Paris!

Bonjour! My dream of going to Paris came true this past weekend! First, I’d like to say that I did not meet any rude Parisians. Every waiter/waitress/store clerks/people on the street were very nice to us. Sooo do not believe this when people tell you that they are rude! Anyways, I took a flight on Wednesday afternoon with my friend Kelly and arrived at our hostel that night. It turned out being a hotel and was very nice considering the cheap price that we paid. Our room was cute and quaint, and the best part was that there was a terrace overlooking our street. We were basically in the center of Paris and had a metro station right by our hotel so we could get anywhere we wanted really easily.

            I got to practice my French and I ordered most of my meals in French, so I was pretty proud of myself. There was a French song that I learned in middle school in which some of the lyrics are “Je voudrais une orangina”…I was able to say this for real at a café which I was pretty excited about. I had the following foods, most of which I loved.

- pain au chocolat

- croissant

- the crepes were fabulous (I had one every day, and one I even had under the Eiffel Tower)…one with nutella, w/ nutella and bananas, w/ jam, and with dark chocolate. I am pretty much addicted to Nutella after coming here because it is served with everything.

- quiche

-parisien salad

-steak et frites

-croque monsieur

            The first morning we went off to the Louvre! We got some pictures with the pyramids (which are in the Da Vinci Code!) and then headed inside. I had known this museum was huge, but didn’t realize exactly how huge it really is. We headed right to the Mona Lisa because we knew that there was going to be tons of tourists heading there. It is so small, under inches of bullet proof glass, and you have to wait in line to see it…extremely over-rated, but I’m glad I saw it. The Louvre is very tiring and we were ready to leave after 2 ½ hrs…barely enough time to make a dent in the amount of artwork there. They say that in order to appreciate every piece of art in the museum, that you would have to spend 9 months there.

            After leaving, we got to see the Notre Dame and I posed like Quasimodo. After learning about this church in class for years, it was great to be able to see it in person. It is right next to the Seine River, which had tons of huge boats going down it packed with tourists. Then we headed over to Luxembourg gardens which was absolutely gorgeous.

            The next day we went to the Eiffel Tower! We climbed up to the 2^nd level and took an elevator to the top from there. The view was absolutely breathtaking. I never realized how huge the city of Paris is until I was up there. Pretty much as far as the eye can see, is buildings upon buildings. We even ate a croque monsieur on the Eiffel Tower! I also got my picture with some good-looking pro soccer players on the second level. Unfortunately, I have no idea what team they were on.

            Then we walked over to the Arc de Triomphe which is surrounded by a huge rotary with 11 streets that enter it. We strolled down the Champs Elysees, the main shopping road of Paris which leads into the rotary. We went in some pretty sweet stores including Mercedes, Louis Vuitton, and other high end stores. There was even a Disney store we went into. That night we went back to the Eiffel Tower and got to see what it looked like with it’s lights on. Every hour they do a light show, where a bunch of lights start blinking and sparkling on the tower. We got to see this happen three times. We took our time walking around it, taking pics and eating crepes.

            Saturday, we got up early and went to go see Sacre Coeur, which is a beautiful basilica up on a hill in Paris. It was built in the 1800’s, so pretty modern compared to the hundreds of other churches I have been into this past month. I think I’ve been into more churches in the past 4 weeks than I ever have in my whole life. Then we walked over to the Moulin Rouge area which was pretty cool…too bad I’ve never seen the movie!

            After that, we went to the Pompidou which is a modern art museum…one of the coolest museums I’ve ever been into.  The museum itself was designed by a modern architect, so there is bright tubing that makes up the exterior of the building, and then a clear tube that we got to take an escalator through. The art inside was really neat also, including a bright red rhinocerous and Duchamp’s “Urinal”!!! I was pretty excited to see that.

            Sunday morning, our last morning in Paris, we went to see the Catacombs. We walked down a hundred steps or so to the ground below the city. Back in the 1700s, a cemetery in Paris was causing a disease to spread, so they had to get rid of the bodies. What they did was bury them all below the city. I was pretty creeped out because there are piles and piles of skulls and bones that you are walking right next to. You can literally touch them if you wanted to (I don’t know why you would want to though). Once we came back up, a guy asked to see my bag. I was really confused and then realized that he was making sure I didn’t steel any bones. Right next to him was a table with a few skulls and bones that people had tried to steal. Crazy right?

            That pretty much sums up our trip to Paris. Even though it was wicked expensive, the trip was worth every penny. Au revoir!

