Perfect Paris
“For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.”----Colossians 2:5
Bonjour everyone!
I have the immense task of recreating my eleven day fall break for this website. Thankfully I journaled every single day into my personal journal, so I will most likely be pulling the highlights from that journal and any other cool adventures that I might remember along the way.
First, I want to give God all the praise and the Glory for keeping me safe during this intense travel period and for providing all of my needs in abundance. He is such an amazing God and I find more and more that I desire to live for Him fully with every coming day!
Now, its time to buckle your seatbelts (not that your chairs really have seatbelts, but I think you get the idea) for the telling of my travels to Paris, Bayeux(and beaches of Normandy), Madrid, Toledo, and Barcelona. I have purposefully separated each city into a separate journal entry so that you are not forced to read an insanely long journal entry. This entry on Paris will be the longest, as it covers a period of 4 days (the longest amount of time I spent in one given city). And with no further delay, here comes Paris.
My preparations for Paris took up a good 2 days. Between practicing for a lesson, packing, creating itineraries, classes, and lots of other stuff, I somehow was ready to leave for Paris on Thursday Oct. 21st at 11:57 pm. Larry, Nika and I walked really really fast to the train station and occasionally ran so that we would not miss our train. I was pulling my half filled roller suitcase and a backpack along which made a ton of sound while we ran. It was pretty funny. We made it to the train station 5 mins early and got on our sleeper couchette car heading to Paris. I was sooooo SWEATY! I had worn my “bill cosby” sweater (as everyone here refers to it as), and it turns out that when I went to change, it had left a ton of black cloth particles all over my body and undershirt. After introducing myself to the two girls in our compartment, I went to the restroom (WC). I pointed to the WC, and asked “Frei?” (which means Free?) to the three guys standing there. They started talking in german and making fun of me. Imitating to take money from me. I guess they were joking, I didn’t understand most of it though, and just went in. They must have thought I was expecting to pay to use the WC. Lol, Anyways, once cleaned up, I returned to the couchette, where Larry and Nika proceeded to introduce me to the two girls we were sharing a couchette room with (a train compartment with sleeper beds) Anyways, we found out that their names were Jennifer and Amanda. Amanda is a photographer from Canada and Jennie was a Psychology major from Canada. Both are traveling for 3 months together! I remember laughing soo much during the train ride. The guy on the bottom bunk yelled at us to be quiet and go to bed around 1 o clock in the morning. So we did. I passed right out, after praising God for this amazing journey. God thank you SOOOO incredibly much for that awesome night!
Day 1 at Paris
Around 6 am this huge booming voice comes over the loudspeaker in French. I was trying to find the volume knob to turn the voice down. THANK GOD that the guy below us spoke 4 languages. He told us that we needed to get off the train. I thought all of this was very odd. And sure enough, there were complications of some sort which made us trade trains and resulted in us being an hour and a half late to Paris. But you know what….God made this day just the way he wanted it. And I Praise Him for this amazing day!
We had stopped in Stasbourg at 6 am. We all boarded the new train and had an amazing morning! We found out that the guys’ name was Cedric (the one who spoke 4 languages) and is a native Parisian. He proved very useful and if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have made it to France as smoothly as we did. I enjoyed every bit of the train ride to France. Sharing in the company of new friends and Larry and Nika, was just amazing. Before I knew it…we were in the Paris train station!
Once in the station, we wandered around a bit finding the information first, then we departed from Amanda and Jennie, and went to buy tickets to Bayeux. After doing the busy work, I headed to my hostel and was going to meet up with Larry and Nika at 3 o clock by the Louvre pyramid. While I was at my hostel, a man came in (who looks to be in his mid thirties) and introduces himself right away. His name is Daniel and he is from Panama. How awesome this day is going!!! On a October 22, I find myself meeting a ton of different awesome people from around the world! We decided to go meet Larry and Nika together. Once at the Louvre, we went in (a very logical thing to do when the some of the most amazing art in the world is right inside the doors…lol
The Louvre was STUNNING!!! Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, so on and so on. It was soo awesome to be in the midst of all this world famous and in fact THE BEST IN THE WORLD art work from the masters themselves. I wished many times that I was allowed to simply touch the works. Of course a big highlights were the Venus di Milo, Slave sculptures, Raphael works, and the Mona Lisa! I had a great time doing video documentary there. After spending 3 hours in the Louvre, we headed out for a break for dinner.
We went to the inverted pyramid and I had a crepe with nutella and banana in it. It rocked my world!! We then stopped at the information booths and Virgin records for info on concerts. That was a fun adventure. I regrouped with Larry, Nika and Daniel, and we headed back in the Louvre where I spent another half an hour admiring famous works. I then left around sunset dusk time and simply sat in the square for about 20 mins.
This was some of my favorite time in Paris, just sitting there! Ok, this is turning into the longest single 24 hour time span journal entry EVER! I should do a better job at summarizing rather then reliving every detail, I can tell most of you all the details when I return home on December 16th.
