"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"

         So I’d been getting real nervous. See, it’s nearly the end of March and Friday was the 70^th day I’d been in France and all I’d seen of Paris was Charles de Gaulle airport and Montparnasse Train Station.  Unacceptable. And I was getting nervous because everyone here has been to Paris at least once, often twice, or more, or you know just casually lived there for a while but I’d hadn’t so much as glimpsed the Eiffel Tower and was worried no one would want to go with me. Luckily, my darling friends Laura and Newton agreed to make the trip and though we are abysmal planners and frighteningly adept procrastinators, we managed to get tickets and (the day before we left) find cheap beds in a hostel.

         The sun rose on Friday morning, bright and cheerful and I awoke with it—grumpy, groggy, drowning in post-red wine misery, and feeling like I’d been ever-so-gently curb-stomped. Joy. 40 minutes of intense struggle later, I stumbled out the door, flailed my way to the bus and tripped onto the train and was off! Watch out Paris, here I come.  

          We checked into our hostel and immediately wandered off to see Notre Dame. Of all the churches I’ve already seen in Europe (and I promise, there are 12 kajillion) she really is a stunna. Not to mention that it was 70 degrees and sunny, which was absolutely sensational. Anyway, we got our flying buttress on and wandered around inside—admiring the beautiful stained glass and all of the secret intricacies hidden in every corner. Apres ça, we wandered down the along the Seine in the brilliant sunshine and summer-esque heat until we made it to the Musee D’Orsay. This museum, for those who may not know, houses a lot of the ‘newer’ European art like Impressionist paintings and the like. So, naturally, it was mah jam. Art aside, the inside of the museum/the architecture is awesome too. They don’t let you take any pictures in the museum, but here’s one I stole from Google. Thanks Google!

          Hard to say what my favorite thing was in this museum and to differentiate what I saw here from what I saw in the Louvre, soo much great art in so few days! Eep! The little art nerd in me was so excited. I have such a fond spot in my heart for Cezanne’s Apples and Oranges since a poster of it has hung in my bathroom at home since I can remember and you can see it every time you look in the mirror. So that made me smile. There were Monet’s Rouen Cathedrals (pee your pants good) and Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone and one of his self-portraits and soo soo many other masterpieces. Being unaccustomed to waking up before 7AM, all of us were pooped by the end of the museum so we decided to walk to the Eiffel tower and just lay in the grass for a while. So, we walked down by the Seine again and en route we saw this guy:

          Woo! Valentinoooo! He’s so cooool! He had just finished walking his pug and was climbing into the backseat of a very suave car. Definitely the most famous person I’ve ever seen. We pointed and stared blatantly like idiots, but it was totes worth it. Anyway we wandered to the Eiffel Tower (gah!) which is just as cool as I always imagined. I’m just astonished that it exists in real life. Before I saw it it almost felt like one of those things that doesn’t really exist and Hollywood just made up to make Paris look better in movies. But no, it’s real! We lay in the grass for a while and openly mocked some stupid American ginger biddie who was trying so hard to impress the two guys she was with and was failing horribly. I include the fact that she was a ginger merely because she literally talked to them about her ginger hair for about fifteen minutes strait. Girl—no one cares if anyone else in your family is a ginger or not or how interesting and different you think you are because you’re a ginger. Shut up. Go back to America.

         We then had a sufficiently shameful photo shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower just to make sure everyone knew for sure that we were from the states. Sadly, though it was sunny just before and just after we wanted to photograph the Eiffel Tower, it got cloudy right as we got there—great. Ah, well.

of course this sweet picture is ruined because i can't for the life of me rotate them...

        We then took the metro over to an area of Paris called St. Germain des Pres where Laura had stayed before and is awesome—lots of shops and restaurants. We wandered around trying to find somewhere to eat until, on a random side street we were approached by this restaurant owner guy who was trying to get us to eat there. Now usually you just “non, merci” and keep walking, but he wooed us with free drinks and free dessert so we decided to take a chance. After our free Kirs I had some mussels to start followed by a steak with béarnaise sauce, fried potatoes and haricots verts and then some creamy and delicious chocolate mousse. Nom nom! For 12€, not too bad! Stuffed and sleepy we made our way back to the hostel where we had scored our own room (good deal for a hostel) and went to bed quite early. It took me forever to fall asleep because Parisiens are always driving and always aaaalways honking their horns at each other. They love that shit. Bah!

