The Time People Said "Joyeux Anniversaire!"

Today marked my birthday, but we also heard the news about the Supreme Court ruling in support of same-sex marriage. What a big day!

Our class trip began at 9 a.m. with a bus ride to Chartres, a town 50 km south of Paris. It was supposed to be a hot day in Paris, so we were glad to have slightly less heat there. Teo took us to Chartres to show us the cathedral, which he said was built as a monument to Mary. Since it's the only cathedral built within one generation (25 years), he said it's a perfect example of gothic architecture because new adornments were not added as years passed. It was a lot simpler than Notre Dame but still had the rose windows to let in light.

The inside was simply gorgeous. Stained glass panels all around, and huge arches reaching to the ceiling. I was really interested to see that different parts of the walls were different colors - some dirtier and darker than others, while the center was a pristine white. Teo said it just depends on the cleaning; people have cleaned the main hallway around the altar, but some side walls were blackened from pollution and smoke over the years (it's not a shadow!).

He told us the way we see medieval churches and buildings now is not how they saw them, because they were painted with bright colors all over, and were made of white limestone typically. Now the paint as worn off and we see a grayish stone color. I can't imagine the Chartres cathedral all painted in color - it was huge with many details.

For lunch, we found a café called Le Serpente where I ordered ravioli and creme brûlée - I think this was my first official dessert from a restaurant and it was, of course, crunchy on top and custardy below. One of my friends had been wanting French onion soup for a while because, well it's France, and she finally found some there.

For our afternoon walk, we toured the small town of Chartres, which is a medieval village with buildings that are 700 years old. They were built of wooden beams and reminded me of Sleeping Beauty's house. One especially pretty part was a river that flowed through the town under small bridges.

Back at our hotel, we rested for a couple hours before going to dinner. I went with two girls to an Italian place we found on Yelp called Gusto Italia. Teo jokingly shook his head at us for choosing Italian in France, but hey it's the closest I've ever been to Italy!
And the restaurant was actually perfect - it was a very cozy place near the Eiffel Tower with very friendly employees. It was really funny because we had some trilingual thing going on, where we speak broken French and they know we're English so they speak broken English, but then the menu items were in Italian and the employees would say some things in Italian. It was complicated but humorous.
We all three ordered specials - they had shrimp dishes and I had risotto 4 fromage. It was very amazing and rich and cheesy. Their seafood meals were very flavorful, too, which was a nice change from simplistic, classic French food. We aren't complaining, but it was good to change it up - and the employee brought us a free grilled veggie entree.

Though tiny little bugs came out at dusk, we all really liked this restaurant and agreed it was our favorite so far. It started to sprinkle a bit, but felt good in the humid air.
For dessert, we shared a nutella tiramisu because the employee recommended it. It was deliciously soft and creamy and not too overpowering.

Following Parisian customs, we'd eaten dinner from 8 to 10:30 p.m. so it was finally beginning to get dark when we left. From there, we just walked around Paris a bit to see the city of lights at night. We passed by the lit up Eiffel Tower and decided to take the metro to Bastille to see it in the evening. There were a lot of cafés and bars open with beautiful lights, but we didn't stay in the area long before coming back.
One thing I like about Paris is how active it is at night because the sun sets so late, at least in the summer. Everyone is always walking along the river or in a park at 11 p.m., which makes the city seem more alive.

The Time Art History Was Useful

Today our walk and lecture were integrated, so at 10 a.m. we took the metro to Bastille. A statue marked the place where the revolutionaries stormed during the French revolution.

This area still has many furniture stores today. Teo also said that Bastille is a really hip, young area of Paris with a lot of nightlife. I think it's interesting that each neighborhood of the city has its own flavor or signature. Bastille was a bit more modern than the other neighborhoods, which is still less modern than American cities. It just seemed a little more metropolitan and new. 

For lunch, we stopped at a daily market that, like the market by our hotel, blew my mind. It was blocks of flowers like peonies and fruits like cherries and peaches. An inside portion contained a seafood market and cheeses and milk and other animal products. It's pretty strange to see a huge counter of ice with crabs and oysters and scallops. 

We decided to get cheese breads at the bakery nearby, because we couldn't cook the seafood obviously. I had a ficelle lardon that the baker warmed up - she was very friendly to us and let us use her bathroom in the back. Even though it was so tiny that my legs touched the door and we didn't know how to flush it, we were grateful that she was so nice to us. I also found pleasure in watching her regular customers come in and speak French to her, as she cut a slice off a huge loaf of ciabatta or tossed them a baguette. 

