Paris

Strasbourg, Christmas capital of the world, is currently covered in a light blanket of snow which, while frigid, puts me in an excellent mood every time I see it. The marché de Noël—the Christmas Market—started last weekend, and the center of the city is simply bursting with the holiday spirit. I do not know if it is due to law or to custom, but every single building in the centre-ville is bedecked with lights, wreaths, and banners. Chandeliers hang in the streets, and the largest Christmas tree in Europe stands in Place Kléber. (I personally wish they would have strung the cathedral with Christmas lights, but when I say this, Amanda gives me a look of pity; it seems the world is not yet ready for the amount of Christmas lights I prefer.) Strasbourg was always picturesque, but the Christmas season has turned it into an absolute fairy tale.

Last Saturday, on the first day of the marché de Noël, I went with a group of friends from the Institute to explore the market. Cue raptures of Christmas delight, a lot of food, a scarf purchase (of course), hot orange juice with honey (remarkably delicious), and a very joyous evening in all. Now that the initial reconnaissance mission has been accomplished, I can go back, buy certain ornaments, and eat a lot of pain d’épices—aka gingerbread.

In the two upcoming weeks, I will be taking rather a lot of tests. Next week, I have all my options tests—literary movements, geopolitics, film analysis, etc—and the following week, I take my language exams. So my life now consists of study-study-study, although I will take a break to see the new Narnia movie, certainly, as well as go ice-skating tomorrow night. I am looking forward to Christmas in Idaho Falls immensely…

But it is high time to write about my trip to Paris all the way back in October, so I will procrastinate a bit with that. Sorry for my absence for an entire month!

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First of all, my making it to Paris at all was a feat of dedication and perseverance. I had tried to make Eurail reservations two weeks in advance, but all of that Friday afternoon’s Eurail allotments were already sold, so I had decided to try to talk my way onto the train instead the way Maddie and I did on the fateful day of Torino. It was not at all easy, as the entire train was full. My first attempt was unceremoniously rejected, the second conductor told me to go talk to the first one, but I finally succeeded on the third try when I offered to stay standing in the restaurant car. He looked at me intently and said that it was rather a long time to stand, but he would let me on. I had to pay 15 euros and stand for two hours, but it was the last weekend on my Eurail pass and I had to make it to Paris!

It started to rain as soon as I walked out of the Anvers métro station in Montmartre, but my handy green travel umbrella was close at hand, and I strolled through a food market and down a few streets until arriving at my hostel. I had written out a list of the things I wanted to see in Paris before arriving. After the purchase of a tarte normande at the corner bistro and a leisurely picnic tucked away from the rain under an eave, and the subsequent purchases of gloves and a dress for staggeringly low prices, I started my exploration with Sacré-Coeur. It was a 10-minute walk from the hostel and beautiful even in the rain. Perched on top of the Montmartre hill, the plaza in front of the church had what was then an impressive view of a very misty, rainy Paris. The Eiffel Tower was hidden by trees and the curve of the hill, but the other major landmarks were visible and handily indicated on a sign…I admired for a while and then walked up the final staircase into the church.

I lit a lumignon and then wandered. As I investigated the back of the church, I heard female voices singing faintly. Soon, a parade of nuns led by three priests entered the nave of the cathedral, and their clear voices filled the air. Sitting in a pew, I listened for a while and then walked out the door while my ears were still full of singing. Subsequently, I nearly DIED walking down the marble steps slick with rain but luckily escaped with a very painfully stubbed toe.

I meandered my way through Montmartre until I arrived at the Moulin Rouge to marvel at that for a bit—102 euros for a dinner show ticket! What a lucrative business!—then angled for the Opera house. There was a production that night, but as it was already sold out, I continued on to the Louvre, which stays open until 10 pm on Friday nights. Thus started my incredibly inexpensive Paris tourist weekend: I got into the Louvre for free after a 10-minute security line. My long-term student visa does simply magical things.