         The next morning we ventured to the Louvre! Everyone was exceptionally dumb and all waiting forever in line in front of the main entrance, but we went around to the Porte des Lions on one side and there was not even a single other human there. Win. I art-nerded out a lot more and kept oohing and getting over-excited, but that place is so cool. Despite the fact that it is absolutely massive, there were sooo many people in every inch of the museum. Not surprising—it’s like the Mecca of the art world. I got to see all of the famous works and took cheesy pictures in front of them all. 

         

Next we sat for a while in the Jardin des Tuileries and ate trail mix (great travel snack, thanks Natalie) and then geared up for some more museuming at the Orangerie. This is a small museum right by Louvre that people don’t seem to go to but it has two huge oval-shaped rooms covered by Monet’s Les Nympheas, which are the giant, gorgeous water lilies murals. Like this one:

    

       We sat in silent wonder for a while just soaking up all the beauty and then wandered back into the sunlight and up the Champs Élysées. This would have been really cool except for it is insanely insanely busy and I was terrified that someone was going to mug me at any second. Fortunately, this did not happen, and we got up to the Arc de Triomphe without any problems. It’s giant (duh) and gorgeous (duh) and, er…triumphant. That’s all I have to say about that…

        

      We went back to St. Germain des Pres to go to this bakery that Laura said was really good. Oh yeah, it was PIERRE HERMÉ. Oh yeah that’s where BLAIR WALDORF gets all of her macaroons. I don’t care if it’s embarrassing that I know that—that shit is DELICIOUS. The line was out the door and it’s quite expensive but we got six macroons and shared them so we could try all the flavors and my mouth has never been so happy. We had Rose, Crème Brûlée, Passion Fruit/Chocolate, Orange/Carrot, Choclate and Caramel. Each one was more sensational than the last and even though some of those combos sound a lil weird, they were like little pieces of heaven. In fact, chocolate was the least good. I KNOW, RIGHT? How can that be? Usually I feel really really good about chocolate, but these other macaroons were just unbelievably good. I could have died and been perfectly content. I can’t talk about it enough. Go eat these. Seriously. Now.

         We then wandered around and stopped for some Croque Madames which are like an open-faced grilled ham and cheese with a fried egg on top (yum!) also, so good. Sadly, our trip ended in the rain, but other than that it was a perfect Parisien weekend. Tellement, Paris, je t’aime.

Newdles--nineteen no mo'

         So yesterday was my dear friend Newton Taluskie’s birthday and we decided to celebrate the occasion with a day trip to the city of Rennes (pronounced *throat clear*-enne). Rennes is a little Northwest of me and bigger than Angers. I actually applied to study there as well and after seeing it would have been quite content there as well. Rennes was lovely. We took a train out there arriving around 2 in the afternoon and set off to find some lunch. At first, ever place we went to had stopped serving lunch at 2 and we were beginning to get quite distressed when we stumbled upon this lovely restaurant the name of which I can’t remember for the life of me and they agreed to serve us! Hooray! As it turns out, all those places that were closed had nothing on this place. It was a fantastic lunch. We mentioned that it was Newton’s birthday and the adorable owner man brought us free champagne! So nice! Newton nearly peed himself with excitement. We started with a charcuterie plate with assorted meats, terrines and pâte. I’ve learned not to consider what I’m eating at all and just do it which has been an incredibly useful strategy. The pâte, God knows what was in it, was so delicious. It was salty and flavorful and so tasty on the French bread toast they gave us. There was some salami and a terrine of what might have been rabbit? Who knows, it was quite good, though. The only thing I didn’t try was this gray spiral-y meat which was just too hard to imagine as anything other than entrails. For my main course I got the Plat du Jour which was a whitefish filet under a creamy sauce of something yummy paired with sensational mashed potatoes (if you don’t already know how I feel about mashed potatoes, I feel REALLY. Really good about them.) and a greens salad with the house made wine vinaigrette dressing. Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy. Such a great meal. I had to really consciously pace myself. After all this I had the dessert du jour which was called “Ile Flottante” (I think that’s spelled right…Dad?) which was this delicious meringue like you would find on a lemon meringue pie with toasted almonds on top and it sat in pool of vanilla cream sauce kind of like a thinner version of vanilla pudding. It was so heavenly and light. I could eat that every day. We merci beaucoup-ed like madmen and wandered off to explore downtown. Rennes has almost more character than Angers because all the buildings are different and most restaurants seemed to have brightly painted. We wandered around and went briefly to the Musée de Beaux Arts (customary in every French city). Dad—I saw some lovely Caillebottes!