After chilling for 20 minutes, I returned to my hostel and then decided to go out again. It was then that I had my first sighting of the Notre Dame Cathedral all lit up in the evening. Simply AMAZING!!. I marveled at its craftsmanship and sheer magnitude. These two boys were having the time of their lives dancing around on the park seats. After walking around some more, I journeyed across the river again and found some awesome eateries. A lot of international stuff. Then hopped on a metro to the Eiffel tower.
What a magical night! I walked the lane to the Eiffel tower and just as I was nearing it, I ran into 4 Susquehanna students!!!!! I could not believe it! I ran into Jen, Jess, Dawn and Laura. It was AMAZING. So many decisions had to be made on both our parts to meet up like that! We hung out all night, spending time at the Eiffel, looking for the metro, and then at the Louvre. What a day! At the end of the day I was filled with nothing but pure AWE! I called my parents and told them I had made it to Paris and was having the time of my life. I really enjoy talking to my family and friends while I am over here (either on the phone, IM, or through email). So keep in touch everyone!
Day 2
Allright, considering how long it took me to summarize the first day of my journey, I will do a better job at condensing the next couple days. Day 2 started out at Notre Dame where I met Larry and Nika at 10 am. Before meeting them, I explored the city on my own, taking pictures and what not. I made it to Notre Dame on time and we went inside to marvel at this amazing cathedral. I then went shopping for a gift for my roommate Andy since his birthday was on Nov. 1st. The girls I met the night before are in the London program (the same one Andy is in) so I met them at noon and gave them the gifts to give to Gilby. We all then went to the d’Orsay museum of art.
I absolutely loved the d’Orsay! It was a lot more maneagable then the Louvre, and I ended up pretty much exploring the entire museum in 3 hours. I loved the impressionist paintings of Monet, Van Gogh, Manet and so on. I also said hello to Whistler’s Mother. My time seemed to fly by in this museum. I then headed out to Paris again to meet up with Larry and Nika for dinner and then….Fat Tire Bike Tours!!
We ate at a small café underneath the Eiffel Tower and then headed to the meeting spot for the bike tour of Paris. It was soooo much fun! About 40 some people showed up, so they split us up into groups of 20s. Imagine 20 people all in reflective vests pretty much taking over the roads of Paris!! I never realized how much fun it would be to do something like that! We went by many of the big sights and also stopped for the best ice cream in Paris apparently. I had a raspberry flavored one which ROCKED!! The bike ride also included an hour and a half boat cruise on the Seine River at night. Again, it was the perfect end to the day!
10/24/04
My final full day in Paris could not have been more amazing and more God-led! The day started with an adventure to Notre Dame to scale the heights of that cathedral. I met two awesome teachers from London (originally from Australia). One was an art teacher and the other was Psychology I think (I really don’t remember..lol) We talked a lot about our travels and stuff. Afterwards, I bought my ticket and headed up the tower. Paris seriously is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. I really enjoyed my time on the top of Notre Dame, filled with joy and tears that God would bring me here. There was a Hallelujia celebration out in front of Notre Dame (I guess that is why that huge cross was there…you can see it in the pic of Notre Dame, it was probably the largest wooden cross I have ever laid eyes on). I was at the top of notre dame, listening to my music when I thought to just be silent. So I took off my ear phones and they had music going playing at the foot of the cathedral. They kept singing “hallelujiah” over and over. It couldn’t have been more perfect.
Once on the ground, I headed back to my hostel because my batteries in my camera were dead (silly kyle). I came back and headed to St Chapelle, but the line was ridiculously long, so I explored the Latin Quarter which was a blast. I grabbed a gyro and finished it, then headed to Sacre Couer for Sunset. Had a great time exploring that place.
Afterwards, I headed back to my hostel and figure out what I was gonna do that night (since I didn’t know where Larry and Nika got to). I grabbed a nutella crepe and then decided to scale to the heights of the Eiffel tower. Little did I know what was in store though.
God put me, Jori, and Bridget at the same place at the same time!! I could not believe that I ran into 2 more SUSQUEHANNA students underneath the Eiffel tower! God is amazing!!! I also met their two friends Michelle and Lee. This entire fall break has been full of meeting people on the road. Thank you God for leading me where you want me to be.
After spending the night chilling with these girls in Paris, I returned to my hostel where Daniel was still up and so we made a pact to get each other up in the morning. What a day! Thank you God for this life and for this day! Let me praise you in everything that I do! And thus was the last full day of my picture perfect time in Paris!
Ok, now I am going to attempt to capture the essence of my train ride to Bayeux the next day. If you want to read more about my adventures during fall break, you will have to head to the Bayeux entry. I am really sorry if these entries seem to go on forever, it is just so hard to contain myself when all this awesome stuff is going on!
I continue to miss everyone more with each passing day. You are in my thoughts and prayers all the time. Love you guys!
Your France traveling buff buddy,
Kyle Kekai
Colossians 1:9
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