So I'm really not mentally prepared to write about our trip to France last week, but I guess I should just throw myself in and whatever comes out will have to do. If you wanna hear the whole story, you'll just have to take me out to coffee or something :)
Sooo Saturday we left Brussels on the Thayls train, the high speed rail which goes about 300 km/hour. We soon arrived in Paris, checked into our hotel, and thus began the longest day of our lives haha. We saw all the obvious tourist attractions in Paris that day: Hotel des Invalides (where Napoleon is buried), the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs-de-Elysee, etc, etc. We were pretty much dead by the end of it. I definitely think my low point was climbing the steps of the Arch (haha ironic) even though the view from up top was pretty sweet. We walked an insane amount (as we did every day in Paris) which gave us quite an appetite (as it did every day in Paris), but that night Loyola treated us to a medieval French feast at a local Parisian restaurant. They literally had baskets of whole vegetables and meats in baskets in addition to bread, wine, and the dinners and desserts we ordered. Afterwards, a couple of us girls wandered around Paris a little tipsy and watched the light show at the Eiffel Tower from a bridge across the Seine. Oh yeah, and along the way some boys in a limo tried to coax us to jump in, and a crazy drunk guy came up to us and drooled on the sidewalk.
Sunday we visited the Musee D'Orsay, which I never heard of really, but enjoyed immensely. Nothing like feeling cultured! Since many of the museums in paris are free on Sunday, we had time afterwards to go to as many as we wanted. A couple of us went to the Rodin Museum, and saw the thinker and the gates of hell and other awesome statues. Then we tried to locate a place to eat, but since it was Sunday, most shops were closed between 1-3. We ended up trying to find this one sandwich shop, were unsuccessful, and ended up eating Pizza Hut on the side of the road. Yes, we were in Paris. Yes, the cheese on the pizza was fancy French cheese. Then we barely had enough energy to move, but somehow navigated to the Musee du Moyen Age, which was just full of artifacts from the Middle Ages. Afterwards we spent a while debating where to go to eat for dinner (we're really really cheap in case you haven't noticed yet), and somehow our whole little group ended up in the same Thai restaurant haha. That night we had an optional boat tour on the Seine, but since Loyola was paying for it, we were all going for it. It was fun and relaxing after 10 miles of city walking.
Monday we had our guided tour of the Louvre, which was incredible and huge, even just in terms of its architecture. After the tour, we could stay in the Louvre for as long as we wanted, so Ruth and I ended up wandering around as many exhibits as we could, taking breaks to eat the rolls we had taken from our continental breakfasts that morning (did I mention we're cheap). The Napoleon Apartments were especially crazy. We grabbed some crepes and headed up to meet with the group in front of Notre Dame to go to St. Chapelle, a beautiful old church. Next we went to see Basilique du Sacre Coeur, which was located in a more bohemian area of Paris. Sacre Coeur was amazing, my second favorite cathedral I saw in France. The neighborhood it was in was also quite fun, and most of us ate dinner there, and then located the Moulin Rouge, which I was very pleased with! That night we ended up getting cheap bottles of wine (like 2 euro) and drinking by the Seine. We met some interesting chaps, and since we were in the Latin Quarter, we got to check out some of the hot spot bars and whatnot. There are other stories to be told of this night, but not for now....:)
Tuesday was our last day, and our free day, in Paris. Cookie, Ruth, Cristina, and I decided to go to Versailles, which really wasn't hard to get to at all, and was really beautiful. I still can't get over how beautiful the grounds were. And, fun fact, every square in the garden is perfectly symmetrical, in accordance with belief in man's control of nature in vogue at the time. We spent a decent amount of time in Versailles, and while I think we did something else that day, I'm not gonna stop to remember since so much happened the whole week haha. All's I know is that night we were drinking in the hotel and got a noise complaint haha....
Wednesday we left for Chartres to see the cathedral there, and it was absolutely breathtaking! My favorite cathedral in France (that we saw of course! haha)....and our tour guide was awesome (there were all awesome the whole trip but this guy was my fav also). Then we hopped back to St. Malo and had some time to ourselves. This meant hanging out on the beach, and drinking the hard cidre the city is so famous for. I loved St. Malo and it was wonderful there. The ocean was beautiful and the city has a huge wall surrounding it so you can walk on the ramparts, or the rocks on the beach surrounding the fortress on the very tip of the beach. On Thursday, I and a couple of the other girls made it a point to climb around the fortress on these rocks. But yeah, Wednesday, Lauren, Cristina, and I ended up smashing sand castles on the beach and looking for constellations.
Thursday we had a guided tour of the Abbey of Mont-Saint Michel, which is located in Mont-Saint Michel surprisingly enough. This place is hard to describe, because it's kind of an abbey built on the coast/actual sand. In fact, the tide rushes in around it so people have to get their cars out of the parking lot before a certain time so the tide doesn't damage them. This place also had amazing ramparts, and many shops and much much much history. We got back to Saint Malo and spent that night drinking on the beach.
Friday we departed from St. Malo and went to Point du Hoc and the D-Day Beaches, including the American cemetary at Omaha Beach. Definitely important and awesome for me. Omaha Beach is fantastic by the way. Lunch, theeeen the Bayeux Tapestry. Random I know haha, but I knew a whole lot about it from my presentation so it was kinda cool to actually see "hey this was somewhat relevant." Then we drove to Arromanches and checked into our hotel. The beach there wasn't as pretty as the one at St. Malo, but I can't blame it since Arromanches has American concrete platforms sunk into its coastline. If that's not a reminder of how recent D-Day really was, then i don't know what is. Dinner that night was on Loyola, so we all are like we were starving. Dr. Burger and Molly bought us wine, which was very nice of them cause they certainly didn't need to do that.
Saturday morning we visited the Musee du Debarquement, concerning D-Day of course, and then we began our 6 hour bus ride back to Leuven. We were all very excited to get back to Leuven and get settled in because as much as we loved France, we were EXHAUSTED and ready to wash our clothes and clean ourselves up a bit.
So this is my extremely abbreviated summary of my trip to France. It was awesome; it was fun; it definitely taught me some lessons about what it's REALLY like to live out of a suitcase. Oh and by the way, the French people were extremely nice, at least all the ones I encountered, so I can't really confirm that stereotype Americans have of them being snobbish and hating you if you don't speak French. You just have to TRY to speak French haha. Paris was Paris, I had a great time there, but I'm glad I don't think I ever have to do all that touristy stuff again. I was in love with St. Malo and Arromanches was a bit of realization I needed.
PECS reception was tonight! Met some nice Penn/Canadian/other random American kids and some of us went out for drinks with them. Sarah arrives tomorrow and intense Dutch classes start tomorrow! 5 hours a day baby!
Write more soon! Tot ziens!
|
