Last Night in Paris

Well, this is the end. I leave Paris today (Tuesday), so I feel like I should say a few words. Since I last wrote, I've spent my time sort of studying for exams, which finished for me on Tuesday, taking care of administrative matters such as my bank account and cell phone plan, and trying to take advantage of the time I have left with my American and French friends. We had evening picnics on the Seine, went to the French Open, and did some last minute shopping and crepe eating. A very satisfying last few weeks. This weekend has been a little strange, as (almost) all my American friends flew back home on Friday. It's strange because I've only known Paris with them, and they are a large part of the reason my experience in Paris was so great. So I've been a bit lonely, but it's been nice to go on long walks, as the weather is finally nice here, and reflect  on the past nine months. I'll talk a bit about the conclusions I've come too, but I'm not going to try and be profound, poetic, or wise beyond my years. I also don't want to sugar coat anything, as some people do. So here goes. 

I have had a great time in Paris, but it's time to go home. I've felt this way for a while. This is not to say I regret coming here, or that it was a bad experience. Not at all. I have met some fascinating people, and have made so many lifelong memories. The thing is, studying abroad is hard. Especially in Paris, where almost every single aspect of daily life either reinforces a negative stereotype, or contradicts some expectation that Hollywood dreamed up in the 1950s. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but it's still a rule. Spending a year in Paris was not all fairies and sugarplums. Sometimes it was really challenging, even depressing. Sometimes I hated Paris and everyone in it it and just wanted to leave. But what was perhaps hardest of all was reconciling myself with the fact that I didn't fall in love with Paris. In fact, in some ways living here has made me more patriotic and defensive of America. I never want to live in Paris, and I don't know when or if I will come back. For a long time I thought that because I felt this way, I was doing something wrong, or that I was being ungrateful for the opportunities presented to me. I'm slowly starting to realize though, that it is perfectly acceptable to not have fallen in love with Paris. I appreciate all the opportunities and memories it has offered me, but like every other city in the world, Paris isn't for everyone. Though it can be charming, inspiring, and vibrant, it also has many negative qualities. And it really is okay that I think that. Study abroad isn't about falling in love with the city you choose/are placed in, though that can happen, and it's a wonderful thing. In my opinion, study abroad is about testing your comfort zone, self-reflection, finding new perspective, and opening your heart and mind to new people and ways of life. I feel that I have at least sincerely tried all of those things, so I am satisfied with my experience. I know that I at least had a lot of tough moments here, which were probably the emotional equivalent of growing pains. I'll give another update once I've been back home for a bit, though. On the subject of going home, I just want to mention something. Feeling the way I do about my experience (which seems a bit negative, but it's really hard to explain so give me the benefit of the doubt), I'm kind of dreading people asking me "Oh, what did you think of Paris", and "Isn't it an amazing city? I bet you had a blast." Because the answer I need to give is too long and too complicated. Especially for those that haven't studied abroad. Plus, it doesn't seem socially acceptable to say "No, actually, I didn't love the city, and I'm glad I'm home now."  Please try to understand if you hear me say that. I really just want to be honest about my experience, because it merits so much more than a couple pleasantries strung together to appease an acquaintance. I don't owe it to anyone to convince them (or myself) of feelings I have never felt. I want to speak truthfully about my lived experience, because that's really all I have a right to speak truthfully about. So, in a very inelegant conclusion, I just want to say that I'm in now way discouraging people from studying abroad, in Paris or elsewhere. Wherever you go, if you take advantage of every opportunity and keep your heart and mind open, you will not regret it. But also, never try to convince yourself of something you're not. Self-awareness is not something that all people possess, and having the ability to recognize your own needs, desires, weaknesses and strengths takes practice, but in the end you become more whole each time you honestly identify a part of what makes you "you", no matter how ugly, misshapen, or disappointing it might me. 

Ok, that may have gotten too heavy and profound. Apologies. I realize that nine months abroad does not make me wise. I'm just feeling a lot of emotions right now. And I may or may not be hallucinating cheese curds. Enjoy this inspirational picture of the sun setting over the Seine, and thank you so much for reading this blog. It really was quite cathartic to write it, and helped me process my experience. Hopefully you got a little something from it too. If you're traveling to Paris soon and need suggestions, or are thinking of studying/moving here, hit me up. I'd love to talk more. Until then, bon courage.

