Last night in Paris! I am all packed up and ready to go in the morning. But first, the obligatory blog entry about my last few days!
Yesterday I definitely woke up after noon, with nothing whatsoever to do anyway. I played around on the computer, sent some emails, showered, and hung around until 18:30, when Maureen got tired of studying and decided it would be time for dinner. We walked up to Rue Mouffetard (definitely the coolest street in this arrondissement) and went to a little Italian place on a corner. It was super cute and the food was appropriately portioned, but the waitress was not incredibly nice and messed up our bill at the end of it all. C'était pas grave.
After dinner we completed the Italian illusion with gelato from down the street. They put it on the cone in the shape of a rose, which is pretty fantastic. They didn't have mint, so I got caramel and Nutella instead. I really do enjoy Nutella. I wonder if I can bring some back with me...
Maureen wanted to continue studying and I wanted to check out le Jardin du Luxembourg, so we parted ways and I made the 15 minute walk on part of the route I took Wednesday, when I'd passed the garden. It's apparently the largest public park in the 6th arrondissement, and people were everywhere in chairs and on benches. I wandered all throughout it, taking pictures of a giant gold head (Le Prophète; not anyone specific), the first version of the Statue of Liberty (a tiny version, with an American oak behind it as a memorial for September 11th), a version of Rome's Mouth of Truth, grass you can't lie on, and more. It was very calm and peaceful, and I actually sat down for half an hour and attempted to write. Though it pretty much failed, it was still quite fun, and I definitely plan on spending more time there next time I'm in the city.
I made it back for an earlier night than the one before, since this morning I had to wake up at 10:00. Maureen's final was from 10:15 until 10:30, and she planned on being back around 11:00 so we could go to the crêpe restaurant. While she made it back a little late, we still got there before 11:30. Maureen's roommates Noelle, Nikki and Kathy, plus their friend Laura, Maureen and I were the only ones in the restaurant, until an American family came in and sat down, but only after the mother had removed all of the knives from the table. We made our orders and got our drinks, and five minutes later the family walked out without saying anything to the waitress, who got pretty mad. She talked to us about it, and asked if that was normal in the US; we said no, not unless we hadn't gotten a table yet. Pretty ridiculous.
I got a crepe with strawberry ice cream, black cherries, whipped cream and pecans, and it was absolutely fantastic. The black cherries had been sitting in alcohol apparently, so they were a little strong, but it was still a delicious breakfast. I'm so excited for all the fun restaurants I know in Paris now! Maureen and I went back to the apartment for a few minutes afterward, to get ready for our long day in the city, before catching the bus to Centre Georges Pompidou, the modern art museum. We met Maureen's friend Kim in the plaza in front of it before heading in, since Kim was leaving for Greece this afternoon and Maureen leaves for home soon after Kim gets back. Though we plotted ways to get the European Union discount that adults from 18-25 receive (free tickets!), we ended up paying a reduced ticket price for the museums and exhibitions. I wish the US would do something where we get free museum tickets in Europe too! And do it in the next four years so I can enjoy it. Thanks, America.
The top floor had the Kandinsky exhibit I was so excited about, as well as a Calder exhibit. Kandinsky's works after 1911 are so much better than the ones beforehand, when he gave up trying to paint anything realistic and just decided to throw shapes, lines and color onto a canvas. I'm sure his artistic theories give rhyme and reason to his compositions and improvisations, but I cannot make any sense of them. My favorite is when the paintings were called Red Oval or Several Circles; why thank you, I had no idea what this was a painting of, and now I know.
Calder's wire sculptures were also great, with an entire circus and tons of sculpted people and animals. All of the figures were anatomically correct also; it made me laugh. The best were the sculptures of Heracles with the Nimean lion and Romulus and Remus with a wolf. The exhibit continued on the fourth level with old-fashioned looking toys, which would have been more amazing if they were moving like it seemed they could. They rest of that level was a huge exhibit called elles@centrepompidou, aka female artists and incredibly feminist setups. One of the first rooms was labeled "potentially offensive to certain viewers" and was full of sculptures of female genitalia and a few pornographic paintings and photographs. There were a few cool exhibits, including a room with woven mats hanging overhead casting shadows onto the floor, and a few strange ones, including a leather looking dress that had, when it was first displayed, been bleeding, raw meat. Sometimes I feel validated for being a vegetarian; today was one of those days.
The fourth level wiped us out, so we zipped through the fifth level of impressionist paintings, taking a little more time for Picasso and Matisse, before heading back to the first level (the second and third are a library). It had rained while we were inside, but thankfully cleared up, so we missed the worst. The fountain next to the Pompidou is one of my favorites, filled with strange looking sculptures that spit water, so we took a few pictures before walking to the area around Notre Dame for souvenir shopping. I made my close-to-final purchases for the trip, and we walked towards the Métro to the Longchamp store!
We arrived pretty quickly, but I was upset to realize that they were all out of the bag I wanted; they had the style I wanted in every color but orange, and orange bags in every style but mine. Maureen guessed they would have them at the Galleries Lafayettes, a huge department store that I had gone to on one of our last days in Paris during high school, so we walked the entire way there to see if they were out too. They were, in fact, not out, and I think I grabbed the last one of the bag I wanted! A successful trip for the only real souvenir I got myself in Paris. Thanks Granny <3
The Champs Elysses was a little farther than us at that point, but I only had one available Métro ticket left and that had to get us back to Maureen's apartment. We used her map to get us close, but at one point we walked in a circle before we finally got where we wanted to be. We took pictures of l'Arc de Triomphe from the middle of the street, thanks an island between crosswalks, then found the Métro so we could go back to Rue Mouffetard for a much needed dinner. We had not eaten since the crêpe restaurant; we were starving.
The little French restaurant had a great 14€ menu that we ordered from, which included an appetizer, entrée and dessert. I got chèvre chaud avec la salade, et saumon (salad with goat's cheese and salmon), while Maureen got soupe de l'oignon et steak-frites (french onion soup and steak with French fries). We both got Kir for a drink, though I knocked mine over after dropping bread into my salad and lost a quarter of it, and then we got chocolate mousse for dessert. Easily one of the better meals on my trip; I also enjoyed the linguini with clams and the amazing dessert wine in Rome.
After dinner we went to the grocery store to get popcorn, since we'd decided to watch a movie while I packed, and I got a French reusable grocery bag! It is orange (obviously) with a lady bug on it, aka adorable. We came back to the apartment and I started packing clothes while Maureen showered, then organized souvenirs in my backpack while we started watching Bride Wars. Funniest movie ever, but it makes me afraid to ever try to get married. I have plenty of room in my duffel bag and backpack, since I'm checking my duffel bag with a suitcase filled with Maureen's books, instead of carrying on my duffel bag with just my backpack. This means I can have a purse on the plane! Not that it's necessary; I packed light for two weeks.
Tomorrow I'm waking up at 9:00 to shower and make sure everything is set before we leave for the Métro at 10:00. I'm catching the RER (a train to the Charles de Gaulle) from Châtelet, which will take me straight to Terminal 2, where I catch American Airlines flight 147 to Logan and hope my ride is there on time. It'll be nice to have a direct flight this time! It will also be the longest day ever, since when I arrive I'll think it's 21:30 but it will really be 15:30 and I'll have the entire rest of the day. If I can make it to 22:00 or 23:00 before I sleep, I will consider it a success; I just hope I wake up early on Monday, since I have my first day at Channel 5 Boston at 11:00!
I can't believe I'm leaving. This trip has been too amazing. It will be nice to be back though, where I can get a normally-priced Starbucks and send text messages!
Time to sleep; early morning tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Paris: Part III
Bonjour de la Ville-Lumière! We are back in Paris and my trip is slowly winding down. I've been doing pretty much everything I planned on, so hopefully for the next two days it will be the same!
Tuesday night when we landed at Beauvais it was after 22:30, so by the time the bus shuttle from the airport to Paris it was almost midnight. We didn't want to risk missing the Métro, and didn't want to take an hour to get home, so we caught a cab instead. It was awesome; we drove right down le Champs Elysses and saw l'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel, Musée d'Orsay, and Notre Dame all in about a ten minute period. Pretty fantastic.
Yesterday morning was very slow; I didn't wake up until noon and was able to shower and do laundry before I went out into the city for my own adventure. Maureen had to study, so I Google-mapped my route and set out for an afternoon of sight-seeing and picture-taking. I started with Saint-Sulpice, and got moderately turned around on the way there, which led me to see the Pantheon; not too bad. I then went looking for a café that someone I work with had recommended, and got turned around again; that led me to find le Theatre Odéon, and made it easier to find the café, so I wouldn't say that was terrible either.
From there it was on to the Tuilieries, which was awesome to walk around. A lot of the statues were of figures from Greek mythology, which I took an entire class on in Spring 2008. It was fun to guess what the statues were before reading the plaques. Some random guy tried to talk to me, so I pretended I didn't understand French and headed back to the Louvre to take pictures of the pyramid. I went out on the wrong side and had to walk back around to cross the Seine again, since Saint-Chapelle and Notre Dame are both on l'Isle de la Cité. It was already 18:00 by this point, so I had to book it back for dinner, but I ended up getting lost somewhere between Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. Effective use of bus maps got me back to Maureen's by 19:00, only half an hour late. She had made rice and vegetables, so we ate and got ready to go out for the last part of our evening: le Louvre!
Since the Louvre is discounted and open late on Wednesdays and Fridays, we were able to go for almost three hours and see the Mona Lisa (La Joconde is super tiny, but at least this time I was able to get closer than I was four years ago), the Venus de Milo, Napoleon III's apartments and various other exhibits. We made it into all of the sections of the museum (Denon, Sully, Richelieu) even if we didn't see everything. Definitely a good second visit.
Today we woke up with pancakes (aka amazing) and then set out for Musée d'Orsay, my favorite museum in Paris. It used to be a train station, so it's strangely organized, but we started at the top and made our way down. In the front of the museum are a lot of impressionist paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Degas...etc, and there are random exhibits everywhere you turn. As you walk through the hallway on level three, there's an exhibit on shadowbox theater, and on level two there are seven or eight of the same bust, in various stages of creation, to show how sculptures are made. I guess you have to make do with the space you have when your building was originally a traffic center.
