|
#12, 14, 28. these are awesome pedro, good luck!! thanks nina!
marigoldridesagain Asked:
your photos are wonderful! Thanks!
Followers, I need your help!
Salut tout le monde! I know I said the blog was over, but I need your help. I’m thinking of entering two separate travel photography contests in the upcoming weeks, one titled “Learning through different angles,” and the other “Give me your best shot.” The problem is that I took hundreds of photos while abroad and can’t decide which ones I want to submit. These are my favorites. I need to narrow it down to three. Vote by clicking on “Ask” (top-left corner) and listing your top three. If you don’t have a Tumblr account, then go to my Facebook profile and vote there. Merci! 1. First Day of Spring
2. Eiffel Tower on a Foggy Night
3. Street musicians in Le Marais
4. Jardin des Tuileries
5. Motorcycle ride by the Seine
6. Show in front of the Pompidou
7. Homeless man
8. Love in Champ de Mars
9. Dark magic?
10. Pistachio Macaroon, Place des Vosges
11. Paris
12. Lennon Wall, Prague
13. Picnic by Invalides
14. Tomb Statue at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery
15. Row of Tombs
16. Staircase, Hampton Court, London
17. Great Market Hall, Budapest
18. Paris From The Steps Of Sacre Coeur (1)
19. Paris From The Steps Of Sacre Coeur (2)
20. Hands, Musee Rodin
21. Grumpy Man, Musee Rodin
22. The Thinker, Musee Rodin
23. Honfleur, France
24. Girl With Scooter, Budapest
25. View From Pont des Arts
26. Sheep on the Road! Mont St. Michel in the Background
27. Mont St. Michel
28. Parisian Sunset
Week 18: À bientôt Paris
Why must all good things come to an end? My incredible semester in Paris has ended, and with it, this blog will too. I will miss spending hours upon hours writing and uploading pictures to share with all of you. Though I’ll admit that writing weekly posts was harder than I had initially expected, sitting down to try to condense and capture my experiences was one of the best parts of the semester. It helped me through some tough times and gave me a chance to share the good times. I will forever have a detailed account of every delicious meal, every breathtaking walk, and every romantic picnic. Paris may be over, but I can relive it anytime! I am currently writing this from my new temporary home: Washington D.C. The past few weeks have been hectic, which is why it has taken me so long to properly end my blog and publish my eighteenth and final post. After being done with finals during my last week in Paris I was finally free to roam the city without anything holding me down. I tried to do as many things on my list as possible, including: taking a few final pictures of Sciences Po…
… revisiting the Louvre…
… one last trip to Angelina…
… going back to Galeries Lafayette to take pictures of their awesome dome…
… a night-time stroll through Montmartre…
… the gorgeously beautiful Musée Rodin…
… and visiting La Défense, Paris’s financial district, for the first time.
One of the best final moments happened the day before Isa left, when we put our own love-lock on Pont des Arts. The ceremony included drinking half a bottle of apple cider from Normandy (a cop told me to throw away the other half), attempting to sketch the bridge and the Seine, and one of the best sunsets of the semester.
When Isa left the next morning to travel with her family, it all started to sink in. It was over! The dream was coming to an end! Despite all my complaining about exposés and the constraints of being on a tight budget, I could not have asked for a better five months. I am incredibly blessed to have parents that sacrificed so much to make this dream a reality. I have A LOT of credit card debt to get rid of, but I would do it all again in a heartbeat. With Isa gone, and in a semi-depressive state, I began to pack for my return to the city of angels. I took advantage of my last couple of days to do some last-minute souvenir shopping, walk around, go to the movies (Tree of Life, this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes), and of course, take a few more pictures.
I made up my mind about something on the flight back to L.A. Paris will be my home again someday. Maybe only for two or three years, but I am doing it. And my kids will be French-speaking babies. Readers, thank you for sharing this journey with me. Your words of encouragement gave me the strength to keep writing even in the midst of finals or when sleep seemed like a much better option. I’ve been back in the States for almost three weeks now. Only time will tell, but so far, I think Hemingway was right. It does stay with you.
marigoldridesagain Asked:
Can I just say, your blog is spectacular. I stumbled across it as I'm in the googling phase of my sciences po exchange prep, and I've can't stop reading it! It's super interesting to see what it's like for an exchange student, first hand. So, thankyou for blogging about it (: Your comment made my day. Thank you so much! Good luck with all the planning. Let me know if there’s anything I can help u with :)
Week 17: Minuit à Paris… à Paris
Why? Why can’t this dream last forever? Time is slipping through my hands like water. Two weeks and all this will be gone. My tartelettes au citron, my picnics, my bridges… Every single day since January has been an adventure. Every day something new. This city is spectacular. I fall more and more in love with it each day. I am coming back to live here again one day. I know it. On Tuesday, after my four-hour dissertation for Histoire Politique, Emil, Lena, Kate, Max, Isa and I celebrated by drinking two pitchers of sangria at a bar near Saint-Michel. Emil then recommended a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. I got dumplings. The next day Isa and I went to Pho 67 (the awesome Vietnamese place I wrote about back on Week 3) a second time. It turns out that the guy who helps his wife run the place is a Sciences Po alum! He studied economics and law and worked at a bank for several years, but is retired now. He was born in China and lived in Vietnam for a while before coming to France to study. I spoke a little Chinese with him and he got so excited he even gave me his brother’s phone number (the brother lives in L.A.) and told me to call him once I’m back in California so that I can practice my Chinese with him haha.
