Paris, Parents, Perfection!

It has been quite a great past few weeks for this girl from the suburbs of Kansas City! After finishing my long weekend in Lisbon Portugal with my program, I flew Tuesday afternoon to Paris, France to reunite with my parents after two months of not seeing them! After finishing all of my midterms, I was MORE than thrilled at the idea of hopping on a plane, and heading to Paris (literally a dream) and meeting up with my parents on the other side! ( Now... although my dream DID come true, there was a certain person who tried to crush my dream.. and her name is Sandy.. Hurricane Sandy came rollin’ in Monday morning and devastated the East coast. Thanks to the amazing technology that we now have, the ability to predict this storm allowed my parents to change their flight to a day earlier out of Philadelphia. We all feel so blessed that they were on the last international flight out of Philadelphia before the airport closed for several days. They were re-routed and their travel time was more than double what was expected, and they lost my mom’s luggage, but it was all worth it in the end! Now back to the good stuff!)

I landed in France and immediately knew I was not in Kansas anymore...or Spain! It was the first time that I have ever entered a country where I didn’t speak at least some of the language (a bit intimidating!) Fortunately, my parents good friend Nick who lives in Paris, gave me very specific instructions on how to get from the airport to our meeting spot. My parents were flying into a different airport, and Nick had agreed to pick me up from the train station first and drive me to their airport so we could reunite there. I arrived at my final destination after following a sheet of directions exactly, and I sat on the platform of what I later learned was the busiest metro stop in Paris, observing the new culture around me. After thirty minutes of nervously waiting, I found Nick and we headed to pick up my parents. When I got to the airport terminal and saw my mom and dad, it was nothing shy of a scene from the movies (I ran towards them and my mom started crying (those of you who know my mom know this is nothing out of ordinary!)) 

Reunited & it feels sooo good!!!!

We were then lucky enough to be taken on a guided night tour of the city of Paris, by our local guide, Nick. Seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time was probably the highlight of my entire trip (even though I saw it every day after that as well!) There is something magical about seeing everything for the first time at night, when the whole city is lit up. We also saw the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre Dame Cathedral. (We were sure to repeat all of these visits the next day to see them in the sunlight as well!) 

First sighting!!!

After a lovely tour, we settled into Nick’s flat for and were greeted by the lovely aroma of beef bourguignon on the stove (doesn’t get too much more French than that!) followed by french bread, cheese, and wine! We had a lovely dinner and catch up session, and finally decided to call it a night around 3. 

The next morning turned out to be our only sunny day  in Paris and we wanted to make the most of it! Although we planned to stay in Nick’s house for the entire weekend, Nick had to leave for London to help his mom on Thur. morning so we also wanted our experience Parisian to show us all he could in the limited time we had with him! So, after enjoying a lovely breakfast of French croissants we set out for our walking tour of Paris. We passed all the great monuments and everything looked beautiful in the sunlight. We stopped to grab lunch (much earlier than Spain’s almuerzo (lunch)) at one of Nick’s favorite places and it certainly didn’t disappoint! 

French lunch- yumm!!!

We made a quick pit-stop to do some shopping for my poor mom whose entire bag of luggage was lost (poor us.. we HAD to go shopping in Paris (;  Although we didn’t enter the museum,we spent quite some time in the Louvre both inside and out snapping photos and enjoying the view. We walked along the memorial for Princess Diana and looked at the bridge where she was killed. Although it was a very sad sight, it was also very interesting to see. We ended our day-long walking tour at the Eiffel tour at sunset, from the opposite side than the night before. We were just in time to see the light show that they put on every hour after dark where the tower sparkles for around ten minutes.  

Cold and exhausted we headed to Nick’s neighborhood to his local grocery store. We grabbed what we needed to make dinner and then headed to what would be come our favorite stop for the weekend, a local bakery for some fresh bread. We headed back to his house and prepared a delicious French meal and reflected on our day and days ahead. 