On each side of the museum are galleries of furniture, sculptures, and even more paintings, including the exhibit "Voir Italie et Mourir." We have no idea why there is an exhibit called "See Italy and Die," but it was pretty fitting considering our recent trip. There were a few drawings of places we'd seen, including the Pantheon in Rome and Piazza San Marco in Venice; very cool. We also went to the very end of the museum's main level and went up this random platform that allows you to look over the entire main entrance and get a good view of the clock that I love so much. It's really strange how I love cool looking clocks, but hate being early...
I had to make it back to the apartment by 16:00 to talk to Shannon, who is in Hong Kong, about the UGBC Comm budget, which we then submitted a full 24 hours early. Dinner was pasta at 18:00 so we could get to la Tour Eiffel and climb to the top! We took the equivalent of the B line for the Métro, which I think is awesome because it's called Étoile-Nation (Star Nation! But really it just runs from Étoile station to Nation station...say that five times fast) and ended up very close to the tower. The line was huge if we wanted to take the elevator all the way up, so for the second time in my life I climbed the 700 stairs to the second level before taking the mandatory elevator to la sommet. At least this time I wasn't conducting a physics experiment.
At the top you can get a 10€ glass of champagne, but we opted to just take pictures from every angle imaginable. I accidentally blocked someone's picture, but that was the most embarrassing thing that happened at the top of me; it seemed like someone had gotten sick before we got there, so at least I didn't have that problem. The observation deck is one level above a walled in room with distances from la Tour Eiffel to various countries, including two numbers for the US! Boston was not there, but New York/Washington were, as was Los Angeles! This amused me.
We rode the elevator all the way down and then walked down the Champs de Mars to take pictures of ourselves jumping in front of the tower. They came out well enough, just very dark, and we effectively made fools of ourselves in front of a lot of people. There's a cool glass monument at the end with "peace" covering it in many languages; reminds me of the Holocaust Memorial at Government Center. We couldn't find cheap crêpes anywhere, so we took the Métro to Jussieu and walked down Rue Mouffetard to go back to the awesome Greek crêpe place for des crêpes sucrées! I got one with bananas and Nutella; so delicious. I wish the US had more crêpe places.
I just got back and will probably be up all night editing pictures and playing games. Tomorrow we don't have many plans, so I can wake up super late and not feel bad. Maureen wants to go to her Italian place on Rue Mouffetard for dinner, and I want to wander through the Luxembourg garden for a bit, so that should be it for the day. Saturday I'm going with Maureen and her roommates to a sit-down restaurant that serves crêpes, and apparently they are amazing with ice cream and other delicious things. Then we're going to the Centre Pompidou, l'Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame for souvenir shopping before dinner at a French restaurant. I have to pack, which I'm not looking forward to, and then my flight is at 13:30 on Sunday! I can't believe I only have two days left.
Only a few more posts to go! Until then,
Sam
Tuesday night when we landed at Beauvais it was after 22:30, so by the time the bus shuttle from the airport to Paris it was almost midnight. We didn't want to risk missing the Métro, and didn't want to take an hour to get home, so we caught a cab instead. It was awesome; we drove right down le Champs Elysses and saw l'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel, Musée d'Orsay, and Notre Dame all in about a ten minute period. Pretty fantastic.
Yesterday morning was very slow; I didn't wake up until noon and was able to shower and do laundry before I went out into the city for my own adventure. Maureen had to study, so I Google-mapped my route and set out for an afternoon of sight-seeing and picture-taking. I started with Saint-Sulpice, and got moderately turned around on the way there, which led me to see the Pantheon; not too bad. I then went looking for a café that someone I work with had recommended, and got turned around again; that led me to find le Theatre Odéon, and made it easier to find the café, so I wouldn't say that was terrible either.
From there it was on to the Tuilieries, which was awesome to walk around. A lot of the statues were of figures from Greek mythology, which I took an entire class on in Spring 2008. It was fun to guess what the statues were before reading the plaques. Some random guy tried to talk to me, so I pretended I didn't understand French and headed back to the Louvre to take pictures of the pyramid. I went out on the wrong side and had to walk back around to cross the Seine again, since Saint-Chapelle and Notre Dame are both on l'Isle de la Cité. It was already 18:00 by this point, so I had to book it back for dinner, but I ended up getting lost somewhere between Boulevard Saint-Germain and Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. Effective use of bus maps got me back to Maureen's by 19:00, only half an hour late. She had made rice and vegetables, so we ate and got ready to go out for the last part of our evening: le Louvre!
Since the Louvre is discounted and open late on Wednesdays and Fridays, we were able to go for almost three hours and see the Mona Lisa (La Joconde is super tiny, but at least this time I was able to get closer than I was four years ago), the Venus de Milo, Napoleon III's apartments and various other exhibits. We made it into all of the sections of the museum (Denon, Sully, Richelieu) even if we didn't see everything. Definitely a good second visit.
Today we woke up with pancakes (aka amazing) and then set out for Musée d'Orsay, my favorite museum in Paris. It used to be a train station, so it's strangely organized, but we started at the top and made our way down. In the front of the museum are a lot of impressionist paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Degas...etc, and there are random exhibits everywhere you turn. As you walk through the hallway on level three, there's an exhibit on shadowbox theater, and on level two there are seven or eight of the same bust, in various stages of creation, to show how sculptures are made. I guess you have to make do with the space you have when your building was originally a traffic center.
On each side of the museum are galleries of furniture, sculptures, and even more paintings, including the exhibit "Voir Italie et Mourir." We have no idea why there is an exhibit called "See Italy and Die," but it was pretty fitting considering our recent trip. There were a few drawings of places we'd seen, including the Pantheon in Rome and Piazza San Marco in Venice; very cool. We also went to the very end of the museum's main level and went up this random platform that allows you to look over the entire main entrance and get a good view of the clock that I love so much. It's really strange how I love cool looking clocks, but hate being early...
I had to make it back to the apartment by 16:00 to talk to Shannon, who is in Hong Kong, about the UGBC Comm budget, which we then submitted a full 24 hours early. Dinner was pasta at 18:00 so we could get to la Tour Eiffel and climb to the top! We took the equivalent of the B line for the Métro, which I think is awesome because it's called Étoile-Nation (Star Nation! But really it just runs from Étoile station to Nation station...say that five times fast) and ended up very close to the tower. The line was huge if we wanted to take the elevator all the way up, so for the second time in my life I climbed the 700 stairs to the second level before taking the mandatory elevator to la sommet. At least this time I wasn't conducting a physics experiment.
At the top you can get a 10€ glass of champagne, but we opted to just take pictures from every angle imaginable. I accidentally blocked someone's picture, but that was the most embarrassing thing that happened at the top of me; it seemed like someone had gotten sick before we got there, so at least I didn't have that problem. The observation deck is one level above a walled in room with distances from la Tour Eiffel to various countries, including two numbers for the US! Boston was not there, but New York/Washington were, as was Los Angeles! This amused me.
We rode the elevator all the way down and then walked down the Champs de Mars to take pictures of ourselves jumping in front of the tower. They came out well enough, just very dark, and we effectively made fools of ourselves in front of a lot of people. There's a cool glass monument at the end with "peace" covering it in many languages; reminds me of the Holocaust Memorial at Government Center. We couldn't find cheap crêpes anywhere, so we took the Métro to Jussieu and walked down Rue Mouffetard to go back to the awesome Greek crêpe place for des crêpes sucrées! I got one with bananas and Nutella; so delicious. I wish the US had more crêpe places.
I just got back and will probably be up all night editing pictures and playing games. Tomorrow we don't have many plans, so I can wake up super late and not feel bad. Maureen wants to go to her Italian place on Rue Mouffetard for dinner, and I want to wander through the Luxembourg garden for a bit, so that should be it for the day. Saturday I'm going with Maureen and her roommates to a sit-down restaurant that serves crêpes, and apparently they are amazing with ice cream and other delicious things. Then we're going to the Centre Pompidou, l'Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame for souvenir shopping before dinner at a French restaurant. I have to pack, which I'm not looking forward to, and then my flight is at 13:30 on Sunday! I can't believe I only have two days left.
Only a few more posts to go! Until then,
Sam
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Venezia: Part I
Ciao! I am currently sitting in Treviso airport in Venice, waiting for a 20:45 flight. We've been here since 17:00, when we got off our bus from Piazzale Roma, since there is very little to do in Venice besides go to beaches and shop in the five million tourist shops. It's been fun, but both Maureen and I are ready to go back to Paris!
When we arrived on Sunday and grabbed the suitcase, we realized that the next water bus left in ten minutes so we had to rush to buy our tickets and get to the pier. We had a great hour and a half ride from Marco Polo to San Marco, with stops at Murano, where there's a glass museum, and a few other areas of Venezia. Our stop was San Marco, where the main Piazza is, with Saint-Marc and the Palazzo Ducale (Doges Palace), and I'm pretty sure I recognize it from an Absolut ad.
The best part about arriving on a Sunday night was that mass was going on, so people were pretty much filling the square and not letting anyone pass. Since the first part of the directions to the hotel required us to go through the square and under the clock tower, we were forced to go around and get a preview of the wonderfully cheap souvenirs Venice has to offer its tourists. We also passed a ton of places to get dinner, which made us even hungrier than we already were and in a hurry to find our hotel.
While it was a little difficult to find, we didn't have to stop and ask for directions, which made us pretty pleased with ourselves. We ended up in a small square in the middle of a few buildings and a church, with a restaurant and the fountain we were supposed to use as a landmark. We found numbers 593, 592a, 592b, 592c...and 597, when we were looking for 590. After walking around the square in a slight circle, we ended up in front of this random tunnel under a building and saw a sign for none other than Hotel Citta di Milano! We clearly have good luck. We checked in and got our key, though the guy tried to get us to leave our passports with him for a few minutes, and were pleasantly surprised to be given a room with a bathroom even though we'd expected not to have one. While there was no WiFi and the air conditioning didn't work very well, it was still nice enough, so it all worked out well.
We wandered back out to Piazza San Marco to find dinner along the canal, and ended up stopping at this little place where everything was 9€. Every restaurant in Venice has what's called a Touristico, a tourist's menu, where everything is 14€ or 15€, so this was a sweet deal. We had nothing else to do other than get some gelato (stracciatella e menta...delicious) and preview what we wanted to buy for souvenirs, so we headed back to the hotel, showered, and passed out on top of the cover's due to the heat.
