Finally in France!

After a few well-spent days in London, I boarded my bus to Paris. I was sorry to say good-bye to London, but I was so ready to get to Paris and finally start immersing myself in the French culture. The bus ride wasn't bad--in fact, it went quite well, except for the fact that as someone who's a wee bit claustrophobic, I wasn't exactly overjoyed when I realized that to go through the Chunnel (English Channel Tunnel), the bus had to drive into a train car, and that train went through the tunnel. I would have felt just a little better if the bus had just driven through the Chunnel. Being trapped in a train car was a little bit tighter than I would have preferred. But, now I can say that I travelled through the Chunnel!!

The bus stop was at a station called Gallieni, which is on the outskirts of Paris. I took the metro through Paris to Gare du Nord, which was just down the street from my hostel. I hadn't had access to a printer, so all I had was the name and address of the hostel. I started walking down the street, suitcase in tow. I made it to a point where several roads intersected. I didn't know which way to go, since it seemed like the end of the street. So I turned around and walked the other way down the street, thinking that the hostel was on the other side of the street. Except at the other end of the street, I came to a dead end and a Best Western. At this point, it was misting--not actually raining, but there was just enough to coat the lenses of my glasses and my bags. After walking up and down the street a few times, I finally took shelter under an awning by a McDonalds to call my dad. I'd been looking up and down the street for the hostel, which was at number 25. Except I'd passed 25 at least five times, and there definitely wasn't a hostel there. So I called my dad and asked him to look up Smart Place Paris. It turns out the address was 28, not 25, and number 28 was just across the huge intersection that I hadn't crossed earlier. Knowing that, it was pretty easy to find.

It was such a relief to get to the hostel, to check in, and to finally set my bags down. Once I'd dropped my bags off, I grabbed my laptop and headed downstairs to use the wifi. I wanted to find a good place to eat and to figure out when other people from my school's group were getting to Paris. I knew that I wasn't the only one getting to Paris a day or two early, and I was eager to meet the people I'd be spending the next two months with. I got connected to the wifi, let my parents know that I was safely in Paris, and just as I started looking through posts on my group's facebook page, I got a message from one of the other girls from the group. She was staying at the same hostel as me, and she was already in Paris. In fact, she was actually sitting on the other side of the lobby. We were both hungry at that point, so we decided to head out to dinner.

The coolest lock on the lover's bridge.

Her name is Miranda, and we spent dinner just getting to know each other and talking about how excited we were to start improving our French. Looking back now, I can't help but laugh at how poor my French was--I couldn't even remember to say 'oui' instead of 'yeah,' and when the waiter asked me what kind of dressing I wanted and listed the types they offered, my first answer was 'oui!' After dinner, Miranda and I decided that we wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower to see the way it lights up every night.  We took the metro from Gare du Nord to Saint-Michel, but messed up the transfer that we should have taken from there to the metro stop by the Eiffel Tower. We decided that, even though it was pretty cold for a night late in May in Paris, we would walk along the Seine, since the Eiffel Tower stands right next to the river. We made it about halfway to the Eiffel Tower when it started lighting up, but it was still really impressive. Miranda had seen it before, but this was my first time seeing it, and it was a perfect image to kick off my stay in France.

It somehow worked out that Miranda and I were actually staying in the same room, so the next morning we were able to set out at the same time and go get breakfast. We knew that there would be another girl coming to the hostel around 11, so we went out for breakfast (crepes, of course!) and then headed back to the hostel to wait for the other girl. When we got back to the hostel, there weren't many people there, but we weren't sure if the blonde girl sitting by the window was from our group or not. After debating
for a few moments, Miranda just walked up to her and asked if she was from Penn State. As luck would have it, she was. Her name is Katie, and so our group had added one more. As we were talking, trying to figure out what all we wanted to do that day, a guy sitting in the corner said "I don't mean to interrupt, but did you say you're from Penn State?" So Miranda and I had gone back to the hostel to try to meet up with Katie, and we ended up leaving the hostel with a fourth person from our group--James. So when we left the hostel around noon that day, there were four of us heading out into the city.

 La Tour Eiffel from l'Arc de Triomphe.