The next part of our walk was in a park that was transformed from old railroad tracks, so it was suspended above the city as a long path with plants all around. A clever way to add nature to a city, in my opinion. 

The last thing on our sweltering walk (it was in the 80s I believe!), was the train station Gare de Lyon. Teo said around the 1800s, the train stations were like palaces or often nicer. This was true - I could've sworn the inside was in a movie at some point, because of the architecture and high ceilings and trains lined up ready to take off. Like many parts of Paris, the picture doesn't do it justice. 

By peeping into a restaurant inside the station, we spotted a painted ceiling with gold adornments. 

After the station, we were on our own for the afternoon and evening. A group planned to go to Musee D'Orsay so we took the metro and dragged ourselves in the heat through the Louvre's exterior, across the river, to the D'Orsay museum. The museum, it turns out, is also inside an old train station with a huge clock watching over the sculptures below. Each floor has a different era or artist, so we split up to prioritize the ones we wanted to see. 

My favorite floor (which was five rooms) was the impressionist, maybe because those are the ones I learned about in modern art class fall quarter. Nonetheless, it was amazing to see Cezanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Gauguin and Courbet, who were some of the main artists from the class. I loved witnessing their unique styles as they progressed through time. 

It's unfortunate that we'd been walking for four hours prior, because my feet hurt so bad while I was looking at the museum. We stayed for two hours - of course we didn't see everything but I'd say I saw a lot and everything I really wanted to see. At the end, I walked around fiercely trying to find Olympia and finally found the last painting on my mental list. 

I was also surprised to see how big these paintings were! In my class, we didn't know the scale, but in person many of the most famous ones were the size of a wall, like Manet's Luncheon on the Grass.    

For dinner, we stopped at a nearby cafe, away from the tourist areas. The four of us ordered salads because we needed some vegetables and had just nibbled breads for lunch. They were actually good - mine had ham and swiss cheese on it too. Oh, and I almost forgot - we stopped at Amorino's for flower-shaped gelato down rue du Commerce.

The Time of Tea Time

The farmers market made another appearance today, which means delicious apple juice, an apple turnover and cherry tomatoes for breakfast. We had lecture in the Champ de Mars in the shadow of the Tour Eiffel about the cultural renaissance, as a puppy played fetch with a stick nearby.
A group decided to get an early lunch at a sandwich shop around the corner from the hotel, where Teo recommended a combo of a sandwich, dessert and drink for 7,00 euros. I had the best ham and cheese panini on a baguette, a pear tart and a soda called Oasis tropical. The panini was the best I've ever had - not classic American with the grill marks and flat ingredients pressed inside; instead, it's a warmed roll with gooey cheese of the best flavor. I can't place the taste, maybe it's just really good mozzarella.

The goal of our afternoon was to go to Sainte Chapelle to see the stained glass windows, but after we took the metro, we saw that it was closed until 2:15 and we had class at 3. We thought we would come back and go for half an hour. A couple girls wanted to go to a stationary shop "across the street" then get in line for Sainte Chapelle, but this store ended up being a mile away across the entire neighborhood. So, we spent 30 minutes being dragged to this bookstore where they bought journals that are also sold at the Monoprix next to the hotel. And by then it was too late to see the church because a huge line already formed at Sainte Chapelle. Instead, those girls left and a couple of us broke off to just explore outside Notre Dame so the time wasn't completely wasted. We decided not to do things in big groups anymore.

On our class walk, we explored more rues (streets). One was Hemingway's house from the 1920s, which required an uphill trek in the sun to reach. I noticed the little shutters of his little building. I love that all the buildings in Paris are so close together, so walls touch and create weird overlaps - you could jump roof to roof I bet.

Since today's "theme" if you will was Roman ruins, we also saw a "treat" as Teo called it - the ruins of a gladiator ring where lions used to fight. Now it's used as a play area for children's soccer and such.  

Another stop was at Teo's old apartment, when he lived here for two months one summer. The doors of Paris, let me tell you, are beautiful. Every building is practically an apartment and practically every apartment has a grand, high door. They're blue or classic wooden or intricate iron, for example. He opened the door to his apartment and we got to walk around the courtyard - a charming and beautiful villa area that reminded me of a tropical vacation - completely silent and fragrant. The courtyards of Paris might just be my favorite element. 

