All The Feels: A Cautionary Tale on Leaving the City of Love

In the end, I didn’t end up writing as much as I wanted to.  I was hoping that would’t be the case but hey, like that saying goes, life is what happens when you’re making plans…did I say that right?  Anyways, yes, I did plan on documenting my trip a lot more than I did, but somehow life took over, and I was either too busy or too lazy (I know which one my parents would choose..) to continue on with my writing.

Coming home has been quite an experience of its own.  Of course I was excited, thrilled even, to see my friends and family, people I hadn’t see in months.  That thrill has quickly and depressingly worn off.  The daunting task of getting my life together before I enter my senior year has truly taken away from the shine and splendor of having my own bed back and a warm shower in my own bathroom.  I don’t want to make this post too depressing, but being home has been hitting hard.  For the past couple of months, the world really was my oyster.  I was a 10 minute metro ride away from the most amazing art museums in the world.  I was constantly surrounded by culture, incredible people, music, sound, buzz…everything.  Not that there’s anything wrong with being back, but reverse culture shock is harsh reality.  Things that I used to enjoy, foods that I used to love, they’re just not the same anymore.  OK, ok I get it, I’ll stop moaning and groaning now.

Let’s change the topic to my last few days in Paris.  I’ll start out with a description of my favorite event of the night: that awesome moment the Eiffel Tower sparkles.  I know this is super cheesy, but you have no idea how dazzling it is to watch a 986 foot tall tower light up like it’s covered by Swarovski crystals.  I swear the whole city goes into a collective gasp when that tower lights up.  It sparkles for 5 minutes every hour until 1am.  I am happy to say that I was lucky enough to have friends that would sprint through the metro and run up flights of stairs with me on my last night to watch the Eiffel Tower light up one last time.  I have to admit, our timing was impeccable.  I swearwe came out of the Trocadero metro stop right at 1am, just in time for the final spectacle.  It was pretty damn amazing, and kind movie like I must admit.  Man I miss Paris…I think I need to hire someone to listen to all of my stupid stories now so I can get them out of my system.

Paris is always going to have a very special place in my heart, and from now on, it will be a huge part of who I am and will become.  I went on this trip to do something for myself and boy did I hit the nail on the head.  I apologize for my cynical attitude for the next few weeks, I am not quite sure how I will adjust to being back home.  I promise I won’t blab too much about all of that two euro wine I drank, or all of the mouth watering banana-nutella crepes I ate from the crepe stand outside of my building.  Please just cut me some slack for the time being.  Je suis désolé pour tous les français je pourrais parler aussi…and I also apologize to my French professor for most likely butchering that sentence.

Thank you to every person that made my abroad experience a hell of an adventure.  Europe, thank you for all of the awesomeness I can’t even put into words.  And an advance note of gratitude to all of the friends and family that are about to put up with my annoying stories about being abroad and complaints about being home…you guys must really love me huh.

I know…It’s Been A While

To start off, this is definitely my song of the week. Hozier kind of rocks:

Ok, so I haven’t exactly kept up with this blog as much as I wanted to or said I would (I know, I know, I mention this at the beginning of every post).  You’d be surprised to find out how lazy I actually am, unless you’re my parents, then you’d know (sorry mom and dad).

A lot has happened since I’ve last written, my life has actually become pretty normal….well as normal as you can get out here.  I don’t get catastrophically lost anymore, I can actually have conversations in French (very basic ones but hey, it’s more than nothing), I food shop weekly, I’ve began to frequent cafes, I’ve even found myself the perfect reading spot right by the Seine, across from the Louvre (can you believe I’m actually saying this!?).  Everything has become a beautiful pattern of everyday moments in this incredible place.  I have to admit, Paris is kind of an overwhelming city.  When you have hundreds buildings and monuments celebrating not only French culture, but the culture of the world, you can definitely get very overwhelmed.  Of course you want to see everything and do everything, but the moments I have really enjoyed the most are the ones when I’m not actually trying that hard to understand the meaning of something, be it a painting or monument.  Everyone sees things differently, I’ve learned that the way I want to be here and the way I want to view the art and history that surrounds me here is through simple emotion and imagination.  I found myself in the Louvre Thursday afternoon, just kind of aimlessly walking around.  That place is massive.  This is my second time to the Louvre on this trip.  I decided to explore a completely different section this time around.  I ended up in the French sculpture part of this particular section.  Without trying to figure out what the sculptures were trying to say or what they meant, I just stared and took it all in.  I felt kind of mesmerized by the movements of these very still human replicas.  I know I’m being very dramatic (if you know me, you know I can often sensationalize things) but I just felt like I got it.  I am not an art expert my any means, but it felt kind of awesome to parallel my own imagination to these pieces of art.  Without all the scrutinizing and evaluating, I felt like I understood the art in my own way.  It was really fun actually, I kind of went people watching, except the people were sculptures…I promise I’m not crazy guys.

