A weekend in Paris; a novella by Amy Allemon

 This post is a doozy; it's long and detailed but I promise to be as entertaining as I can be.

Okay So the last time I updated was before taking a few tests, and such. Update on that? The lit test was okay I guess, I felt like I could at least answer 90% of the questions, and in French standards that’s doing well…she plans to hand them back to us 2moro, so time will tell. Phonetics tests are annoying. You never feel like you are counting syllables right due to how French people slur everything together, and all that fun stuff, but overall I think I did okay.  The history test actually wasn’t that bad, even though I was super worried about it. (due to my lack of capability to memorize information, ESPECIALLY dates) 2moro I have my traduction test, and I’m sort of feeling ‘what-ever’ about it. Then I have a break in tests until Thursday. So that’s a one day break…yay… oh well I’ll take it. So that was the boring stuff…still reading? Good. Pushing through the boring will get you everywhere =)

I’m going to separate my weekend by day to make it easier to follow my thought patterns cuz’ I know I can be sort of all over the place. Okay…focus..right weekend stuff.

FRIDAY

Woke up at the crack of dawn feeling tired and not at all in the mood for class, but alas, I went. 8am’s will never, I repeat NEVER feel easier. Okay so after class got out, Liana and I trecked home, did some last minute packing, I wrote Chantal a note telling here we’d be back on Sunday, and off we went. Now the only other time I had been in the train station (or near it) was when Chantal picked a very jet-lagged me up from it roughly 2 months ago. So our train station…is sort of huge, nothing extraordinary but still rather large. Anywayyy I bought my ticket and asked the dude if Liana could buy one next to me, and he was all “ah oui, c’est pas grave”, cept it was. He sold me the last ticket on my car, and realized it when he went to book Lianas, oh well, we rode in separate parts of the train for the ride to Paris. I sat next to a guy attached to his macbook and watching Marie Antoinette on it, which made me a-question his sexuality and more importantly b-want to watch it with him.

We arrived in Paris roughly an hour and 40 minutes later feeling excited, but rather confused. Montparnasse’s station…is huge. I’m talking almost as confusing at first glance as CDG was. Both Liana and I had guidebooks for Paris with maps, and neither of them had anything further south than the train station, soooo we had to use my hand written mapquest directions, along with subway maps to try finding our way to our hotel. After much wandering, and backtracking, we made it, and were pleasantly surprised to find that while our room was tiny, it was in fact a legit hotel room with our own bathroom and a tv that we didn’t end up really using, but it was there.

After unloading our heavy backpacks in our room, we departed feeling lighter and happier. Hello, we were in paris?! We found a patisserie and got some snacks, of which we munched on while wandering through Montparnasse without a map. We kept seeing small glimpses of the Eiffel tower, and would follow were we thought would take us there, and eventually, we did make it there. This was actually one of my favorite moments of the weekend; maybe because I wasn’t yet exhausted , but I like to think it was because we didn’t use a map at all, and found the Eiffel Tower on our own. Anyway. We immediately were ambushed by people trying to sell us anything from keychains, to braided bracelets, all of which we said “non, merci” and kept walking. Now, during the day these guys kind of just walk away when you say no, but …keep reading.

Okay, so we took a bunch of pics of the tower, and ended up crossing the Seine and walking along it taking pictures and enjoying the view. We had time to kill before we had to meet up with Leah and Anna, so we took our time wandering. We ended up looking down upon a Fashion shoot being done. And I’m not saying it was a bunch of egotistical frenchies taking photos of themselves. Pas de tout. This was real life models posing in very high heels, and very sheer clothing. I took a few pics of it cuz’ it seemed bizarre.

After this we walked and walked and walked. Lol. We took pictures of the Pont neuf III which is a very very old bridge that crosses the Seine, and is the bridge that leads to the Champs-Elysees. It was beautiful, but I think my favorite bridge was found after this. I don’t know the name of it, but it was COVERED in padlocks. And each lock had names or initials or sayings or designs. They were artzy, and romantic. Plain and exotic. Cute and weird. I just thought the idea of this was adorable, and would very much one day like to place my own lock on this bridge.

