was halfway through a pitcher of beer. We didn’t get in too late which was good because I am sleep deprived from the past week of waking up no later than 7 am every day. Sunday morning I was delighted to find an incredible breakfast spread, hot stuff such as sausage/eggs (I didn’t partake in that part), cereal, yogurt (yum, I’m addicted), pain au chocolate (!!!), baguettes, little jars of jam, the greatest juice I’ve ever had (it was simply labeled as “multivitamin”), and also some random meats and fruit. I raved about how much better this breakfast was than that last one for about 20 minutes. We made ham sandwiches to bring with us for lunch, which worked out perfectly again.

We visited the chateau of Chenonceau, by far my favorite of the three. It’s surrounded by many gardens, water, and forests with paths. This chateau was also constructed in the 16th century, and was home to Henri II, his wife, Catherine de Medicis, and Henri’s mistress, Diane de Poitiers, as well as many other famous royalty throughout the years (not all at once). We gallivanted through the gardens, visited the chateau, and took a walk through the forest. In the forest, I had an intense allergy attack which sucked but I took an allergy pill and moved on. I have great photos to share of this lovely weekend.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558474689MgjMGD

Tonight, Louise’s parents are coming for dinner, I'm sure I'll have stories to tell...