The final stop on the tour was the botanical gardens, which also host buildings that Teo said contain fossils in a history museum. 

The grounds of the garden were gorgeous and pleasant, like walking through a Jane Austen set. I've talked with other students and we all agree that walking around Paris feels like walking on a movie set because the architecture is so perfect and the ground is sometimes that light sandy gravel like in Western films. 

There was a nearby mosque and Teo said the adjoining café is good, so some of us stopped to have some mint tea and desserts in the afternoon. It was 6,00 euros for the best mint tea I've had, a pistachio turkish delight and a moon-shaped powdered sugar cookie that the employee recommended when I asked. I appreciated the atmosphere for its fairy garden meets desert vibe.

Dinner is becoming a struggle as we continually cannot decide where to go because many of the cafés have similar menu items - salad, bread items, and steaks. On the other hand, I feel bad eating any food besides Parisian food here because I should take advantage of it. But I can only eat bread for so long. One girl tried a caprese entree, and I had duck and green beans which was a much-needed break from carbohydrates.

The Time of Ice Cream and Old Books

Bonjour! This morning, we began lecture in the courtyard outside our hotel to learn about the division of Germany and France among kings. At noon, we were on our own for lunch, so a few of us went to Le Commerce Café and shared penne carbonara (a cream sauce with ham and a raw egg yolk) and a tuna pizza. Though we'd brought notebooks and books to read at the café, we ended up just leaving to walk around the streets.

One of the girls is making a fashion blog with pictures of Paris street fashion, so we approached people and tried to introduce ourselves in French, compliment their outfit and then ask to take a picture for a project du UCLA. Their reactions were so funny, but they loved it! One girl was genuinely completely shocked and surprised to be asked, one older woman was very flattered, and one young woman was super friendly and talked to us (well, to one classmate who learned French in high school). This woman worked at a fashion boutique so she was very touched and told us that her fiancee lives in LA. She only spoke French because she said her English was too poor to speak to us.

At 3 p.m. we left for our daily walk - a long one. I've come to realize that the walks are like personal guided tours that Teo has created using his Parisian expertise. He points out amazing places, but since we have a huge group it's not feasible to actually go there, so we walk by and are encouraged to come back to explore further on our own. It's tempting not being able to go inside, but I'm very glad we are told which places are tourist traps and which are truly worthwhile. 

The metro left us at Odeon once again, and we walked for four hours. Many streets previously housed authors and poets, like Sylvia Beach, and we saw a route that Hemingway often took to Gertrude Stein's house. Our group, with some lagging behind, ventured into Luxembourg Gardens to see where the Parisians relax on Sunday afternoon. The back of the Senate building is across from a dark koi fountain. The rest of the park is lined with paths, statues, flowers, children and small metal café tables for resting. It was filled with jolly people.

We were allotted 15 minutes to spend inside a classic church called St. Sulpice, adorned on the outside with huge columns. Inside, we saw stained glass, high domed ceilings, candles at altars and wicker chairs littering the floor. 

Teo took us to his favorite courtyard in Paris, Place de Furstenberg, which isn't famous or grand or anything, but it's a cute, tiny nook that is quiet. Well, today there were boys playing soccer there, but normally it's a little courtyard the size of our hotel room with a lamppost and buildings all around. I love that the buildings are only ever six stories high, because it makes it feel homey rather than like a skyscraper city. 

Finally, we walked by Shakespeare and Co. and Notre Dame. The latter is insanely impressive, and I can't imagine it being built nowadays. We saw the arches and the gargoyles and the pointy peaks piece the sky. Teo said the gargoyles were built to serve the purpose of ejecting water away from the building through their mouths. 

Some classmates and I are planning to return to actually go inside. 

Teo left us at Berthillon across the river, where he said they sell the best ice cream in Paris. So we all got in line, filling the sidewalk and attracting other tourists who saw the line and joined too. I ordered a scoop of pistache and one of caramel beurre sale for 5,00 euros. While it was a little expensive, it was very worth it. Instead of icy like American ice cream, it was so soft and smooth and creamy. Although I don't usually like pistachio, I ordered it because the employee said it was the best - and it was! YUM.