Spring Break Antics and Adventures

This will probably be one of my last posts while in Paris. Shocking, I know, but such is the way of the world. I'll be leaving for home in less than a month, but I'll get into all my thoughts on leaving Europe/returning home in a separate post. Right now I want to talk about my spring break trip, where I went to Denmark, London, Aberdeen and Edinburgh with one of my best friends from high school! It was amazing, to say the least, even though we did manage to pick one of the coldest regions of the world during this time of the year. Most of my friends went south, to Italy and Spain and Morocco, but what do I do? Head towards the Arctic Circle. I blame it on my Scandinavian blood, calling me home. But more on that later. I guess I'll just be boring and recount my trip chronologically. Buckle your seat belts, everyone.

Copenhagen, Denmark

We begin our story in Copenhagen, where we spent the most time. This was a great choice, as it may be one of my favorite cities of all time. From the minute we arrived, we realized that it was quite the utopia. Everything was clean, people were smiling and friendly, and everything was just so darn cute. The bicycles (which appear to be the primary mode of transportation), the dogs (the majority of which were Boston terriers...?), but most of all the children (yes, I realize how creepy that sounds). Plus, there's a lot of public trust, which you don't find in many places these days. Parents have no problem leaving their child outside of a store while they do their shopping, and I really saw no law enforcement officials anywhere. All of these utopic qualities also have a magical effect: they make you want to do good for the community and be an honorable, upstanding citizen. Several times throughout our stay my friend and I voluntarily picked up trash on the street and put it in the proper recycling/trash containers. I would never do that in Paris. Being in Paris probably makes me more likely to litter, in fact. Perhaps the U.S. should look into the Danish system.

I pretty much ate pastries for every meal. I am still coming down from that sugar high. As you may have already known, "danishes" are not called "danishes" in Denmark. They are called something else. Which I have forgotten. Because the word made no phonetic sense to me in the first place. Apologies to the Danish language. 

One of the many canals, near our hostel.

Cuteness and tranquility.

One of our favorite areas of the city, called Nyhavn. Fun story. Several hours after this picture was taken we were walking past the waterfront again, and saw a bunch of people gathered around the canal. Turns out some guy had fallen/jumped into the canal, and people were trying to rescue him. For whatever reason no police/fire/rescue teams were present, so the citizens were just doing it themselves. My theory is that their Viking roots make it so they just buck up and handle problems themselves. Some brave Dane stripped down to his underwear, jumped into the freezing water, grabbed onto the guy (who was conscious throughout the whole thing), dragged him to the ladder, and six other guys helped haul him out. The guy that jumped in then got out, put his clothes on, lit a cigarette and then drank a beer that someone handed him. A true hero. 

By the mermaid statue. If you haven't already, read the non-Disney version. It's actually a pretty sad story.

The Danish Royal Guard/possibly the entire Danish Army. 

Me with Hans Christian Andersen, near Tivoli Park. 

One of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. Back to my Scandinavian blood. You see that hill to the left of the church? My friend and I sat there and fell asleep for about half an hour in the sunlight. I get back to the hostel that night, and what do I find? A fairly deep sunburn. I was wearing SPF 20. I feel like it takes a true Scandinavian to burn under such conditions. I'm oddly proud of it. 

The last/oldest windmill in Copenhagen. Another story of catastrophe. As we were walking over to this area,  we passed by a free museum on Danish history that we were planning to check out. Upon approaching it, however, we saw that the whole block was roped off. Turns it it had just caught fire a couple hours earlier. (Later reports said it was arson). We got to watch the fire crew try to put it out through the roof, but it was pretty nasty. They had to remove the entire roof to do it. It's probably a good thing we left Denmark when we did. I felt a bit responsible for all this mayhem. 

London, United Kingdom

Unfortunately, for whatever reason we only schedule about 30 hours in London. Fortunately, however, we got an early start on the one full day we had there, because we forgot to set our watches back. Oops. In that one day, however, I managed to try all of the English classics (fish and chips, bangers and mash, etc.) and we walked at least 10 miles throughout the city. We didn't once take the tube, thank you very much. Oh, and English cuisine, by the way, is far superior to French cuisine. I actually don't see why people think it's so bad. 

Me posing obnoxiously in front of Buckingham palace. The Queen was not at home, sadly.

Sharing the love with a telephone booth. Note the super cute panda tote bag, which I purchased at the wonderful Primark, the British version of Forever 21. 

Basically all of the London tourist attractions in one shot.

Enjoying a pasty at Trafalgar Square. You can get the best ones at train stations, by the way.

Ah, an English cream tea. The highlight of this is, of course, the clotted cream, which you put on scones with jam. It is good enough to eat separately, though. I need to find a way to get this black market in the U.S. I don't think it is sold normally, because it's not pasteurized. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though!!

Aberdeen, United Kingdom

I never would have thought to come to this little gem of a place on my own, but thankfully another best friend from high school was studying here, so I got to visit. It's a really charming town in the north of Scotland that makes me think of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. It's small compared to the other places we had been, so it was nice to take a break and relax.

