Not a few weeks after arriving in Seville, I began planning what I was going to do during Semana Santa, otherwise known as spring break. Seeing as how I was in Europe, I had to take the opportunity to go to at least one country other than Spain while I was here. The call went out on facebook, and the most cost effective trip was three days in Paris (Some other places that were good but got knocked out of the running were Milan and London). I had a bit of a nest egg from all of my on-campus jobs over the years, and that money went to buying my ticket, and my parents helped with the lodging. After we bought our plane tickets, there was nothing we could do but plan what we wanted to do and wait. As I looked online to find museums, sights, and prices, I stumbled across something. I was online looking at Louvre advance tickets, when a familiar black helmet caught my attention on the side of the screen. It was an ad for the Star Wars: Identities Expo. I had heard of the expo before, and knew it was in Canada to begin with, but it hadn't crossed my mind since I realized I would never be able to go. I click the link, and what do I see but the dates for when the expo will be in Paris. Paris. The city I was going to for spring break. I had to go. My two friends Jordan and Kelsey agreed to go with me after I bombarded them with information about it, and cause they're just that nice. They bought regular tickets, and I bought a special ID badge ticket for 5 euros extra. The kicker was the 20 euros it would cost to ship it from France to Spain. That 20 euros was worth it though when I saw an envelope postmarked from France with my name on it in the mail center at school. This was back in February, so there was a lot of time in between when I got it and when I got to use it. About 2-3 weeks before our trip, I began compiling prices of all of the places we wanted to go and made a custom Google map of everywhere we wanted to go, routes to metro stops, and even places like the US embassy just in case. We then met a week before our trip to make an hour-by-hour itinerary so that we would get to see everything we wanted to see. Yes, it was my idea because I'm that organized and love schedules. I would come to find out later though that my schedule had a serious flaw.
The night before our flight out from Seville I couldn't sleep. I felt quite the mixture of excitement to get out and explore somewhere new, and also anxiety from the fact I was going somewhere new. This was the first time I had ever traveled internationally to a country where I didn't speak the language and had no one waiting at the airport for me. We were gonna be on our own in France. I ended up finally being able to fall asleep around 2 AM, which would be fine if I didn't have to wake up around 5 to leave for the airport at 6. So running on 3 hours of sleep, I got myself showered and dressed and headed off to the airport with Kelsey and Jordan. My saintly host family was kind enough to offer to drive the three of us to the airport so we didn't have to catch a bus or take a taxi. We managed to get through the airport without a hitch, and same with catching the bus into Paris from the airport (we flew into Beauvais, so we were an hour outside of the city). When we got off the bus at Porte Maillot, we started walking to our hostel. To get to the metro stop we needed, we had to walk down the famous Champs-Elysses, which was pretty surreal. As we walked up the hill we came upon the Arc de Triomphe. This was the first of a recurring feeling I had while I was in Paris. I felt like I was in a book. All through elementary school I had French classes, in which we talked about places in Paris all the time, but they were never real to me. This feeling was only magnified when I was able to see the Eiffel Tower. But more about that later.
I then had my first experience of a language barrier. I found the metro station, but had no idea if it was the right stop. I waited in line to talk to the information lady. In french, I asked her if she spoke English. It took her three times saying "a little" for me to understand her. I knew the name of metro stop we had to get to, so I asked her if we could get there from here, mixing English, French, and Spanish. For some reason, whenever I talk to someone foreign, no matter where they're from, my knee-jerk reaction is to speak to them in Spanish. I knew well and good that she was French and spoke French, but my brain was just like "foreign person = they speak Spanish". We got on the metro and got to our hostel without any problems. We got checked in, threw our stuff in our room, and continued with our adventure. We started off going to a bakery and getting some bread and such, cause that's what you do when you're in Paris. We then rode the metro back to Champs-Elysses and started walking toward the Eiffel Tower. I think it was on the metro ride back that we had the most hysterical encounter. As we sat on the subway, Kelsey wanted to review some French I had taught her, the most useful phrase of which was "I don't speak French." "Je ne parlais Francais", or something like that. I can say them, just cant spell them. As she asked me how to say it, and I said it slowly to her, and very french-looking business man did his best not break out in the cheesiest grin and laughter ever. He kept his composure, but couldn't help but crack the most smirkly-amused smile I'd ever seen. I noticed and looked over at him, and he continued to smile and tried not laugh, and gave me a little nod, saying "that's right". The three of us died laughing. That was the friendliest, most hysterical encounter I've ever had with a total stranger whose language I don't speak and typing it out in words doesn't do it justice.