As I walked through the galleries, I kept breaking out into a grin because the whole museum is so ridiculously think with incredibly famous masterpieces. I never thought anything would top the Vatican Museum, but I may have been proved wrong. Naturally, even though I spent three hours there, I only saw of the Louvre. I didn’t make it to the Dutch and Flemish grand masters wing, but I managed nearly everything else I really wanted to see. I stumbled upon two Botticelli frescoes, which were wonderful. Mainly I just wandered, not worrying about looking at the labels and simply admiring the art. Near the end, my tour turned into a treasure hunt for landscapes of European cities I’ve visited…

I walked back to the hostel in the rain, feeling very romantic about the situation. I was particularly pleased when I was stopped for directions.

On Saturday at breakfast, I met an Australian TV producer, which was entertaining, and then headed off to the cathedral of Notre-Dame. Reading La grammaire est un chanson douce, I waited in line to go up the stairs and ascend the belltower. I saw the gargoyles and the balcon de chimères, which is really a fantastical grouping, and looked out over Quasimodo’s view of Paris. In the cathedral itself, I lit another lumignon…Then it was off to the Musée d’Orsay, but in a very roundabout way. I stumbled across a beautiful pair of boots, the Panthéon (free!), a tartelette aux framboises, and les Jardins de Luxembourg, in that order, before entering the Musée d’Orsay (for free!). I liked the Dégas paintings and Alexander Harrison’s Solitude best. All the Monets were currently on loan to some exhibition at les Galleries Nationales; I was slightly put out.

From les Champs de mars, I watched the sun set behind the Eiffel Tower (to be honest, off to the left of the Eiffel Tower behind some trees). It was lovely, despite the man who kept trying to sell me an “ice cold” (ha) beer. I ended up chatting with a Parisian man for half an hour; he gave me his Nuit Blanche guide and we watched the tower sparkle.

La Nuit Blanche happens once a year on the first Saturday of October—entirely coincidental that I chose that weekend to go—and it is literally Paris’ Nuit Blanche, the night when no one sleeps. There were all sorts of installations and events, but what I really wanted to do was go to les Galleries Nationales to see the Monet exhibition, which was to stay open until 2 am. I didn’t really want to wander the streets of Paris at night by myself, so a museum was an excellent choice. After a very, very, very long line—I estimate I have spent 50 hours of my life waiting in French lines—I made it in. (It was free for everyone, but still!) The exhibition was incredible. They had over 200 Monet paintings from all over the world—I believe I counted approximately 45 from the US—and had organized them by subject. Whereas you usually see one of Monet’s haystacks or one of his paintings of Venice, at this exhibit you could see four or five or even six paintings of the same subject placed next to each other, giving you a much better sense of how he changed perspectives and caught the different lights.

Sunday was Versailles day. I wore all my new Paris finery—what else can one do when visiting the court of Marie Antoinette? I was incredibly satisfied with my entrance. I had read in advance that it would be free with my visa de long séjour, so I walked up to the handsome guard by the security entrance and inquired as to the verity of this information. He confirmed. Thus I got to skip the hour-long line to purchase tickets. I then asked if I needed to wait in the entrance line, which looked to be another hour long, and he said yes. But I am wise to the ways of the wily French: I joined the crush at the head of the line and went straight through to security!

The palace was ornate and immense and historic and very cool. I was particularly intrigued by Marie Antoinette’s bedchamber where the door she used to flee the rioting mob was indicated to the left of the bed…Bizarrely, there was also an ongoing exhibit of modern Japanese sculpture in various rooms of the palace; you will simply have to see the pictures to understand.

I was starving (ironic) at the end of my tour, so I skipped wandering the gardens and returned to Paris. I spent the afternoon in the Jardin des Tuileries reading and watching children poke toy sailboats across a fountain with sticks while their parents tried not to panic every time they leaned over the water, and then walked from the end of the gardens by the Louvre, out past the obelisk, and down the Champs Elysées, gelato in hand, until l’Arc de Triomphe. There was a memorial ceremony occurring for the grave of the Unknown Soldier.

As night fell, I took the métro to Trocadero for the breath-taking overlook of the Tour d’Eiffel. I actually had zero desire to wait in yet another line in order to go up, but I decided to go down and at least stand under the tower. Once I had arrived, the line didn’t look too bad at all. I asked the security guard how long it would take; he estimated 15 minutes. So of course I ascended the Eiffel Tower. Lovely view, and the tower did its hourly 5 minute sparkle as I was standing there.

Pictures.