Walking into town from the Aberdeen University campus.

The words on these signs apparently mean real things to Scottish people. I feel bad saying it but I had a very hard time understanding their accent. Maybe it's because I don't come into contact with a lot of Scottish people, but honestly most times I thought they were speaking a foreign language, so I just tuned it out. I wasn't the only one that had that problem though, which is a bit of a relief. 

In Stonehaven, on our way to Dunnottar Castle. I am attempting to look epic while also trying to not fall backwards, bounce down a sheer cliff, and meet my death on the pointy rocks at the bottom.

The treacherous road ahead of us. 

The beach, with just a bit of the castle visible. 

The castle, which dates back to the Early Middle Ages. It was also here that they hid the Scottish crown jewels during Cromwell's invasion. 

Me, looking excited yet skeptical of the deep fried Mars bar, which was apparently invented in Stonehaven and is a culinary specialty of Scotland. It's quite delicious. 

Edinburgh, United Kingdom

The last stop on the trip. We were quite tired at this point and the weather was quite rainy so we spent an inappropriate amount of time watching Parks and Recreation in the hostel, but we also really enjoyed ourselves. Maybe it was the fresh sea air, or the medieval architecture, eating at J.K. Rowling's cafe, or the sound of the bagpipes, but being in Edinburgh was quite energizing. I constantly felt the need to storm a castle or something. 

At a pub on the Royal Mile, after taking my first bite of haggis. I had no idea what haggis was at the time, but according to Wikipedia it is:  a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed withstock, and traditionally encased in the animal's stomach and simmered for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a sausage casing rather than an actual stomach. It just tasted like ground hamburger meat to me. 

A view of the Old Town from Calton Hill. 

On our way to Arthur's Seat. We never actually made it there because rain was coming and we were inappropriately attired, but the walk was fun and very scenic. 

Very epic. 

Me with Greyfriars Bobby, a little dog that is quite the town legend. Apparently after his owner died he sat by his grave for 14 years until he himself died in 1872. He was fed at a local restaurant, and cared for by the people of the neighborhood. The Edinburgh Museum claims that this story is widely popular in the U.S. as well due to a Diseny film, but I have hard of no such thing. 

A view of the city from the Edinburgh Castle, which rests upon a formation of volcanic rock. There has been a royal castle on this site since the 12th century. 

Another great view, which we actually had sun! 

Well, my spring break is over on Monday. I've spent the week since coming back mainly recovering and writing two papers for one of my classes. Then on Monday it's back to my super grueling schedule of  5 hours of class per week, and then trying to pack in all the stuff I still want to do in Paris! It's going to be a very strange and intense next three weeks. 

A Stroll Along the Canal St. Martin

Paris has finally realized that it is now spring, so in honor of the sunshine and my dwindling list of academic responsibilities, I took the opportunity to check out a part of Paris I hadn't been to before, along the Canal St. Martin. The canal was created at the beginning of the 19th century because the city had a shortage of water, and took 20 years to construct. It's 4.5 km long, and empties into the Seine. The area around the canal at this time was industrial, with a lot of factories lining the banks. One of them is still up and running! But now they have been converted to shops, cafes, artists' studios and modern apartment buildings. On Sundays the streets bordering the canal are closed to traffic and opened to pedestrians, which makes the area a lot calmer. But they were still tons of people out and about today, lounging in the sun or enjoying their lunches near the water. 

Apparently they shot a scene from "Amelie" on this bridge.

My lunch. An eclair from a place near St. Paul (the metro stop, not the capital of Minnesota), called Eclair de genie, which translates to Eclairs of genius. This is by no means an exaggeration. This one was filled with salty caramel goodness. The chunks you see are peanuts covered by chocolate glaze, and it's hard to tell from the picture but the whole thing was dusted with sparkly silver powder. Whatever category this food falls into, it should have its own spot on the Food Pyramid. 

Two months and 1 day left in Paris and I'm not okay with that.

So yes, I officially only have 8 weeks left in Paris, and considering all the stuff that is going to happen in those weeks, this is not enough time. I still have to take 2 final exams, write 2 research papers and a report on my internship, go on a spring break trip through Denmark and the United Kingdom, and go through all the stages of grief about the end of my year abroad. But also, since my internship is done (as of yesterday) and I'm only taking three classes (one of which will be completely done before spring break) I actually will have a lot of time to get this stuff done. Well, the fun stuff anyway. Not the research papers. 

