La Bonne Vie

Well my luggage and I made it!  The plane ride was amazing with great movies, good food, and super comfy seats. A few hiccups at the airport with the flight, and a little miscommunication at the airport, but thanks to the woman from CT sitting next to me I was able to find my group from Marist and off I went to our hotel.  It took a little while to get over the time change, but we pushed through to go on a walking tour of Montmartre, the district my hotel is located in.  We saw the Sacre Coeur, which means Sacred Heart in French, a large church we can see from the roof of our hotel.  We also saw a smaller and less publicized church which was the first convent in the area.  A long time ago, before Moulin Rouge took over, Montmartre was actually a district filled with convents, and a place of pilgrimage for religious people.  This changed after the French Revolution! 

We saw a small local cabaret where Picasso and Renoir used

Rowing down the Grand Canal at Versailles

to pay their bar tabs with paintings, and a corner building that used to be Picasso's studio! Later that evening we were finally fed.  If one thing has become clear it is the reason why French women are so skinny...THEY NEVER EAT! Famished and exhausted we showed the restaurant how American students can eat.  I tried my first pate and escargot, and I surprisingly loved the snails! We sampled many kinds of delicious French wine and I had duck with a red fruit sauce and vegetable flan.  Full and happy we went back to the hotel for a much needed 13 hours of sleep!

Versailles

The next day we headed off to see our school and get to know our way around.  That afternoon we went on a bus tour of the major sites in Paris.  It was surreal to be casually driving by the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triomphe, I cannot wait to go back on foot and explore those places more! We got off the bus and that's when we had our first lesson in navigating Paris! We had to find our way home! Surprisingly, this went without a hitch and we were even able to find a nice cafe to have dinner at.  We learned our first lesson in French dining that night, still water does not mean tap water and after paying 13.50 euro for water we learned the word for tap water, "carafe." Live and learn as they say! Then we headed off the following morning bright and early for the amazing palace of Versailles! I think this was one of the moments it finally hit me I was in Paris, sort of a "We're not in Kansas anymore," realization.  The Palace was as gorgeous as anyone could have imagined. It was shocking to learn that the Palace was only occupied from 1862-1878.  In 1878 King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were forced to evacuate because of the French Revolution.  As great as the Palace was, my favorite part had to be the gardens.  You could spend days wandering in and out of them, at one point there were over 1,500 fountains in these gardens, and 300 remain today! (guidebook fun fact) We got a picnic lunch and ate by the Grand Canal, and were even daring enough to rent row boats and attempt to go down the Canal!  Took a little time, but we got the hang of it.

Besides that we have explored the Pompidou Museum and got to see amazing works by Picasso and Matisse, walked around the area surrounding the Louvre, had lunch on the Seine and ate traditional food picked out for us by local kids our age.  I tried goat cheese with figs inside (not my favorite), duck pate which was delicious, and an olives and olive oil spread.  We also stumbled upon the Palace of the President, and witnessed the changing of the guards outside the Palace doors.  Around the Louvre are beautiful boutiques, and we got our first dose of high end French fashion when we walked through Hermes and admired the gorgeous scarves I know at least I would die to have.  Classes start this week so we shall see where that takes us! Cannot wait to meet all the professors, but definitely could live without the homework. 

Parisian lunch

Life Lessons Learned So Far


*The metro doors will shut on you

*Grocery shopping is a daily occurrence in this country and extremely stressful if you don't speak French

*Pick pockets come in all shapes and sizes..(we watched a man get his wallet stolen on the subway)

*French People do not eat...small meals hours and hours apart, very challenging for myself

*Iced coffee can only be found in Starbucks...and I think I mastered my order in French

XOXOX from Paris!