        Oh so my camera died within 5 minutes of being in Rennes so you can just imagine these things. Maybe I’ll try to steal some of Newton’s pictures.

       After that we had a couple hours before our train and so we spent them loitering in this cute little coffee shop/bar. Coffee here really is so wonderful. I know I’ve said it before. But really, so delicious. Newton successfully drank throughout his birthday-day and after an annoyingly long trip home we all went out to an exchange student bonfire. Sitting in the woods around a fire having sing-a-longs—that’s something I can always get behind. 

Espana!

So sorry for the extreme delay in this post.

        We met our French friends in Nantes to begin our long journey to Granada. Laura and I didn’t do anything right. I only printed out half of our bus tickets so we had a long negotiation between the Spanish bus driver, our French friends and us to be allowed on the bus. It was a trilingual catastrophe. We brought too much food and ate at inappropriate times and generally tried and failed to behave with any semblance of decorum. After a fitful night travelling through France, the sun rose on a stunning Spanish landscape. The countryside is immediately different. Browns, reds and yellows replace the green and gray of France. And there’s not a cloud in the sky! Praise sweet baby Jesus—sunshine! Travelling in the morning was a treat since I usually miss the beauty of the crisp, bright morning light. Pockets of mist clung to the red Earth—soft yet stubborn—unwilling to disperse as the morning waned. We must travelled through a cloud at one point. The trees, only ghostly silhouettes in the dense fog, wavered in and out of focus and I feared that, when it cleared we’d find ourselves lost amongst the dry, whispering grass of the Spanish hillsides.

       After all that poetic shit, it got horrifically boring. Never take a 20 hour bus ride. Never. Lesson learned. We arrived thoroughly greasy and disgruntled and managed to find our hostel—the classy Pension Britz—which ended up being right in the center of downtown Granada. It was perfect. We rallied to meet Laura’s friend Alex and got our first taste of the complete magic that is free tapas. I know I’ve told anyone who will listen about how wonderful I think free tapas are, but they ARE SOO AMAZING. You pay 2€ for a beer or a class of wine and they just bring you a delicious snack! Fo free! Alex, who was such a goddess the whole time we were there, has been studying in Granada since September so she knew all these really great little restaurants and bars. But we never had a tapas that I didn’t love. Even when we didn’t get to choose what we wanted they were heavenly. We had everything from something like a grilled ham and cheese, to a light little potato-y/tomato-y soup to some sensational Spanish tortilla (which is like egg and potato and kind of quiche-like in texture). In my extreme over-excitement about free snacks (seriously, it’s perfect for me) I neglected to take pictures of any of them—fail. But I swear. Greatness.

Placa Nueva.

Bah. Always sideways.

       The next day we awoke to some Spanish acoustic version of the Beatles playing in the square outside. We opened the doors to our balcony overlooking Placa Nueva to find that it was already 65˚ and sunny. EE! Our day started slowly, like all of our days in Spain, but we managed to go see La Alhambra which is the 14^th century palace of the kings of Granada. It was absolutely sensational. The architecture has a lot of Muslim-influenced and one could easily spend days there without seeing everything. It is massive and incredibly intricate. The most famous part is the Palace of Nazaris, which they are very serious about. You must only enter at the EXACT time written on your ticket…blah, blah, blah…so Laura and I split up for a couple hours and I wandered around the Palace by myself. I met some British girls who were also on Spring Break and were complaining about how horrid and boring their university was. I was like “Oh! Where do you study?” and one rolled her eyes and replied, “Ohh Oxford.” Pff! As if it were the most mundane and unknown university in the world. What a biddie. That aside, the Palace was stunning with its arches, carvings and fountains.

