Part 3: Paris

Slowly but surely, I will finish blogging about my March vacation. So I told you about Dublin first, then London, and now we'll talk about Paris. From London we flew back to Toulouse, and were there for one night. The next morning, we met the rest of the Dickinson group at the train station and took the TGV (le train à grande vitesse) six or so hours north to Paris. The Dickinson group trips are great because they are paid for by the program and we have a schedule all set up for us when we arrive. There is plenty of free time built into the schedule, and our program leaders (Madame Raynaud and Anna) acted as our own private tour guides throughout the weekend.

After settling into the hotel, we took a visit to the Pompidou Centre, which houses the largest collection of modern art in Europe. We got a private tour and also had the chance to saunter around the museum on our own. I don't think I'll ever understand modern art, or really enjoy it necessarily -- for example, one of the pieces of "art" was a men's urinal laying sideways on a pedestal, with the artist's signature on the side. If a broken urinal is art then I guess there's an abandoned truck stop in Nebraska somewhere that is sitting on thousands of dollars worth of modern art. Nonetheless, the museum was impressive and I'm glad I got to go. It's not a visit to Paris without seeing the Pompidou Centre.

The view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe at night

I won't go day by day with what we did, but instead just tell you about some highlights. We took a boat tour down the Seine, which brought us past many of the major attractions in Paris -- the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Musée d'Orsay, and many others. The same night we went to an old mosque that was renovated into a restaurant and had a traditional Moroccan meal. I made the mistake of ordering a beer, and was quickly reminded that we were in a mosque at an Islam-inspired restaurant, and of course there was no alcohol on the menu. Embarrassing.

The rest of the trip was excellent as well -- we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, which was much smaller than a expected. The amount of people circling the painting was incredible, and it made me wonder why the painting was so popular. It's not especially beautiful and doesn't seem to be done with an amazing amount of talent, and by that I mean it's not very colorful or detailed. And yet, it remains one of the most recognizable pieces of art in history. It just makes you wonder what can make art famous or otherwise render it obscure. As far as museums go, we also went to the Musée d'Orsay, l'Orangerie (which houses the very impressive Water Lilies murals by Claude Monet), and the National Site of the History of Immigration.

Me at the Louvre Museum

Of course, we went to Notre Dame, climbed the Arc de Triomphe, ascended Montmartre and went to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, walked through the Jewish quarter, ogled at the sex shops in the Moulin Rouge neighborhood, and of course ate at numerous cafés and restaurants.

I think one of my favorite parts of the trip was taking a day trip to Versailles. That place is utterly unbelievable. The sheer size of the palace and its grounds are mind-boggling. It is no wonder that the French lower class revolted when they did. While millions barely survived in terrible living conditions, a select few royals and other nobles lived and dined and slept in pure wealth and lavishness. The most impressive part of Versailles is probably its gardens and the other properties. On the grounds alone sit the Palace of Versailles, two summer homes for the royal family, a working farm and private hamlet for Marie Antoinette, and various other cottages and small buildings. In addition, there are miles of footpaths and acres of gardens, fountains, and forest. The entire property is really unbelievable.

In front of the front courtyard of the Palace

Panorama of the Queen's Hamlet at Versailles

On our last night in Paris, we grabbed bottles of wine and went and sat underneath the Eiffel Tower. It was directly above is, all lit up and towering over the city. We just sat and talked, and every hour on the hour between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. the tower would begin to scintillate, hundreds of strobe lights pulsating to make the tower look like a disco ball. That night was particularly special because none of us could believe we were sitting where we were sitting -- under the Eiffel Tower in France on a warm spring night, bottles of red wine in hand (2 euros in France, probably 20 dollars in the U.S.) and almost not a care in the world. Because we missed the last metro and last bus back to our hotel, we walked along the Seine all the way back -- a 4.5 mile trek that took us just about 2 hours. It was one of the most fun nights I've had in France.

Dusk view down the Champs-Elysées

Since going to Paris, things have been going well in Toulouse. I finished up my classes and am now on my spring vacation. We took a group Dickinson trip to Marseille last weekend (blog post coming soon) and I am heading to Belgium today to meet my dad for a beer festival. After that, I plan on going to Bologna, Italy, hosting my mom in Toulouse, taking my final exams at the university, going to see my beautiful Rachel in Spain, visiting a relative in Montpelier, and then heading back to the U.S. on June 2! Life could be worse.

To bring you out, a short video of a classic French sidewalk jazz group, on a bridge over the Seine. Enjoy!