Then it was off to the Pantheon, one of the things on my To-do list before I leave Paris. We saw many famous graves: Victor Hugo, Marie (the only woman there) and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau…
We finished off the day with a performance by the amazing Bolshoi at the Palais Garnier. Isa had gotten tickets for Flammes de Paris a few weeks ago, right before they sold out. They were 8 and 12 euros, and you could tell judging from our seats all the way up. During the first act I could only see about a third of the stage but had a great view of the big fat man in front of me. And Chagall’s ceiling. Thank God a few people didn’t come back after intermission and Isa and I were able to switch to better seats.
The next morning I took Metro Line 8 farther than I ever had to go to the Cité de l’immigration, Paris’s immigration museum. The place itself looked a bit old and worn down, but the exhibits were interesting. They try to make the experience more interactive, so you can listen and watch immigrant testimonies throughout the visit. There was a really cool map showing world immigration by numbers. The thicker the arrow, the higher the number of immigrants per year. Guess which is the world’s thickest arrow?
That afternoon I met up with Isa at the Luxembourg gardens. Our plan was to spend a few hours there studying, but it was too windy, so we decided to go to Ile St. Louis for some famous Berthillon ice cream. I got two scoops: white chocolate and pear. We ate our ice cream next to the Seine, with a man playing the accordion nearby. We then hopped over to the other island, Ile de la Cité, to see the flower market. It was smaller than I had imagined, but still worth it.
Isa had her first four-hour final Friday morning. After she was done we went to Rue Mouffetard and got fondue savoyarde for lunch. It was delicious, but I ate too much and didn’t even have room for dessert afterwards.
Azeezah met us for our second fun activity of the day: les catacombes de Paris. This spooky underground place was built in the 18th century (using abandoned stone mine tunnels as a starting point), when the city’s cemeteries were full to the max and mass graves for the poor were polluting the water. Today, the catacombs contain the remains of almost 6 million people! Only a small portion of the catacombs is open to the public (1.5km), and bones here are arranged in patterns along the walls. If you ever get the chance to come here, it is definitely worth the visit. I also hear that young Parisians often have underground parties in restricted areas of the catacombs, in case you’re interested…
Once we were back above ground, we took a small detour to walk along the Promenade Planteé, as seen in Before Sunset (2004), and then Isa and I met a couple of friends for a drink in the outskirts of Paris. I met David and Alicia in China in 2008. We were all finalists in HanyuQiao, a Chinese-language competition for high school students. I was representing Mexico, they were representing France. We hadn’t seen each other since and spent a good three hours talking and catching up. David wouldn’t let me pay for our drinks. We finished off a wonderful day by going to the movies. The UGC on Champs-Elyseées, to be precise. The movie? Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, or Minuit à Paris. Most surreal experience ever! Seeing Paris on the big screen was incredible, but recognizing most locations and seeing places that you walked by every day on your way to school from the metro station was… priceless.
Saturday began with yet another picnic, this time in front of Invalides. Two hours later, as we were on the metro heading to the Museé de la Vie Romantique, something really funny happened. I was standing close to the doors and Isa was right behind me, when a man suddenly yelled “Oh my God!” Apparently, an Irish tourist confused my girlfriend’s butt with his wife’s, and gave it a little spank. When he realized this he turned pale as a ghost and apologized a thousand times. His wife and his mother-in-law, who were standing right next to him, wouldn’t stop laughing. Everyone else on our car also thought it was funny. As the man and the two women got off at the next stop, he looked at me and, thinking I was French, said “Pardon, pardon.”
The museum had a really nice courtyard, great for some early afternoon coffee. We had dinner at a tiny Mexican restaurant in Le Marais (the most expensive tacos I’ve had in my life!), and called it a day. Sunday morning I said goodbye to Lena and Emil, our Swedish friends, as they prepared to leave for Corsica for the week. I’m leaving Paris before they get back, so it was my last chance to see them. I then finally visited the Marché aux Puces St. Ouen, Europe’s biggest flea market. I walked around it for almost two hours, marveling at the antiques and really old editions of books by Jules Verne and Victor Hugo.