In the morning we had planned to meet Walter, since the entire Venice summer program was going to the Palazzo Ducale instead of having class, so we went to the breakfast room around 9:30. The selection was not as amazing as our Rome breakfast, but still pretty good: granola and cereal, tiny packets of cheese, jam and butter for the rolls and toast-cracker packages, chocolate or apricot filled croissants, orange juice and tea or coffee. I took my croissant with me for a snack, and we set off for the five minute meander through the alleys of Venice to Piazza San Marco.
As luck would have it, Walter was sitting on a bench by the entrance with the rest of the class, waiting for Professor Braman to arrive! We bought our tickets and met everyone inside, but the class had been given about two hours to wander the entire palace slash museum, so we had to waste time and wander through it slowly. We met a lot of the girls in the art class, the other class in the Venice summer program, who were drawing paintings for their final papers. Some of the more memorable rooms we saw were an entire collection of rooms filled with swords, funs, and even suits of armor on sculpted horses, a room that supposedly entertained 3000 people with a painting of Il Paradiso covering one entire wall, and the prisons that we wandered through and almost got lost in. There will be humorous pictures on Facebook soon, courtesy of Walter, Maureen and myself.
We managed to use up the entire two hours, but then waited outside for almost another hour because Dan and some kid in the program named Ryan failed to exit the museum on time. Walter let us go since he was going to a Jesuit church with the class, and so Maureen and I spent the next five hours wandering back and forth near the Rialto bridge, searching for the best prices on Venetian masks, Murano watches, necklaces, wine stoppers, keychains, magnets and the like. I am not souvenir shopping in Paris; I think I am pretty much set with Venice.
Around 17:30 we headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and get ready to meet Walter for dinner. We met outside of Palazzo Ducale, and when we finally found him he was dumping a water bottle over his head cause something wet had gotten in his hair. It had nothing to do with a pigeon, we think, but he used some antibacterial stuff just to be sure. We then walked half an hour across Venice to this place called Ae Oche, pronounced like "A-OK!" It was fun, and we got to wait outside for ten minutes before it opened. Apparently Walter has done that twice recently.
The restaurant was fun and very Italian, with tons of pasta and pizza options for cheap. I tried a spritz, which is apparently THE drink in Venice, if that means anything. We got gelato afterwards, of course, and then since Piazzale Roma was very close to Ae Oche, we went there to check out prices and times for bus tickets to Treviso for today. It was determined that our best bet was a 16:10 bus from the Piazzale, a full four and a half hours before the flight. Oh well.
Since Walter wanted to show us his island, where his classes are, we decided to fool the vaporetto service by buying one 24-hour pass, so Maureen would have the ticket and I would have the receipt. It was then a half hour back to San Marco to catch the boat, where we had just missed the 21:15 boat and had to wait 45 minutes for the 22:15 boat. The 15 minute ride was awesome at night, as was his island, which apparently houses only the university and a modern art show, which consists of random obelisks, green dog statues, huge chairs and lights in the form of "TO BUY IS TO CREATE" which you can read from out on the water. Crazy.
The first thing Walter wanted to do was find the vending machine, where he decided to buy Maureen and I peach juice to show us how great it is; it was extremely good. He tried to get the last pear juice box, but it was too far back in the row and didn't fall, then got stuck when we tried to shake it out. Oh well. When we went back to the building where his room is, all the art girls were sitting in a lobby drawing, so we stopped to talk to them for a bit before heading across the way. Walter's roommate was sleeping, so he tried to knock on Dan's door to see what was going on and if he could borrow his book to do the reading, but Dan was half asleep and trying to do the reading himself so it didn't really work out. Walter took Maureen and I over to the computer lab so we could check our email quickly before catching the boat back to San Marco at 23:20.
Unfortunately the boat back in doesn't come until 23:50, so we ended up rushing to check our email and then waited around for half an hour on the pier. It was still fun though; we took some more commemorative photos and talked about trips to Notre Dame and apartment troubles and how crazy it will be to be seniors. Walter kept trying to figure out how to make sure we got back to our hotel safely, given he didn't want to catch the boat with us and we didn't have Internet. The best solution seemed to involve a flare gun. When the boat came Maureen and I were the only two people on it, and we sat in the open area in the back and our tickets were once again not checked. No wonder it's so tempting to go without a ticket!
We got back after midnight and went straight to bed, despite how horribly hot it was in our room. At some point during the night the power went out, so the air conditioning cut out, and it was equally gross in the morning. Our plan had been to catch breakfast before it ended at 10:00, then come back to pack up and be ready to leave by 11:00, which worked out well. We left the suitcase in the reception area of the hotel and went to Piazza San Marco to go through Saint-Marc, but we couldn't have backpacks in there either and had to wander to find the left luggage area before we could go in. While it was free to walk around inside, there were about three other things you could do if you paid, so we only spent about ten minutes total in the very pretty church. Maureen couldn't even find a candle to light.
To make the most of our hour without backpacks, we went window shopping on the other side of the Piazza, where the high end shops were. When we finally had to pick up our backpacks, we decided to finish our souvenir shopping and then figure out where we were in terms of time. Half an hour later we had nothing to do and three hours before we had to head to Piazzale Roma, which was great. We had a free entrance to one of four museums around Venice because we'd paid to get into Palazzo Ducale, so we decided to go searching for the Museo Ca' Mocenigo, which was the closest to us and seemed like it would kill enough time. We got all the way over to where the map said it was, and found instead about five alleys that ended in locked gates or piers to the Grand Canal. Only in Venice is the possibility of a road ending in a river a problem. Walter's favorite phrase of the weekend: "into the lagoon..."
Since the failure to find Palazzo Mocenigo killed time either way, we decided to get a cheap lunch, pick up the suitcase, and then head to Piazzale Roma. For 4€ each we got a slice of pizza and gelato; once again, I love Italy. We sat on a bridge to eat and talked about UGBC nonsense before heading back to Citta di Milano for the suitcase.
Then began the long, hot trek to Piazzale Roma, which we had not been looking forward to all day. Apparently when we went to Ae Oche, Walter took us a quicker way, because we ended up walking all the way around the edge of the main part of Venice instead of cutting across it. Eventually we made it and bought our bus tickets, only for the bus to not be there. We sat at a stop and waited for it to show up, and when Maureen went to go check the times a bus did pull into the space, so we thought it was the right one and crossed the parking lot to get on. That bus was for Marco Polo though, not Treviso, so we spent another twenty minutes in the sun waiting for the right bus to come. Eventually it did, and so ended our time in the Italian heat.
I slept on the bus to Treviso, and we arrived at the airport around 17:00, three hours and forty five minutes before our flight would take off. We couldn't check the bag until 18:30, so we went into a little restaurant and set up shop there. Maureen got food and I plugged in my laptop to edit pictures, and we spent the next two hours there before checking in and heading downstairs. The lovely people manning security stole Maureen's laptop lock, despite the fact that she had kept it in her carry on from the US, from France to Ireland and back, from Paris to Rome and from Rome to Venice. Apparently it could enter the country, but not leave it. Clearly Maureen seems like the type of person who would strangle someone with her laptop lock. Using Treviso's logic, belts, necklaces and scarves should also be confiscated for their strangling ability.
It's now about 20:00, and we should be boarding soon, though not before the priority boarders of course. We still have to navigate the mob that is people trying to board a Ryanair flight, get on the plane without it being delayed, get our bag from baggage and get on our Beauvais-Paris shuttle before we catch the Metro to Maureen's apartment. It is going to be a late night, and I'm not even allowed to sleep on the plane because I want to see the Alps!
Tomorrow Maureen wants to study for her final, so I'm waking up late and then wandering into the city to see l'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Tuilieries, the Louvre and whatever else I come across. I may even go into the Louvre, if I feel like dealing with Bank of America again to get money out of my account! Thursday Maureen and I are climbing la Tour Eiffel and going to the d'Orsay, because it's my favorite and I want to go again. I don't know the plan for Friday, but Saturday Maureen has her final and then we might go to the Centre Pompidou and then have a good dinner. And Sunday, it is back to the States! I can't believe my trip is over a third complete.
Le plus demain! A tout a l'heure,
Sam(bam)
When we arrived on Sunday and grabbed the suitcase, we realized that the next water bus left in ten minutes so we had to rush to buy our tickets and get to the pier. We had a great hour and a half ride from Marco Polo to San Marco, with stops at Murano, where there's a glass museum, and a few other areas of Venezia. Our stop was San Marco, where the main Piazza is, with Saint-Marc and the Palazzo Ducale (Doges Palace), and I'm pretty sure I recognize it from an Absolut ad.
The best part about arriving on a Sunday night was that mass was going on, so people were pretty much filling the square and not letting anyone pass. Since the first part of the directions to the hotel required us to go through the square and under the clock tower, we were forced to go around and get a preview of the wonderfully cheap souvenirs Venice has to offer its tourists. We also passed a ton of places to get dinner, which made us even hungrier than we already were and in a hurry to find our hotel.
While it was a little difficult to find, we didn't have to stop and ask for directions, which made us pretty pleased with ourselves. We ended up in a small square in the middle of a few buildings and a church, with a restaurant and the fountain we were supposed to use as a landmark. We found numbers 593, 592a, 592b, 592c...and 597, when we were looking for 590. After walking around the square in a slight circle, we ended up in front of this random tunnel under a building and saw a sign for none other than Hotel Citta di Milano! We clearly have good luck. We checked in and got our key, though the guy tried to get us to leave our passports with him for a few minutes, and were pleasantly surprised to be given a room with a bathroom even though we'd expected not to have one. While there was no WiFi and the air conditioning didn't work very well, it was still nice enough, so it all worked out well.
We wandered back out to Piazza San Marco to find dinner along the canal, and ended up stopping at this little place where everything was 9€. Every restaurant in Venice has what's called a Touristico, a tourist's menu, where everything is 14€ or 15€, so this was a sweet deal. We had nothing else to do other than get some gelato (stracciatella e menta...delicious) and preview what we wanted to buy for souvenirs, so we headed back to the hotel, showered, and passed out on top of the cover's due to the heat.
