Day 36: Or The Day of My First Trip to The Louvre, This Decade

Winged Victory, and Me

I woke up early today. Well in reality I jumped up at god knows what hour when the doorbell rang. I was completely confused, thought I was late for work, then slowly realized it was Saturday. An hour or so later I got up to make the trek into town.

La Joconde

This is my friend's last weekend in Paris, so we needed to make sure she hit some more of the high points of Paris. We decided to go to The Louvre and meander for awhile. Once you get to our station in the village, you don't even have to walk outside to get there. The Metro stop opens up into the museum so it's perfect for cold or rainy days. Today just happened to not be that cold, but it's good for me to know in the future.

Venus

I went to The Louvre once before when I was 15. We saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, and Venus de Milo, but that's about all I remember. I'm happy that on any given weekend with nothing to do I can wander around and see a whole new section. Today was a fairly broad sweep of one of the halls though. I was surprised by how much I remembered though. It was nothing specific, just seemed familiar. Walking around the Palace, you see the ceilings and the marble work and realize that the building itself is the best part, at least for me. It's a pretty spectacular place.

Just another staircase ceiling, no big deal.

Afterwards, we walked for a bit to get some air and found a great little sandwich shop and bakery. The sandwiches were under 3 euros and everything else was fairly priced as well. We were very happy with our discovery because prices seem to blow up at the tourist locations. Somehow we managed to walk up to the Pompidou Center without any intention of seeing it. I'm not the biggest fan of the building, I don't feel it fits in, but it's pretty cool to look at.

C'mon, you know it's awesome

Made it home at a decent hour and preparing for day 2 of the sight seeing weekend. I've added just a few pictures but I feel like they just don't give the place justice. Feel free to come visit and I'll show you the place in person. No pressure though.

Centre George Pompidou

Day 30: or The Day I Tried French Fast Food

I woke up at a decent hour this morning and headed into Paris for some shopping. This was necessary shopping for my trip to the Alps in two weeks, but I also wanted to check out the area around the mall. La Défense is the business district of Paris and it has skyscrapers and glass buildings and  is very un-Paris. But it does have the Grande Arche, which is absolutely massive. I forgot my camera,so I will add pictures next time, but this thing is impressive. The pictures don't even do it justice. Pretty cool.


While shopping, we decided to grab a bite and chose Quick Burger. Now, it's not like I'm eating at McDonald's, and I wasn't on the streets of Paris, so I feel like this was an acceptable meal. I was in a mall food court, there wasn't that many gourmet options. And I just wanted to see how they fared. They weren't bad. It was just your normal fast food burger, and I ate the fries with mayonnaise. Well, I tried the the mayonnaise, it's different here than in the states, so it's not what you'd expect.


After shopping, we went into Paris Center and walked around the Louvre. We didn't have time to go in, so we just looked at the building itself. It's really quite amazing. I've been there before, and I know it's a Palace, but when you're walking through the courtyard, the size is overwhelming. 


We made it home in time for dinner. It was a shorter day, but a good one. 

Day 28: or The Day I Think it Snowed

Ok, so it wasn't real snow, but it definitely wasn't rain. It's been hovering around freezing for a couple of days now, but because of the lack of sun, today seemed to drop another 10'. I had planned on going out for lunch, but the warmth of my room wouldn't let me leave. Plus, I was going out tonight, so I needed to rest up and save money.

For dinner I made a chicken and mushroom cream sauce with pasta and we had carrot and zucchini soup that I had made earlier in the day. I didn't exactly have a recipe for the sauce, but I'm pretty sure it was one of my best dishes to date. One of the girls was making fun of me for using garlic again. To me this is a silly, silly position to take on garlic. Garlic makes everything better. If i'm sautéing vegetables, garlic, and usually onion, are going to be added. Just like using salt and pepper. But seeing how they our views differ about that too, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. And as much as she made fun of me, she still enjoyed my food. So I guess I win.

I went out in Paris again, and am beginning to think I'm too old for this. We leave the house around 10:00 but the last train home is at 12:45. Because of this you end up taking the first train home at 4:45. This is not ideal for me. I would much rather be in bed hours before this, but because I am bound to the person who drove me to the station, I'm stuck. Lovely. I always have a good time and I like the people I've been meeting, but I feel like my weekends just start off on the wrong foot and I end up a little too worn out. All in all it was a good night and I met some new au pairs. I also decided to dress a little more for comfort and it was well worth it. My feet weren't frozen which boosted my enjoyment factor immensely.

