Today was a recuperate and prepare for the next set of adventures day. I stayed home and studied for my test, took my test, caught up on blogging and emailing, then finally organized and packed all of my belongings.
The mom and dad of our host family took us out on the town tonight to celebrate our last night. We met them in front of Notre Dame de Paris and then they walked us around the two islands on the Seine and showed us the layers of old buildings as well as some unique boutiques and restaurants. They took us to get the most famous ice cream in Paris that is on Ile St. Louis. It is called Berthillon and lived up to its hype! I got raspberry with rose and also white chocolate, it was divine! Our host parents were so kind to take us out and Emily have really grown to love them. They and their kids have been so helpful and encouraging this whole time and answer all of our language or cultural questions. They are a sweet and righteous family.
Emily and I with Monsieur et Madame Beauvillé on the bridge in front of St. Geneviève
With our other roommate Julia from University of Conneticut. We will miss hanging out with her!
It was a warm Sunday night with the following a day as a holiday. Thus, lots of Parisians were out strolling or hanging out on the banks of the Seine. Here is a music group playing on the banks. It was a such a peaceful night as the whole world seem relaxed.
Lots of people on the Seine
More pictures of our apartment--the note card says Welcome to the home of the Beauvillé
My room with all my baggage. The ladder goes up to my bunk bed.
I decided to take pictures of where I live since I am leaving soon. :( Also I have become really bad at spelling English. Also I found some American money in my drawers and it looks really weird and fake.
I live in Asnières-sur-Seine which is northwest of the main city of Paris and is right on the Seine as the name of the city describes. To get into Paris every morning, we walk around the corner to the main train station and then get on a suburban train to Paris St. Lazare. We then take two different metro lines to finally arrive at Hotel de Ville to then walk 5 minutes to the church/institute building. It takes us about 30 minutes to get there now that we have gotten the routine down. We were still kind of lost the first week or two, it took us about an hour.
Our train station in Asnières
This is the main commercial part of town that is right out of the train station. There are restaurants, a movie theater, a grocery store, the post office, a pharmacy, and boutiques.
The entrance into the train station. There are sometimes people handing out political fliers here. There is man that plays the saxophone who is there everyday in the same spot. He has a small repertoire, always playing the same 2 songs.
Down the road from the train station
Our apartment building on Avenue de la Marne. We have a magnetized key/sensor thing that we hold up to a pad and it unlocks this first door, and then there is another inner door where we have to click in too.
Then we walk up to the third floor to our apartment. Which is technically the 4th floor since the main floor is called the Rez-de-Chausée and then the next floor up is the 1st floor.
Our apartment. I love the blue accent in the building.
The view from my window. Sometimes there are pigeons and sometimes there is a man that sits on his balcony and writes songs on his guitar.
My diet staples while I've been in France. I eat an orange basically everyday because they are so dang delicious! France is mostly self-sustaining in regards to produce, so all the fruit here is super fresh and juicy. Of course nutella that I put with the bread. Or just on my finger. And then the best invention in the world: Petit Ecolier. They're simply a biscuit cookie with a thin bar of chocolate on top. Sounds so simple, but I think that is the ingenious beauty of it. They come in nice little packs of two cookies. Emily and I stick a pack in our purse every morning. As you can see, I have tried all three varieties of Petit Ecolier: milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and the ones with the cream in the middle. Our host mom told us that these are for children because of the low percentage of cacao in the chocolate...but we still adore them. I will have to bring at least 2 boxes home when I leave in August.
Our cute, but narrow kitchen. Madame has always has fresh bread for us. I was going to take a picture of my room, but it is currently strewn with all of my belongings as I am in the middle of packing, so maybe later I'll add one.
Today I bought a duffel bag to help divy up my stuff with the different places I'm traveling. After I took the bag back home to Asnières, I went to the Saint Denis basilica which is outside of the main Paris area. They were having a Bretagne (a province in France) heritage festival in the square in front of the church. They were doing traditional dances that were super cute. Some people had traditional wear on. The music was live.
Beautiful St. Denis
French people are very proud of their heritage and don't mind telling you about it. Wherever someone is from, they talk about how it is the most beautiful part of France and how their area has the best cheese/wine/mustard or whatever else their area is known for.
The basilica was beautiful as always!! I took a break on churches for the past week because I was a bit churched out, but I am again able to appreciate them and their incredible beauty.