In the morning we had planned to meet Walter, since the entire Venice summer program was going to the Palazzo Ducale instead of having class, so we went to the breakfast room around 9:30. The selection was not as amazing as our Rome breakfast, but still pretty good: granola and cereal, tiny packets of cheese, jam and butter for the rolls and toast-cracker packages, chocolate or apricot filled croissants, orange juice and tea or coffee. I took my croissant with me for a snack, and we set off for the five minute meander through the alleys of Venice to Piazza San Marco.
As luck would have it, Walter was sitting on a bench by the entrance with the rest of the class, waiting for Professor Braman to arrive! We bought our tickets and met everyone inside, but the class had been given about two hours to wander the entire palace slash museum, so we had to waste time and wander through it slowly. We met a lot of the girls in the art class, the other class in the Venice summer program, who were drawing paintings for their final papers. Some of the more memorable rooms we saw were an entire collection of rooms filled with swords, funs, and even suits of armor on sculpted horses, a room that supposedly entertained 3000 people with a painting of Il Paradiso covering one entire wall, and the prisons that we wandered through and almost got lost in. There will be humorous pictures on Facebook soon, courtesy of Walter, Maureen and myself.
We managed to use up the entire two hours, but then waited outside for almost another hour because Dan and some kid in the program named Ryan failed to exit the museum on time. Walter let us go since he was going to a Jesuit church with the class, and so Maureen and I spent the next five hours wandering back and forth near the Rialto bridge, searching for the best prices on Venetian masks, Murano watches, necklaces, wine stoppers, keychains, magnets and the like. I am not souvenir shopping in Paris; I think I am pretty much set with Venice.
Around 17:30 we headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and get ready to meet Walter for dinner. We met outside of Palazzo Ducale, and when we finally found him he was dumping a water bottle over his head cause something wet had gotten in his hair. It had nothing to do with a pigeon, we think, but he used some antibacterial stuff just to be sure. We then walked half an hour across Venice to this place called Ae Oche, pronounced like "A-OK!" It was fun, and we got to wait outside for ten minutes before it opened. Apparently Walter has done that twice recently.
The restaurant was fun and very Italian, with tons of pasta and pizza options for cheap. I tried a spritz, which is apparently THE drink in Venice, if that means anything. We got gelato afterwards, of course, and then since Piazzale Roma was very close to Ae Oche, we went there to check out prices and times for bus tickets to Treviso for today. It was determined that our best bet was a 16:10 bus from the Piazzale, a full four and a half hours before the flight. Oh well.
Since Walter wanted to show us his island, where his classes are, we decided to fool the vaporetto service by buying one 24-hour pass, so Maureen would have the ticket and I would have the receipt. It was then a half hour back to San Marco to catch the boat, where we had just missed the 21:15 boat and had to wait 45 minutes for the 22:15 boat. The 15 minute ride was awesome at night, as was his island, which apparently houses only the university and a modern art show, which consists of random obelisks, green dog statues, huge chairs and lights in the form of "TO BUY IS TO CREATE" which you can read from out on the water. Crazy.
The first thing Walter wanted to do was find the vending machine, where he decided to buy Maureen and I peach juice to show us how great it is; it was extremely good. He tried to get the last pear juice box, but it was too far back in the row and didn't fall, then got stuck when we tried to shake it out. Oh well. When we went back to the building where his room is, all the art girls were sitting in a lobby drawing, so we stopped to talk to them for a bit before heading across the way. Walter's roommate was sleeping, so he tried to knock on Dan's door to see what was going on and if he could borrow his book to do the reading, but Dan was half asleep and trying to do the reading himself so it didn't really work out. Walter took Maureen and I over to the computer lab so we could check our email quickly before catching the boat back to San Marco at 23:20.
Unfortunately the boat back in doesn't come until 23:50, so we ended up rushing to check our email and then waited around for half an hour on the pier. It was still fun though; we took some more commemorative photos and talked about trips to Notre Dame and apartment troubles and how crazy it will be to be seniors. Walter kept trying to figure out how to make sure we got back to our hotel safely, given he didn't want to catch the boat with us and we didn't have Internet. The best solution seemed to involve a flare gun. When the boat came Maureen and I were the only two people on it, and we sat in the open area in the back and our tickets were once again not checked. No wonder it's so tempting to go without a ticket!
We got back after midnight and went straight to bed, despite how horribly hot it was in our room. At some point during the night the power went out, so the air conditioning cut out, and it was equally gross in the morning. Our plan had been to catch breakfast before it ended at 10:00, then come back to pack up and be ready to leave by 11:00, which worked out well. We left the suitcase in the reception area of the hotel and went to Piazza San Marco to go through Saint-Marc, but we couldn't have backpacks in there either and had to wander to find the left luggage area before we could go in. While it was free to walk around inside, there were about three other things you could do if you paid, so we only spent about ten minutes total in the very pretty church. Maureen couldn't even find a candle to light.
To make the most of our hour without backpacks, we went window shopping on the other side of the Piazza, where the high end shops were. When we finally had to pick up our backpacks, we decided to finish our souvenir shopping and then figure out where we were in terms of time. Half an hour later we had nothing to do and three hours before we had to head to Piazzale Roma, which was great. We had a free entrance to one of four museums around Venice because we'd paid to get into Palazzo Ducale, so we decided to go searching for the Museo Ca' Mocenigo, which was the closest to us and seemed like it would kill enough time. We got all the way over to where the map said it was, and found instead about five alleys that ended in locked gates or piers to the Grand Canal. Only in Venice is the possibility of a road ending in a river a problem. Walter's favorite phrase of the weekend: "into the lagoon..."
Since the failure to find Palazzo Mocenigo killed time either way, we decided to get a cheap lunch, pick up the suitcase, and then head to Piazzale Roma. For 4€ each we got a slice of pizza and gelato; once again, I love Italy. We sat on a bridge to eat and talked about UGBC nonsense before heading back to Citta di Milano for the suitcase.
Then began the long, hot trek to Piazzale Roma, which we had not been looking forward to all day. Apparently when we went to Ae Oche, Walter took us a quicker way, because we ended up walking all the way around the edge of the main part of Venice instead of cutting across it. Eventually we made it and bought our bus tickets, only for the bus to not be there. We sat at a stop and waited for it to show up, and when Maureen went to go check the times a bus did pull into the space, so we thought it was the right one and crossed the parking lot to get on. That bus was for Marco Polo though, not Treviso, so we spent another twenty minutes in the sun waiting for the right bus to come. Eventually it did, and so ended our time in the Italian heat.
I slept on the bus to Treviso, and we arrived at the airport around 17:00, three hours and forty five minutes before our flight would take off. We couldn't check the bag until 18:30, so we went into a little restaurant and set up shop there. Maureen got food and I plugged in my laptop to edit pictures, and we spent the next two hours there before checking in and heading downstairs. The lovely people manning security stole Maureen's laptop lock, despite the fact that she had kept it in her carry on from the US, from France to Ireland and back, from Paris to Rome and from Rome to Venice. Apparently it could enter the country, but not leave it. Clearly Maureen seems like the type of person who would strangle someone with her laptop lock. Using Treviso's logic, belts, necklaces and scarves should also be confiscated for their strangling ability.
It's now about 20:00, and we should be boarding soon, though not before the priority boarders of course. We still have to navigate the mob that is people trying to board a Ryanair flight, get on the plane without it being delayed, get our bag from baggage and get on our Beauvais-Paris shuttle before we catch the Metro to Maureen's apartment. It is going to be a late night, and I'm not even allowed to sleep on the plane because I want to see the Alps!
Tomorrow Maureen wants to study for her final, so I'm waking up late and then wandering into the city to see l'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Tuilieries, the Louvre and whatever else I come across. I may even go into the Louvre, if I feel like dealing with Bank of America again to get money out of my account! Thursday Maureen and I are climbing la Tour Eiffel and going to the d'Orsay, because it's my favorite and I want to go again. I don't know the plan for Friday, but Saturday Maureen has her final and then we might go to the Centre Pompidou and then have a good dinner. And Sunday, it is back to the States! I can't believe my trip is over a third complete.
Le plus demain! A tout a l'heure,
Sam(bam)
Monday, June 15, 2009
Roma: Part II
Greetings from 30,000 feet! I'm on the plane to Venezia right now, so I'm not sure when exactly this will be posted; our hotel in San Marco does not have WiFi, so I am guessing Tuesday night when we're back in Paris. Until then, I can write about Rome so the entry is ready to go when we return!
Yesterday morning we were woken with the best thing ever: breakfast, delivered to our room and set up on the table on our balcony. It was fantastic; ResLife should look into installing balconies, and BCDS should starting delivering room service. We were served tea with lemon, some cheese, ham and salami, two types of yogurt, bread fresh out of the oven with butter and jam, wrapped pieces of toast-like crackers, some cookies and pound cake, plus orange juice and two hard-boiled eggs. It was pretty much heaven, and definitely made our first full day in Rome start beautifully.
Well-fed, we walked back to the Colosseo where we would catch our hop-on, hop-off bus. Headphones were provided, so we could listen to happy Italian music and hear fun facts about things like the Jesuit church we passed on our way to the Vatican, or the rose gardens that hold a competition for new varieties of roses every year. The way the route went, we only passed a few stops before we were pulling up in front of San Pietro's square and the Basilica in Vatican City!
Using a scarf to help adhere to the dress code, we wandered into the Basilica, where there are tons of paintings, statues and even bodies of past Popes. It was slightly creepy and only vaguely relevant to someone who is not Catholic, simply because I do not know the entire history of the Vatican or who all of the Popes were slash what they did. It was definitely interesting and awe-inspiring though!
From the Basilica we wandered in the Poste Vaticane, where you can send postcards straight from Vatican City. I have now technically been in 5 countries in the past week! The gift shop was similarly fun to poke around in, though obviously nothing humorous with the Pope on it would be found within the walls of the Vatican. While unfortunate, this was expected.
Before we could completely melt into Saint Peter's Square, we decided to walk to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. I was excited to find the bas relief of the West Wind that is the air marker from Angels and Demons, centrally located around the obelisk in the center of the square. Clearly all of my knowledge of the Eternal City comes from the movie, which I saw less than a month ago. On the way to the museum who did we find but Walter and Dan and the rest of the group from the Venice summer program, Practicing Mortality! This was incredibly exciting for Maureen and I, since we had been trying to figure out how exactly to meet up with Walter in Venice, and so we made a few potential plans, gave him the address of our hotel, and continued our journey to the museum.
