Paris

February has been a good month for me. I've had some great weekends that included time with people from Whitworth also living in Europe, and some time spent with other English assistants outside of our normal "business" meetings or the people I normally see.

I managed to get out of Germany for the first time in 6th months during the weekend of the 10th, by taking a train to Paris. This all started because I got a voucher from Deutsche Bahn giving me a 10 Euro discount on my next trip, as long as I used it before the end of February. I'd been meaning to get to Paris since it's so close (only about 3 hours), and I know people living there, so having this voucher gave me a little extra push to get over there. It turned out that it was cheaper to use a non-DB train service, but I still wanted to go and had already made preliminary arrangements with my friends Mia and Natalie there. The day before I left, Mia got really sick and couldn't meet me at the train station. This worried me a bit, since Natalie couldn't meet me until two hours after I arrived. But she sent me excellent directions to get from the train station to the Eiffel Tower, so I was able to see something that just screams "PARIS" right off the bat. The tower is beautiful at night. It's completely lit up, so you can see the whole thing all night. They also leave the first observation deck open until really late, so even at 9pm you could see flashbulbs going off from a half-mile away. Kinda cool. Every hour, on the hour, there are all these other lights that flash on and off, making the whole thing twinkle. It's really cool, and hard to capture on camera.

Once Natalie found me, we grabbed some food for later and then headed off to keep Mia company since the family she works for as an au pair had taken off for the weekend. The best part: they live on a houseboat. It was awesome. The place looks like an old barge that had been refitted to have two levels, with the living room and kitchen on top and bedrooms and bathrooms on the bottom.  it was right on the Seine along a really peaceful stretch without too many cars going by or too many lights and things, so it was just nice. In the warmer seasons, it would be a fantastic place to just sit on the deck and have a barbecue with friends.

On Saturday Natalie and I toured around. Let me tell you, having somebody with you who speaks French and knows Paris well makes a world of difference in the level of enjoyment you can get out of your visit. I had a wonderful time following her around without really paying attention to which train or street we were on, or what stop to get off at. It was fantastic. We made the most out of the day, stopping at famous landmarks, museums, and eating some delicious food. We went to the Musée de l’Orangerie to see a bunch of Impressionist paintings, including Monet's giant (like, wall-sized in a huge room designed just for them) water lily paintings. We went to the Arc de Triomphe, saw the Eiffel Tower from a different vantage point, visited the opera house, had the most delicious hot chocolate/liquid chocolate bar thing, and ended the day with delicious Tarte Flambe, which is French for Flammkuchen, which is German for a thin-crust pizza with creme fraiche and cheese or other things. It's yummy.

French Opera House ceiling

Another part of the French Opera House.

 

Cold, but really bright out!

Most delicious chocolate drink ever.

Real French crepe.

Mia joined us for Sunday morning, and we went to Notre Dame and this nifty English bookstore just across the river stuffed to exploding with books on two floors, with some couches and chairs upstairs to sit and read in. Lunch was Falafel. There are two Falafel places across the street from each other, each claiming to have the best falafel around. It's very much like Pat's King of Steaks and Gino's Steaks in Philadelphia. We went to the one "recommended by Lenny Kravitz."

Me, Natalie, and Mia in front of Notre Dame cathedral.

After lunch, Natalie took me to see Pere Lachaise, a huge cemetery where famous people like Oscar Wilde and Chopin are buried. It's also where Jim Morrison of the Doors is buried. Pretty neat. There are all kinds of gravestones and little chapel things with stained glass in the windows, and flowers and trees all over the place. We didn't manage to see all the big names before the place closed, but I had time on Monday to come back and see a few more before I left for home.

 

Jim Morrison

Since it closed so early, Natalie was able to navigate me over to another area, near the Sacre-Coeur Basilica at the top of the highest point in Paris. I didn't have a good map, so I took a few pictures of the map in her guidebook, and then she had to head home to be ready for an early morning on Monday with the kids she works with. I got to walk around the inside of the basilica, which was beautiful, and sort of listened in on an evening chapel service at the same time. The place has a loop roped off around the outside of the sanctuary so that tourists can keep moving and see the inside even while there's a service going on. It felt a little funny to be walking around behind the altar and then staring at the ceiling while there were people trying to listen to the sermon, but it would've been a bummer to climb up all those steps to the top of the hill and then not be able to go inside. 

After that, I walked over to see Moulin Rouge, just because it's something I always hear about and it seemed like something that people might ask about later. Managed just fine on the subways alone, and from there headed over to my hostel for my last night. 

In the morning, I went back over to Pere Lachaise so I could say I saw Jim Morrison's grave, and then it was just about time for me to catch my train back to Cologne. I stopped in a bakery across the street from the train station for a croissant and to write a few postcards, and then climbed on the train for the three hour ride home.

It was a fantastic weekend. Getting to see some friends from Whitworth was so nice. It was fun to hear about what their lives were like and to hear some stories about their "kids." I think just getting out of the normal day-to-day life of living in Germany was nice, even for a short weekend. It also made me appreciate my ability to be able to speak German, however limited my skills may or may not be. I can at least order something in a restaurant and talk with the teachers at school, but in France I couldn't do anything. Coming back into Germany was sort of a relief in that sense. But bottom line, it was a really good weekend with lots of delicious food and great company.