Parigi... I mean Paris - part I

Paris was fantastic. After all the failure with getting to the airport and getting on the plane, my internal pessimist was clawing its way out. I expected to have everything go wrong in Paris. In spite of the fact that my flight was delayed, my theatre major friend from Whitman, Ian, stuck with me and picked me up from the Metro station at around midnight. He hadn’t told me until our meeting there that he lived in a home stay, and that I’d be staying with his host family. On our program, that is strictly forbidden. But apparently it’s okay over there. I didn’t meet any of them until the next morning. I got a pullout bed from beneath Ian’s bed. It was sick.
The next morning, we woke up and got traditional French breakfast (pastry, toast, orange juice and coffee) at a little cafe and then Ian booked it to class. Meanwhile, I met up with my friend Eve whom I played with in France. We went EVERYWHERE! In the span of eight hours, we went to:

Notre Dame
The Pantheon
Sorbonne
Luxembourg Park
Champs-Elysees/ Arc de Triomphe
Eiffel tower
Les Invalides
And much much more !

They all had French names, so some haves slipped my mind. I won’t give you a break down of each individual place, but we saw some cool stuff. The line to climb Notre Dame and later, l’arc de Triomphe were too long, but I decided to go back and wait in the line for the Eiffel Tower the next day when I was by myself.

The next morning, I met Ian’s host mama. I tried to say “Thank you very much for letting me stay at your house.” What came out was pretty much a complete jumble of French and Italian that got my point across. She later told Ian she thought I was Italian! Ha! I’ll take that any day of the week. I tried to speak French with an Italian accent the rest of the trip. That first day, Eve and I saw the Pantheon (not to be confused with the Pantheon in Rome). It was full of all sorts of famous dead people, including the tombs of Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Emil Zola. There was a temporary exhibit on Emil Zola there too (in French – go figure). All the dead people were in the crypts in the bottom. On the ground floor, is an enormous, central plan structure with a gorgeous mosaic that once served as a church. Most of the walls are covered in frescoes depicting various gallantry throughout French history (Joan of Arc, and some other folks). There was also a sweet pendulum in the middle. A truly gorgeous building that should have cost me 5 euro, but Eve used her powers of guile to tell the ticket woman that we were both students of art and architecture in Paris, so we got in for free. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my travels thus far, it’s that free things are always the best things.
From there, we saw Sorbonne (which is apparently a very prestigious and famous French University) and ate baguette sandwiches in Luxembourg Park. There were flowers in bloom and birds singing and children playing with toy sail boats in the fountain. It was like a scene from a painting. So very lovely. We then made our way to the Champs Elysees where we saw a gorgeous church and then walked the entire length of the Champs Elysees, stopping only for a Crepe with Nutella (gurgly, salivating noises) and to sneak a peak at a puppet show in a park. As we walked and tried to remember all the words to the famous song, we absorbed the atmosphere and took pictures. We finally got to the Arc de Triomphe, but couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to get from the sidewalk we were on to the actual arc itself. So like any level-headed, sophisticated people would do, we decided to wait for a good moment and make a mad dash across six lanes of traffic. It was great. We didn’t even get honked at. From there, we discovered there was a seemingly secret, but in actuality, decently well-marked underground passageway to get from the arch to the other side of the street. Good to know. Probably would have been less fun anyway…
We then took metro to the Eiffel Tower, and upon seeing the line, decided to admire it from the ground. We got pictures in front of it though. That’s half the battle. We then half-walked and half-ran to Les Invalides because the skies opened up and began to pour. Les Invalides, a war veteran’s hospital/inn-turned museum, was wonderful. There were a fair amount of stained glass or something similar windows that let in a fair amount of light, but since there was this lovely rain storm, the entire enormous structure was lit mostly by the eerie glow that I later realized was coming from Napoleon Bonaparte’s tomb area. His tomb is an enormous wooden sarcophagus, roughly the size of a small bus. No joke. Surrounding the tomb is a series of sculptures and reliefs depicting Napoleon as a great Roman ruler. The effect of the darkness mixed with the brightness of Napoleon’s tomb was awe-inspiring. We then went and had one of the most amazing dinners of my life.
Fondue. Not just fondue. French fondue. The way it was meant to be. Eve and I met up with Ian, and his girlfriend, Christina (also from Whitman). We paid 18 per person for:

-1 baby bottle full of wine (not exactly sure why, just roll with it) equivalent to 2 glasses
-1 glass of sweet black-current wine served with sugar on the rim of the glass and an orange slice
- 1 appetizer tray for our group of four
- 1 huge pot of fondue – enough to make us all fairly sick and still not be finished with unlimited bread
- a bowl of fruit, which we exchanged for a fancy desert at the price of just 2 more Euro

BTE. Best thing ever. We got there right as it opened. They crammed so many tables into the room that there was no space between tables and no space between the end tables and wall. Anyone sitting on the outside of the room had to step over the table. We then walked to the Moulin Rouge and the entire red light district. Very fun. From there, we parted ways and went to sleep. I was exhausted.

To be continued...