I had forgotten my BC ID for the discounted rate, so I had to use Maureen's card while she used her ID from Sciences-Po. It worked rather well, considering they do not check at all. Inside were thousands of statues, tapestries, paintings, pieces of furniture, pottery, sculptures...and people trying to reach the Chapel. After about an hour of winding along the hallways and climbing up and down stairs, we finally reached it. It was a huge room, covered in paintings, and the ceiling was absolutely gorgeous. I hurt my neck staring at it for so long, so I can only imagine how Michaelangelo must have felt painting the entire thing. The floor was just a sea of people slowly being pulled from one side of the room to the other, and finally we made it out, only to have to walk through another mile of hallways before reaching, as usual, a gift shop. Not even the Vatican is above trying to sell you postcards of the art you just saw.
After a slice of pizza at the Vatican cafeteria, we slowly walked back to the square so we could buy postcards, write messages on them, and mail them from the Vatican Post Office. Consider yourself special if you receive one. From there it was a walk to Castel San Angelo, the fortress that also features in Angels and Demons, before we would hop back on our bus. As were were about to cross the street to the castle, we once again bumped into Walter, who had broken off from the group! This time we commemorated the event with a photo, then talked about various things to do in Venice before he decided to walk with us to our bus stop. Such are the ways of Boston College; you can always find the people that go there!
I had a great time taking pictures of every single one of Bernini's angels on the bridge to Castel San Angelo, of which there are many. The bus took about fifteen minutes to arrive, so we stood across the street taking more pictures and discussing life back in Boston. When the bus finally did come, Walter headed back to his original destination, and Maureen and I got back on the bus, this time opting for a lower level seat to get out of the sun. We had been expecting to get off at the stop closest to the Trevi Fountain, but due to a Gay Pride parade about ten of the bus stops were closed. This was good news for us, because it meant our tickets remained valid for an extra 24 hours, but also not so good because it meant we were let off at a stop we were not expecting. C'est la vie.
Using the beautiful map of Roma that was given to us when we arrived at Ciampino, we made our way to the Fontana di Trevi, which is a pretty fantastic site. There were a ton of people around, but we still managed to throw our coins, make our wishes, and take pictures from every angle. Our route then led us past the Tempio Adriano, a rather amusing-looking fake statue who ended up being pretty lame when someone gave him money, and straight to the Pantheon. The crowd by the door informed us that it was closed for the 17:30 mass, so we wandered to Piazza Navona instead, where the Fontana dei Quattro Fuimi is. Being the water marker in Angels and Demons, it was pretty exciting to see, but didn't take up a lot of time. We decided to get dinner at a little place by the Pantheon as we waited to go in, and I ended up eating about 7/8 of a pizza. Italian food is by far the best of all the food in all the countries I've been to. You cannot go wrong with pizza and pasta.
Around 19:00 we tried to wait to get into the Pantheon again, but apparently the mass at 17:30 was private and the Pantheon would be closing when it was over. A little annoyed and knowing that our bus would not be stopping anywhere near the Colosium, we had to walk all the way back to our guesthouse for the next hour. We had been planning to go to some party in the gardens by the Colosseo that Dan had mentioned, which was going to be an opening for some new disco, but by the time we made it back to the guesthouse we were too exhausted and decided to stay in for the night. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we definitely saw most of it in one!
Breakfast was just as amazing this morning, and we packed up and checked out so we could go catch one of the first hop-on, hop-off buses, thanks to the extended 24 hours the parade gave us. The bus stop was super hard to find though, so we finally got on around 10:00. The entire route takes about 2 hours and runs backwards on Sundays, so we decided to kill time by riding it all the way around the city, taking more pictures, and then getting off at Termini so we didn't have to walk there. It was a pretty ingenious plan, and worked pretty well, minus the fact that every time the bus stopped, we would sit and melt in the sun from the upper deck. I definitely have sunburn, which has been a great thing to deal with when carrying my backpack. We saw pretty much everything we'd already seen, plus the Piazza del Popolo, where the chapel that held the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was, the fire marker from Angels and Demons. In real life, the Ecstasy is in the chapel Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is not in the Piazza del Popolo, but oh well. So all we missed is the Chigi Chapel; I would have liked to see Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy, instead of just a bunch of obelisks. Next time!
At Termini we were able to figure out the self service ticket machine and get on a train straight to Fiumicino airport, which was awesome and air-conditioned. We are basically hoping that since Venice is on the water, it will be much cooler and not quite as ridiculous as Rome has been. I much prefer the rain that I'd brought to London, Paris and everywhere else. I guess we'll see.
Our flight was delayed, as usual, so we got to sit on the floor at the front of the line and wait for an extra half hour. We were all set to get great seats when they let us out to the airport, but instead we had to get on a bus and drive out to the middle of the tarmac to get on the plane where it was receiving fuel. Cheap flights are a joy. When we land we get to attempt to locate our "impossible to find" hotel, and potentially see Walter if he locates it too. There is much less to see in Venezia, so I guess we'll ride a few boats and do souvenir shopping. We shall see!
This flight is only 50 minutes, so we should land soon. I'm super excited for the water bus. More tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
Yesterday morning we were woken with the best thing ever: breakfast, delivered to our room and set up on the table on our balcony. It was fantastic; ResLife should look into installing balconies, and BCDS should starting delivering room service. We were served tea with lemon, some cheese, ham and salami, two types of yogurt, bread fresh out of the oven with butter and jam, wrapped pieces of toast-like crackers, some cookies and pound cake, plus orange juice and two hard-boiled eggs. It was pretty much heaven, and definitely made our first full day in Rome start beautifully.
Well-fed, we walked back to the Colosseo where we would catch our hop-on, hop-off bus. Headphones were provided, so we could listen to happy Italian music and hear fun facts about things like the Jesuit church we passed on our way to the Vatican, or the rose gardens that hold a competition for new varieties of roses every year. The way the route went, we only passed a few stops before we were pulling up in front of San Pietro's square and the Basilica in Vatican City!
Using a scarf to help adhere to the dress code, we wandered into the Basilica, where there are tons of paintings, statues and even bodies of past Popes. It was slightly creepy and only vaguely relevant to someone who is not Catholic, simply because I do not know the entire history of the Vatican or who all of the Popes were slash what they did. It was definitely interesting and awe-inspiring though!
From the Basilica we wandered in the Poste Vaticane, where you can send postcards straight from Vatican City. I have now technically been in 5 countries in the past week! The gift shop was similarly fun to poke around in, though obviously nothing humorous with the Pope on it would be found within the walls of the Vatican. While unfortunate, this was expected.
Before we could completely melt into Saint Peter's Square, we decided to walk to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. I was excited to find the bas relief of the West Wind that is the air marker from Angels and Demons, centrally located around the obelisk in the center of the square. Clearly all of my knowledge of the Eternal City comes from the movie, which I saw less than a month ago. On the way to the museum who did we find but Walter and Dan and the rest of the group from the Venice summer program, Practicing Mortality! This was incredibly exciting for Maureen and I, since we had been trying to figure out how exactly to meet up with Walter in Venice, and so we made a few potential plans, gave him the address of our hotel, and continued our journey to the museum.
I had forgotten my BC ID for the discounted rate, so I had to use Maureen's card while she used her ID from Sciences-Po. It worked rather well, considering they do not check at all. Inside were thousands of statues, tapestries, paintings, pieces of furniture, pottery, sculptures...and people trying to reach the Chapel. After about an hour of winding along the hallways and climbing up and down stairs, we finally reached it. It was a huge room, covered in paintings, and the ceiling was absolutely gorgeous. I hurt my neck staring at it for so long, so I can only imagine how Michaelangelo must have felt painting the entire thing. The floor was just a sea of people slowly being pulled from one side of the room to the other, and finally we made it out, only to have to walk through another mile of hallways before reaching, as usual, a gift shop. Not even the Vatican is above trying to sell you postcards of the art you just saw.
After a slice of pizza at the Vatican cafeteria, we slowly walked back to the square so we could buy postcards, write messages on them, and mail them from the Vatican Post Office. Consider yourself special if you receive one. From there it was a walk to Castel San Angelo, the fortress that also features in Angels and Demons, before we would hop back on our bus. As were were about to cross the street to the castle, we once again bumped into Walter, who had broken off from the group! This time we commemorated the event with a photo, then talked about various things to do in Venice before he decided to walk with us to our bus stop. Such are the ways of Boston College; you can always find the people that go there!
I had a great time taking pictures of every single one of Bernini's angels on the bridge to Castel San Angelo, of which there are many. The bus took about fifteen minutes to arrive, so we stood across the street taking more pictures and discussing life back in Boston. When the bus finally did come, Walter headed back to his original destination, and Maureen and I got back on the bus, this time opting for a lower level seat to get out of the sun. We had been expecting to get off at the stop closest to the Trevi Fountain, but due to a Gay Pride parade about ten of the bus stops were closed. This was good news for us, because it meant our tickets remained valid for an extra 24 hours, but also not so good because it meant we were let off at a stop we were not expecting. C'est la vie.
Using the beautiful map of Roma that was given to us when we arrived at Ciampino, we made our way to the Fontana di Trevi, which is a pretty fantastic site. There were a ton of people around, but we still managed to throw our coins, make our wishes, and take pictures from every angle. Our route then led us past the Tempio Adriano, a rather amusing-looking fake statue who ended up being pretty lame when someone gave him money, and straight to the Pantheon. The crowd by the door informed us that it was closed for the 17:30 mass, so we wandered to Piazza Navona instead, where the Fontana dei Quattro Fuimi is. Being the water marker in Angels and Demons, it was pretty exciting to see, but didn't take up a lot of time. We decided to get dinner at a little place by the Pantheon as we waited to go in, and I ended up eating about 7/8 of a pizza. Italian food is by far the best of all the food in all the countries I've been to. You cannot go wrong with pizza and pasta.
Around 19:00 we tried to wait to get into the Pantheon again, but apparently the mass at 17:30 was private and the Pantheon would be closing when it was over. A little annoyed and knowing that our bus would not be stopping anywhere near the Colosium, we had to walk all the way back to our guesthouse for the next hour. We had been planning to go to some party in the gardens by the Colosseo that Dan had mentioned, which was going to be an opening for some new disco, but by the time we made it back to the guesthouse we were too exhausted and decided to stay in for the night. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we definitely saw most of it in one!