Yeah so that’s my blurb for tonight.  Next weekend we’re shipping off to Ireland! (see what I did there?  Dropkick Murphy’s anyone?…ok tough crowd).  I’m extremely excited for a trip that actually involves some nature in it.  We’re enjoying one night of debauchery in Dublin and then headed off to Galway, where we’ll be staying in a fishery near the Irish countryside (cool accommodations huh?).  Per usual, I leave end this post with some pictures, enjoy!

Happy

Keeping up with a blog has proven to be tougher than I thought.  There is that part of me that wants to document every second of my time here, but there’s the part of me that just wants to enjoy this highly personal time in my life…well privately.  Finding the balance between the two can be tough, especially in a society where we publish almost every important moment in our lives.  My trip to Europe is extremely important to me, but it is also very personal to me.  I do hope that keeping this blog will, in a sense, keep these memories alive for years to come.  I do of course enjoy sharing my experiences, just not every single one.

Another issue I often run into is the silent yet methodical action of gathering my thoughts.  I tend to be pretty scatter brained…I’m not putting myself down or anything, I’m just kind of all over the place most of the time.  I’m totally ok with this, it’s one of those character flaws you have to learn to work with.  That’s another benefit of keeping this blog, I might actually learn how to organize my thoughts a bit clearer than I have before.

With all of this being said, I have done and learned A LOT in the past weeks.  Not only have classes started, but my “normal” life in Paris has begun.  You could say I’m essentially becoming just another stylish, chic, heel-wearing, croissant eating Parisian….ok so that’s an exaggeration, but hey, a girl can dream.  I have semi-mastered the extensive metro/subway system (at least to the important places) and I can actually say “Je parle un peu de française” (I speak a little bit of French).  That last one I owe to my fantastic French professor.  Never have I been able to grasp a language so easily.  She is patient and she encourages us to use the French pronunciation no matter how silly we sound, and trust me, I sound pretty ridiculous.

Besides immersing myself into one of the most beautiful and extensive cultures I have ever encountered, I have also become an even bigger coffee addict than I thought possible.  I think I’m on my fourth cappuccino today and it’s 9pm.  I swear this is not an exaggeration.  Coffee is so embedded into the culture and environment that there are coffee vending machines almost every corner you turn.  It’s so damn good here, I can’t tear myself away!  Don’t even get me started on the wine, that can be found for 2 euros by the way.  The 2 euro wine is better than any boxed wine I have had in the states and it has now become a regular purchase on my grocery outings.  You can imagine how amazing the wine tastes when it gets up to 15 or 20 euros!  The 50 euro splurges I don’t even have words for.  In the defense of my quickly growing wine habit, I live on the floor below the music students, directly under the piano practice room to be exact, wine is often a necessity.  Now I love classical music, it plays a big role in my life…. it’s just not a 24/7, around the clock preference, especially when a lot of the times it’s scale practice that’s going on.  I can accept the fact that maybe the next Mozart is living above me, but I just don’t think I can live with this constant soundtrack to my life kind of feel.  I do have to admit, I’m completely infatuated by the jazzy/ragtime compositions that miraculously get played sometimes.

So now that I have painted a small picture of what my daily life can sometimes look like, time to move on to the big stuff.  Aka my first trip out of Paris, and that would be Amsterdam.  Out of recommendation from one of my best friends, I decided to check out the “Venice of the north” for my first weekend trip.  Let me tell you, it did not disappoint.  Amsterdam is the stuff of blockbuster movies (more recently The Fault in Our Stars and the not so ornate cult classic EuroTrip).  It’s a fairly small city with a great balance between cultural pleasure, and well…other pleasures.  Our first night was spent in the famed Red Light District, and I’m not going to lie, it felt like a very bizarre parallel universe.  Not only are all the things you are taught to reject on display, they are commercialized.  Debauchery at it’s finest.  The streets and canals were filled with young and old, admiring, and perhaps partaking, in the sinful luster of this part of town.  It was fun and different to walk around in an atmosphere so distant from our own.

