Choses Amusantes à Paris

While I've been busy updating you all on my spring break, I've also been trying to experience as much of Paris as possible!  As of today, I only have 32 more days here so I absolutely must make the best of them.

On Sunday I slept in to recover from spring break, then met a friend for lunch.  We then talked our way into the Picasso Museum for free.  I really enjoyed seeing the progression of Picasso's artwork and the many different art forms-- including painting, collage, sculpture, and photography.  

On Monday I had a conversation exchange after class!  This is where you meet up with a French-speaker who wants to practice their English, and you get to practice your French as you help them with English.  For some reason, the guy I met up with is used to hearing English with a Scottish accent so he could barely understand my 'very thick' accent.  I didn't leave feeling like I'd improved my French at all- so don't think I'll be doing another one of those.  

On Tuesday after class, a few of us went to an amazing place for tea & dessert to try to escape the torrential downpour.  It had a great, comfortable atmosphere that reminded me of a place I really like in D.C. (Tryst), so we sat and talked for hours!  We split a really intense slice of lemon meringue pie.

Today I met friends for a lunch at a great vegetarian restaurant called Foody's, then we trekked out to the Grand Arch at La Defense to check it out.  This is basically the (modern) 'mirror image' of the Arc de Triomphe except it is supposed to represent successful industry, etc.  La Defense is outside of the city and, like where I live, there are lots of big companies because it is easy to access the city, but taxes are much cheaper.

 

It was MASSIVE and cool to see- I am glad I made it out there.  To get an idea of the size, see those three metal things that kind of run down the middle?  Each one is an elevator shaft!  You can also go to the top part and there is a viewing area, but it was 8.50 euros for students...I have seen plenty of great views of the city, thankyou very much!  Also while we were there, someone launched an upside-down umbrella with a bunch of balloons.  I wonder what was in there...

 Now I am packing and doing some homework because this weekend, I am going to the South of France.  Friday is Labor Day here so we have the day off from class, and I decided that Monday would be a good day for a personal day, so I'll be in Nice, Monte Carlo, Marseille, and Aix-en-Provence.  

I am also excited because tonight I am seeing the French movie Coco Before Chanel!  Now that I've confirmed that I can see movies in French and actually understand them, I should really see a few more before I go.  Also, this one was filmed in Paris so hopefully I'll recognize some locations.  

Barcelona!

Whenever I told anyone that I was taking the night train from Granada to Barcelona, their eyes widened and they shook their head.  I was a bit nervous about what I was getting myself into, but luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be!  We arrived to our hostel at about 10 on Thursday morning and headed to Montjuic: a huge hill that overlooks Barcelona.

We took a gondola to the top!  Montjuic is basically a huge park that has a castle, the 1992 Olympic stadium, a fountain, and more random stuff.  After spotting the water, we were all ready for some beach time!

Even though it wasn't the nicest beach and the water was freezing, it felt great to relax and enjoy the weather.  

The next morning we went on a very long walk to see most of the important Gaudi-designed buildings in the city, most impressive being la Sagrada Familia.  

We also found a Dunkin Donuts in Europe, we were all amazed and of course I had to get iced coffee!

In the afternoon it was time for some more beach.

 Then we had the most amazing paella at a place that a friend recommended to us, and went to a club that night.  The walk home was kind of sketchy and made us all glad that we'd be heading back to Paris where we actually have a handle on where we should and should not go at night!  

Saturday we checked out Parc Guell, which was designed by Gaudi and is up on another huge hill.  We brought a picnic and people watched for a few hours.  

We finished up our day by exploring and people watching the pier: I can't even imagine how pricy it is to have your sailboat docked here, it is right in the middle of the city!  

Before we knew it, it was time to head back to Paris!  I really enjoyed Barcelona but probably didn't experience it fully because I was so exhausted from traveling for two weeks straight.  Luckily, going to the beach was a welcome break from tourist-y activities.  It had much more of an international city feel than a Spanish-city feel, much less Spanish-y than Madrid and definitely Sevilla and Granada.  Also, they do not speak Spanish, instead they speak Catalan so that made it feel even less like Spain.

A funny little story about Catalan:  In 8th grade my Spanish teacher was a Spanish woman named Mrs. Pla on an exchange program to teach Spanish in the U.S. for a year.  She decided that she was going to teach us Catalan grammar rules and such instead of actual Spanish and was just in general a terrible teacher.  When we got to 9th grade, my teacher basically spent the first half of the year re-teaching what we were supposed to have learned in 8th grade because: 

A) we barely learned anything at all

B) what we did learn was not even correct Spanish!

Granada!

