Anna's Adventures in the Ville d'Amour

As suggested by the title of this post and the above picture, this last week I received the best birthday present ever! My best friend Anna came to visit me during her spring break and we were able to spend 8 amazing days together and squeeze as much touristing and soaking up of the culture/ambiance as possible into her time here! She arrived Saturday morning and I took the train out to Charles de Gaulle to pick her up and help her negotiate her way back via the same train. From there, we split a delicious pizza and dessert at a tiny table outside an Italian restaurant/café. We did some exploring in my neighborhood and I showed her some of the "sights" nearby before getting to bed early to help her adjust to the jet lag. Sunday, we went to Hillsong in the morning, then went with some of the Powerhouse kids to a crêperie for lunch. Anna had her first crêpe salée (lunch crêpe) and crêpe sucrée (dessert crêpe) which we split. Both were delicious - especially the one we split filled with melty chocolate and bananas and topped with whipped cream! After lunch, we ended up hanging out with some other Powerhouse kids who didn't want to go home yet and chatting while drinking tea in one of the girl's apartments.

Monday was "big monument day" according to the schedule Anna drafted in different color felt-tipped markers, and we did a LOT of walking! We started at Place de Trocadero, "the place to go" to take a picture of the Eiffel Tower (or Tour Eiffel). After that, we crossed the Seine to actually look at it from up close/underneath. It's much bigger than it looks! Next we took the metro to meet up with Kaellen - another friend from Marquette - to "tourist" the Arc de Triomphe and have lunch. Anna got to try the classic French café fare the croque monsieur, which she enjoyed (but not as much as the crêpes!). After parting ways from Kaellen, we walked the length of the Champs-Elysees doing some hardcore window shopping and admiring the architecture of the buildings. At the end of the street, we crossed over the Place de la Concorde with it's famous obelisk and went to explore La Madeleine - a Roman temple-esque cathedral dedicated to Mary Magdelen. Upon stepping inside, we discovered there was a choir doing an acapella concert, so we stayed to listen for a while. After leaving the Madeleine, we continued walking in the line of Champs-Elysees, stopping to enjoy the Jardin des Tuilleries (former royal garden when the royal family lived in the Palais de Louvre - now the Musée de Louvre). After a long day of sightseeing, we met up with Ms. Karnazes (my second mom and a family friend from church) and her Wim and his friend Wim for dinner. We ate at a Savoy themed restaurant which had dishes inspired by the Savoy region of France where they live when they're in France. We had a lovely dinner and the added adventure of grilling our meat with electric grills built right into the table! We left with smiles, full stomachs, and an apple pie! Altogether a tiring but amazing day.

Tuesday, unfortunately, I had to go to class. During my morning class, Anna caught up on sleep and some homework. After my first class, I took the metro back "home" to meet her for lunch - sandwiches and tartes we ate outside in the warm sunlight! - before returning for my afternoon class. During my second class, Anna (armed with my map and specific directions) went to explore Notre Dame de Paris without me. She was successful and said she really enjoyed seeing it. (She was also able to practice her practical French "Non merci! [no thanks!] on all of the gypsies/beggars/people with surveys trying to take advantage of tourists). After returning to the apartment after class, we did some shopping and some more exploring of the nearby area. We wandered past the Hotel de Ville (the official residence of the Maire [mayor] of Paris), through the Marais (a colorful district that was named "the marsh" because it used to be...well a marsh), and many cute side streets in between. We had dinner in a classic Parisian cafe "Le Renard" (the fox) before returning to the apartment to get some sleep before our early day Wednesday.

Wednesday morning, we got up and got ready to get an early start on the day. We took the métro up to Montmartre to see Sacré Cœur, and this time we took the funiculaire (a tram/ski lift contraption) on the way up instead of climbing all the steps like I did with Kimmie! From there, we headed down to the Pont d'Alma to take a Seine boat cruise with the Bateaux Mouches, one of the oldest boat tour companies. Wednesday was probably the best weather we had while Anna was here, and we did our best to soak up all the sun while floating leisurely past some of the most well-known sights in Paris. At the end of our tour, we took the métro down to St. Sulpice and grabbed a quick lunch of quiche lorraine from a great boulangerie before I headed off to my afternoon class and Anna tried to get some homework done and explored the Jardin de Luxembourg (a beautiful garden right down the street) and some other sights in the neighborhood with the help of my map. After my class, we headed back to the apartment for a quick power-nap before meeting Kaellen for dinner and pain au chocolat (from Boulangerie de Papa per the recommendation of my very French cousin Megan!) before meeting up with some church kids for our Connect small group.

