Back From France!

The Fearsome Foursomes!

Saturday (Day 27): The City of Paris in One Day

We woke up bright and early the next morning to start our whirlwind tour of Paris, trying to see everything in the span of one day. We started off by taking the tube to the Louvre, an AP art history student’s paradise. As with Versailles, I had been to the Louvre before, but before I had the chance to take AP Art History, making this trip even more special.

The minute we walked into the main lobby, my mind started reeling, thinking of all the essays I wrote about the works of art housed in that very museum. Before I knew it, I was again face to face with one of my favorite sculptures: the winged victory statue from the Hellenistic period of Grecian art. Since there was no translated English description for this statue, I was happy to share my knowledge with my friends, describing how the statue used to be a fountain, creating the first documented piece of dramatic art, involving all the senses to evoke emotion. I can’t exactly say why it’s one of my favorite pieces, but I think it’s absolutely beautiful.

We moved through a gallery of religious paintings and icons before reaching one of the most famous pieces of art in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa. In my opinion, the painting is rather anticlimactic, much smaller than many imagine. It is almost as if her iconic smile is one of taunting, watching the faces of semi-disappointed museum patrons as they realize her portrait isn’t as glamorous as they had expected. Regardless, it’s an incredible feeling to stand so close to such an important part of Art History; perhaps it is true that great things come in small packages.

After seeing the Mona Lisa, our team split up into smaller groups and Tuche, John and I worked our way through the rest of the paintings on the first floor, seeing Art History favorites - Medusa’s Raft and The Coronation of Napoleon. We spent about an hour and a half navigating the rooms of the rest of the museum: Greece and Roman art, Egyptian artifacts, French, German and Flemish paintings, before joining the rest of the group back at the Starbuck’s in the lobby to take some exterior shots of the Louvre and continue our tour of Paris.

Our next stop was the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I was especially looking forward to this, since the first time I had been in that cathedral, I was traveling with Chester County Voices Abroad. It was my first tour with the choir, and an incredible experience that I won’t soon forget. Because we were focused on the performance, however, we weren’t able to spend much time touring the church. We sang right here!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a beautiful clear day outside, and we were able to get some amazing pictures of the group before going inside, where we walked around looking at the amazing architecture and stained glass. After making our way around the entire building, and stopping in front of the altar, remembering my concert experience there and the friendships made on the CCVA tour, the group decided to climb up to the top of the church.

Despite the fact that my legs were still killing me from the day before walking around Versailles, I made it up the near 345 steps to the top, with the occasional stop to look out the windows carved into the stone, exclaiming “look it’s pretty!” as an excuse for a momentary break.

Just when I was thinking that we had tried to cram a little too much into our weekend, we reached the top, and a breathtaking view of the city: definitely worth it. From there, we found the door leading to the belfry, to see the famous bells of Notre Dame, where the memories of watching the musical Notre Dame de Paris with my French class at NDA were fresh in my mind. Our hike back from the top reminded us just how hungry we were, so we stopped at a café near the church where I ate two of the most important French vocabulary words ever learned.

Ajay and I started off by "sharing" a Croque Monsieur, a delicious grilled ham and cheese sandwich followed by Nutella, banana, and Chantilly cream crêpes. I thought I had died and gone to heaven (which would have been appropriate considering we had a great view of Notre Dame from the café).

Even though we felt as if we would never walk again after our meal, we took a walk down the Seine before getting back on the metro to reach the Champs-Elysées. After walking the length of the street, and stopping in a shop or two, we took what seemed like many, many pictures with the Arc de Triumph. The guys attempted their own “human arch.” Tuche, always ready to be launched into the air for almost any reason, assumed his usual position. It was a valiant effort. Sorry to say the guys never really got it ... well, constructed completely.

Our next stop of the evening was the Eiffel Tower, and we got there just in time to see it sparkle for the first time of the night. At that moment, watching the tower sparkle, as if by magic, it finally hit me that a group of college freshmen were actually able to plan a weekend trip to Paris by themselves and not get hopelessly lost. It was something I never would have imagined doing until studying with the Global Citizens Program. It’s a great feeling.

Since Abby and I had both already been up the Eifel Tower, and didn’t feel like spending the extra money to do it again, we went to the Gallerie Lafyette to do some last minute shopping. For me, that meant picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in French. Last year, during my trip to Germany, I decided that it would be a cool idea to have a multilingual Harry Potter collection from the countries I visit in the order I visit them. Not only are the languages different, but so is the cover art, giving the collection even more character. Since France was my first trip out of the country, I had to go back and get the first Harry Potter book in French! After making our purchases, Abby and I went back to our hotel to wait for the Eiffel Tower group to return for a game of charades before going to bed.

Friday (Day 26): Returning to “La Ville-Lumière”

After a Thursday night with very little sleep, “the team” and I left London at 4:15 to catch our 5:30 AM train to Paris, our first cross-country excursion since being here. Three sleep-filled hours later, we were standing in Paris, ready to start our day!

After purchasing our weekend Metro passes, we found our hotel to drop off our bags before journeying to Versailles. It was surreal walking up to that Palace when I had already been there three years before; I could hardly believe I was getting to travel some place so beautiful and awe-inspiring for the second time. Since Krista, Abby and I had already done the tour of the inside of the palace, we opted to only buy a ticket for Marie Antoinette’s Estate and walk around the gardens while we waited for the rest of the group to finish their first tour.

The grounds of Versailles looked so different in the winter season than they did when I had been there in the summer months. Now fountains were empty, statues were covered, and there were no lush flowers planted as far as the eye could see. Somehow though, I didn’t seem to mind too much. It was still gorgeous even with the lack of color, the sparseness even highlighting its grandeur. After walking around for a while, we met up with the rest of our group who were just as impressed with the interior of the palace as I remember being when I was first there.

We attempted to take pictures of us jumping off the garden steps and after finally getting a couple of good shots, we took the long walk through the seemingly endless rows of trees over to Marie Antoinette’s Estate, a part of the grounds I wasn’t able to visit during my last trip. This smaller palace was just as incredible, and the girls were all thrilled to notice its pink exterior! After walking through the building and marveling at its decorations, we had dinner and went back to our hotel completely exhausted and ready for our day two of tourism in overdrive!