Besides Amsterdam, Granada was definitely my favorite destination of my trip!  We took a three hour train ride through the Andalusian countryside, over mountains, and through olive groves, and found our hostel right in the middle of the Albayzin, the old Moorish quarter.  

We didn't get there until about 7 p.m. so that night we enjoyed a great perk of going out in Granada: when you order a drink, you get free tapas!  And a beer is only about 2euros!  While we were there, our tapas ranged from pieces of bread with cheese or chorizo to lo mein noodles to complete bocadillos (sandwiches), panini-style with ham and cheese.

Granada is situated on two large hills and we conquered both on Tuesday!  We started the day off with a free walking tour of the Albayzin.  This is the oldest part of the city and everything is very Arabic influenced.  Our tour guide was great and we learned all about the history of the city.  Also from the Mirador (viewpoint) San Nicolas, we got great views of the Alhambra which is on the opposite hill.

In the afternoon we headed to the Alhambra, which was a palace and fortress built in the 14th century for the Moorish rulers of Granada.  In 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada and took over the Alhambra.  They say "If you die without seeing the Alhambra, you haven't lived," but I personally would dispute that.  I found it fascinating and beautiful, but I thought it was a bit overhyped and definitely not a Top 10 World Destination or anything-- whoever coined that phrase was good at PR ; ).  

Most impressive in the Alhambra were the Generalife gardens, the amazingly intricate carvings, and the beautiful tiles.  The Alhambra and the Albayzin are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites which just continued that thread throughout my trip! 

We decided that Tuesday night was a great night for a Tapas Tour and did just that!  We made an important, delicious discovery that night: Tinto de Verano which means Summer Red Wine.  It is red wine with ice and a splash of sprite/lemon fanta and SO good!

On Wednesday, we hiked up to the Sacromonte (holy mountain), where many people lived (and some still do), in man-made caves carved into the hillside.  I can't imagine living in a cave but I did find it interesting to think about the wide variety of nationalities that all have or had some sort of cave-dwelling culture.  

Another thing I loved about Granada was the incredible contrast between the beautiful warm weather, cacti, and palm trees, and the Sierra Nevada looming in the distance, covered in snow!

 As you can probably imagine, I rallied for a ski day but no one else wanted to go!  Not sure how I would have skiied in jeans and a trench coat anyway...Luckily our hostel had a rooftop terrace with a beautiful view of the city, the Alhambra, and the Sierra Nevada, which is where we relaxed on Wednesday evening before heading out to catch our night train to Barcelona!

As you can probably tell I couldn't get enough of Granada (did I mention the amazing jewelry shopping, and delicious Moroccan tea rooms?), so I was quite sad to leave.   

Sevilla!

Sevilla was my first stop in the Spain leg of my spring break!  I was met on Saturday night by a friend of a friend and she showed me some of the city, then took me to a great tapas restaurant for dinner.  She had plans for the rest of the weekend but marked up our map with great, non-touristy suggestions.

By Sunday morning my two other friends (Heidi and Kavita) had shown up in Sevilla and we were ready for a day of seeing the sights.  First we went to the Cathedral, which is the third largest cathedral in the world at 128,570 square feet!  This picture is from the top of the belltower.  Interestingly, instead of steps to the top it was ramps!  

Here are a bunch of orange trees in the cathedral's courtyard.

Sevilla has orange trees all over!  We were told that we had just missed the peak and so the city had already had people go around and shake most of the oranges down so they didn't rot- but we still spotted some. 

This is the tower of gold, which is where Spanish ships would leave to go to the new world!  Sevilla is not located on the beach but it is on a river which leads to the ocean: it feels ALOT like a beach town though.  

After the Cathedral and some walking around, we went to the Alcazar (castle.)  It was neat and had amazing gardens! 

If anyone is a Star Wars freak, you may recognize the Plaza de Espana.  It was built in 1929 for a Spanish-American exposition but was also the setting for part of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.  It is located in the Maria Luisa park which is beautiful.

On Sunday night we experienced something Sevilla is quite famous for: its narrow, winding, extremely confusing streets!  After grabbing dinner we were trying to go to a free flamenco bar which is a hole in the wall with no sign on the door.  We asked our waitress for directions and she gave us the typical Sevilla directions: she told us the next two turns we should take, and then told us to ask someone else!  The next person we asked literally brought their entire family out on the street to help us, and the final girl just led us all the way there!  They were all helpful and quite patient with our limited Spanish! 

The flamenco itself was pretty good: definitely entertaining and we enjoyed some sangria along with it.  The bar was definitely a hole in the wall--it looked more like a campsite than a bar!