Day 22: or The Day I Watched The Lights at The Eiffel Tower

Napoleon's Tomb

The Eiffel Tower Light Show 

Me, at the Eiffel Tower

Today was a slow day. I slept in, thought about wasting the day, but decided to go into Paris for a bit. We walked around, saw some buildings, but it was cold and rainy, so we went to a pub to wait it out. Paid way to much for a small meal and headed home. It was actually quite a nice day though. We had no agenda and no plan, so walking around the city, discovering new places was fun. I really enjoy walking down a street, and not knowing if you should turn right or left. Then coming upon an open air market. The weather made me drowsy, so it was a good relaxing day.

The Moulin Rouge

French Word of The Day

Mal aux pieds.


Sore feet. A combination of a "broken foot" and walking around Paris for 7 hours.

Day 8: or The Day I First Took the Train to Paris

Saturday, amen. Today was my first official day off and I was ready to take advantage of it. Now, I hope to get up earlier on my other days off, but I hadn't slept in yet, so first I took advantage of no alarm clock. I got up,and started the internet research on what I should do today. I hadn't heard from Zoe about whether she was free or not, but I decided on a day in Paris anyways. I took the 1:00 train into Paris, camera in tow. It was going to be too late to do any real museum exploring, the lines are tremendous. On Saturdays, for people under 26, they have a pass for 6.80 euros that allows you a trip in and out of town, plus the metro all day. Pretty good deal. 

Champs Elysees, away from L'Arc de Triomphe

By the time I reached the station at 1:45, Zoe had texted me and we had a plan for me to go to her place at 4:00 for some tea. She had plans tonight, but I wanted to see her place so it worked out perfectly. I wasn't sure how much I would being using the metro, I had planned on walking, but I find it much easier to navigate the city that way. I have been told that some find the metro confusing. I don't see it that way. I believe taking your time really helps. Just follow the colored line to the next colored line. 

Arc de Triomphe

I first decided to walk for a bit, but since I didn't have a map, I just walked in the direction of the Seine. I think I would have hit my mark eventually, but the lack of parallel streets makes intersections a little more difficult, so when I saw a metro stop, I got on and exited exactly where I wanted to be, where the Champs Elysees meets the Arc de Triomphe. Good job. I spent 5 minutes figuring out where the tunnel under the roundabout was, and the next 20, walking around taking pictures. I considered going up to the top, but that is another 6 euros, and who has that kind of money. Maybe when I have visitors, I will treat myself. 

A statue on the Arc, check that face out.

From the Arc, I had about an hour, so I went to the Eiffel Tower. Again, going to the top wasn't going to happen but a couple good pictures couldn't hurt. It was out of the way, and I knew could get directly to Zoe's from the Arc, but today was Caitlin's tourist day, and what's a tourist day in Paris with out Gustave Eiffel's steel structure. It was of course the busiest place, and I was glad to stand on the bridge and away from the rabble. And then the one hiccup of the day occurred.

I'm not sure what this place was called

I had plenty of time to get to Zoe's, and I knew the lines I needed, but there isn't a station right at the tower, so I had to walk. Again, I had no map, so I was just assuming I would find one on the main road. I knew there would be one at the next landmark, so I wasn't looking for a needle in a haystack, but looking for anything in a haystack has to be annoying, and that is where I was at. I found the station, and made it Zoe's around 4:30. She came to pick me up at the Metro stop, and we walked to her very cute Parisian apartment. We had tea and cookies, which were delicious of course. Those Brant's can bake some cookies. We talked about France, and the differences we find annoying or nice. The winner, and I think some of you will agree, is of course, the lack of roaches. Linden, Anne, do you hear me? No roaches. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.


I headed to the station for the 6:30 train, which is what I am on now. I brought my little laptop for the trip, in case I got lost or lost my phone. I was fairly sure I cold find an internet cafe if I had a real emergency. The train is very nice. It isn't that convenient from the house, a little over 1.5 miles away, on a dark forest road. The distance really isnt the problem, but it is dark, and you do need to factor in an extra 20 minutes. But who can complain about a little 1.5 mile walk when in 40 minutes, they are in central Paris. It is dark outside now, so the Eiffel Tower is lit up. I'm not sure if my pictures do it justice, and I know some Parisians think it is an eye sore, but it looks pretty spectacular to me. I'm just going to go ahead an admit it.

The view from the train.

Two and a half hours later...


I just got back from dinner. On the train ride home, Kristina, a German au pair texted me and invited me for dinner. There is a small Italian restaurant in my village and they have good pizza. She had a British au pair with her and we had a nice dinner and made plans to go on weekend excursions together. Which is perfect because that was my one, main goal while here in France. All in all it was a great day.