We planned to meet Leah and Anna at the Louvre, but they were running late, and we were running early. Sooo Liana and I wandered the Tuilleries, took pictures of the outside of the Louvre, and found a street filled with cheap souvenirs, and a starbucks! After we bought possibly too many postcards, we made our way back to the Louvre and met up with Leah and Anna. A flash of our Visa’s and we were in Fo Free =) (if you are under 26 and a resident of the European Union, you get into gov. owned facilities for free) We spent a long time seeing paintings, sculptures and artifacts I never thought I’d ever actually see in real life, and enjoying every feet-killing minute of it.

After this we ate dinner at a very cute little italien brasserie, where I had some sort of tomato ravioli, and it was amazing. It was getting late, so we all hopped on the subway, and Liana and I transferred to Montparnasse. The walk from the station to our hotel was maybe 15 minutes, but both of us were in skirts and it was sort of late (not by france standards but oh well) and literally just as I’m telling Liana nothing sketchy has happened yet, a man approaches us speaking in French n taunting us. He kept trying to get us to look at him or respond, and followed us for a good block or so, all the while getting closer to us. He ended up sort of tapping Liana’s arm and asking if she wanted a kiss, at which point she switched to my other side and he started to walk close to me. At this point I was irritated and had my fists clenched ready to deck this MF-er. He then stopped walking and started calling after us saying that we were sluts(among other things). Thanks douchebag, but I don’t think me not wanting some gross sleazy old man to hit on me qualifies me as a slut. We had no further problems, and fell asleep almost instantly at our hotel.

Which brings me to…

SATURDAY

We woke up bright and early to head to Versailles. We ended up finding a metro line closer to our hotel than the Montparnasse one, and decided to use it due to the occurrence from the previous night. We took this to the stop close to Notre Dame, and got off to switch to the RER line that would take us to Versailles. This train was a double-decker, and was sort of odd, and the only way to describe it is if the metro and the SNCF trains had a baby, it would be the RER…plus a double deck. Anyway.

We got to Versailles, and stopped at Starbucks and I got a Chai Tea Latte(omg I miss strong American coffee that isn’t shot size) and it was amazing! After this we got a little confused on how to actually get to the Castle grounds, but quickly figured it out and made it. Quick show of the Visa and we’re in. (god I love that)

No description I can give will do this place justice. It was huge, immaculate, and covered in plated gold. Not to mention that the grounds themselves could probably hold the population of the town I grew up in. We walked through the Palace, and made our way through the gardens. We stopped by the Grand Canal and had some sandwiches, then we made the long treck to the Petit-Trianon. (where Marie Antoinette lived 90% of the time.) Okay, so this one wasn’t as big as the palace, by any means, but it was still amazing, and I was in awe the entire time to be walking the halls that Marie Antoinette once walked. It was probably the best/weirdest feeling ever. (I have been sort of mildly obsessed with her since I was 15)  Anyway, after this we wandered through the ‘farm’ parts that Marie Antoinette kept, which was basically just animals, but very cute ones! (minus the poorly groomed sheep)We wandered through the small village that M.A. used to frequent, (which was/is owned by the palace, not a village where ‘peasants’ lived) and it was…adorable. At this point my camera pretended to be dead(it wasn’t dead later..) and so I took no more pictures at Versailles. We ended up wandering through a lot more garden, finding something I’m sure I could look up the name of but I’m lazy(it looked like a hugely ornate gazebo) and then wandering on to the Grand Trianon. From here we were beyond exhausted and the weather was turning bad, and rainy. So we headed to the main palace, and exited.

From here, all 4 of us took the RER but Liana and I bid Anna and Leah adieu at the Eiffel tower and got off there. We wanted to get night pictures of it, so we wandered in random shops and got dinner. (which wasn’t nearly as good as our pasta the night before) It still wasn’t dark enough for good pictures, so we wandered the area surrounding the tower, and even took the stairs by the Seine down to walk right next to it. We eventually ended up wanting to sit and maybe eat something sweet (and use a non-gross bathroom) so we went to a café and split Crème Brulee. (my first time having it, and oh mon dieu, it was delicious.)After this it was Dark enough to get pictures so we went back to the tower, and this time, the key chain men, and bracelet brothas were all about us, not to mention the guys with roses, and other random crap I didn’t want. Most still went away, but some followed closely by asking if we had boyfriends, and stupid annoying stuff like that. Harmless right? Seemingly, okay so we pass this one particular brotha who is trying to sell us his stupid keychains and we say “non” and keep walking, as we do, he mumbles something n Liana and I were 90% sure it was something vulgar, but didn’t know what it was, but to me it sounded like a puff of air. Liana later googled it and found out he was calling us whores in French. What is it with these stupid douchebags?