Isa, who had been studying all morning for her last final, met me for lunch at a delicious (and cheap) Lebanese place near Saint-Michel. We then spent the whole afternoon studying at the only place in Paris with free public WiFi: McDonald’s… where else?
Week 16: Sheep on the road!
Week 16 in Paris, and the last week of classes before finals start. On Tuesday night I had a diner de conférence with my French Colonialism classmates and professor. This is actually one aspect of Sciences Po that I do like. Apparently, it’s tradition for the class delegate (chosen at the beginning of the semester) to organize a casual dinner with the professor and students on the last week of school. Our class delegate took us to a nice little spot, appropriately named Café de l’Empire, near the Saint-Germain area. I was planning on staying only for half an hour, since I had food waiting for me at my madame’s house, but I ended up staying there till almost midnight! It was a lot of fun. I talked to some of my French classmates for the first time, and spent about half an hour discussing Mexican history with my (British) professor. On Friday I handed in my last paper of the semester - Privacy, the Internet, and National Laws - for my U.S. Constitutional Rights class. I also had my first final that day, although the tough ones start next week. That afternoon, to celebrate our semi-freedom, Isa and I had dinner at a really good Thai restaurant. Delicious lychee coconut soup for me, Pad Thai for Isa. Later that night we finally visited the famous Barrio Latino, a restaurant/bar/salsa-dancing place near Bastille. It was… weird. We got there at 11:30pm and people were still having dinner. Finally, after midnight, they turned up the volume and people started rushing onto the dance floor. Turns out that “salsa” in Paris equals Shakira and reggaeton. We still enjoyed it, nonetheless. Half the people there were probably over fifty, and it was fun seeing them get excited dancing to Waka Waka. At 8am the next morning (after only about three hours of sleep), Isa and I got on a bus at Porte Maillot to go to Normandy. We went with a group of Erasmus (an EU student exchange program) students from all over the world: Spain, Mexico, France, Italy, Latvia, Russia, Hungary… The whole trip was only 80 euros, including transportation, hostel accommodation, breakfast on Sunday, French tour guide, and museum entries. Our first stop was Honfleur, a town next to the estuary of the Seine, and known for its colorful port. Artists that found inspiration here in the past include Claude Monet, Eugène Boudin, and Gustave Courbet. Honfleur also used to be the starting point for several maritime expeditions to the New World, including the one that led to the foundation of Quebec. We only had about an hour and a half to explore the place, but it was more than enough. Isa and I walked through the tiny streets, took pictures of the beautiful little houses, and even had time to sit down and sip on a delicious noisette.
We hopped back on the bus, drove for twenty minutes and reached our second destination: Deauville. This elegant beach town is famous for its annual American Film Festival, its fancy casino, and les planches, a boardwalk built in 1923 so that women could walk along the beach without ruining their dresses in the sand. Deauville is also where Coco Chanel opened one of her first boutiques. Today, the town is a popular weekend destination for wealthy Parisians.
Our third and last stop for the day was the city of Caen. During WWII, Allied bombings destroyed most of the buildings here, but eventually led to the city’s liberation in July 1944. Since the entire city had to be practically reconstructed, Caen has lost some of its old European charm, and our tour guide even said it was “ugly”. Nevertheless, it’s still an interesting place to visit. We didn’t have time to go to the nearby beaches were D-Day happened, but we did visit the amazing D-Day Memorial Museum. After the museum, we all settled at the hostel, and then went out to dinner as a group. The food wasn’t great but the conversations were. I got to know a French girl who does some acting in Paris and wants to move to L.A. to become a Hollywood star. I also talked to a Russian girl who moved to Paris two years ago without speaking any French and is now practically fluent. The next morning we got on the bus again for the last, and most exciting, part of the trip. We stopped at a biscuiterie on the way to buy traditional Norman cookies and apple cider. And then, we saw it… Mont Saint Michel!
I remember when I was twelve, the only jigsaw puzzle I’ve ever actually finished, was of a photo of Mont Saint-Michel. And let me tell you, the place is just as amazing in real life as it looked on that puzzle!
As the legend goes, the Archangel Michael appeared to a bishop and ordered him to build a church on this tiny islet, which the bishop finished in 709 A.D. Over the centuries, the original church evolved into today’s castle-looking thing. Mont St Michel survived numerous attempts of invasion in the middle ages, the Hundred Years’ War, and even the French Revolution, during which it was turned into a prison.
The tides change very quickly, but when they’re low, you can see pilgrims (and tourists) walking on the sandy areas surrounding the island.
While there’s actually not much to do once inside Mt St Michel (shops, restaurants, a small church, a cemetery, and the abbey), the vibe of the place and the views from the top are incredible. I hope I go back one day.
Things I still need to do before I leave Paris
The list is a work in progress. If there’s anything that I haven’t mentioned on my blog before and that is not on this list, PLEASE let me know!
|
