Bonjour Paris! France Part 1

          Early Saturday morning we loaded the bus that arrived just around the block from the Huis and headed for France. We had a long, but very exciting week ahead of us. It was jam-packed with scheduled activities from sunrise to sunset. The only bump in the road was that there were some issues with our new Leuven bank accounts. I had to rely on the bank of Dr. Hughes (our professor living over here with us from Loyola) to lend me the money until our accounts were all sorted out. After that small roadblock, we were on our way. It took about four hours for us to journey from Leuven to the ‘City of Light.’

All packed and ready to go!

            Once we arrived at the hotel, we took our bags up to the room and headed into the city. For each hotel we stay at, we are paired up with different roommates. In Paris, I shared a room with Tissy and Candice.

We ventured to Napoleons Tomb and the beautiful Eiffel Tower. We either traveled by taking the metro, or on foot, so we most definitely got our workout in keeping up with our tour guides, Dr. Hughes, and his wife, Sue. I consider myself a fast walker, but I learned this trip that I am not as quick as I thought! It was very hot, around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun was beating down. By the time we finished the days scheduled events we stopped by the hotel to freshen up for a few minutes before dinner.

The beautiful view from my hotel room in Paris.

      






      Dinner was fabulous! I had a salad, salmon, and a coffee sundae. I also tasted escargot! I figured I would not often have the opportunity to eat snails in a country where it is a delicacy, so I took advantage of the situation. To my surprise, the escargot tasted quite good. It was very buttery and delicious, but the texture was a little unpleasant. Half of the battle was getting my mind off the fact that I was eating a creature I would run the other way, had I found it in my backyard. 

Escargot!

The obvious natural reaction when realizing you are about to eat a snail...

The whole group in front of the restaurant after dinner.

           

The next morning I was up early to attend mass at the Cathedral of Notre Dame at 8:30am. It was absolutely gorgeous! I have come to appreciate architecture after this trip because I had never seen buildings so beautiful in my life.

Outside Notre Dame after mass.

We than ventured to the Crypte Archeologique Museum, which is located under Notre Dame and depicts all of the artifacts and structures found on that site just about 20 years ago. After we walked through the bird market (yes, there is a bird market every Sunday and there were HUNDREDS of birds down this one street in Paris) to Sainte Chappelle.. To my surprise, the beautiful Sainte Chapelle was my absolute favorite stop in Paris. It completely blew the Eiffel Tower out of the water! It is a beautiful cathedral with sky-high arches and stained glass windows. It was built hundreds of years ago, yet the execution was precise. It is remarkable how much could be done in the past, with just a minute percentage of the technology that exists today. It is currently going through restoration that should wrap up in the year 2013.

Cait and I inside the very beautiful Sainte Chapelle.

Our next stop was a medieval museum with roman baths and ancient tapestries depicting different moments in history. The Musee d’Orsay was next, it was a holding ground for some famous pieces from Van Gogh and Monet just to name a few. In the afternoon and evening we were free to explore the city and get lunch/dinner. It is important to not that when you come to France, you will be eating a LOT of bread. Baguettes are a special food group in this country because they are everywhere! It is not unusual to see people walking down the street with there own personal baguettes, taking bites as they walk.  I thought “when in Paris, do as the Parisians do,” so I ate one too many baguettes this week!

At night we went on a boat cruise on the Cen to see the sights of Paris from a different angle. We say the Eiffel Tower again, but for the first time at night. It was a spectacular sight, and I learned that at the top of every hour the tower sparkles like a diamond for five minutes. It was a magical spectacle. 

The breathtaking view of the Sen walking to the boat cruise.

Monday morning I got up early to begin the day. Shayne and I decided we would start off with a run along the Cen. It was wonderful to see the bustling city so quiet in the early morning. Once we came back and met up with the group we headed to the Louvre. The museum was enormous; I would not have been able to navigate myself around had it not been for Sue’s knowledge of the place. We made sure to stop by the world famous portrait by Leonardo de Vinci, the Mona Lisa, for pictures to remember the moment for years to come.

The Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

The Arc de Triomphe was another scheduled stop. It is another highly recognizable symbol of Paris. We climbed the 283 steps to the top where we were able to take pictures of the view that went on for miles. After making the journey down the huge spiral staircase, we all started to walk up the Shan ze lei se to windown shop. I popped into the Loius Vuitton store to see how the other half lived! As a bag lover myself, I waited on line to be able to be just an arms distance away from purses and pieces of luggage that were worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

The Arc de Triomphe

In the evening I ate my first crepe for dinner. I had a chicken and cheese crepe at a small shop up the street for our hotel. I thought there was no better time or place to have my first crepe, and I was right!

My first crepe!

For dessert we went to a local gelato shop. There were so many different flavors but I decided on a cone of Nutella and Speculoos gelato. First off, I have never seen so much Nutella in my life! For those of you who don’t know what Nutella is, it is a DELICIOUS hazelnut spread that I often eat by the spoonful. Secondly, Speculoos is something I never heard of until I arrived in Belgium. It is a spread that tastes almost like a graham cracker. The combination of the two on a cone was to die for! It was put on the cone as if each layer was a petal to a flower, true edible art.

Nutella and Speculoos gelato! Yum!

Two words: Disneyland Paris! The best spur of the moment decision I have ever made! Tuesday was our only completely free day of the whole week and we were spending it in Paris. Late Monday night everyone was planning what they wanted to do when I came up with the ingenious idea to see how close Disneyland Paris was from our hotel. It was just a few metro rides away, so the decision was made that I was going! I learned that my friend, Tissy, was a fellow Disney lover, so we planned to hit the parks bright and early the next morning!

Disneyland Paris!

After about an hour commute we were lucky enough to spot a sign that informed us we received a student discount in admission into the park. So instead of buying a ticket to just one park, we received a park hopper! We first headed to Hollywood Studios where we rode the Tower of Terror and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster just to name a few. We also we lucky enough to have a photo-op with Mickey Mouse! After a few more hours, we decided we should walk across the grounds to the Disneyland Park.

Tissy and I with Mickey!

As we walked down Mainstreet U.S.A. (yes, its even called that in France!) we decided what rides, shows, and stores we wanted to hit . We were non-stop all day making the most of the time we had. It was a fantastic way to spend our last full day in Paris. We headed home around 7 pm when the park closed to meet up with the rest of the group.

As we arrived back at the hotel around 8:30 pm we met up with the other 15 Loyola students to take the metro to the Eiffel Tower on last time. We stopped by the supermarket to get food and drinks so we could enjoy a picnic underneath the beautiful glowing lights of the Eiffel Tower. It was the perfect ending to our stay in Paris.

The girls in front of the Eiffel Tower.

On to Normandy we go!