The original plan was to climb up to the first observation level, but the lines were enormous. We then crossed the street, a big deal for me since the bridge we crossed is the bridge you take in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 when you go into Paris:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS98qzZbPQY
After seeing the tower, we walked south along the Seine so we could see the little Statue of Liberty. It was a nice little taste of home. We then looped back around to catch our boat for the boat tour of the northern part of the Seine (we bought tickets in advance online). Aside from being beside a bunch of Canadian highschoolers, the boat tour was great. We started right at the Eiffel Tower, worked our way up all the way to Notre Dame, and came back. We pulled in to harbor right at sunset, so we got to see the first lighting of the Eiffel Tower that night, when they make it sparkle. After the boat tour, we decided to head home but find some dinner on the way. Not many places were open since it was getting late, but we managed to squeeze into one Italian restaurant just before they closed. Enter language barrier encounter #2. It had never occurred to me I have no idea how to order food in French. All I can say is "I eat" followed by 3 different things, none of which I wanted. Thankfully pizza is an trans-lingual word, and pointing to something on the menu is always effective. There's nothing quite like the look of fear in a waitress' eyes when you say, in French, "I don't speak French". We still managed to get our food, enjoy in thoroughly, and head home.
Tuesday was our jam-packed day. We started off the day riding the metro for a very long time all the way from our hostel towards the south of Paris, up towards St. Denis University, all the way up north. Thankfully, it was just one metro line, so we didn't have to do any transfers. We arrived at Cite du Cinema and began our next adventure. Thankfully, the audio guides had an English option, and all the displays were written in French and English (Thank you, Canada). Basically, I wont be able to describe what it is very well, so look here:
So yeah, that was pretty awesome. After that we took the metro towards eastern Paris to go the cemetery where Oscar Wilde, one of my favorite writers, is buried. We wanted lunch first, so we went to a bagel shop and got some bagels. We had already bough some cheese and nutella beforehand at a supermarket, so all we needed was the bread. We found a spot in the cemetery and ate our lunch. This is where my scheduling failed. First off, we ended up on the south end of the cemetery when we were supposed to start in the north. Second, I forgot to allocate time for lunch in our schedule. We ended up getting incredibly behind. Also, since we weren't in the right end of the cemetery, it took us forever to find Oscar Wilde's tomb. We did find it though, and after we walked rather briskly to find a metro stop. By now we were pros at the metro, so as long as we found a station, we could get where we needed to go. The next item on the agenda was to go down into the catacombs. We arrived at the catacombs at the time I had scheduled for us to finish at the catacombs, and the line had already been declared closed since they were getting close to closing for the day. A disappointment, but we had other things we wanted to go see. We then started walking up towards Notre Dame. Thankfully, entrance to the cathedral is free, so even though the line was huge, it moved quickly and we got in pretty quick. Not gonna lie, it's not as impressive as Seville's cathedral, but it was still cool to be inside, especially since we were there on Holy Week. The next plan was to go up in the towers, but like the catacombs, the line was cut off. We went and saw love-lock bridge, and then went to go see if we could get in Sainte Chapaille, or however you spell it. It was also closed. Thankfully, there was a nice little restaurant across the street, so we went there and got crepes. absolutely. delish. We then went back to our hostel room and watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame, cause you can't be in Paris and not watch that movie.
Wednesday was our last day. We were crunched for time since we had to catch the bus back to the airport at 2. We decided to devote the entire day to going to the Louvre. We got there a little after 9 when it opened, and it was packed. We got in line, and thankfully it moved pretty quick, and it wasn't actually that long. Once we were inside we could see how much longer the line was then when we were in it. When we got up to the ticket counter, I decided to ask if they had a student discount. The lady asked me if I was an EU citizen, or was studying in an EU country. I told her I was studying in Spain and showed her my student Visa. She told me to just show the ticket-checkers my visa and they would let me in. This was so exciting. Instead of paying 14ish euros, I got into the Louvre for free. Not only that, but they held onto our bags for us for free too. three hours is not enough time to see all there is to see in the Louvre. But we did see a lot. The Mona Lisa. The Venus de Milo. Even the Code of Hammurabi, which I didn't even know was in the Louvre. I also got to see tons of Assyrian and Persian stuff. That was really cool for me since as a bible major I study lots of Mesopotamian/ancient Middle-East civilizations, and have written two lengthy papers on Assyrian warfare.
The rest of our trip was just the journey back. It was a phenomenal experience. The weather was beautiful every day, and much cooler than Seville. The people were kind and friendly, and the food was terrific. No, we didn't get to see everything we wanted to, but it just gives me a reason to go back one day and have a whole bunch of different experiences.
In conclusion, J'aime Paris.