Cinque Terre

Two weekends ago my “Architecture in Italy” class went to Cinque Terre. We took Harry Potter type trains to a town called Le Spezia (these were even more like the Harry Potter train because 6 of us had our own cabin and there was a Snape-like looking man outside our door). In Le Spezia we went to a local restaurant which was known for its Farinatas which is a pizza type food, which was delicious. Then we went to a town outside of Cinque Terre called Fassola and visited some houses on the coast that were being renovated (this part was for class). It was so beautiful because the whole neighborhood was on a cliff right by the water. That night we went to a fancy seafood restaurant at the first Cinque Terre town called Riomaggiore. I ordered grilled salmon and penne, and this was my first time ordering seafood at a restaurant. I must say it was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life. Then we went to a bar (with our professor) and he had us order limoncellas, which is the local alcoholic beverage that everyone drinks. It was a little too strong and a little too lemony for my liking.

            After that we headed to our hostel. This was my first true hostel experience and everything went smoothly. There were four girls total in my room and we had bunk beds. We got breakfast at the hostel in the mornings and there were showers to use. Also, our room had a beautiful view of the town, Biassa. So I have no complaints about my first hostel experience.

            The following day we went on a cliff walk between the first 3 towns which was absolutely gorgeous. Then we tooka train to twon 5 and went swimming in the Mediterranean sea! It was colder than I expected, but a lot of fun. Then we hiked from town 5 to town 4 on a very strenuous trail. It was exhausting but worth the hike because of the beautiful views. That night we ate at a local restaurant by our hostel and I’m pretty sure this was the best meal I have had in my life. We had pasta that was rolled by hand with homemade pesto sauce on it…Troffie de Pesto, or something like that. Then the second course was a pita type thing (which we saw them make in front of us) with Italian meats such as prociutto, salami, and Italian cheese. Soooo delicious. Pesto originated in Cinque Terre as well as foccaccia (which I had for lunch).

            The next morning, we woke up and headed to Genova. We got to see Christopher Columbus’ house which was really neat. Also, we took an elevator to the top of the city, and had a spectacular view up there. We learned a little about the architecture in Genova also. I had a fun time with all the girls in my class (9 of us) and my professor.

My travels to Siena, San Gimignano, and Venice

This weekend I went to a bunch of locations in Italy, all of which were spectacular. Friday was a bus trip with a bunch of kids from the program to Siena and then San Gimignano. Unfortunately, it was a really rainy day and of course I forgot my umbrella. Most of what I remember of Siena is trying not to fall because I was wearing slippery sandals, and trying to stay under friends umbrellas. Siena was a really nice town, and I can imagine it being beautiful on a sunny day. We got to see supposedly “the prettiest square in Italy,” which was a cute piazza. We also visited the church of San Domenico, which has the actual head of St. Catherine on display. It was soooo weird. We ate in a really cute restaurant and I got a delicious salad.

            After lunch we got back in the bus and traveled to San Gimignano which I absolutely loved! It got sunny once we were there, which could be why I loved it so much more. We got to climb a really tall bell tower on top of which had the best view I think I have ever seen in my life. We could see the beautiful town below and then miles and miles of green. This was definitely a town worth visiting, more so than Siena.

            Saturday I took a trip to Venice with my two friends Kelly and Ekta. This one of the coolest places I have ever been! There are over 400 bridges in Venice and each of them is beautiful. We took a gondola ride which was totally worth the money that we spent on it. We got to go through the canals and under bridges that not many tourists know about, so it was very quaint and picturesque. Some other gondolas had musicians on them, so we got serenaded every once in a while. That day we also got to see St. Mark’s cathedral, which was really neat to see since it is so famous. St. Mark’s square was packed with tourists and pigeons. The pigeons are like ants…sooo many of them. Venice is known for its masks, so there are mask stores everywhere you turn. We went into one store in which the man who owned it, dressed up in a costume for us, and showed us which masks would look best on us. He was pretty excited about all the masks he made.

 That night we stayed at a hostel that we found out wasn’t actually in Venice! We started to freak out (and when I say we, I really mean myself). It’s a long story, but we eventually found our way to our hostel late at night by pure luck. It turned out that it wasn’t even a hostel, but a hotel with free continental breakfast. So it worked out for the best, but it was a little stressful when we realized the hostel was a 25 minute train ride outside of Venice. Luckily my two friends are really laid back and chill about everything, which made me stay calm in a situation that could have turned out a lot worse.

The following day we returned to Venice and visited Murano which is an island that is famous for its glass. We went to a glass museum which has lots of glass sculptures, but I would not recommend going to this museum. If you go into all of the glass shops on the island, it is more interesting than the museum. Also we went to a glass factory where they show you how they make bowls and glass horses. The guy literally made a beautiful glass horse in five minutes. It was really impressive. Then we returned to the main island and met up with some other girls from our program and took a boat tour around the grand canal of Venice. Overall, this was one of the coolest weekends of my life.