Anywayyy…It started to rain sort of heavily, so we headed to the metro, and as we’re ascending the escalator to our train, I see a sign that sucks the breath out of my lungs. Our metro stop was the site of the Rafle during WWII.(Vel D’Hiv…google it if you haven’t heard about it) I pointed it out to Liana and we both read the sign and I spent a big chunk of the night thinking about it, and all of those people. It is incredibly sad and sort of overwhelming.

We got off at the metro we took that morning, and had 0 problems walking home this time(but it was considerably earlier than the night before)We both fell into a deep sleep due to our very much throbbing feet.

Are you still reading this? My god, you’re awesome.

SUNDAY

We woke up early to get ready, and pack up, checking out of the hotel went smoothly, and we were out and on the metro heading to the Arc de Triomphe before 9:30. We made it to the Arc just as it opened (10am) and were thoroughly baffled of how to cross the circle without dying. We then saw that there were subway stairs but could not find the ones by us to take us under and across. We wandered almost a full circle before we found them, and descended. From here we bought apple pastries and ate them at the bottom of the Arc taking in the crazy view of the traffic circle.

With a wave of our passport, we were given tickets, and proceeded to climb the 280? SPIRAL (narrow as hell) steps to the top, and man if my feet didn’t already hate me enough yet, they surely did at that point. The view was worth every aching blister. You see miles…well kilometers upon kilometers of Paris, and you can see Sacre Coeur along with the Eiffel tower, all the way down the Champs-Elysees, and a lot of other very amazing sights. It was well worth the hike up(and back down) all of those stairs.

After this we hopped a metro to Sacre Coeur and walked down a street that reminded me of Canal st. in NYC, people selling shit EVERYWHERE. (including bags, but not any that looked real enough to consider;) ) anyway. We climbed to the first level of this giant place and saw yet another photo shoot being done(I’m not kidding) this time there were male and female models, and they were posing in what looked to be hugely uncomfortable and high heels (the girls) and holding champagne chutes. As if this wasn’t enough, there was a man being followed by cameras, and paparazzi, along with some fans. We couldn’t figure out who he was, but don’t fret I still took a few close-ups of him ;) I might ask Chantal who he is(hopefully she’ll know!) 

Noteworthy: a lot of the metro platforms smell like pee, and we have seen people publicly urinating b4, so it didn't surprise us (much) when we saw a man peeing in the corner of Sacre Coeur, what did sort of surprise me was that after he peed in the corner he wiped his shoes off on his hands, and then sat on a bench, of which he fell off backwards and laughed. Drunk-ass french guy. REAL classy to be drunk at 11am on a Sunday in front of a very well known church...only in Paris.

We made it up a bunch more steps to the actual church part, and mass was in session so we didn’t get to take pictures of the inside, but let me tell you; it was amazing. You know that peaceful, yet very strong church smell of insents and…god? Lol Idk it was like that, only better. Plus it was warm and cozy, and I very much enjoyed the combo of the smell, the warmth, and the choir singing.

After this we quickly descended and got back on the metro to Pere Lachaise cemetery, which has a ton of famous(and others) people buried there. We didn’t have tons of time to kill, so we got maps, and found our way(after getting slightly lost) to Jim Morrison’s grave.  After this we wanted to find Oscar Wilde's grave, which was in the back, and we ended up getting lost a few times in the process of locating it. Oh well, we made it and this thing was COVERED in lipstick kisses. Seriously not sanitary. So after saying how incredibly unclean that is, I dare Liana to kiss it, while handing her my lipgloss. She of course accepts the challenge, and puckers up. Degoutant. But she seems to not have contracted any deadly diseases yet, only time will tell.

At this point our feet were pretty much donefor, and we had a train to catch, so we hopped the metro to Montparnasse and ended up buying first class tickets back to angers (it was the only seats left on the train that left at the time we wanted)

Upon getting off in Angers, it was raining, and sort of nasty out, but I still had that “ah” moment of ‘this is where I belong.’ I’ve had that moment at CMU after a busy weekend and this is the first time I had it in Angers. The feeling of “I’m glad to live here”

Well if any of you made it this far, I applaud you, and there you have it, my weekend in a not so short nutshell. I love and miss you all, and as always I suggest you check out the photos on my fb(I’m slacking on the photobucket account. SORRY!) 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for what I'm sure will be a more uneventful week.