After sitting on a ledge to eat our cones, a group of us went back to Shakespeare and Co. to browse around. It's quite small and crowded, and many of the downstairs books can be bought in America. There are many classics and a whole Shakespeare section of course. Upstairs, there are old books with dusty spines and crammed couches to read. 

Once we arrived back in our neighborhood, we wanted to get dinner. After looking online, we saw an Indian restaurant that looked good to a lot of the students who loved Indian food, so we went out to try to find it. We ended up not being able to find it, but we found another Indian place that was good. I had butter chicken with rice because I don't have Indian food often and it's pretty simple. 

Humorously, the employees thought we were British because they heard us speaking English. I guess, similar to how we can't tell French accents apart, they can't tell English accents apart but it just sounds like the language. 

While strolling back to the hotel, we spontaneously decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower to watch the lights. It's very pretty at night, and there are tons of picnickers on the lawn. You can see some strange people there, like stupid tourists with selfie sticks in the middle of the street, or this one nice French woman with her husband who said it was her birthday and offered us her leftover champagne because she couldn't finish it and was leaving. Though we didn't drink it, she was very nice to us.

The Time of the Rain Misadventure

Today we began with a lecture in an outdoor gazebo again, but we only had about an hour before lunch. Each day Monday through Wednesday, Teo is taking 13 students to a formal lunch and I went today. Since Teo knew the employees, I deduced that he must frequent the restaurant, which had a long wooden table set in a darkened room with red curtains. The way we ordered was by each choosing one entree (which I learned is an appetizer because it means "enter"), one main plate and one dessert. Teo was very insistent in teaching us to say, "Bonjour madame. Sil vous plait je voudrais..." when we order, to always be polite.

Out of entrees that included a poached egg, escargot, and melon and ham, I chose the plat du jour - ravioli.  The mini raviolis came baked in a little ceramic dish and supposedly were filled with cheese, but it was green and thus perhaps spinach too. The entree ended up being my favorite portion, because the delicious pastas were bathed in a cream sauce, as in pure cream, with almost burnt cheese on top. They were cute pillows of goodness.

The main plat was a choice between items like duck, steak, poisson du jour (fish of the day), etc. I chose the steak because the day before, Teo told us that we have to try it the Parisian way, which means less cooked. He said there are three ways to cook French steak: bleu, rare and mal cuit (badly cooked aka well done). I ordered it cooked medium, knowing it would be mostly pink because I wanted to try it less cooked than normal. Some people ordered medium-well or well done, but Teo translated it jokingly as "mal cuit" to the waitress, who knew what that meant and laughed. 

I never understood when people say meat can melt in your mouth, but this steak did because it was soft. The sauce was really good as well, maybe like worcestershire sauce or gravy. Even the potato slices were soft with a smokey taste.   

 A few dessert options were a cheese plate, fruit crumble, and mine: moelleaux au chocolat. I didn't even know what it was when I ordered, but I wanted chocolate. It ended up being like a lava cake, with a soft center like bread pudding. The drizzles were berry and vanilla.

Since I've gotten used to only eating bread for meals, this made me extremely full. I had a café creme afterwards, but this was the most food I've eaten in a meal in a while, maybe because it was rich or because of my recent habit of simpler foods.
It was nice to eat this meal in courses and talk to the other students, but there were definitely several times when I noticed how loud some of the girls were laughing or talking. It's sometimes embarrassing when we just go with our habits instead of being mindful of the customs here.

At 3 p.m. we began our walking tour of the day, taking the metro to Odeon near the 6th arrondissement I believe. He said the center is part of the older, original part of France. We walked down narrow cobblestone streets where revolutionaries met. The Café Procope, as he pointed out, is the oldest restaurant in Paris, where Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson would eat. It's still in business too! The street reminded me of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter.

I really enjoyed thinking about the historical meaning of the buildings that are older than the entire United States and which people walked where I was. Also on the tour was the house in which Picasso painted Guernica, covered by a huge iron gate.

At one point, we peered across to where the Lock Bridge had been recently taken down, as some sort of red and white material covered the side of the bridge. I'd always thought that the Lock Bridge was just a single, packed bridge, but instead there are locks on almost every single bridge in Paris. Every time we cross a bridge, there are locks attached.

Some locks are cutely heart-shaped or have French flags painted on, but others are truly ugly with purple gym lockers with number codes. Teo commented that this trend developed a few years ago and called it truly heinous and ugly because it obstructs views through the rails and he hates it.

While we were looking at Place Dolphine, it began to pour rain so we stopped under some trees but it didn't stop. It had been very drizzly but now we were soaking even with umbrellas, so we kind of shortened the tour and will continue tomorrow. We stopped just past the Saint Chapelle gates and the oldest clock in Paris.

From there, a few girls and I walked around the same neighborhood on our own, so we could enjoy it at our pace and without a loud group of students. The oldest and most beautiful buildings merely housed little boutiques, like coffee bean shops, jewelry stores, and a book store where we bought some vintage postcards. It felt like a genuine experience speaking basic polite French to the employees and walking around, hair and shoes soaking wet, on this misadventure.

We went into two chocolate shops as well, with beautiful desserts and macarons and pralines and fudge and chocolate shaped like the Eiffel Tower or Sardines or Turtles. We discovered that many of these local French employees are extremely friendly when you try to speak in French, except it can get awkward if they reply in French and I don't understand.

 Eventually we wandered through the maze of side streets and cobblestone and settled at a café on a street corner. Poking out from behind the red awning, we watched the rain fall on the pavement as we sipped café, tea or chocolat chaud.

The Time We Were Tourists

Teo says we aren't tourists, because we will become Parisians. Since we don't visit many tourist locales in class, some of us decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe ourselves. It was easy on the metro, as we emerged from the tunnels to this huge looming archway. I had seen pictures of it but none of them can convey the huge scale of this piece of architecture. It's enormous. 

What's more, the cars racing by are essentially in a six-lane roundabout but with no lights, signs, or lane markings - they just wait for each other and weave in and out of each other's paths. A tunnel takes you under the busy street and right below the Arc, where you can see a fire and flowers that pay tribute to soldiers, and get a more up-close look at the detailed structure.
From there, we bought a ticket to walk up the many flights of spiral staircases; it was a calf workout but we eventually made it to the top. The view is certainly worth the pain: you can see all of Paris in every direction.
In America, we never plan out cities so that major roads will all intersect in a spoke-like pattern, leading to a giant archway in the middle. It was astonishing to see the stone roads all connect to the Arc, and seeing rooftop after eclectic rooftop and iron shutters and ivy on buildings. Of course, the Tour Eiffel stands above it all. It's like the Empire State Building view but better because everything seems better in France.

The hike back down was much easier, and some girls left to go rest at the hotel. I stayed with a friend to people-watch across the street near the Champs Elysees. They're mostly tourists striking weird poses in front of the Arc, like ballet poses or peace signs or pretending to pinch it. The two of us strolled down the shopping street but it was just filled with tourists, and I decided it was the Times Square of Paris, but older. 

At 7:15 p.m. the group met in the hotel to go on a picnic in front of the Tour Eiffel to celebrate the holiday today. The lawn was packed with picnicking groups like us. Teo and his wife Scarlett distributed baguettes, sausages, salami slices, chicken, brie cheese, bleu brie, and some soft cheese that was either fig/nut or chive and tasted just like flavored cream cheese. We also had small pickles, cherry tomatoes, oranges, cherries, and chocolate cookies. 

At about 9:30 we left for Teo's surprise: a boat ride along the Seine! It began at 10 p.m. when it is still light in Paris. We piled into this open-topped boat and were sprayed by mist as we sailed along, watching the water splash against the cement canals. There are bridges everywhere whose decorated lights began to shine as the sun set. The boat took us past many famous buildings of Paris like Notre Dame, the Louve, and many we didn't yet recognize though every building lining the radiant water was old and classic. 

So many of the passengers just snapped photos the entire time, but I've really been trying to limit myself on photos so that I can just enjoy the atmosphere in the moment. I loved dusk, watching lights beam on as the sun set across the water. People were sitting on the edge of the canal, singing and dancing and shouting and eating and drinking to music, even though it was 10 p.m.

By the time we got back, we were absolutely freezing cold from the boat, but the Tour Eiffel was lit up and began to sparkle at 11 p.m. on the dot. 

Walking home, I got lost with a couple girls as we found the metro rail that runs down our street, but we weren't sure if the hotel was up or down so we walked to wrong way and eventually took the metro back at midnight. 

Today, we began to learn how to be Parisians, but we also let ourselves be tourists for a day to sight see some of the many must-dos of the city.