The RyanAir Experience:
RyanAir, for those of you unacquainted with the measures taken by the broke college student, RyanAir is the budget airline to beat all budget airlines (but not really in a good way). Katie, Jeff, and I went to bed after midnight after planning out our Paris itinerary, and then had to get up again by around 2:30 to meet at around 3:00 to take a taxi to the Estacio Nord, where we had the privilege of taking a 4:00 bus to the Girona Airport. We then spent over two hours in the Girona airport before boarding a 8:00 flight that had us in Paris around 11:00. When I say Paris, I actually mean Paris´s Girona equivalent, where we then got to take another bus for another hour or so to the actual Paris city center. We then hopped on a few more metro rides before finally arriving at the foot of Poppy´s dorm. We then proceeded to thoroughly annoy and confuse the woman at the front desk of the dorm in trying to explain that we were friends staying with Poppy, but that she was in class and we wanted to leave our bags so we didn´t have to trek them all around Paris. Keep in mind that we speak English, and Spanish, and un poquito Catalan. We do not speak French. Said mean frontdesk lady does not speak English, only French. The whole transaction took about a half hour, all while Jeff had to linger outside, because he was technically not supposed to be staying with us. What seemed like a lifetime later, we finally ventured out into Paris to see the sights.
The Parisian Experience:
Previous mention of our experience with the feisty front-door lady brings me to mention the effect I’ve heard mentioned by everyone I know who’s studied in or visited Paris: Parisians are not nice. Apparently the rest of France is nice, just not Paris. We played the ignorant tourist role out pretty well though.
The Food:
Ohhhh, the food. My other travels so far had not revolved around food in the least. Apparently Amsterdam and the Netherlands in general don’t really have typical food (except delicious pancakes of course), and everyone knows the Brits aren’t exactly known for their eats. Witthin a few hours of our arrival in Paris, however, we were walking the Chanps Elysees (which coincidently reminded me a lot of Barcelona’s very own Passeig de Gracia) with crepes in hand, complete with cinnamon & sugar or Nutella or whatever we might have desired. We rounded out our weekend with:
- More Crepes
- French Onion Soup
- Steak Frites (Okay, so just the frites for me).
- Croissants galore.
- Oh, and Angelina’s—pastries and sweets and hot chocolate. And then only a slight stomach ache afterwards from chocolate overload.
Needless to say I absolutely cannot wait for Italy, when probably about fifty percent of my sightseeing focus will be centered entirely on the food experience.
Sightseeing Highlights:
- L´Orangerie: Monet’s famous waterlilies paintings, up close and personal, like I’d never seen before. It was thrilling both at Musee de l’Orangerie as well as the Musee D’Orsay that we visited to be seeing paintings I’d been hearing about and seeing in slides and photographs since I was in kindergarten, but the real thing, right in front of me, no denying it. It was overwhelming but I was hooked. I now plan to return to Paris just to see museums (there are a lot of them and we (what a faux pas!) didn’t go inside the Louvre.
- Eiffel Tower at night: We were lucky enough to see the Eiffel Tower just days after a new lightshow had been completed. Dressed in dresses and stockings prepped for a wonderful dinner afterwards, we did our time in the line and were finally able to take the somewhat frightening elevator up to the top. The Eiffel Tower is tall, much, much taller than I imagined. Once on the top, we were treated to a view not unlike that of a satellite plane, that’s how high up we were, with lights twinkling over the beautiful city of Paris. The only drawback was the part where it was approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit up there (probably colder), and my favorite part as we were waiting for our chance to take the elevator back down while jumping up and down trying to say warm:
(Katie): How long do you think it would be before we die up here?
It was a very Titanic moment as we shivered at the top, starting to think an elevator might never come.
- Jewish Quarter: The second day of our visit, Poppy took us to Paris’s Jewish quarter where we got to eat more food. We stood in line for the best falafel I’ve ever tasted, paired with hummus, cucumber salad, roasted eggplant, and some sort of unidentified but delicious sauce to top it all off. It was gone in five minutes and I seriously considered going back for more. Then we stopped by a vintage store where I got my very own French vintage boots and a 3 euro French vintage scarf.
Family visit post anytime now!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39332893@N03/
Besos,
Liz
No comments:
Post a Comment