Paris

Since my last post a lot has been going on! After I finally got over being sick I had another week of classes and then headed out to Paris for the weekend to visit Cecily while she was on Spring Break!

I arrived Saturday morning and met up with Cecily at the train station and then we tried to navigate the metro and RER (another underground train basically like the metro) to get to our hostels and moved in. It took quite a while, especially since our hostels were pretty far away, but we eventually got all our business taken care of and were free to explore Paris.
First thing we did was to get pizza and wine at a cafe next to Cecily's hostel. It was delicious :) After stuffing our mouths, we wandered around to find another cafe and had another glass of wine and some great girl talk. We sat there for quite awhile enjoying the atmosphere and the great weather.
Cecily's hostel was in Montmartre so the first thing we did was climb up to Sacre-Coeur. It was amazing! The lawn in front of Sacre-Coeur was covered in people enjoying the sunshine. We decided to go inside and I can't even describe the feeling inside the church. It's so grand, intense, and overwhelming. I've been in a lot of churches and cathedrals since I've been in Europe, but Sacre-Coeur was the most powerful.
Afterwards we decided to do a few more touristy things so we took the metro to the Jardin des Tuileries and walked around there for a while. I thought there would be a lot of tiles but I didn't really see any... maybe I didn't go to the right area. Well we walked through the garden to the Louvre and walked around the pyramid for a while, as the sun was going down. We could see the Eiffel Tower in the distance so we figured we'd just walk towards it and eventually get there. I don't know how long it took us, but we walked for quite a while. It was really nice though, we walked along the Seine, saw the Arc de Triomphe and L'Hopital des Invalides. And we saw another group of American girls who took our picture for us. Eventually we arrived that le Tour Eiffel and were so relieved to be able to sit down and rest our feet for a bit. There's a beautiful pond with a weeping willow right next to the Tower. We were just about to head home when the lights all came on so we stayed for a bit longer.
Then we were absolutely famished so we headed back to Montmartre to find some food. We went to a restaurant near Cecily's hostel for a nice meal. The waiter was kind of snobby when we tried to speak French (what a surprise...) but we got our food fine, and it was delicious! Cecily had duck and I had lamb. When we were done I headed to my hostel and passed out because I was so tired.

The next day I met Cecily at her hostel and we headed to Marché aux Puces, a giant flea market. The first area we came to was kind of small and sold a lot of the same things: belts, shoes, scarves... touristy things like that. But then we crossed the street and found the REAL market. It's HUGE! And you can find all sorts of things there. My favorite area was all the furniture. They have some amazing stuff! It really made me want to get an apartment in France and start decorating :) We didn't have time to see it all before we were starving and had to go get some lunch. We took the metro over to the left bank and got a baguette, cheese, and wine. Then we sat in a park facing Notre Dame and enjoyed our feast. How french of us :) When we were done eating we just wondered around the left bank for a really long time, trying to see as much as we could. There were lots of cute little shops, but also a lot of things weren't open because it was Sunday. We walked across Pont Neuf and then decided to take the metro to the Bois de Boulogne, a giant wooded park that I've always wanted to go to.
It took us a while to find the park after we got out of the metro because we got off at a stop a ways away. First we found some sort of botanical garden park which was beautiful though not what we were looking for. We stopped and rested our feet for a while and then saw that the Bois de Boulogne was across the street! We entered from the southernmost point so there wasn't much to see for a while, especially since it was just winter and all the trees are bare. Eventually we saw some groups of men playing Boules. We kept walking and decided to head up to the ponds and then go home since we were so tired from walking all day. The ponds were nice, but I wish we could have gone in the summer because the rest wasn't very impressive. I was a little disappointed, but I'm sure it's much more beautiful when everything is in bloom.
Then we left the park and walked for a long time trying to find a metro stop. We eventually got back to Montmartre and I was so exhausted that I decided just to get a crepe for dinner and head back to the hostel. The crepe was delicious though, nutella and bananas :)

The next day Cecily and I explored Montmartre. We wandered around, saw some parks, a big church (I think it was St. Trinité), and the Moulin Rouge, then stopped and got some chinese food for lunch. I had to leave later that afternoon so we decided just to go chill in a park by the Seine till I had to go. Actually, it was IN the seine because it was the tip of the island that Notre Dame is on. The park is called Square de Vert Galant. It was very pretty and a fun place to spend the afternoon. We even met some French guys that did a little rap for us. It was getting close to when I had to be at the train station so we left, I got my stuff and headed back home. We didn't do a whole lot of touristy things but I kind of like it that way, all the touristy stuff was a little cliché and disappointing because we've heard so much about it. But I did have a really great time and it was so great to see Cecily!

I'll write about the rest of what I've done since then in a new blog. Ciao!