Breakfast was just as amazing this morning, and we packed up and checked out so we could go catch one of the first hop-on, hop-off buses, thanks to the extended 24 hours the parade gave us. The bus stop was super hard to find though, so we finally got on around 10:00. The entire route takes about 2 hours and runs backwards on Sundays, so we decided to kill time by riding it all the way around the city, taking more pictures, and then getting off at Termini so we didn't have to walk there. It was a pretty ingenious plan, and worked pretty well, minus the fact that every time the bus stopped, we would sit and melt in the sun from the upper deck. I definitely have sunburn, which has been a great thing to deal with when carrying my backpack. We saw pretty much everything we'd already seen, plus the Piazza del Popolo, where the chapel that held the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was, the fire marker from Angels and Demons. In real life, the Ecstasy is in the chapel Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is not in the Piazza del Popolo, but oh well. So all we missed is the Chigi Chapel; I would have liked to see Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy, instead of just a bunch of obelisks. Next time!
At Termini we were able to figure out the self service ticket machine and get on a train straight to Fiumicino airport, which was awesome and air-conditioned. We are basically hoping that since Venice is on the water, it will be much cooler and not quite as ridiculous as Rome has been. I much prefer the rain that I'd brought to London, Paris and everywhere else. I guess we'll see.
Our flight was delayed, as usual, so we got to sit on the floor at the front of the line and wait for an extra half hour. We were all set to get great seats when they let us out to the airport, but instead we had to get on a bus and drive out to the middle of the tarmac to get on the plane where it was receiving fuel. Cheap flights are a joy. When we land we get to attempt to locate our "impossible to find" hotel, and potentially see Walter if he locates it too. There is much less to see in Venezia, so I guess we'll ride a few boats and do souvenir shopping. We shall see!
This flight is only 50 minutes, so we should land soon. I'm super excited for the water bus. More tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
Friday, June 12, 2009
Roma: Part I
Buon giorno! Maureen and I have finally arrived in Italia, and so far our first half a day has been great. But of course, I have to finish up with what happened yesterday, as the first half of my Paris adventure concluded! I can't believe it's already been a week since I left.
Maureen and I woke up early to head to a café to get hot drinks with her European Judicial System class. We both had chocolate chaud and spoke with two of the boys in her class, a Canadian named Nick and an Austrian whose name I never caught. The topic once again turned to the differences in the way French citizens and American citizens view their nationality; any citizen in France is French, their family is French and they have always been French. Yet any citizen in America does not have direct ties to the country, unless they are Native American. Therefore, Americans must assert their heritage, by stating whether they are 20% Irish or 50% Italian, or a complete European mutt, like I am (British, Irish, Dutch, French, German). Nick has apparently found it convenient to sometimes be American and sometimes be Canadian, since his accent does not give away his location. I'll have to remember to try that in the future.
We went straight from the café to Sciences-Po for the actual class on the European Justice System, where I zoned out and worked on the UGBC Communication department budget for the 2009-2010 academic year. When that ended at 12:30 we had to go to a different Sciences-Po building for her French class, which was a language class so I could understand it. Grades were handed out, and then 3 students still have to give exposés to the class. The first was on l'alphabet Coreén (the Korean alphabet), and even though the entire point of the class was to enjoy French food, since every student had brought in cheese or crackers or fruit or a baguette or wine (yes, wine), the presenter decided it would be rude if people were eating while he was presenting. He had a good presentation though, and I learned my name in Hangul: ㅅㅏㅁ. He did not seem to have a problem eating and drinking while the next two exposés were given, on baseball and universal allocation.
After a stop to the computer lab to print information for our trip to Italy, we headed back to Maureen's apartment. She wrote out a postcard, and we headed to the post office to mail her one and my four! If you requested a postcard, it is on its way. If you have not requested a postcard yet and would like one, please donate $1 or 0.85€ to my Paypal account (link is on the right) and comment with your address ;)
I still had to pack for Italy, so after filling the other half of Maureen's suitcase, taking a shower, and eating a delicious dinner cooked by Mo (<3) we headed back into the city for another happy hour with Kim. We stopped at a place called Student Bar on Rue Mouffetard and had a great time with Sex on the Beach, a marguerita, a Pink Lady, something with banana and a B52 which was lit on fire. Before getting a table some random guy invited us to the downstairs, but we played it safe and got our own place to sit. The only things missing were glow sticks.
The night ended pretty much right after happy hour, since we had to leave the apartment by 5:30 this morning. It was hell. However, we made the 5:39 Métro, enjoyed endured the singing of drunken girls from clubs on the Champs Elysses, and were safe on our shuttle to Beauvais at 6:00. Everything was going according to plan until we actually got to BVA and our flight was delayed half an hour. What was even better was waiting in line behind a group of 5 or 6 people arguing with the girl at the desk, only to be told during our turn that we had to go to the Visa Check line. Eventually our bag was checked and we'd made it through security (the razor has still not been confiscated!), leaving us an hour to sit around in the terminal and wait for our gate to be announced. Maureen and I wandered through the duty free store, enjoyed the Calvin Klein summer fragrance, discussed the merits of Swatch watches, ate a muffin, played games, etc etc etc.
It was a long hour, but eventually our plane arrived and we moved outside to climb the stairs to our seats. I pretty much slept through the entire flight, missing the Alps that we apparently flew over, and landed in Rome Ciampino to weather that was about 10 degrees warmer. It was gorgeous. They packed everyone on the plane onto two shuttles buses, let us grab our bags from baggage claim, and then released us to the city without even checking our passports. It was super lame; I wanted a pretty stamp to prove I'd been to Rome!
We were luckily able to catch the 12:40 bus to the citta centro at Rome Termini (a bus station in the city center), and sat in traffic for about half an hour before we could head to our hotel. After a half hour walk wearing jeans and long sleeved shirts, we melted our way to Domus Caracalla. Maureen had us buzzed in, where we had to walk through the building, across the courtyard, and take the elevator in the second building to the top floor. The room is adorable, and we have both decided we will never come to Rome without staying here. There's a double bed, marble-esque floors, a cute bathroom with a shower head that rains down vertically, free WiFi, a TV, a wardrobe and a balcony with a table and two chairs for when they bring us breakfast in the door! It could not be better if we tried. Venice will be a step down, but at least we can take a few amazing showers in Rome before we have to share a common bathroom on Monday.
After a quick change and a call to Bank of America, we went off in search of a Deutsche Bank so I could withdraw money. Unfortunately, my debit card number has been compromised, so there's a hold on my account until I return to the States. Since I'm still in Europe, they gave me a number to call every time I want to use an ATM, and I had done so to give the instruction that I would be at an ATM in 20 minutes and the hold should be lifted momentarily then. When we finally found the Deutsche Bank, however, the ATM was "instructed" to return my card to me and tell me to call my bank. We had no idea what to do. We tried to use a pay phone at a Métro station to call Bank of America back, but the collect operator kept saying that all of the numbers we provided could not be reached. This is despite the fact that every time I call the number, an automated voice says twice that collect calls are accepted. We were both annoyed and upset, so we decided we had to head back to the hotel and call Bank of America again. Luckily, we decided to check the ATM one more time before we made the trek, and lo and behold Bank of America had just been ridiculously slow. Crisis averted.
We had the rest of the afternoon to wander and find a place for dinner, so we headed to the Coliseum and the Arco di Costantino. The Coliseum was fantastic, but it was too expensive to go inside. The Palatino, an archaeological site, is nearby, so we walked around the perimeter of that to see the forum before walking back to the hotel the long way in search of a good restaurant. We were back at Domus Caracalla before we found one, so we continued to walk back the way we'd come in from Termini earlier to stop at any good place we found. We ended up at Hostaria del Buongustaio, or the house of the connoisseur. We shared fried calamari and shrimp, and I got spaghetti with clams while Maureen got veal and potatoes. Thank god for carbs! With the bread and the wine, Italy definitely has the best food so far. We were even given some dessert wine that tasted delicious, but our real dessert was of course gelato. I may not be Italian, but I sure enjoy the food.
We made it back to the hotel for showers and relaxation; one of the owners asked why girls as young as ourselves were back so early! Hopefully tomorrow we'll be out later, since we have so much to see: the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, Palazzo Chigi, Piazzo del Popolo, Piazza Navona, Castel San Angelo, and anything else along the way. We're taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour all day, which should get us everywhere, and when it ends around 20:00 we'll get dinner and call it a night! Sunday we head to Venice in the afternoon, but we have to check out of the guest house around noon and we don't know what we'll have time for in the morning. We shall have to see! I'm hoping for more gelato.
Something we get to look forward to at the Vatican: strict dress code! No cell phones, no smoking, no hats, no shirts with profanity, no shoulders or cleavage or even knees. In this heat, it might be difficult.
It's time to post pictures and this entry, since we have breakfast coming at 9:30 and our bus to catch!
Arrivederci per il momento,
Sam
Maureen and I woke up early to head to a café to get hot drinks with her European Judicial System class. We both had chocolate chaud and spoke with two of the boys in her class, a Canadian named Nick and an Austrian whose name I never caught. The topic once again turned to the differences in the way French citizens and American citizens view their nationality; any citizen in France is French, their family is French and they have always been French. Yet any citizen in America does not have direct ties to the country, unless they are Native American. Therefore, Americans must assert their heritage, by stating whether they are 20% Irish or 50% Italian, or a complete European mutt, like I am (British, Irish, Dutch, French, German). Nick has apparently found it convenient to sometimes be American and sometimes be Canadian, since his accent does not give away his location. I'll have to remember to try that in the future.
We went straight from the café to Sciences-Po for the actual class on the European Justice System, where I zoned out and worked on the UGBC Communication department budget for the 2009-2010 academic year. When that ended at 12:30 we had to go to a different Sciences-Po building for her French class, which was a language class so I could understand it. Grades were handed out, and then 3 students still have to give exposés to the class. The first was on l'alphabet Coreén (the Korean alphabet), and even though the entire point of the class was to enjoy French food, since every student had brought in cheese or crackers or fruit or a baguette or wine (yes, wine), the presenter decided it would be rude if people were eating while he was presenting. He had a good presentation though, and I learned my name in Hangul: ㅅㅏㅁ. He did not seem to have a problem eating and drinking while the next two exposés were given, on baseball and universal allocation.