The next day was spent indulging ourselves in the more artistic side of Amsterdam, beginning with a visit to the Van Gogh museum.  This, I have to say, was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  The museum is set up in a sort of timeline, exhibiting Van Gogh’s work in a way that reflected the different stages in his life.  The museum was actually a very emotional experience.  Correspondence from Van Gogh to his loved ones, especially his brother Theo, were utilized throughout the galleries.  This created the sense of personal connection to not only the artist, but to the art itself.  The contrast between Van Gogh’s early work to his work post-asylum is incredible.  His work post-asylum was my personal favorite.  It was unconventional and it evoked an emotional response from the viewer.  My interest in Van Gogh certainly peaked through this visit, and I hope to learn more.

The Anne Frank House followed, yet another emotional and inspiring experience.  A certain must for anyone paying Amsterdam a visit.  It is historical, informative, and transforming.  At the risk of sounding like I’m writing an academic paper, the Anne Frank House is a true expression of the human condition in impossible times.

Things just got real serious, huh? We ended our trip exploring the nightlife, stuffing our faces with burritos (there’s a surprisingly large amount of Latino restaurants) and passing out from exhaustion.  I have to say, our first weekend trip was very successful.  Amsterdam is one of the happiest places I’ve ever been to (I have obvious suspicions as to why..). I was mostly happy to be somewhere different, and I was happy to have the privilege to be young and to be able to experience something so new.

With that I end with my song of the week and a surplus of pictures for yours and my entertainment:

Amsterdam:

Come Away With Me

I can’t stop listening to Norah Jones, especially since it’s been raining for the past three days, and she is your essential rainy day artist.  Because of that, “Come Away With Me” has basically been my jam the past couple of days, and it’s going to be my song of the week:

Paris is known as the City of Love, and I agree, but not for the reasons you might think.  Yes, it is an extremely romantic city to share with a significant other, but it is so much more than that.  What I find so romantic about Paris is that the city can be whatever you want it to be, whenever you need it.  The past week has been a blur, between attempts to order cappuccinos in French to touring the city’s most celebrated monuments to attending cultural and academic orientations , I have not had a moment to stop and adjust to it all.

Paris is awesome.  The toilet paper is pink (in most places) and there are ponies in parks (sadly only the kids can ride 😦).  So far I’ve checked out Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, a very small portion of the Louvre, the Seine River and Versailles.  That whole stereotype that the French are rude and dislike Americans has been totally stumped so far because the French have been nothing but nice and helpful so far.  A man even locked up his gourmet food shop to walk us over to a cafe we had been looking for so we wouldn’t get lost, talk about going out of your way!  I can’t wait to learn a bit more French so I can show a bit more appreciation in these situations, something past merci beaucoup, I’ve been saying it so much at this point that I’m pretty sure I said it to the lady that stepped on my foot in the train yesterday…

Tomorrow is the first day of classes and I feel quite unprepared.  First there’s the issue of getting there.  The Paris metro system makes Boston’s t look like a laughable joke.  I have honestly never gotten so many opportunities to get lost, I might need a couple prayers sent my way…I have a horrible sense of direction.  The route to school actually seems quite simple, it’s practically a straight shot off the train, it’s the walking part that has me pretty nervous.  How did people ever function before the invention of the GPS!?  I will have to learn this first hand seeing as Wifi is almost impossible to come by in certain areas in the city. By the time I get back to the states I’ll know maps pretty damn well, so I’ll be the girl you wanna hang with if you find yourself in a *desperate phone is dead all you have is a map situation*, although i doubt that’ll ever happen since the invention of portable chargers.  Technology these days man.  Alright so there’s the getting there part, then there’s the finding my classroom part.  I don’t even want to get into that because I have yet to even look up where my classroom’s location is (that one is my own fault).  I have to admit, I’m very excited to finally start my French class, I feel pretty inadequate with my minimal French vocabulary.  Basically everyone here speaks English and it seems only fair I reciprocate the whole language thing.

