Paris

Oh man.
So I have the daunting task of trying to tell you all about my amazing 10 days of travel and adventure. I think I'm going to attempt this in segments, doing one post for each city we went to. So this post is about Paris!

We began fall break with a trip to Paris as a whole group. I did not realize how much I enjoyed listening to and speaking the French language until this trip! (Not that I know much French, but Jessica has been teaching me). It is one of those languages that rolls off the tongue and leaves a sweet taste in your mouth. One of the first things we did when we arrived was to go to the Louvre. After 6pm, it is free for students so we took full advantage of that! It was my second time at the Louvre and there is still so much more that I need to see! The amount of amazing artwork and the size of the building can be a bit overwhelming...I just tried to soak up as much as I could. Although I must say, it wasn't nearly as fun without my mom, the artist, there with me. Not only is the artwork amazing in France, but the food is pretty fantastic! There is no better place to get crepes (which I had several), and the coffee is so much better there too! I also tried French Onion soup, which was wonderful.

On the second day, we visited the church Sacre Cour and had a great view overlooking the city. Paris is a very flat city, with the Eiffel Tower standing alone, very much unchallenged in height (which does make it more romantic I guess). We then went to Notre Dame and I enjoyed feeding croissants to the little birds. I had been to both of these churches before, so I would not say that was the highlight of my time in Paris. Afterward, we ventured into a park and before long large and dark clouds loomed in and we knew a bad storm was coming! The wind began to pick up and the rain started so we took shelter in the closest Metro station. After waiting out the storm and getting a cheap but delicious dinner, we made our way to the Arch de Triumph. A few of us climbed to the top and that was by far my favorite view of Paris! You could see Sacre Cour, the Eiffel Tower, and all the city lights that lined the major streets (such as Champs Elysees) that converge on the circle around the Arch.

The last day in Paris was the highlight of the weekend for me. The Grand Palais is having a Monet exhibit for a few months and it has over 200 of his works! It is the largest collection of his paintings in history and I knew that I wanted to witness that. I ended up going by myself because no one else had an interest in going. I show up to find out that it is a 3 hour wait to get in! Apparently it stays crazy busy every day, at all hours. I stood for a long time trying to decide whether to stay or not and eventually decided to wait it out. There was nothing in Paris I wanted to do more, so I waited. The 3 hours went by fairly quickly and the exhibit was well worth every second I waited! I have always liked Monet's work, but after visiting the exhibit I realized that I knew very little about his life or most of his work. Each and every painting was phenomenal. I wanted to stand and soak each one in for hours. I had not realized how diverse his work was and how much his style changed over the years. The exhibit was set up chronologically, so it was neat to see the progression. His works are so full of color and hang heavy with the layers of paint. Up close the canvas is just a collage or tiny dots of color, thousands of paint drops on top of each other, but you take a step back and it's the most beautiful landscape with jagged cliffs or water lilies. He captured light and shadow in a way that can bring tears to your eyes. Especially later in life, the subject of the painting wasn't nearly as important as portraying the light on the subject and how the light could change. I so badly wish that I could have taken pictures, but sadly that was not allowed. After, I met up with Christina and Jessica (my traveling buddies) and we had a great cafe dinner overlooking the river and went to the see the Eiffel Tower at sunset....mmmmm...

Luckily Jessica has family friends that are now living in Paris and let us stay with them for the night. The best way to describe that night - home. They were the sweetest couple and were our temporary Paris parents. :) Deborah had home made banana nut bread baking when we arrived and we spent hours in the living room drinking tea, eating the amazing bread, and talking with her and Keith. Oh and the Titans game was on TV! I got pretty excited about that. It was the first time we had really be in a home in two months. Needless to say we were so grateful for the warm food, good conversation, parental care, and soft beds for the night. I told Jessica that I wished we could have stayed longer! Unfortunately we had to be up at 5am to catch our train to Salzburg...Deborah even got up and made us breakfast in the morning! All three of our parents can rest assured that we were well looked after!

So yes, that briefly sums up my time in Paris! I loved it there. I love the language. The food is to die for. And there is almost nowhere better to go to see great art and architecture. And of course the Eiffel Tower is pretty cool too. ;)