After a stop to the computer lab to print information for our trip to Italy, we headed back to Maureen's apartment. She wrote out a postcard, and we headed to the post office to mail her one and my four! If you requested a postcard, it is on its way. If you have not requested a postcard yet and would like one, please donate $1 or 0.85€ to my Paypal account (link is on the right) and comment with your address ;)
I still had to pack for Italy, so after filling the other half of Maureen's suitcase, taking a shower, and eating a delicious dinner cooked by Mo (<3) we headed back into the city for another happy hour with Kim. We stopped at a place called Student Bar on Rue Mouffetard and had a great time with Sex on the Beach, a marguerita, a Pink Lady, something with banana and a B52 which was lit on fire. Before getting a table some random guy invited us to the downstairs, but we played it safe and got our own place to sit. The only things missing were glow sticks.
The night ended pretty much right after happy hour, since we had to leave the apartment by 5:30 this morning. It was hell. However, we made the 5:39 Métro, enjoyed endured the singing of drunken girls from clubs on the Champs Elysses, and were safe on our shuttle to Beauvais at 6:00. Everything was going according to plan until we actually got to BVA and our flight was delayed half an hour. What was even better was waiting in line behind a group of 5 or 6 people arguing with the girl at the desk, only to be told during our turn that we had to go to the Visa Check line. Eventually our bag was checked and we'd made it through security (the razor has still not been confiscated!), leaving us an hour to sit around in the terminal and wait for our gate to be announced. Maureen and I wandered through the duty free store, enjoyed the Calvin Klein summer fragrance, discussed the merits of Swatch watches, ate a muffin, played games, etc etc etc.
It was a long hour, but eventually our plane arrived and we moved outside to climb the stairs to our seats. I pretty much slept through the entire flight, missing the Alps that we apparently flew over, and landed in Rome Ciampino to weather that was about 10 degrees warmer. It was gorgeous. They packed everyone on the plane onto two shuttles buses, let us grab our bags from baggage claim, and then released us to the city without even checking our passports. It was super lame; I wanted a pretty stamp to prove I'd been to Rome!
We were luckily able to catch the 12:40 bus to the citta centro at Rome Termini (a bus station in the city center), and sat in traffic for about half an hour before we could head to our hotel. After a half hour walk wearing jeans and long sleeved shirts, we melted our way to Domus Caracalla. Maureen had us buzzed in, where we had to walk through the building, across the courtyard, and take the elevator in the second building to the top floor. The room is adorable, and we have both decided we will never come to Rome without staying here. There's a double bed, marble-esque floors, a cute bathroom with a shower head that rains down vertically, free WiFi, a TV, a wardrobe and a balcony with a table and two chairs for when they bring us breakfast in the door! It could not be better if we tried. Venice will be a step down, but at least we can take a few amazing showers in Rome before we have to share a common bathroom on Monday.
After a quick change and a call to Bank of America, we went off in search of a Deutsche Bank so I could withdraw money. Unfortunately, my debit card number has been compromised, so there's a hold on my account until I return to the States. Since I'm still in Europe, they gave me a number to call every time I want to use an ATM, and I had done so to give the instruction that I would be at an ATM in 20 minutes and the hold should be lifted momentarily then. When we finally found the Deutsche Bank, however, the ATM was "instructed" to return my card to me and tell me to call my bank. We had no idea what to do. We tried to use a pay phone at a Métro station to call Bank of America back, but the collect operator kept saying that all of the numbers we provided could not be reached. This is despite the fact that every time I call the number, an automated voice says twice that collect calls are accepted. We were both annoyed and upset, so we decided we had to head back to the hotel and call Bank of America again. Luckily, we decided to check the ATM one more time before we made the trek, and lo and behold Bank of America had just been ridiculously slow. Crisis averted.
We had the rest of the afternoon to wander and find a place for dinner, so we headed to the Coliseum and the Arco di Costantino. The Coliseum was fantastic, but it was too expensive to go inside. The Palatino, an archaeological site, is nearby, so we walked around the perimeter of that to see the forum before walking back to the hotel the long way in search of a good restaurant. We were back at Domus Caracalla before we found one, so we continued to walk back the way we'd come in from Termini earlier to stop at any good place we found. We ended up at Hostaria del Buongustaio, or the house of the connoisseur. We shared fried calamari and shrimp, and I got spaghetti with clams while Maureen got veal and potatoes. Thank god for carbs! With the bread and the wine, Italy definitely has the best food so far. We were even given some dessert wine that tasted delicious, but our real dessert was of course gelato. I may not be Italian, but I sure enjoy the food.
We made it back to the hotel for showers and relaxation; one of the owners asked why girls as young as ourselves were back so early! Hopefully tomorrow we'll be out later, since we have so much to see: the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, Palazzo Chigi, Piazzo del Popolo, Piazza Navona, Castel San Angelo, and anything else along the way. We're taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour all day, which should get us everywhere, and when it ends around 20:00 we'll get dinner and call it a night! Sunday we head to Venice in the afternoon, but we have to check out of the guest house around noon and we don't know what we'll have time for in the morning. We shall have to see! I'm hoping for more gelato.
Something we get to look forward to at the Vatican: strict dress code! No cell phones, no smoking, no hats, no shirts with profanity, no shoulders or cleavage or even knees. In this heat, it might be difficult.
It's time to post pictures and this entry, since we have breakfast coming at 9:30 and our bus to catch!
Arrivederci per il momento,
Sam
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Paris: Part II
Today has been another slow day before I leave this country for a warmer, less rainy destination. Fun fact: it has rained, more or less, every day since I have arrived in Europe. From my overnight connection in London, which required an umbrella; to my first exploration after getting off the plane, which included a lot of ducking under awnings; to today, which absolutely poured for about an hour; I clearly brought terrible weather to Europe.
This morning I was able to sleep in a bit, since Maureen had a fully French class and didn't think I'd be interested in it, so she came back around noon and woke me up. After I got ready for the day, we went to a supermarché to get pizza to cook for lunch. Remind me to go back there and buy a super cute, super cheap orange shopping bag with a lady bug on it. After coming back to make our lunch, we headed to a mall so Maureen could get a book for our trip au Italie. The first bookstore, similar to an FYE, was expensive, but had hilariously named French versions of American shows; House M.D. becomes Dr. House, which isn't as cool, and One Tree Hill becomes Les Frères Scott (The Brothers Scott). Oh well.
The second bookstore we went to, directly across from the first, was more like a Waldenbooks. Apparently Twilight is just as popular here, but the nuances of titles that deal with the phases of moon must not go over well, since they were renamed as "Fascination" and "Révelation" and the like. Patty said it best: "I like that Twilight has become Fascination...it makes Edward's stalkerish behavior sound even creepier." True statement.
Since nothing was found at either bookstore, we left the mall and headed back to Maureen's apartment to grab her camera before catching a bus near l'Isle de la Cité. We crossed the Seine and I realized we must be close to Notre Dame de Paris, when I looked to my right and it was RIGHT THERE. I have no idea how I missed a giant church prior to that moment, but ok. The bookstore we went to was AWESOME. It had all types of books, new and used, and it was eclectic looking with shelves everywhere and books stacked on every surface. I have a few titles that I'm going to have to look up when I get back to Boston; I must hit up the Public Library and get a card!
Our entire plan for the day had been to hit up la Maison Europeéne de la Photographie, which is free on Wednesdays. We had a bit of time to spare, so we first found a department store that sells Longchamps so I could check the price of a bag I want to buy, given my budget holds up. Having killed time, we walked back to the museum. Maureen had done a presentation on Henri Cartier-Bresson, who had an exhibit there, so we checked it out. My favorite of the 4 or 5 exhibits was definitely Gérard Uféras, who took photos of dancers backstage at various operas and ballets. I plan to Google image search for a few of them and potentially turn them into posters for next year.
For dinner we went to a place called Breakfast in America, which is a little diner in Paris where I could get pancakes for dinner. I don't know what is more exciting: having had them earlier today, or knowing I can have the rest for breakfast tomorrow! The people in the diner were a mix of British girls who knew the waitresses and French couples who clearly like cheeseburgers. It was a great dinner, but then we had to run back to the Métro in the rain, which was starting to really come down after having drizzled all day. By the time we got back to Maureen's apartment, it was completely pouring.
We've since spent the rest of the night in, so Maureen could Skype with her mom and I could attend to more pictures. Tomorrow will be an early day, since Maureen has two classes and I'm going to go to both of them. One is in English and her classmates are getting hot drinks beforehand, meaning a 09:30 departure time, and the other is a French language class and will end in a wine and cheese party, évidemment. We then have to go to the post office so I can send the postcards I'm writing, and then pack for Italy! This may include laundry and eating in, but perhaps other things as well. Then it's bed at 23:00 so we can wake up at 05:00 and catch the bus to Beauvais for our flight to Rome! I am so ready to channel Robert Langdon and hit up the Path of Illumination (I'm only half kidding).
Bonne nuit à tous!
Sam
This morning I was able to sleep in a bit, since Maureen had a fully French class and didn't think I'd be interested in it, so she came back around noon and woke me up. After I got ready for the day, we went to a supermarché to get pizza to cook for lunch. Remind me to go back there and buy a super cute, super cheap orange shopping bag with a lady bug on it. After coming back to make our lunch, we headed to a mall so Maureen could get a book for our trip au Italie. The first bookstore, similar to an FYE, was expensive, but had hilariously named French versions of American shows; House M.D. becomes Dr. House, which isn't as cool, and One Tree Hill becomes Les Frères Scott (The Brothers Scott). Oh well.
The second bookstore we went to, directly across from the first, was more like a Waldenbooks. Apparently Twilight is just as popular here, but the nuances of titles that deal with the phases of moon must not go over well, since they were renamed as "Fascination" and "Révelation" and the like. Patty said it best: "I like that Twilight has become Fascination...it makes Edward's stalkerish behavior sound even creepier." True statement.
Since nothing was found at either bookstore, we left the mall and headed back to Maureen's apartment to grab her camera before catching a bus near l'Isle de la Cité. We crossed the Seine and I realized we must be close to Notre Dame de Paris, when I looked to my right and it was RIGHT THERE. I have no idea how I missed a giant church prior to that moment, but ok. The bookstore we went to was AWESOME. It had all types of books, new and used, and it was eclectic looking with shelves everywhere and books stacked on every surface. I have a few titles that I'm going to have to look up when I get back to Boston; I must hit up the Public Library and get a card!