Anyway, even though I've been in Paris since September (which feels like a lifetime ago), I haven't run out of things to do here, as will be evidenced by the pictures below. For awhile I thought that maybe I had done everything interesting in Paris, but then I realized I didn't really explored the regions just outside of Paris, which I can still get to for free with my metro card. Though this takes a little extra planning time, I love leaving the city because it's less crowded, and food is cheaper. Seriously. Probably 10-20% cheaper. On the Tufts day trip to Reims (photos below) I bought 5 chocolate croissants for €1.80. Yes, you read that right. I would pay that much (or more!) for just one croissant in Paris. Full disclaimer: those chocolate croissants were my dinner that night. No regrets, except for the bout of acid reflux that that decision triggered. On a semi-related note, I also drank my first alcoholic drink at an awesome little bar in the Latin Quarter called le Piano Vache (literal translation: The Piano Cow). It tried a glass of wine, and it was not so awesome. That experience will probably never be repeated. Now I know for sure though that I'm not really missing out on anything spectacular. 

All right, here are the pictures, beginning with my day trip to Versailles, where I went with one of my best friends from Tufts who came all the way from Boston for her spring break. Sorry there aren't a ton of pictures, but I'd already been to Versailles (when I came to France in high school). I hadn't seen the gardens though, so that's what I took pictures of. 

You can't really tell from inside the castle, but Versailles is a really weird place, and I understand now why the peasants got so upset about the goings-on there during the Revolution. The whole thing is basically just several hundred people putting on Disneyland all day, everyday, for only two people. When you're in the castle it has more of a fairytale, Disney princess vibe, but then you get out onto the grounds and all the disturbing parts are revealed, like when you realize the Cinderella castle at Walt Disney world is basically empty. Apparently the flowers in the landscaping were switched out everyday for the benefit of Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette, and don't even get me started on her. Marie, being young and bored and not in love with her husband, built her own peasant village on the grounds of Versailles, and would go out there to live "like a peasant", meaning her romanticized vision of what peasants actually did. Case in point, her servants would wash the sheep every time she wanted to go hang out at the "farm". So I get why the French people were a little peeved. The pictures above and below were taken at Marie-Antoinette's little hideout, named "Le Hameau" (the hamlet.) In the picture above, I am seriously freaked out by the carp in the river. They were nasty. Below, I'm in front of some weird little tower in the Hamlet, which I think was where Marie "made dairy products."

Side note: The grounds at Versailles were massive, and seeing as there was actually an entire village out there, why didn't Marie and Louis hide somewhere out there, instead of an exterior facing room on the ground floor of the palace? I bet that they could have survived until the end of the revolution, or at least a lot longer than they actually did. But, as is evidenced by their ignorance of money management and public relations, they weren't really that bright. Inbreeding and being told you are chosen by God to rule does that, I suppose.

A pretty view of the Temple of Venus. 

I think that this is the little theater Marie-Antoinette built for herself, where she put on place with her servants. Naturally, she always go the leading role.

And here we are at the Opera Garnier, home of the Phantom of the Opera. I went there with Tufts to see La Cerenentola, an Italian opera about Cinderella. 

The main hall/foyer/I don't know what to call it but the ceiling is cool.

We sat in the center in the very top row. The ceiling was done by an artist named Chagall. 

The cathedral at Reims, where the kings of France used to be crowned. It dates back to 1211, and is built on the site where Clovis (the first Christian king to rule Gaul) was baptized by St. Remi in AD 496. Before that, there were some Roman baths there. I visited the town with the Tufts group a couple weekends ago for a day trip. We did a tour of the town and then a tour of a champagne company/factory/cave. 

Just a huge keg and the Champagne house, a company called Pommery that has been around since the mid-1800s. 

The tour mainly focused in the caves, where all the champagne that is distributed to their markets across thew world (their newest market is in Mongolia, go figure) is kept. Each city/country as their own hall full of bottles, which can hold tens, if not hundreds of thousands of bottles. There are 28 million bottles total down there, and the largest bottles hold 9 liters and serve about 80 people. The 9 liter bottles cost 550 euros. I'm not sure if that's a good deal, like buying in bulk at Sam's Club, or not. 

This is where I went on Saturday, the Castle of Fontainebleau. This was Napoleon's favorite of all the castles. It's an interesting place because there are so many different architectural style represented there, and it's where the Renaissance was welcomed into France. It also has really nice gardens, but as France did not yet get the memo that it is supposed to be spring now, we didn't really explore them too much. 

A view of the grounds. If you look among the weeds on the far right side you will see a little bit of white, which is a swan sitting on her nest that I stumbled across while illegally walking on the grass. 

Fontainebleau from far away. Hard to get it all in one picture as it is so sprawling. After taking this picture my friends and I went looking for a place to get lunch, and stumbled across an anglophone bookstore run by a Brit and an American, that was selling Reese's eggs. It was an Easter miracle.