Since it is now beautifully sunny in Paris, the sun comes through the stained glass and casts beautiful colored lights on the walls and chairs inside.
The red light from the stained glass and the sun.
Can you see all of the colors shining down on the walls and altar?
The Hotel de Ville on the square. Hotel sometimes just means building, so the Hotel de Ville in a city is just the main city government building where the mayor lives and works.
It was a beautiful sunny, cloudless day in Paris so everyone was out enjoying it at the cafes and lots of kids were out on their scooters or bikes.
This is a side building to the Hotel de Ville. I liked how they added modern elements to the building while still retaining the older architecture. Cool mix of periods and styles.
There were these awesome bagpipe players at the festival. Of course with their beers at their feet for when their throats were dry.
This man was roasting corn on a grocery cart..reminds me of China and their barbeque grills on the back of their bikes.
Incredibly cloudless day! The city was so happy and alive tonight with the new warm weather.
Everyone was out pelousing (lounging on the grass) with bread and wine at the park and grass fields around the Eiffel tower. I sat down and read my book for a while with this view above. I love love love my Kindle. Best purchase of my life. I am almost done with Jane Eyre. Before Jane Eyre, I read The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. I have about 10 other books on my Kindle for the rest of the summer. No more boring train rides!
Everyone hanging out on the Champ de Mars. It stays light so late here. It is not completely dark until 10:30pm and it starts getting dark around 8 or 8:30pm. Also, French people don't eat dinner until 8:30ish. The earliest a restaurant will open for dinner is 7. With these two things and the French leisurely attitude, the night is just beginning for all at 8 or 9.
Sometimes you just get sick of a baguette for a meal everyday and it was our last real night in Paris so a bunch of us went and sat at a cafe on the terrace and had a delicious meal. I got this ginormous piece of Quiche Lorraine! It had so much ham and cheese in it and was just so so large!! It was delicious, but I think I am quiched out for a while. Which is probably a very good thing. Cafes never really seem to like when we come because we always ask for water to drink and don't stay for 3 hours after the meal drinking wine. Tant pis.
I've been saving going up the Eiffel tower for a clear night and this night was perfect. Here is the setting sun. The line is always ridiculously long, so we waited in line for about 1.5 hours but got to watch the sun set and watch them turn the tower lights on. We were under the eiffel tower in line when they first sparkled the tower at 10. Everyone that was out for the night in the parks around the tower and under the tower sighed and exclaimed at the same time at the magicalness of it! It was a cool moment that was shared with so many people of so many nationalities.
Heather wrote a love note that she folded into a paper airplane and flew off the top of the tower.
About to get on the elevator!
We were on the second level of the tower when it sparkled at 11! It was super magical again! After about a minute, it became like a strobe light effect and was a bit dizzying.
My favorite part of this recording is the kissing couple. So perfect.
It was fun to look out at Paris all around us all lit up and know what all the monuments and buildings were that we have spent the last month visiting.
It was SO windy as you can tell by our flailing hair.
Breathtaking sight! The pictures barely do it justice.
We went all the way to the tippy top!
I like all the boats on the Seine there going under the bridge. I sang all of my favorite French songs in my head as looked out on this incredible city that has come to meet so much to me as I have learned about its history and culture and as I have felt the beauty of the world and the goodness of mankind through all of its natural and architectural and artistic splendor.
You can see the elevator tracks there. We took the stairs down the last two levels in order to not wait in ANOTHER line to go down.
Emily and I had a fun little adventure going home. It was 1am when we got to the St. Lazare train station. The train was supposed to leave at 1:11. But it got to be about 1:40 and we were still sitting on the train in the station and the train workers said they had no idea when it would go. So we decided to just get a taxi home since we were so tired and fighting to stay awake. We went out to the road, hailed a few cabs, and all the drivers did not want to drive to Asnières for some reason, probably because it was out of the main city area. Then an angel of a man came along and showed us where the main taxi area for the train station was. He hailed us a taxi and we had a driver that was willing to go to Asnières for us. Then the man that had helped us went and got his taxi. We were so grateful as it was kind of scary being alone at 2am not knowing how we'd get home. We made it home just fine and made friends with our taxi driver. We found out at the end that they charge double for taxi fares between the hours of midnight and 5 in the morning. Grreat. But we were just so grateful to be home and were so tired that we couldn't have cared less.
