December 2011
7 posts
10 tags
Paris Was Ours.
My second post-mortem post, coming to you once more from Marshfield. It’s my very last post and it’s all about my very last week in Paris. We packed more into this week than any other week we were there, so it’s a long one. Prepare yourself. Feel free to read it in spurts if you have to. Maybe get up, get a snack, check Facebook, come back to it. Let’s jump in.
After going...
14 tags
Retrospect: Second to Last Week
Well. This post comes to you from wintry Marshfield, Massachusetts, where I drive a car again and speak English to strangers and pay for things with dirty, skinny green money. But my fake life has not been fully narrated on this account, so I’d like to jump back a few weeks and recap all the ridiculous amounts of activities we packed into a very short amount of time.
First though, I’m...
4 tags
Au Revoir Paris
This is my last night in Paris, but certainly not my last time posting. There’s been so much that I’ve done in the past two weeks that I want to share on here, the posts will back up and I’ll keep writing when I’m back home and have nothing better to do!
Things I’ve seen, things I’ve bought, places I’ve been for the last time, places I’ve been for...
7 tags
The Beginning of the End
Wow, what an absence. I have been wanting to blog for over a week, but when there’s a ten page paper to write (in French gah) and a BWL checklist to complete (Before We Leave) blogging and journaling get pushed down the priority list. We’ve been amping up the cultural activity frequency, on account of the fact that we leave on FRIDAY. Can’t even believe an entire semester is...
7 tags
Snows in Paris: Part 3
The final (and longest) chapter in the narration of the week my family was here.
Days and sights and meals blend together, and all I can do is show you snapshots of things we did and how much fun we had doing them.
The first time they saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle:
The place we ate brunch on Thanksgiving morning, on the Île-St-Louis:
The walk through Place des Vosges:
Seeing the first...
8 tags
Snows in Paris: Part 2
Ok, let’s continue. Tuesday morning, I woke up especially early just to meet the fam at the Notre Dame. We climbed to the middle level, and then to the tippity top, which was closed the last time I climbed. You wouldn’t expect the view to be noticeably different from the base of the towers to the top of them, but it really was. You feel more like you’re looking down on everything...
7 tags
Snows in Paris: Part I
My sincerest apologies for the extended absence. My family was here for the week, and they saw Paris from east to west to east to west. They got quite the whirlwind tour and I think they had a great time. Actually I know they had a great time on account of the fact that they didn’t stop talking about how great of a time they had…
They did so much and took so many pictures that this...
November 2011
6 posts
8 tags
You're Waiting for a Train...
…except you do know where this train will take you. Chartres.
Last weekend, Natalie and I successfully boarded the correct train into the suburbs of Paris and took a little day jaunt to Chartres, a little town with a giant cathedral. We weren’t as successful as I’m communicating, though, since we missed the tour and therefore took a very uneducated walk around what I’m...
9 tags
Still Not Bored In Paris
Well. After a prolonged absence, I’m back mes amis. This was one of the hardest weeks to get through, mostly because I’ve had a fever since about Tuesday night, I had a big presentation on Wednesday, and also because my family arrives in approximately sixteen hoursssss. Can’t WAIT to play tour guide for a week.
Allow me to first update on recent Parisian life happenings.
Still...
6 tags
Musée d'Orsay Round Two
That’s right, three posts in three days, how does she do it?? Don’t get used to this though, there won’t be another one for a while…
On Tuesday, Natalie and I finally made it to the Musée d’Orsay together.
and my camera worked this time, so pictures, yayy.
It was a different experience than when I went with Dena; we walked through the whole bottom level and...
8 tags
Spontaneous Cultural Things
Two posts in two days?! I know what your thinking: did she hire someone to blog for her? She never has this much time on her hands! It’s true, I don’t. But I’m making time for this. Gotta catch you up.
This will be a three-pronged post.
On Saturday, Natalie and I had every intention of going to the Musée D’Orsay together, but things happen and Mezzo di Pasta gets eaten...
16 tags
Walking Tours, Parisian Details
Shall we steer this blog back to an educational direction? Sure. Promise to still keep it interesting. I’ve got a LOT to show you, my dears.
Let’s begin with the two walking tours I took with my classes last week. I’m taking a History of Paris course on Monday mornings and a Franco-American Relations class on Wednesday mornings. Both professors vowed to really use Paris as a...
14 tags
My Midnights in Paris
Since we’ve been checking out more of what Paris has to offer after dark, I figured I’d update on that. It is a large part of my life here, so it deserves its own post on this blog.
Our best option on Thursdays is Mix Club, which claims to be the biggest club in Paris. It’s pretty huge, I’ll give them that. And from 11 to 12 on Thursdays it’s free with an...
