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. 

Rome and My Second (and last!) Semester in Paris so Far

As you may have already heard, the day after I posted my blog about Chartres, I and three of my American friends decided we needed another vacation already. Yes, two and a half weeks after a 15 day winter break. Don't judge, Paris does that to you. So, taking advantage of the close proximity of each European country to the next, given their minuscule size, we booked some tickets to Rome. For the following weekend. Which was 4 days away. At this point, though, I have realized just how little work I need to do to get a decent grade at the Sorbonne, and that Paris is somehow worse than Minnesota in the winter, God forbid. Anyhow, we flew in to Rome on Friday morning, on the world's sketchiest airplane (Ryanair, y'all), and when I stepped off the plane I realized that this was the first time I had seen the sun since October. Seriously, I felt like Dorothy right after she ends up in Oz, when the movie goes from black and white to Technicolor. Gotta love that Mediterranean climate. Needless to say, Rome was amazing, and it was so hard to come back to Paris. It was sunny and cloudless all weekend, I ate nothing but pizza and gelato three times a day, and I got to see the cradle of Western civilization. Not a bad deal. So here is a quick glimpse of my weekend.

We rented an apartment right next to the Vatican, from a woman who spoke no English. (And we spoke no Italian). But it was a great place, and this was our view upon stepping out of the front door. That is St. Peter's Basilica, by the way.

We essentially just walked around the city for 12 hours each day. Here's a shot on the banks of the Tiber.

We climbed up some hill and got a great view of the city. 

The birthplace of Western civilization at night.

A rather blurry picture of me making wishes at the Trevi fountain. Legend has it that the first wish is to return to Rome (duh) and the second is the one where you get to choose.

The Colosseum. Yes, I'm aware that the background looks fake. I swear I was there!

Probably standing where Julius Caesar once stood or something.

Casual ruins

Soaking up the sun at the Forum.

On Saturday we took the metro to the edge of Rome and found this amazing park. It felt like we were in Tuscany or something. Also, we got terribly lost there, ended up on someone's private property, then a military zone, then walked along a super narrow highway (hazardous), and finally found the bus stop just as the sun went down. So worth it, though.

Something old.

The Pope. Also, for more details on the seagull/dove attack, click here. 

Inside St. Peter's Basilica. We also went inside the Vatican (the last Sunday of every month it is free), and got to see the Sistine Chapel and everything, but you can't take pictures of it. On a related note, there were a ton of nuns visiting that day too (I guess they are also thrifty), and I learned that they can be super rude! They were basically running through the museum and pushing people out of the way. I guess it's similar to how groupies act at their band's concerts?

Loving the view, and feeling a bit less Vitamin D deficient. 

Returning from Rome, however, was a bit of a struggle. Not only because classes were in full swing again and Paris was as grey and damp as ever (why do they call it the City of Light?!), but also because I fell victim to a week-long bout of tonsillitis and the escalation of a knee injury that basically left me unable to walk up and down stairs. After some low moments, including not leaving the house for two days straight and eating 500 grams of ice cream in one sitting, I was finally cured of both ailments at the same time. It was kind of a miracle. But no, I don't believe me seeing the pope had anything to do with that. I may not go to church, but I'm still a Lutheran (to the bewilderment of many French folks. They forget that France had Protestants too, until they killed them all.)

But I digress. I'll get you update now on semester II of Tufts in Paris. I'm taking three classes this semester and an internship. My classes are: Contemporary Islam, the Geography of Human Populations, and A Modern History of European International Relations. But my internship is really my main focus this semester. I'm interning 16 hours a week at the  Association of Solidarity with Algerian Women Democrats (ASFAD), which is funded by the French government. The name is kind of misleading, as it's an organization that aids immigrant women and men who are seeking regularization papers, escaping domestic violence/forced marriage/excision, etc. The majority of clients come from North Africa, as the organization was originally founded to aid Algerian women escaping violence perpetuated by the state in the 1990s, but since I started last week we have also received people from Pakistan and Senegal. My boss is the only person who is paid and works full-time at the office. She's a French-Algerian legal expert in the rights of foreigners, and from my knowledge runs the whole operation herself.  My job consists of helping her receive clients, usually about 3 a day for an hour at a time, and prepare the judicial case files for said clients. Lately I've also been doing some English-French translation for her, and research to build an asylum case for one client. I've known for awhile that this is the kind of work I want to do, and now I'm seriously looking into programs in immigrant law and/or social work. (If you've got any advice, send it my way!). So, even though I'm really busy now, I'm really enjoying this opportunity, and even though I will probably be ready to go home in June, I am so so so glad I decided to spend the whole year here. 

Chartres

Here are some pictures from the day trip I took with some friends from my program to Chartres, a town dating from the 9th century, located about an hour southwest of Paris by train. Since it was a Sunday and there was a lot of snow, the town was pretty much deserted. But it was a nice break from Paris. 

A view of the cathedral, constructed in 1265. The right-hand tower is Romanesque, while the left-hand one is Gothic. 

A cool little passageway

The cathedral, up close and personal.

Cute houses.

More cathedral. 

The Eure river from an ancient bridge in the city's Old Quarter.

The gardens of the old bishop's palace, located behind the cathedral. 

Me and my friend Paul, making friends with the locals. 

Winter Break

So, here's a quick recap of my winter break, an epic 11 day journey through France, Germany and the Czech Republic by train. A tiring trip, but so amazing. Yet, by the end of it I actually missed Paris a lot, and was excited to get back, which is interesting because I was so keen to get away from it for awhile. I think all the traveling gave me a new perspective, and now I'm starting to realize just how much I love Paris, and how it is really starting to feel like home to me. I don't even want to know how I'll be feeling in June when I leave for good. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, here's what I did and where I was from December 24th to January 5th. 