Our entire plan for the day had been to hit up la Maison Europeéne de la Photographie, which is free on Wednesdays. We had a bit of time to spare, so we first found a department store that sells Longchamps so I could check the price of a bag I want to buy, given my budget holds up. Having killed time, we walked back to the museum. Maureen had done a presentation on Henri Cartier-Bresson, who had an exhibit there, so we checked it out. My favorite of the 4 or 5 exhibits was definitely Gérard Uféras, who took photos of dancers backstage at various operas and ballets. I plan to Google image search for a few of them and potentially turn them into posters for next year.
For dinner we went to a place called Breakfast in America, which is a little diner in Paris where I could get pancakes for dinner. I don't know what is more exciting: having had them earlier today, or knowing I can have the rest for breakfast tomorrow! The people in the diner were a mix of British girls who knew the waitresses and French couples who clearly like cheeseburgers. It was a great dinner, but then we had to run back to the Métro in the rain, which was starting to really come down after having drizzled all day. By the time we got back to Maureen's apartment, it was completely pouring.
We've since spent the rest of the night in, so Maureen could Skype with her mom and I could attend to more pictures. Tomorrow will be an early day, since Maureen has two classes and I'm going to go to both of them. One is in English and her classmates are getting hot drinks beforehand, meaning a 09:30 departure time, and the other is a French language class and will end in a wine and cheese party, évidemment. We then have to go to the post office so I can send the postcards I'm writing, and then pack for Italy! This may include laundry and eating in, but perhaps other things as well. Then it's bed at 23:00 so we can wake up at 05:00 and catch the bus to Beauvais for our flight to Rome! I am so ready to channel Robert Langdon and hit up the Path of Illumination (I'm only half kidding).
Bonne nuit à tous!
Sam
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Paris: Part I
I made it! I am now in Paris, and I am pretty much exhausted from all the walking I've been doing in the past few days. The Million Dollar Stairs seem like a step stool now.
Maureen met me at the Gare de L'est, and we managed to get myself a Métro ticket for the day. Apparently a 3-day pass is more than 3 times the price of a day pass, which is funny, but not useful to my budget. We waited in line behind this guy who bought about 6 Navigo passes (like a Charlie Card), and then some ladies cut in front of us because they "thought we were with him." A likely story.
Fun things about the French Métro:
On our way to Maureen's apartment, we went to the Longchamps store so Maureen could buy a tote-bag sized purse. They are so much cheaper here than they are in the US! I want to try to buy an orange one before I leave, but we'll see. Maybe at a duty free area in the airport. As we were crossing near the Tuilieries and seeing la Tour Eiffel in the background, we met a few of the BC girls who are also studying at Sciences-Po, including Sarah, from my Greek Philosophy class! It was crazy to see them in such a large city.
When we got to Maureen's apartment, I was able to shower and wash a few of my clothes, including my sweater! The apartment is really cute; apparently the family that lived here is sort of heading to the US, but it's completely furnished and all of the girls have their own rooms. I met Noelle first, then Cathy, then Nicole. I took French with Nicole back in freshman year, which is funny. Clearly she went further with it than I did.
I went to class at Sciences-Po with Maureen after, called Minorities, Politics and Society. It focuses on those issues in Great Britain, France and America, and I got to listen to a student presentation (in English; the whole class was, thank goodness), on Ali-G and what his ability to make fun of certain cultures might mean. It was really interesting, as was the discussion after, and I definitely didn't regret those two hours.
We headed back to the apartment afterward to change, because the same class we'd just gone to was going out for drinks at 18:30. We got crêpes (oeuf et fromage!) at a little Greek place on Rue Mouffetard, and ate them on the way to the Metro so we could get to DeLaVille on time. I got a Kir fraise (wine and a bit of champagne and some strawberry flavoring) and talked with Maureen and her class. They all seemed pretty nice, and had interesting things to say about the dynamic between French students and American students, and about racist mortgage scams that were going on recently, and where we were all from and the like. Love classy conversations with classy drinks.
Maureen had been texting her friend Kim because we were in her neighborhood and she wanted to go to happy hour. While Maureen and I go to Italy, Kim has finals, and while Maureen has finals, Kim goes to Greece, so clearly Maureen had to see her. We went to this little bar and sat outside ordering drinks with American names, like Tequila Sunrise (me) and Blue Lagoon (Maureen) and Long Island Iced Tea (Kim), then more Kir. The bartender made fun of our ability to say the names of the drinks, and kissed us all on the cheek before we left to go to the next bar, where the rest of the girls were!
The next bar was called The Frog, and since it was student night, I had to show my BC ID, explain that I'm from the United States, and get my hand stamped with a little frog. As I'm typing this, I keep thinking there's a spider on my hand and freaking out. Before we could go in, we watched the bouncer catch a guy who was trying to leave with a beer in his pocket. Awesome. We saw Sarah again, and Maureen's friends Katie and Jen, plus some other girls and a friend of theirs, Matt. Maureen and I didn't drink, and instead left after a bit to catch the Métro with Kim. I am now in sweatpants and my Street Team T-shirt, thanking the heavens that my semester is done as I listen to Maureen's roommates freak out over exams and papers due.
Tomorrow Maureen has class at 10:00, and I have to call Bank of America as soon as I wake up so they don't place a hold on my card, and then later I guess we'll window shop, hunt for postcards and go to a photography museum. Thursday we have to get ready for Rome (and hopefully send those postcards; comment with your address if you want one, but I might ask you for 0.50€ later!), and then wake up EARLY Friday morning to catch a bus to Beauvais Airport before our flight leaves at 9:00 for Rome Ciampino. We spend 2.5 days there, 2.5 days in Venice with Walter and the rest of the Practicing Mortality class, and then come back to Paris for final museum trips, shopping days, a scaling of la Tour Eiffel and lots of crepes and Kir.
Bonsoir mes amis,
Sam(bam)
Maureen met me at the Gare de L'est, and we managed to get myself a Métro ticket for the day. Apparently a 3-day pass is more than 3 times the price of a day pass, which is funny, but not useful to my budget. We waited in line behind this guy who bought about 6 Navigo passes (like a Charlie Card), and then some ladies cut in front of us because they "thought we were with him." A likely story.
Fun things about the French Métro:
- in a 6-foot-long area, there might be 2 seats, set up as individual chairs; the French like their personal space
- the doors open before the train stops moving
- there are signs with the time of the next train!
- the advertisements are funny, like ones for a movie Les Beaux Grosses, which seems like the French version of Superbad (but more awkward and less crude), and a Hannah Montana poster where Miley Cyrus' eyes are clearly Photoshopped green
- it's still better than the T
On our way to Maureen's apartment, we went to the Longchamps store so Maureen could buy a tote-bag sized purse. They are so much cheaper here than they are in the US! I want to try to buy an orange one before I leave, but we'll see. Maybe at a duty free area in the airport. As we were crossing near the Tuilieries and seeing la Tour Eiffel in the background, we met a few of the BC girls who are also studying at Sciences-Po, including Sarah, from my Greek Philosophy class! It was crazy to see them in such a large city.
When we got to Maureen's apartment, I was able to shower and wash a few of my clothes, including my sweater! The apartment is really cute; apparently the family that lived here is sort of heading to the US, but it's completely furnished and all of the girls have their own rooms. I met Noelle first, then Cathy, then Nicole. I took French with Nicole back in freshman year, which is funny. Clearly she went further with it than I did.
I went to class at Sciences-Po with Maureen after, called Minorities, Politics and Society. It focuses on those issues in Great Britain, France and America, and I got to listen to a student presentation (in English; the whole class was, thank goodness), on Ali-G and what his ability to make fun of certain cultures might mean. It was really interesting, as was the discussion after, and I definitely didn't regret those two hours.
We headed back to the apartment afterward to change, because the same class we'd just gone to was going out for drinks at 18:30. We got crêpes (oeuf et fromage!) at a little Greek place on Rue Mouffetard, and ate them on the way to the Metro so we could get to DeLaVille on time. I got a Kir fraise (wine and a bit of champagne and some strawberry flavoring) and talked with Maureen and her class. They all seemed pretty nice, and had interesting things to say about the dynamic between French students and American students, and about racist mortgage scams that were going on recently, and where we were all from and the like. Love classy conversations with classy drinks.
Maureen had been texting her friend Kim because we were in her neighborhood and she wanted to go to happy hour. While Maureen and I go to Italy, Kim has finals, and while Maureen has finals, Kim goes to Greece, so clearly Maureen had to see her. We went to this little bar and sat outside ordering drinks with American names, like Tequila Sunrise (me) and Blue Lagoon (Maureen) and Long Island Iced Tea (Kim), then more Kir. The bartender made fun of our ability to say the names of the drinks, and kissed us all on the cheek before we left to go to the next bar, where the rest of the girls were!
The next bar was called The Frog, and since it was student night, I had to show my BC ID, explain that I'm from the United States, and get my hand stamped with a little frog. As I'm typing this, I keep thinking there's a spider on my hand and freaking out. Before we could go in, we watched the bouncer catch a guy who was trying to leave with a beer in his pocket. Awesome. We saw Sarah again, and Maureen's friends Katie and Jen, plus some other girls and a friend of theirs, Matt. Maureen and I didn't drink, and instead left after a bit to catch the Métro with Kim. I am now in sweatpants and my Street Team T-shirt, thanking the heavens that my semester is done as I listen to Maureen's roommates freak out over exams and papers due.
Tomorrow Maureen has class at 10:00, and I have to call Bank of America as soon as I wake up so they don't place a hold on my card, and then later I guess we'll window shop, hunt for postcards and go to a photography museum. Thursday we have to get ready for Rome (and hopefully send those postcards; comment with your address if you want one, but I might ask you for 0.50€ later!), and then wake up EARLY Friday morning to catch a bus to Beauvais Airport before our flight leaves at 9:00 for Rome Ciampino. We spend 2.5 days there, 2.5 days in Venice with Walter and the rest of the Practicing Mortality class, and then come back to Paris for final museum trips, shopping days, a scaling of la Tour Eiffel and lots of crepes and Kir.
Bonsoir mes amis,
Sam(bam)
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