October 2011
7 posts
9 tags
Un Dimanche à Paris
This morning I woke up with an urge to actually do something in Paris, (you know, the city I live in?) and not just spend another weekend day lounging in this apartment like it’s a regular dorm room, rolling around the corner to buy lunch and dinner and never leaving the block. I needed a real Paris day. So I put the word out on Twitter and God Bless Dena, she responded with “Musée...
9 tags
The BA-lay
This will be a short post, but I wanted to share the absolutely fabulous time I had at the ballet on Thursday. Our program got a block of tickets for us, so most of the kids in our group went, embracing the occasion and rocking their best evening attire.
Yes, that’s Dena rocking her grandmother’s fox fur. So excellent.
The inside was absolutely beautiful, I don’t know if I...
4 tags
Warsaw Weekend
And so the pattern of my blog posts jumping from weekend to weekend continues.
Spent this weekend in Poland with Natalie and her family. Her parents are originally from there and her grandmother still lives there, so it was quite the opportunity to see the city with people who knew the city and the language. Polish is a phonetically difficult language, but i’m told the grammar is pretty...
13 tags
A Weekend in Normandy: More Crêpes, More Medieval...
Yes, ironically, a weekend in Normandy involves the same things as a week in Paris: crêpes and medieval buildings. Of course, there was also fresh air, long bus rides, historical beaches and religious myths, but yes, mostly crêpes and medieval buildings.
Saturday was D-Day themed, we started at the Peace Museum in Cannes, which naturally details every cause and event of the Second World War, but...
11 tags
A Week In Paris: Crêpes and Medieval Buildings
Sorry about the extended absence, this post comes to you on the other side of our first full week of classes. We have begrudgingly descended into a routine, only occasionally broken up by big activities. Plus, now that we’re all spread out in classes with other foreign students, we’ve adopted some kids outside of our program into our little lunch club. (yes, we’re still eating...
9 tags
Settling in to Paris
Paris continues to treat me marvelously, even though classes have started and so has autumn. The weather was a solid 80 degrees or above every day for two weeks and all of a sudden, after Tuesday of this week, the temperature never gets above 65. It’s like the city just decided that on Tuesday, it was going to switch to fall. Of course, it didn’t affect the outfits of the women of...
10 tags
French cuisine, French crowds and French bugs
Be prepared for this post to revolve heavily around food. And bizarre anecdotes.
Since I left you last, things have taken a turn for the weird. Natalie and I have been sick (coughing, sleepy, etc) so we skipped out on Friday’s event with everyone. Then Saturday was actually a great day, but things started getting interesting on Saturday night. Let’s recap Saturday first. Natalie and I...
September 2011
6 posts
15 tags
America is my country and Paris is my hometown
I’ve been settling into my new home and new lifestyle. I think I was born to live in this city. Give me another week and I’ll have the metro wrapped around my finger. My mother asked me tonight how I’m ever going to leave. I don’t honestly have an answer for that except that I’ll have to come back.
And it’s only been a week.
Wednesday we spent the first half...
10 tags
Hey Paris, She's Here
Bon to the jour mes amis.
Paris has been a whirlwind. Pulled in on the train on Saturday at 3:30 and it’s already Tuesday night. When did that happen?
The train station that day was ridiculous. We stood in the square collecting our suitcases from the van that drove them up here from Cannes, with still none of us knowing where in Paris we would be living. Collect your luggage, roll the 50...
10 tags
Touring the Côte D'Azur
I can’t believe an entire week’s worth of events has gone unchronicled.
Let’s begin with Sunday, the day of our program-planned day trip to Monaco and Eze that almost all of us had signed up for. Cannes claims to get 300 days of sunshine a year, but of course the day we really need some solid pictures we woke up to a downpour. We were supposed to leave at 9, so Natalie and I got...
8 tags
Cannes, Nice, Soccer and Tear Gas
This week has been incredible. Class, daytime walk to Cannes, beach, dinner, nighttime walk to Cannes.
The college itself is a beautiful setting, and living with all the kids in my Paris program plus the kids staying here in Cannes for the whole semester has been the perfect social transition.
If we had all gone straight to living separately in Paris, we definitely would not have the same...
8 tags
côte d'azur
Landing at the Nice airport was the first moment of this trip that I was fully excited. The captain had announced that we would be landing in ten minutes and it suddenly occurred to me to open my window.
like are you kidding me?
et voici, the best picture, with the shadow of the plane:
Cannes might be the most beautiful place i’ve ever been. The water here is the temperature and...
8 tags
londontown
The First Post. Seems so important and official! Let’s talk about London.
Thankfully, I made friends almost immediately upon arrival. There were four of us on my plane from Boston, but we didn’t officially meet until we were all bottlenecking towards customs. We did the awkward sort of “umm are you guys in the AIFS program?” one by one. Natalie, my roommate from...