Strasbourg, France 

We got to Strasbourg early on the 24th, and left on the 26th. It was great to be here on Christmas, as the city is considered to be the "Capital of Christmas," which is definitely true. All the streets were decorated with chandeliers, gingerbread men, stuffed animals, lights and tinsel. Behind me (in the photo above) is their Christmas tree, which is the tallest in the world. 

Here's a view of the famous cathedral, which I climbed to the top, by the way. All the stained glass windows are original except for one. During WWII the residents of Strasbourg took out all the windows and stored them in a chateau somewhere to keep the safe from the bombings. Except they couldn't get all of them, and the remaining window was destroyed during an American bombing raid on the city. Oops. 

A vie w of the square in front of the cathedral, where the Christmas market was. 

The astronomical clock inside the cathedral. When it goes off, the little figures move, bells chime, and at the end a little golden rooster crows. It was built in the 1500s, and at the time people thought it was basically black magic. 

My lunch. Knack (Alsatian sausage) and sauerkraut. There is nothing better in this world. 

A view of the old houses along the river. 

Me being silly, but also the cutout is an example of traditional Alsatian dress for women. The defining characteristic is the huge black bow. Actually, the color of the bow would change depending on whether or not Alsace was under French or German rule. I believe the black bows was for Germany. 

A view of the cathedral from farther away. It really is enormous. 

Munich, Germany

So here we are in the Capital of the Third Reich...and also of beer. (It is Bavaria after all). 

This is the interior of the famous Hofbrauhaus, a 400 year old brewery and beer hall. It was used by the Nazi Party to declare policies and hold functions, and has been visited by Lenin, Mozart, and John F. Kennedy. I tried a non-alcoholic beer there, pretty good. The place is chaotic though. It's gigantic and loud, and you have to seat yourself, but it really is quite the experience, and you meet some really nice people there. 

Me in front of the Rathaus (City Hall). 

Me with a partially eaten Bavarian pretzel. 

The Konigsplatz, used during the Third Reich as a square for Nazi Party mass rallies.  

Downtown Munich. 

Son on one of our days in Munich we decided to tour the Dachau concentration camp, located just outside the city. It was one of the first camps to open, and one of the last to be closed. It was conceived as a "model camp," original housing political enemies of the Third Reich, and then expanding to Jewish people, Roma, priests, homosexuals, etc. Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Mengele both got their start in the Nazi Party here. This picture is of the security perimeter surrounding the camp, which made it impossible to escape.  

A view of the roll call area, with two surviving barracks in the background. The grassy patch in the left hand corner is part of the "death strip". It was forbidden for prisoners to walk on this grass, so guards would occasionally take off a prisoner's hat and through it into the grass. If the prisoner went over to pick up the hat, he would be shot for walking on the grass. If he did not, he would be beaten to death for disobeying orders. 

A view down the center of the camp. To the right and left would have been rows of barracks, which have now been torn down. The structure at the end is a memorial. 

Inside the barracks where important prisoners were held, such as Johann Georg Elser, who tried to assassinate Hitler in Munich, and also many priests. Elser and many other prisoners held in this building were assassinated at the end of the war, when the Nazis knew they would lose. 

A former prison cell. 

Sleeping quarters of the prisoners. 

Where the barracks used to be. 

The cremation ovens in the same building as the gas chambers. Historians are still not sure as to whether or not the gas chambers were actually used at this camp. These ovens, however, were used to cremate prisoners. 

The entrance to the camp, with the infamous saying "Work will set you free." 25, 613 prisoners were "set free" at this camp, as well as another 10,000 in its sub-camps. They died mainly from disease, malnutrition and suicide (throwing themselves on the electric fences surrounding the camp). In its 12 years as a concentration camp, Dachau took in a recorded 200,000 prisoners. After the war, it was the second camp to be liberated by Alllied forces. On the day of liberation, The Americans found approximately 32,000 prisoners, crammed 1,600 to each of 20 barracks, which had been designed to house 250 people each. 

Me in front a traditional Bavarian biergarten. 

Prague, Czech Republic

I had been told that Prague was a "scary" city, but I didn't get that vibe at all. It's really quite charming and lovely, and this was probably my favorite city of the trip.

The square right by our hostel. 

The famous upside down equestrian statue.

An old gate to the city.

Cool architecture. 

Entrance to the famous (and crowded) Charles Bridge. 

A delicious, and traditional Transylvanian pastry called Trdelnik. It is basically just crispy, cylindrical fried dough rolled in jams, nuts, cinnamon and chocolate. 

Prague at sunset with the Charles Bridge in the background.

Me at the Lennon Wall, a symbol of protest during the Communist era. 

More pretty water views. 

Berlin, Germany

We spent the New Year here, in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It was crazy. Huge crowd (surprise, surprise) and lots of fireworks. We were literally dodging them walking back to the hostel that night. 

Happy New Year!

Me with the famous Berlin pedestrian crosswalk man. Seriously though, the little green light to tell pedestrians to cross is shaped like this guy, complete with hat. There are whole gift shops dedicated to it. 

The Berliner Dom. 

Checkpoint Charlie. 

Me in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall, at the site of the former Secret Police headquarters (which has now been destroyed). This portion of the wall has not been altered since 1989. 

Hamburg, Germany

Here we are in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (that's its official name). I wish we could have spent more time here. Oh well, that means I'll "have" to go back. This picture of the restaurant where the Great Fire of 1842 was started. 

A view of the houses along the river. (If you didn't know, Hamburg is a major port city, especially for tea/coffee and chocolate).

A plate of traditional curry wurst and fries. The sauce on the hot dog is basically ketchup with curry powder in it. It really hits the spot, though, after a damp and dreary day.