      After a few hours wandering around in the wonderful Spanish sun I got my first sunburn of the year. WOO! That might sound unpleasant, but really, getting sunburned in February is kind of great if you’re a pasty girl from Vermont…We spent the rest of our time in Granada running around eating as many tapas as possible and were very sad to find our time there at an end. A harrowing plan ride later we touched down in Barcelona! In comparison with Granada and Angers, Barca just felt massive. Gorgeous city, to be sure, but there is just so much to do and so much to see and this girl is just not destined to be an adept urbanite.

      I guess that Barcelona doesn’t really consider itself “Spanish,” the Catalan culture is definitely unique and separate and disheartening as I’d just learned some Spanish words and it felt like people in Barca would rather you speak English than Spanish if you don’t know Catalan. Also, Catalan is crazy. I’ve never seen such arbitrary use of the letter “X.” Xocolata = Chocolate. Really? And all the banks are called “Caixas” which we were amused to discover was pronounced rather like “Ke$ha.” Heh heh. So we ran around, getting lost, eating delicious xocolata-covered treats and gelato and obnoxiously saying “oooh hold on I just need to go to the Ke$ha” whenever possible and laughing at how not funny that is/we are. We went to see Gaudi’s Casa Batllo which is wedged into a normal city block and absolutely incredible. Apparently designed to imitate a massive sea monster, the house has no sharp edges, is coloured in blue, purple and green hues and has the most fascinating minute details (like the fish scales subtly painted on the walls). I could spew some more facts about it, but no one cares, it really is just spectacular and definitely worth seeing. Here’s some pictures.

      Among restaurants, bars, stores, other Gaudi buildings, and the harbor we also went to see the Picasso museum. It traced his life and changing periods in his art and I couldn’t get enough of it. Not only was everything just incredible to look at, but the museum included lots of little sketches on which Picasso would jot random words or phrases and were often so quirky and amusing. He seems like he must have been quite the character. The museum also included a whole study Picasso did on Velazquez’s Las Meninas (which my art history nerd self was very excited to see.) Done during his foray into cubism, Picasso focused on each figure or part of the painting and replicated it over and over in slightly varying style. So cool. For reference:

Velazquez

Picasso

       Brief shout-out to Barcelona Central Gardens which was the hostel we stayed in. Such a clean and comfortable hostel and the staff was incredible. We checked out on Thursday morning, but our flight wasn’t until 6 AM on Friday (oh the joys of poor college student travel) and they let us just hang out in the common area, use the computers, watch a movie of our choice (we chose The Holiday, haha) and drink as much tea and coffee as we wanted. They even gave us fleece blankets to snuggle with as we bummed around on the couch. Magic! It’s the little things. Like free tea, or taking cabs when its late and raining. Oh! I hailed my first ever taxi! (Which clearly is evidence that I am a tried and true country bumpkin.) It was a Mercedes cab. I’m kind of a big deal.

       We had a great meal our last night with Laura’s friend Caity, who is studying in the city, at this little restaurant called Palermo. Surprisingly cheap (unlike everything else in Barcelona), I had a feta and tomato salad with olive oil and balsamic and the largest portion of grilled and marinated salmon. It was heavenly. Not to mention that we got three bottles of their house red. They were 2. 75€! We had to. Despite the language barrier, the waiter still managed to make fun of our rosy cheeks.

      We said goodbye to Barcelona and stumbled to the train and cross-stepped to the airport. Laura and I had decided to pack our stuff into one big suitcase so we would only have to check one bag. Smart, in theory. But Larums (somewhere along the way he was thus named after an entertaining misspelling of Laura’s name on the luggage tag) was a heavy bastard. It was quite the struggle to lug him around Spain. So many hours, a lot of waiting, and a couple freak outs (mine…obviously) later, we finally stepped off the train into the blissfully familiar Angers St. Laud train station. For once it was sunny in France and had somehow turned to spring overnight and we were absolutely giddy to be back. I suppose that sometimes you have to leave a place to fully appreciate it. For the first time it really felt like home. <3