We'll Always Have Paris...

     Paris is an interesting place. Going into the trip, I hadn’t many expectations except wine, baguettes, and various smells of a concerning nature. And truth be told, I wasn’t entirely wrong with that assumption. Parisians do indeed stroll through the streets with a baguette in hand, the wine is good (but not as good as Spanish wine), and there is an extremely concerning amount of questionable smells. The smells however do not come from the city but its inhabitants.

     Yet upon arrival, I realized that there is so much more to the city. And I’m still not entirely certain how I feel about it. Thus, the best way to explain it is with simple lists sans commentary to allow you to interpret for yourself. From the Eurostar we had to take the metro to the hostel. This is what occurred:

• -    Waiting for the train a woman across the platform was weeping and, at times, screaming hysterical French into her cellphone with absolutely no one around her.
• -   A man in crutches also screaming to himself in French on my platform. He was also very drunk. It was 10am.
• -   A woman got on to the train after me with a baby and a concerning cold sore on her lip who began proclaiming something to the train as soon as it started moving, presumably begging for change. I however don’t know French and had no change.
• -   After the woman departed at the next stop, an older man came on with an accordion. He began to play as soon as the door closed. He was standing right behind me. He was standing right.behind.me.
• -   After exiting the metro at out stop, we walked past a fast-food pizza establishment that was being raided by the police. Our hostel was right across the street.

     Needless to say, my first hour of Paris was very… interesting. But aside from all of the strangeness, I managed to do a lot of really cool things. For one of my classes we went to the Musee D’Orsay where I feel in love with Toulouse Lautrec Then we went to the Louvre where I found that the Mona Lisa was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Everyone says that it’s smaller than they expected, so I expected it to be small. However, it wasn’t small. It was the size of a normal painting. So I guess you could say that it was more normal that I expected it to be.

     I also went to the Eiffel Tower, both during the day and at night. During the day it was a bit underwhelming. It was really grey outside (really big difference from London) so it looked kind of brownish and dull. But at night, it was magnificent. Seeing it all lit up made me realize why this city was called the City of Lights. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

 

     As far as the food goes: primitive, but delicious. I like to eat the custom foods of an area when I travel so in Paris I had (and please don’t judge me):

-   Croquette deux fromage

-   Croquette madame

-   Duck with fig and honey sauce

-   Baguette (obviously)

-   Beignet

-   Macaroons… so many macaroons. No exaggeration, chocolate macaroons were my favorite part of Paris

-   Quiche

The amount of bread and cheese ingested in just one weekend is uncanny, but what can I say? It was delicious.

     On my last day, we went to Versailles, which was incredible! My camera died that morning so unfortunately no visual aid. But you can Google pictures and they probably would have looked the same. But Versailles was amazing and I would love to go back someday. It truly is a modern marvel in art, architecture, and culture. It reinstated my eight-year-old girl wish to be a princess so I can live in a palace like that. But I don’t want to be Marie Antoinette; that wouldn’t be very fun.

So there you have it, my novella of Paris :)

London Love, Kristen