The next day two other friends (Zaid and Katherine) showed up in Sevilla!  We all decided to enjoy the gorgeous weather and picnic by the water.  Then we got churros and Kavita, Heidi and I headed to the train station to head off to Granada.

Overall Sevilla was great!  The weather was beautiful, the city was walkable but not tiny, and the recommendations from our friend of a friend made us feel less like tourists.  It was definitely one of the more confusing cities I've been in: our map was pretty much useless but luckily that forced us to discover their interesting way of giving directions!  I still think the city feels like it was picked up off of the coast and plopped inland: maybe it was the great weather but something about it just screamed beach to me.

I AMsterdam

There's no other way to say it: I LOVED Amsterdam!  It completely took me by surprise and charmed me!  I think, like many others, I categorized Amsterdam as being mostly about marijuana and the red-light district, but I was so wrong.  Just like Bruges, it is nicknamed "Venice of the North" because it is situated on a series of canals.  The buildings are really cool and they have pretty strict zoning laws so most of them are very old-style.

The hook things at the top of the buildings are there to hoist up furniture to the upper floors because the staircases are too narrow!

This was our hotel-- it was amazing!  It was built in the late 1800's and even though part of it looks like an old church, it has always been a hotel.  You could just tell that it had seen so much history, plus it was in an amazing location- we walked everywhere!

We started things of with a canal tour and also did one that took us a different route at night.  It was an awesome way to see the city-- but the true Dutch people traverse the city by bike!  Literally EVERYONE rode bikes there-- here is a massive bike parking garage type thing we spotted near the train station.

We visited the Anne Frank house and got to see the annex where her family and others (8 total) were in hiding before being caught and sent to concentration camps.  It was extremely small- especially the staircases!  Luckily my Mom was travel-savvy enough to buy tickets online in advance, because the line was absolutely massive and the house is not that large.  We also saw the original Diary of Anne Frank.

Another historically significant Amsterdam landmark: the Heineken factory!  Even though it was pretty touristy, it was fun to learn about the history of the beer and of course, we got plenty of opportunities to taste test!

One afternoon my Mom and I also got to shop and go to the famous flower markets!  I couldn't buy much at all this trip because I had such a small bag but I did manage to snag a really cute mint-green belt.  

On our last day in Amsterdam, Michael and I decided to do as the Amsterdamers do and go biking!  With the help of TripAdvisor and my friend Kim, we found a bike tour that took us out into the countryside where we saw an extremely old windmill.  It was well preserved because a farmer stored it in his barn for a long time and then after World War II when many of the original windmills had been destroyed, he donated it and it was put back up!

We also biked to an 8th generation family-owned cheesemaking and clogmaking factory!  It was quite fun and even though it rained a bit, it felt great to be biking around.  Luckily, Amsterdam is pretty flat because four hours of biking would have been killer otherwise!  We also swung by a high-end houseboat community and road through Vondelpark, Amsterdam's largest park on our way back into the city.  All in all we biked about 20k!  

I was extremely sad to leave Amsterdam because it meant I had to say goodbye to the family, and also because I just loved Amsterdam and could have stayed indefinitely longer.  Luckily, I had a fun week ahead of me in Spain.   

PS: Look what my Dad spotted right by our hotel!  

Brussels & Bruges

I didn't have many expectations of Belgium prior to going to Brussels and Bruges, but anyone I talked to about it told me not to leave without sampling: beer, chocolate, waffles, french fries, and mussels.  Luckily, we got to do that and much more.

Overall I was not all that impressed with Brussels: maybe we were there on the wrong day but it was one of the dirtiest cities I've ever seen in my life.  It also felt kind of sketchy and unsafe walking around at night.

We saw Mannekin Pis-- this is Brussel's most famous landmark: a not even 2 foot tall statue of a little boy peeing, which is supposed to represent Belgian's more relaxed lifestyle or something.  Apparently they also dress him up in various costumes!

We also saw the Atomium, a HUGE sculpture in the shape of a molecule which was built for the 1958 World Fair.

Parc de Cinquantenaire with a massive Arc de Triomphe.

Besides that, we walked around the Grand Place, saw an old fish canal, and did lots of wandering around.

The next day we went to Bruges.  I still haven't seen the movie In Bruges but apparently when I do I'll recognize lots of the setting!  The city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and there are lots of canals: it is sometimes referred to as the "Venice of the North" (along with Amsterdam!)

One of the reasons why Bruges is so awesome is because alot of its original medieval architecture is still intact.  There is a huge 13th century belltower which has 47 bells: the city still employs a full-time bell-ringer!

We started the day by wandering around the old squares, then took a boat cruise in the canals.  Then we shopped for chocolate, had a great lunch in Burg Square, did some more wandering, and enjoyed the weather!  

Cheers!