The next morning very early, Nick left for London, leaving my parents and I to fend for ourselves in the city of love. Fortunately, unlike my mom and I’s spanish, my dad chose to study French in high school and so he was able to communicate...or so we thought ha! We planned to head to Versailles for the day which was about a 40 minute train ride out of the city. We left behind a rainy Paris for a beautiful sunny day in city of Versailles. We spent hours walking through the beautiful rooms with our audio guides to give us more specifics of what we were looking at. ALthough the rooms, tapestry and furniture displayed were breathtaking, my favorite part by far was the outside of the palace. The flowing gardens complete with mini ponds, wildlife, statues, and row boats transported me to a fantasy world that I never wanted to leave! Despite the frigid fall air, we walked all around the gardens and only left when the palace was closing. It is certainly a memory I will never forget. 

Marie Antoinette's bedroom

A view from outside the palace

No photoshop necessary.. beautiful swan beautiful palace

After many many many issues purchasing our tickets back home due to technical issues, we finally arrived back at Nick’s house and had a nice dinner to warm us up. It was so nice of Nick to let us stay in his house at all, let alone just the three of us. It was special however for me to be able to catch up with them just us, as communication while I have been abroad has certainly been limited. After dinner, dishes, and some hot chocolate we called it a night.

The next morning was very cold and rainy and it took us a longer time to “rise” without the shine. We planned to spend the morning (which turned into early afternoon) at Musee d’Orsay, the famous sculptures and impressionist museum in Paris. Once we arrived to the museum in the pouring rain, we stood outside in line for over an hour just to get in the museum to purchase tickets. Although I was reluctant to wait outside in the rain so long, I can honestly say it was worth the late. Entering the museum and seeing original paintings that I have seen and learned about all by artists such as Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh was certainly an out-of-body experience. Although one could easily spend an entire week just going through the enormous museum, we only spent a few hours so we could continue on with our last day in Paris. 

From the museum we rushed (at my request) to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. My parents kindly obliged as they both had already done this 100% touristy activity before... but I could not leave Paris without this under my belt! We arrived around 6:00 (it gets dark around 6:30) and so we were able to see the tower up close in both the light and all lit up.  Once we reached the middle level (we didn’t wait the extra hour and a half to reach the absolute top) we admired the city for which we had thoroughly explored. It was frigid and windy but we bared the cold for pictures and the memory!

After we came down the elevator of the tower, we headed to the metro station to race to do some shopping. Unfortunately, when we arrived in the shopping district we had so carefully planned for all day, everything was closing. We accepted our fate and headed for a bite to eat. We decided to head back towards Nick’s neighborhood just so we wouldn’t get lost and because it was late and we had an early flight to catch to head back to Sevilla! Once we finally sat down at a restaurant, we all felt lost. We had trouble understanding what the menu said, what the waiter asked, and how in the world to ask for what we wanted! The couple at the table next to us must have sensed our uncertainness, and graciously offered to help us (they spoke both French and English.) We started up a conversation with them and we ended up exchanging emails and phone numbers - proof that there are some nice people in France! (just wait..) We enjoyed a nice dinner and headed back for the evening to pack up our things and clean up a bit.

The next morning at the crack of dawn, we headed for the airport via the metro. My Dad had spoken with Nick and had our travel plans all mapped out... it was foolproof...or so we thought! We got through our first train change and on to the next. I saw a sign for the airport we were going to and so I stopped my dad from the direction he was headed. We were all confused as the directions in the station were different from that of the map. We followed the signs and continued on our way. For the next hour and a half we continued to hop on and off of trains completely baffled by where we were and what we had done wrong.. Along the way we went up to countless people asking for help (in french, English, and spanish) and nearly no one was willing/knowledgeable enough to help us. With no moments to spare, we finally realized we were on the right train just that it would take a bit longer than the one we had initially wanted to be on. We arrived to our gate as the plane was boarding and sat down with a sigh of relief that we had made it and that we were all safely on our way to Sevilla!

My next entry I will fill you in on the fabulous week we spent together in my turf!

As always, thanks for reading!

Con Amor

Catie