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
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2009
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)
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
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