We made our way to Saint-Michel and Notre Dame. We didn't stay there long because we knew we'd be returning the next day when the entire Penn State group met up. We stayed for maybe half an hour before we continued down the Seine toward the Louvre. On the way there, we passed Pont des Arts--better known as the lover's bridge, or that bridge where couples leave padlocks on the railings and fences. The railings were completely covered in locks--I don't know how anyone finds a place to put their own lock; although there were locks that were simply attached to other padlocks.

Since that bridge is right by the Louvre, we just crossed over to that next. There's so much artwork inside the Louvre that it wasn't worth it to go in for just a few hours; not with so much of the city left to see, so we continued on to see the obelisk and after that the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. We saw the obelisk and then took a stroll down the Champs-Elysees. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on the Champs-Elysees. After that, James left to go meet his friend Sean, who was arriving in Paris around lunch that day. Katie, Miranda and I continued down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. I'd visited the Arc last summer when I visited my friend Matthieu, but I hadn't climbed to the top. This time, the three of us bought our tickets and headed to the stairs.

The climb wasn't too bad, but the stairwell was long enough that my claustrophobia kicked in a bit (I should clarify that it's not claustrophobia exactly--it's not small spaces that make me nervous, it's spaces

Katie, Miranda, and me enjoying our crepes
by  the Eiffel Tower (while it was pouring).

where I can't see a way out). Anyway, the climb was long enough that I got fairly nervous. It was such a relief to get out on top of the Arc--fresh air and a wonderful view--it was well worth the climb. I personally thought that the view from the top of the Arc was better than the view from the Eiffel Tower--you can just see more of the city from the Arc, from a different perspective. I loved it. After we headed back down the stairwell, I felt a little shaky again, so Katie read about the Arc de Triomphe from her guidebook.

After visiting the Arc, the three of us made our way through the town to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was still colder than I would have preferred, and by the time we got to the Eiffel Tower, it was misting
again. We bought crepes from a stand across the street from the Eiffel Tower and ate while we hung out by the tower. Finally, we headed back to our hostel to see who else had arrived.

At the hostel we met a few more people; James had met his friend Sean, and we were also joined by a few other girls (I cannot remember everyone's names! It seems like it was just yesterday, but it was almost a month and a half ago already). With our newly increased numbers, we left the hostel to go see Sacre-Coeur, Moulin Rouge, and to go see the Eiffel Tower light up later that night. Sacre-Coeur was the first stop. We took the metro to the stop nearest it, then had to make our way through the streets until we reached the church. Since Sacre-Coeur's at the top of a hill, there's a lot of stairs to get to the top. But this was yet another example of a view well-worth the climb. The view from in front of Sacre-Coeur was quite impressive. I couldn't see the Eiffel Tower, because some trees grew in the way, but to see Paris spread out before me was a sight I'll remember for a long time.

Our little group of Penn State people at Sacre-Coeur!
(Thanks to Miranda for this and the pic with the crepes!)

After leaving Sacre-Coeur, we started looking for a place to eat dinner. We had every intention of finding a good French restaurant to eat at, but somehow we ended up in an Italian restaurant. So to start
my stay in France, I'd had a burger for dinner one night and pasta for dinner the next. It's a good thing I've had over a month to catch up on my traditional French meals! After dinner, the next stop for our group was Moulin Rouge. It was far to expensive to try to see a show there, but it's one of those sites that you just have to see at some point. We got our pictures outside, and then went into a supermarket down the street to buy some champagne to pop by the Eiffel Tower when it lit up.

The Eiffel Tower and the full moon.

For our final stop of the night, we walked to Trocadéro, the park across the river from the Seine, to get the best view of the Eiffel Tower when it started to light up. We sat on the wall in front of the Palais de Chaillot, and fended off the street vendors that constantly try to sell little trinkets to tourists. Miranda tried to bargain with a few of them--pretty successfully, too. But after a while, they just get too pushy and there's too many of them, so we stopped talking to them at all. Finally, the tower lit up. It was a perfect night for it--it had finally stopped raining; the clouds parted and there was a near-full moon shining right next to the tower when it started to light up. It was definitely an amazing spectacle, made even better when my friends popped their champagne bottles to celebrate our arrival in France. It was the perfect way to start off our journey in France--even if it meant being more than a little tired when we met the rest of our group the next day.

Finally, I'd arrived in France, and I was so ready to start learning the language! There was one more day in Paris, and then I'd be heading to Besancon to finally start working on my French!