Un Semaine en France

(That means one week in France if you're curious). So sorry I have been terrible at posting regularly lately! Lots of traveling adventures to be had. One of my close friends from Wooster, Joan, is studying in France for a year, so I figured I should take advantage of a five week holiday and do some travelling in another country and see a friend.

I experienced morning rush hour train traffic from York to Leeds, which was new to me, on my train to the Manchester airport (bless trains, America needs to get a proper train system in place, honestly). I had an uneventful flight, even with some babies in the row in front of me, they were (quiet) champs. Border crossing was a breeze, as it's been the other times I've been in France, I think if they see an American passport they just stamp it and go and assume you can't parlez français properly haha. The RER was a bit of a puzzle, however. To get from Charles de Gaulle airport to the actual city of Paris, you have to take a train, one of the RER lines (it's B, if you're curious), which involved buying tickets from a machine, going through a turnstile, and figuring out which train to get on, which can be a bit overwhelming when you haven't really spoken French in nine months. An American business woman latched on to me once she figured out I wasn't French and I helped her through the tickets and train sorting process, and we chatted on the train.

The station you get off at, Gare du Nord is the actual definition of hell incarnate, though. It seriously was the most overwhelming place of all time, there were DOUBLE DECKER TRAINS. It's a station for the Metro, RER trains, and other suburb trains going all over the Paris area, and there are zillions of platforms, stores, and levels to the place, it took me fifteen minutes to find the exit. Then I had to find my hostel, which was a bit of a nightmare (I have a really stellar track record of finding hostels, I must say). The area around Gare du Nord is a bit sketchy, to put it nicely, and the streets are all slanty, so I thought I was at the right turning but nope, not so. But I found my hostel (Regent Hostel) eventually, checked in without a problem, and got settled into my room. I stayed in a all female room, which ended up having a really wonderful view of Sacré Coeur from the balcony, it was lovely! I crashed for a bit, showered, and went to meet Joan for dinner in her neighbourhood, Saint Germain de Près.

The view from my balcony, so lovely!

And this was when I had some culture shock business. I swear, it's always public transport! I had to buy tickets for the Metro, and I bought a cachet of 10 tickets (the best value, if you don't have a travel card or whatever), and figuring out the machine was a bit mystifying, and then the silly turnstiles confused me initially. In London, once you put your ticket/card in, the gates would open and you went through. In Paris, though, the ticket just came back out and the machine told you to take your ticket, but the gates didn't move. So I put two tickets through the first time, so I held up the queue and wasted a ticket, oh dear. But I found my train without issue, and soon I was reunited with Joan! We had dinner at the Procope, which was very lush, and had a lovely time catching up. And then we went out into town, and encountered some shady characters and I would rather not ever relive the end of that evening, thank goodness for hostel receptionists being threatening to unwarranted attention. I will leave it at this, French men are very hands on and persistent with American ladies. Even when you say no in every possible way in both English and French.

Notre Dame with her crazy celebratory facade

After that scarring evening, I was about to jump on a plane back to England and hide in my room in Le Page, but I bucked up and got out into town. I went to Notre Dame first, and I think it helped replenish my spirits a bit. There's this ridiculous facade up for the 850 anniversary, but the cathedral is still gorgeous as ever. It was nice to be able to spend my own time there, not be rushed around in a tour group like I was in high school, and I've studied the architecture, so it was really nice to see it again. After chilling there for a bit, I went across the Seine to Shakespeare & Co., the bookshop. I LOVE IT, I know it's kind of an American tourist trap, but it was so cozy inside and full of amazing books. I ended up buying a copy of The Little Prince (they didn't have it in French), which I always get in different languages when I go places, so that was special, since they stamp it with their logo!

Street shops along the Seine

Pont des Arts, with all the padlocks!

Musée d'Orsay

I spent the afternoon walking along the Seine and ended up at the Musée d'Orsay, which is now my absolute favourite museum. Not going to lie, I definitely cried #arthistorynerdproblems. I adore the Impressionists, and wow, I was in heaven. And then Van Gogh oh my god I was seriously having a fit, I'm sorry to everyone who had to see me haha. And the decoration displays, William Morris and arts and crafts just WOW. If you had to put all my favourite things in one massive old train station turned museum, you'd find it in Paris. Seriously, this is probably a lot of incoherent blathering on about art, but I was amazed. I met Joan for dinner outside the museum and we went to a restaurant called Breakfast in America, where we got some traditional American milkshakes and burgers (mine was veggie of course).

We went up by Sacré Coeur after dinner, it's beautiful!

Here you can get a sense of the awful weather!

On my third day in Paris, I went to the Louvre in the morning, which is definitely so overrated haha. It's huge and overwhelming and full of tourists. But there is some amazing art, so I made myself suck it up and go in, I was lucky it had reopened before I left as the staff went on strike earlier in the week due to the pickpocketing issues. I went straight to the new Islamic Art wing, which was really exciting after my Islamic Art course in the fall! I got to see a lot of things we had studied in person, which is always a really exciting feeling. I just kind of skimmed the rest of the museum, I'd seen a lot of it last time I was here and it's all quite overwhelming and exhausting! And the Mona Lisa is just so tiny and overrated as well, but I made my pilgrimage as all art historians must. I think going to the Louvre after going to the Musée d'Orsay made it seem less amazing to me.

The Mona Lisa, surrounded by obnoxious tourists fighting Hunger Games style for a photo

SUNLIGHT! And me, by the Louvre :-)

YUM.

Joan and I had lunch at Angelina's, which was such a splurge, very lush! The hot chocolate is literally melted chocolate, it's amazing. We went to the Jardin du Luxembourg after lunch, but it started to pour rain, like it was apocalyptic, but the gardens were still lovely. The weather had been gross the entire time we were in Paris, it rained more regularly there than it ever has in York!

Overall, despite a few downfalls, I really enjoyed my first few days in France! It was amazing how quickly my French came back to me, and I was holding my own in conversations quite soon after arriving, which was one thing I was nervous about. A lot of shopkeepers and waiters humoured me and spoke with me in French, or didn't even try to speak in English, which I really appreciated. By the end of the week, I was thinking in Franglish, and speaking in some odd version of Franglish with Joan! I would often have to ask Joan what various words meant, usually slang, or I'd have forgotten the word for something, but on the whole, I could generally understand what was being said and get the general gist of it! So that was very exciting, although I suppose after six years of academic French, I would hopefully have some ability!