Bonjour Paris

At last, the recap of my Paris trip. I flew out early Saturday morning with one of the girls from my program, Meredith. We decided to walk around all day until we could check in to the hostel at four.

We took the Metro to the Louvre and crossed Pont Neuf to the Île de la Cité. 

We saw a building called something like the Ministry of Justice and walked past Sainte-Chapelle to Notre Dame.  

And on to Notre Dame. 

It is really very impressive with lots and lots of beautiful stained glass. 

We crossed the St-Michel bridge to the Latin Quarter and walked around there for a bit, then headed down the Seine. 

We passed the St-Germain area and found ourselves at the Musée d'Orsay, then at the Assemblée Nationale. 

We crossed another bridge to what I think is the Palais Royale. 

From there we walked down the Champs-Elysées, but all the trees were bare so it was not as nice as I remembered. 

We ended up at the Arc de Triomphe. We did not go up to the top, but we got to look around it a little. 

Next we walked to the Tour Eiffel. Again, wanting to save money, we did not actually go up into the tower, but just walked around to Les Invalides. 

Although it was cold, it was really a lovely, sunny day. We got a little lost in the area around the Iéna metro stop but found our way soon enough.

By this time we could go to Montmartre, where our hostel was located. Luckily, it was in the charming, quiet part of Montmartre, not the seedy part closer to Sacré Coeur. 

After putting out things away we headed to a little bistro close by called La Maison Rose (the Pink House). It was really cute and they had a 16.50 euro prix fixe dinner. 

I had onion soup (not the usual deluxe cheesy wonder, but still good), blanc de volaille (chicken breast) with yummy white sauce, rice, and a little salad, and nutella crêpes. The hot, chocolatey crêpes were amazing after being really cold all day. 

We were pretty exhausted after walking around all day (and staying up virtually all night the day before) and went to bed shortly after returning to the hotel.

Sunday we decided to go to as many museums as possible because, being the first Sunday of the month, they were all free admission. We woke up, partook of the free croissant, baguette, cereal and coffee breakfast, and headed to the Louvre. 

It was pretty crowded but probably a lot better than it will be during the summer months. I saw some things I had seen before (i.e. Mona Lisa) but a lot of new things as well. 

I also got to revisit my favorite sculpture, Antonio Canova's Psyche reanimée pour le baiser de l'Amour. 

Another highlight for me was a roomful of Ingres. 

After a few hours in the Louvre we went to Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité. It is a cool place but not nearly as awe-inspiring as Notre Dame. They had a beautiful rose window. 

Next we went to Musée d'Orsay, but unfortunately the queue was hours long. There were seriously over a hundred people in line. So instead of going to the Catacombes like we should have, we went to the unimpressive Musée d'Art Moderne. 

The only things worth remembering were two Modigliani's and the Bonnard bathtub picture, which was the basis for a really excellent play I saw in New York a few years ago. 

We left for the Catacombes but ended up on the metro for an hour due to construction messing up our transfers and getting off at the wrong place a few times. Consequently, the Catacombes were closed when we got there. We made it to five museums and went to three, only actually saving money on the Louvre and Sainte-Chapelle because the Modern is free normally. Oh well.

For dinner we just went to a random restaurant by the metro stop for the Catacombes, but it ended up being quite good. 

I had pôtage de légumes (vegetable soup) and a sausage called Andouillette on the menu. It was definitely an intestine. But the mustard sauce it came with was pretty fabulous, so I didn't mind too much. 

Our final Paris activity was going to Sacré Coeur. It was night time but we did not think that would matter. The area we went to was completely full of touristy souvenir shops, cabarets, and sketchy randos. As we were leaving Sacré Coeur (we did not actually take the funicular up to see it, but got shots from the base) a creepy guy started talking to us and following us. We basically hid in a souvenir shop until he wandered away. 

The next morning we got up at 5 a.m. to make our 9 a.m. flight out of Beauvais airport. When we went downstairs to check out we discovered it was snowing. It made the city really beautiful, but it also made me really glad we were leaving. Walking around in the snow would have sucked. 

We took a taxi to the bus stop, a shuttle bus to the airport, got on our flight with only minimal delay, took a bus from Girona airpot back to Barcelona, and the metro back to my house. Quite a lot of travel time!

Paris is one of my favorite cities and it was just as pretty and fun and unique as always. Tomorrow I am going to England to visit Ba (my dad's mother) and spend a little time in London. 

A little about this week as well:

Went on Tuesday night to a club called Shoko and I really liked it. It is a nice size, not too smoky, on the beach, and as usual free to get in (because we know the promoter's name). Wednesday night I went to trivia night at Travel Bar Port, a foreigner hang out spot. I thought I was pretty good at trivia, but I was basically stumped on every question! Guess I'm not that good after all...When is the Scrabble Anagrams competition?

¡Buen fin de semana a todos!