Thursday was more class for me, and Anna again took advantage of my morning class to get in a few extra hours of sleep and work on her homework. I came back to meet her for lunch, and we ended up eating some yummy pasta and doing some final souvenir shopping for Anna's sisters in one of the stores on my street. During my afternoon class, Anna met up with Kaellen and they went to explore a very small portion of the Louvre - it was too big for them to make a real dent in it but she was able to see some of the more famous pieces. For dinner, we went to a target/wal mart equivalent called Monoprix and bought some sliced cheese and salami, a baguette, two apples, and a bottle of wine for a truly "French" meal, which we ate at my desk while watching the Blind Side.

Friday we got up early again, since I had no classes we decided to spend the day at Chateau Versailles. After a reasonably short train ride (only about 30-35 minutes) we arrived. As a student here, I could explore any area of Versailles for free! Unfortunately, Anna had to buy a ticket, but we got out money's worth! We spent an hour or so inside the actual palace, ogling and taking tons of pictures of all the beautiful and ostentatious furnishings and paintings. Then we sat down on a ledge on the back side of Versailles facing the gardens to eat our lunch my host mother Chantal packed for us (I didn't ask her to do it...she just has really strong mom impulses and wanted to take care of us!). All in all, we ended up with 5 sandwiches on regular bread and two sandwiches on pieces of baguette. Needless to say, we did not eat all of them! (At least not right away...) Unfortunately, since it isn't quite spring here yet the gardens weren't as beautiful as they could be. Most of the fountains were turned off, there weren't many flowers blooming yet, and a lot of the statues were covered in green tarps to prevent damage from the winter weather. Luckily, since it's fairly close by and I can get in for free, I can go back when it's warmer to take even more pictures! We took a quick stroll through a very small part of the garden (it's immense!) on our way to the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, parts of the "country estate" associated with Versailles and the personal haven of Marie Antoinette when the formality and ceremony of the French court was too much for her. All in all, we spent 6-7 hours there and still only covered about 1/3 of the total estate. It was awe-inspiring!

Saturday, we had planned to go to Giverny (Monet's estate with his famous water garden and Japanese foot bridge), but upon waking up discovered it was gray and drizzly. Instead, we decided to visit the Catacombs and the Musée d'Orsay. The Catacombs are essentially a giant underground bone depository. Around 1780 many of the Paris cemeteries were overfilled with bodies, and it was creating a hygiene risk for the nearby inhabitants who became subject to several epidemics. As a result, the Parisian goverment had to find a place to put all the old bones overflowing from their cemeteries. They selected several large quarries under the city that had been sources of stone for many city building projects. At first, the bones were just thrown in haphazard, but when the Catacombs were opened to the public around 1800 they went back and sorted and organized the bones into various different patterns. It was a long climb down (and back up) since the Catacombs are down below even the métro and train systems of the city. And since it had been rainy earlier that day, some of the areas of the tunnels were a little drippy. But despite all of that, it was a really cool experience and definitely something worth seeing! After emerging with dirty shoes, hair on the frizzy side because of all the moisture, and growling stomachs, we decided to go get some lunch. Anna chose crêpes since she had liked her first ones so much and it was her last chance to get real French ones. After lunch, we stopped at Amorino's (another recommendation from Megan) for rose-shaped gelato that was so rich and delicious! Then we took the métro to the Musée d'Orsay where we enjoyed the beautiful artwork until the museum closed and kicked everyone out. Finally, we returned to the apartment for some packing (for Anna) and relaxation (for me) before our real French dinner Chantal insisted on cooking for us. On our way back from the apartment, we picked up some flowers as a thank-you to Chantal. During the day, we had also drafted a thank-you note (with me translating Anna's words/thoughts into French) but hadn't written it yet, so we had to sneak the flowers into my bedroom so she could finish her note. We gave them both to her as we were sitting down to dinner, and she put the flowers in a vase right away, and read Anna's note out loud before promising to keep it because it was so nice! We had a lovely dinner with Anna guessing at the French, Chantal guessing at the English, and Marjorie (Chantal's daughter) and myself translating back and forth if it got too confusing! Altogether a lovely meal and a lovely evening. Sadly, Anna's flight left at 8:00 a.m. the next morning so we had to get to bed to try to get some sleep before we had to get up again. I think each of us got a total of about 4-5 hours of sleep before we woke up, grabbed some breakfast to go, and snuck out of the apartment to catch an early train to Charles de Gaulle. Despite the fact that we were running a little later than planned, everything went well and Anna arrived safely home later that day.

It was an amazing week and I'm so thankful to have been able to spend time with her since it will be a long time before I get to see her again. For now, I'm relieved to have my bed and my time to myself to recover and to not have to run all over the city! By the end of the week, I hope to be all caught up on homework and sleep! Thanks to everyone who made Anna's trip here possible - seriously best present ever! Well, I'm off to bed to get some sleep before class tomorrow...hopefully I'll have more to post soon (if you're not exhausted from this short novel...) A tout a l'heure!