There are so many things I want to write about, but I have to maintain some sort of sense of mystery here…you know keep people guessing and all….or I might just feel too lazy to keep on writing.  I’ll post some pictures to at least make up for it:

Welcome to the city of love, where complete strangers make you feel even worse about your eternal single status….just kidding, but really how awesome are Hanna and D.J.?  How beautiful do they describe this messy and brave love?  It’s real and it’s out there, and I don’t necessarily believe that you have to search for this kind of love in other people, love is where you least expect it, it really all starts with yourself (had to add some corny mushy stuff about love since it was Valentines Day and all).

Versailles:

Notre Dame:

Louvre:

Seine Boat Tour:

Jet Lag, Saumon Fume and the Eiffel Tower

Well, since the jet lag is finally wearing off and everything on TV is in French, I figured there’s no better time to sit down and start documenting my trip.  A lot has happened in the past two and a half days.  From the looks of it, it seems I escaped quite the storm back home, I’m not sad about that one at all.  I almost didn’t make it out though, we missed the storm by mere hours.  My flight left at 9:30 Sunday, even later than we were scheduled to leave, the snow really did a number on those runways; nevertheless we made it out.  It was a pretty epic take off…Led Zepplin’s “Rock and Roll” came on my iPod and that was when your average, everyday take-off turned into quite the bad ass departure.  It’s really the kind of way you want to start an epic adventure.  Now, I understand that sounds very dramatic, but if you were there to feel the turbulence, you would understand.  Not only did I have the window seat, I had ALL 3 seats and made myself a pretty comfy bed, I have to admit I was very lucky on my first flight.  On the second flight we were approaching Paris at dawn and flew over a sunset…guys, it was awesome.  Here are some pictures, most of them don’t do it justice:

I took a taxi from the airport to the city and finally arrived at my first hotel Monday afternoon, exhausted and hungry.  I don’t remember much of when I first got to Paris because I spent most of it asleep.  Tired was truly an understatement.  It was all great until I was awakened by sledgehammers and drills outside my door; the hotel was under renovation from 10am to 5pm daily…besides that small blunder, everything was great, and by great I mean my nap was fantastic until it was so sadly interrupted.

I am now at the hotel where orientation was held today, it’s GREAT.  Not to mention my roommates flight got cancelled so I have a huge room to myself! I went to dinner with some awesome ladies, and ordered saumon fume sur la salade (that’s smoked salmon over salad).  It was fantastic:

Finally, to end a very long day and a very long post, we finished the night with some crepes and a short trip to the monument that attracts almost 7
million people a year….you guessed it Paris’ famed Tour Eiffel.  Let me tell you, this baby never disappoints, and the view at night is magnificent.  Now I could sit here and type away, or I can let the pictures speak for themselves (forgive the bad quality selfies, I might just have to invest in a selfie stick…I can’t believe I actually said that):

Cheeseburger in Paradise

5 days means it’s real, I’m really about to spend 4 months in one of the greatest cities on earth…how did that happen?! I can tell you how in two words: restaurant industry. Yes the places I love to hate have provided me with a platform for one of the greatest adventures of my life. For that I vow to eat as much Italian pizza and French snails as my small student budget allows me. Without the countless hours I spent politely grinning as another dad embarrassed his kids with a bad joke I didn’t get or watching people eat mouth watering entrees while I satisfied my hunger with yet another mint…without these weirdly painful and distressing situations I would never have been able to fund my trip to the “City of Lights”… Well that and my family, plus the student loans that will probably force me to move back home after college..but that’s too depressing to think about right now. So back to restaurants, yes, while most of the time it sucked to give up my social life to deal with some very cranky and hangry (hungry and angry; compliments of a friend of mine) people, it was worth it, not only because of this trip but because of the amazing people I met. I am leaving behind a lot of friends that made those seemingly terrible experiences so worthwhile. I am leaving the land of hot dogs and cheeseburgers for the land of croissants and baguettes (the carb overload is a tad bit scary). With that I thank all who have helped me embark on this trip and I leave you with my friend Jimmy Buffet who perfectly describes just one of the delicacies of the land of the free and home of the brave: