The Time Fireworks Illuminated the Tour Eiffel

It's time to update you all on Bastille Day on July 14th!

We spent the morning packing, though at noon my class walked to the nearby park with a gazebo down Rue de Commerce, the location of our first lecture, to have a picnic lunch. As we've been doing all month, we carried baguettes and fruits and cheeses and cold meats (like a small round sausage with spots of white fat inside).

It was a kind of sad goodbye because this was our last official event as a class. I can't believe it's been a month because it feels like we just got here. On the other side, however, I do feel like I got a full taste of Paris and I'm feeling alright to come back.

In the afternoon, I went with one girl to Berthillon one more time to get ice cream by the Seine near Notre Dame. This might be one of my favorite areas of Paris because it's just so quintessentially iconic with the towers of the cathedral and people painting by the river and those hideous love locks and street performers playing accordion music.

We waited in line at Berthillon on the Ile de St. Louis. I got chocolate and pistachio; this time the chocolate seemed darker and more bitter than before, but the textures were just so good.  I spoke French to an employee to order my cone, but I overheard the tourists after me in line trying to talk to her and the other employee told them she doesn't speak English. The annoying tourists then said, "Oh, sorry. Can we have blackberry?" to the girl they just found out speaks no English. So stupid. However, I was pleased that I managed to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English and only French.

Sitting by the river, we licked our last best ice creams and said bye to the wonderful Seine. The ride back was our last time on the metro, so we said bye to that too. The metro had been so convenient, as we finally got the hang of it and knew which lines to take in which directions to get to most common places, often without looking at the maps.

Before we returned to the hotel, we stopped at Monoprix to get food for Bastille Day like baguettes and pasta salad and peaches and soda. Some of the people on our program (including me) met with Teo and Ryan at about 5:30 for us to go to the Champs de Mars to claim a spot for the firework show tonight.

I didn't really see any celebrating in Paris at all before the firework show. There were no streets lined with French flags, no shouting, no music. I'd heard about a parade on the Champs Elysées, but it looked like a completely regular day in Paris everywhere.  Except at the Champs de Mars.

We arrived and the entire lawn was already covered with people - every inch. This picture was taken at 5:30...for a show that begins at 10:30. It became infinitely more packed as the night progressed - the walkways were covered and you literally could not move from your spot.

We went to the righthand side and sat in the grass in a huge circle, with a view of the tower over the trees. The waiting game began, as we dug into the leftovers from our picnic lunch and the other items we brought. It was sunny, so we were sweaty and hot laying in the grass. Naturally, it reminded me of Fourth of July with happy people and summertime and celebrations, though there weren't any French flags or French clothing as there would be in America.

I spent an hour in line for the bathrooms at 8 pm and when I got back we played games with the group. Like "Most likely to..." and then we all point to that person. A lot of them were Paris-themed like "Most Likely to Get Lost in Paris" or "Most Likely to Offend a French Person" or "Most Likely to Buy the Most Souvenirs" or "Most Likely to Be Recognized as American on the Metro."

At about 10 p.m. it started getting a little dark so the tower lit up and sparkled every few minutes, taunting us before the show.

Finally, around 11 p.m. the show started. I went in with wrong expectations - I'd been told it was a 45 minute firework show by the Eiffel Tower. I was thinking, how can we watch fireworks explode for 45 minutes? No, no. This is a 45-minute synchronized light show and concert with fireworks shooting OFF OF the Eiffel Tower. There were like canons that shot the fireworks off in patterns and designs, with different songs featuring a theme and colors and new rhythms. Some of them were Mexican themed because the President was visiting, but they also played Skyfall from James Bond and the last song was the ET theme song.

 (Yay I got to see the Eiffel Tower lit up like the French flag. Goals.)

 It was just so much better than any other firework show I'd seen. Not even because it was by the Eiffel Tower, but literally just the fireworks were better - controlled. It seemed like they were painted into the sky, purposefully placed and designed, instead of just shot off in an uncontrolled circle pattern. They were like little fairies moving where you want them to go.

It was a firework concert. I loved it. I think it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

However, getting out was a nightmare. Someone said (aptly) that it reminds them of the stampede in "The Lion King." Imagine thousands of people packed like sardines, body to body, trying to get out of a park via only a couple entrances. In the dark. It was a flood of people trying to get to the metro. Our hotel is a 10 minute walk away, but the metro station is in front of our hotel so everyone was swarming down the Motte Piquet, with us in the crowd.

There were cars just stopped in the middle of the streets, some abandoned, because people covered every inch of the roads and sidewalks. It took us so long to get back, navigating the crowds and trying to stick together with five others.

At one point, an ambulance had to get through the road, and we all had to cram together super tight to make a path on the sidewalks. I was completely jammed up against a parked car, smashed.

From the hotel room, I looked out at the metro stop to see the hoards of people.

It was amazing to see how Bastille Day is celebrated in France. A perfect last night to watch the Eiffel Tower for six hours one last time, with a great show and two picnics in one day.

It feels weird to be done now, because I feel like I've been here for a while but at the same time, no time at all has passed. I can't comprehend what I was thinking or how I was before I came to Europe, because now it feels like something I can't imagine myself without. What would I have done if I wasn't here? I've been packing periodically yesterday and today, and I leave tomorrow at 10 a.m from the hotel. It's been an adventurous month - I will post my concluding thoughts later once I've had time to digest my experience. For now, I leave you with "Bonne Fête!"

The Time We Danced in a Fire Station

I started this morning off right with a croissant and pear juice that tasted thick like liquefied pieces of fruit.

In the morning, our long walk took us to the outskirts of Paris - much different from the rest of the city in that it is more diverse, has higher buildings and frankly is not as nice. It looks like the outskirts of any other city with little hints of Paris. However, we stopped at a park with mural art and Teo said this is the best view of Paris because you can see all the monuments - though it seemed too far away to me.

It was a strange neighborhood and smelled pretty bad. The buildings were also higher than the six-story limit in central Paris, so it didn't have the same quaint appeal. Eventually we strolled down a few residential alleys that were very small and charming with flowers all around.

(An aristocat... kidding)

For lunch, we had brought sandwiches (rustic ham and cheese for me) to eat in a huge park with tall trees and a stone structure in the center. However, The Butte Chaumont Park was hilly and muddy, so I actually slipped and got mud all over my leggings and some on my skirt. It was kind of miserable sitting in the wet grass on a hill, but I guess it's a good thing that one of my worst moments in Paris was just getting a little dirty.

At the end of our walk, I went back to the hotel to change and got dessert at a bakery across from our hotel with a lime green storefront. The tricolore is a tiered chocolate cream dessert (with white, milk and dark chocolate) with a single raspberry on top that gave it so much flavor (I wish there were more framboises).

I had an early dinner at the café in the movie Amelie, which we'd passed by in a previous walk. Two girls came along to Cafe des Deux Moulins - it was really cool because the inside looks exactly like the set of the film, except now there are Amelie posters inside and pesky film fanatics eating.

Eventually we felt awkward because we could tell it was a touristy place - what do you call it, like a cliche faux café like we were on a movie set. The menus were in English, no customers were really French,and we could just tell it wasn't a real French café. On the plus side, they did have frog legs on the menu, which is something I've wanted to try here! With so little time left in the program, I thought I wouldn't get a chance to try them, so I was overjoyed. I ordered them with French onion soup for my dinner - can you tell it's a tourist spot yet?

One person was wearing an LA baseball hat, one person was holding a selfie stick... it was bad for us Parisians. I did enjoy the frog legs - they did indeed taste like chicken as I'd been told. It was super difficult for me to get the meat off them, though, because they were like 70% tiny bones. The onion soup tasted alright, but I could tell it wasn't authentic French because the cheese wasn't as messy and over-the-top as it's supposed to be. The bread was somehow simultaneously chewy and soggy and impossible to cut with a spoon.
Like I said, kind of a fake French café but still decent. Bucket list: check.

Since tonight is the day before Bastille Day, there are "balls" at the fire stations, where the firemen and other public officers raise money for charity apparently by throwing a dance in their station down our street. Literally everyone in the entire neighborhood went from grandparents to kids, from 9 pm to 4 am. We went from like 11 pm to about 2 am and I was exhausted, but it was really fun to see all the French people celebrating their national holiday like our 4th of July.

The line was so long for people to get inside to the courtyard. There were booths for food and drinks, and a concert-like stage with a DJ and colored lights. Almost everyone was speaking French, so we knew it was actually something that local people did. The firemen and officers were working by collecting money and checking bags - it was a really cool cultural experience to see this community dance party with people of all ages.

The Time I Lived the Baguette Life

The baguette life is basically code for the Parisian life, if you ask me. Since yesterday was a free Sunday, I was able to go to the market and get nectarines, an avocado, a baguette and a grilled poulet (chicken) for my excursion. I felt very French because I spoke to everyone in French and got all my goodies like the French people. Next stop for me was Jardin du Luxembourg, like the French. Teo said they all go there on Sunday to relax, and I wanted to be (read: try being) Parisian.

I got other foods from my room, like my fig cheese and cucumbers. Thus, baguette in hand I got in the metro. I got off early to walk a few blocks down Boulevard Saint Michel to the entrance. It's almost like a carnival with the dusty gravel paths through the park, a giant fountain with kids racing boats adorned with national flags, and lots of flowers and trees (even palm trees). Green metal chairs are scattered all over the garden, so I picked one and ate a third of my baguette with cheese and some chicken and cucumber.

Every 20-30 minutes I would move locations to a new spot, all around the fountain and even in the wooded area to get different views. Then I would snack on something different as well, sometimes listening to music, sometimes reading "A Moveable Feast" and sometimes just watching everyone.

The senate building is in the garden, so I could hear it chime every 15 minutes and longer on the hour. At one point in my novel, Hemingway talked about walking through Luxembourg Gardens and I was right there! It was a very relaxing morning/afternoon to be there by myself, eating and watching Paris go by.

I lived that baguette life, eating a whole baguette in one day over a period of six hours (I finished it later in my room). I'm not talking about a cheap Subway foot-long or anything - I mean a full fledged arms-length baguette. By myself. One day. I feel like I should be crowned a true Parisian now.

Side note: I saw a magnet the other day that said "I heart Paris" but the "I" was a baguette, the heart was a heart, and Paris was an Eiffel Tower. I thought the heart should be the Louvre, so it would be "I Louvre Paris" ;)

Anyway, after my Luxembourg Sunday Parisian adventure, I stopped off at the Mabillon metro exit to try what Teo calls the best cupcakes in Paris. It's the definition of a hole in the wall - it's a one-person room with a tiny oning. You walk inside and there's no one there - the one-person room is empty except me. Then a woman opened a peep hole like how I imagine 1920s clubs, and saw me and opened a door to bring out a tiny tray with baby cupcakes on it. It felt mysterious.

I chose a little nutella cupcake and it was delicious indeed. Very moist and flavorful with thick whipped frosting and a hazelnut on top. I ate it quickly because it was so small, but while I was riding the metro back, I kept thinking about how good it was in retrospect. It was almost better to think about than actually experience.

Then I was a horribly unhealthy person and went to Berthillon ice cream too. Because what's cake without ice cream? Ugh so unhealthy, but I guess I'll tell myself this is like vacation? It started to rain near Saint Michel and Notre Dame when I was there, but once again I felt like a Parisian because all the tourists fled for cover, but I just walked over and got chocolate ice cream.

It's the best chocolate ice cream ever. Period. So rich and creamy and soft and melty. I just stood along the river eating my heart out; I loved this ice cream and this view. I can't get over either one.

On my way back, there was a guy and girl singing songs from the band Train with guitars in the metro. And they were really good so it made me smile. In the evening, I was going to meet up with Andrea, a girl I know at UCLA who is studying in London but visiting for the weekend. However, she ended up not getting wifi so we weren't able to meet. Instead, I made dinner in the hotel and went to get hot chocolate with two fellow students (one of whom went to Paris Disneyland today) at Le Piquet cafe down the street from us. I relish in sitting in cafes at night, with lights all around and people passing by. Again, very Parisian.

 (On the way back we passed by this giant recycling bin with tons of wine bottles and such outside. WOAH.)

We gathered up a few more students and went to sit by the Inception bridge as we call it (AKA Bir Hakeim bridge), to watch the tower lit up by the river. It's so beautiful, I could watch it forever and daydream.

Today I felt very Parisian, or at least I tried to be. Between my baguette, the garden, the rain, the café and the tower, it was a very casual and authentic day in Paris. I hope this is what it means to be Parisian because I enjoy the baguette life.

The Time We Were Hemingway

I had to miss the class walk on the day I went to London, so yesterday (Saturday) Teo repeated the walk for those of us who missed it. It was nice to be in a smaller group of about 12 students, so we all kept together.
The walk was sort of near Odeon, first to a church that was turned into a meeting club during the French Revolution.

 We walked by the University of Paris, Sorbonne, which Teo said is like the second tier after the doctor and engineering schools. He said the universities are super affordable, less than $400, but everyone has to take a huge merit exam that determines which school you go to. It's funny that in the US, our universities have some of the nicest architecture of the city; here, they just blend in.

 The pantheon is around the corner.

The next stop was the church where Clovis and Pascal are buried. It's called Saint-Étienne-du-Mont; we stopped inside but a mass was going on, so we couldn't venture to the back area. However, this church was actually unique from other churches, as it had gorgeous white spiral staircases in the center that reminded me of bone or shell skeletons.

Since we were near Hemingway's house by now, Teo told us that he used to walk down this street and drink and write in the cafés nearby. All 12 of us sat down in one of the cafés (Le Contrescarpe) and a third-party unaffiliated with UCLA (definitely not Teo) bought us all small beers so we could be like Hemingway. 

(Too bad I don't care for beer, so another student finished mine. It was a cool experience so now I can say I drank where Hemingway did.) 

We continued down Rue de Mouffe as the locals say, where all the stores were open for the market for lunch. This is where our walk ended, but several of us stayed around to look at the bakeries and jarred goods and cheese shops and seafood. I got a sandwich jambon from a popular bakery, which was amazing on very chewy and tough bread (but not stale, of course) with a good helping of mayo. 

The desserts looked so perfect and glazed, but I wasn't hungry enough for one. I was experimental, though, and tried some bits of fried dough with powdered sugar, which I thought would be like funnel cake but were more dense and crispy than chewy and soft. I didn't finish them - I didn't like the bland taste nor thick texture.

 In the afternoon, after a little resting time, I went to Pierre Herme to try their macarons - two of them, Jasmine and Chocolate/Passion Fruit, to be exact. Laduree and Pierre Herme are the best macarons in Paris, so you have to have a taste-off to see which you like better. 

The verdict: Pierre Herme! Though I liked Laduree's tea flavored macaron, the textures were better at Pierre Herme. They were slightly chewy with more quantity of creamy filling. The chocolate/passion fruit was my favorite of all (read: about five places) I tried in Paris - a little sour but rich and sweet too, like other fruit/chocolate combos you can get in the US.

 Tonight was our class's formal dinner, so we all went to a restaurant near the Seine by Notre Dame at 7:30. Walking from the metro to the restaurant was a gorgeous scene - the light an hour before sunset was golden. The beams that reflected off the river were blinding as we all walked in our semi-formal attire to fit into a 40-person room.

 After the entree of salad, we got our pre-ordered plat between vegetarian, fish and duck. The duck comes in a huge pot of four servings, bathed in a tasty prune sauce. There were chunks of plum skins and duck skins in the broth, oozing flavor. It was so tender and went well with the great, soft (almost soggy) French fries.

 It was hot in the room with 40 people and no air conditioning, but I still enjoyed the meal. I talked with two girls about how there are so many different personas of Paris when we hear the name. You can think of the Paris that's stated under the designer labels, or the Hemingway idyllic Paris, or the more city-like cosmopolitan Paris that we live in. The connotations when someone says "Paris" are so varied, but I want to understand them all. But I digress.

The chocolate tart dessert came with like a melted vanilla ice cream - some people thought it was too much chocolate but there is no such thing. We ended dinner with the story of how Teo met his wife, to conclude a wonderful night in the city.