It started raining Saturday night and has barely let up since. It's been raining cats and dogs! The French do not use that expression though. They say "Il pleut des cordes" which literally means "it's raining ropes". Ha! In between the momentous downpours, however, there has been some sunshine and the city really is lovely when it is all misty and green.
Sunday afternoon was supposed to be spent at le Musee du Louvre. The museum is free the first Sunday of the month and we planned on seeing the Louvre admist all the cheap tourists and students just like us. When we arrived though our plans quickly changed. The line was expansive and wrapped around the enormous palace. No way! I had not yet forgotten about Versailles the day before and nothing made me feel more uncomfortable and anxious than waiting in line for hours inside and out of the museum. I've already been to the Louvre and while it is absolutely impressive and gorgeous I also came here to see Paris not paintings that I can see in a book. And, while I'm being honest, the Mona Lisa is a little disappointing. It's about the size of a postage stamp and surrounded by missile proof glass, countless bodyguards, and an even larger crowd of people. The Mona Lisa will just have to wait until another day.
We decided on another touristy destination, but not quite on the maps of your everyday tourists of Paris. Montparnasse in the 13th/6th arrondissement is quickly becoming one of my favorite and most frequented parts of town that I visit. It's close to home, has great shopping, and is where my Laboratoire Phonetique is held for the next two weeks at Le Maison des Etudiants. What makes Montparnasse so special is the famed Tour Montparnasse, which is the only skyscraper in Paris. Some consider it an eyesore on the horizon, but it's the tallest building in the city so it would naturally have the best view of Paris. Many people chose to go to the top of l'Arc de Triomphe (which I want to do too, I just don't know how people cross that street...) and the bell towers of Notre Dame. Newsflash: those famous landmarks are very cool but also very short in comparison to the rest of the buildings. You can't really see much from the top of Notre Dame, except the Seine and the cafe where you just ate lunch....The expansive Tour Montparnasse, however, can offer you a 360 degree view of the whole capital. It was beautiful! We timed it just right too and got our 7 £'s worth of a view of the city in between rain storms. Perhaps the most fun was buying an overpriced cafe (so that we could actually sit at a table) and looking at our maps, trying to figure out where exactly we lived. We thought it would be easy since we practically live in the huge Parc de Montsouris, but it was harder than we thought and we ended up choosing a general area in which we lived.
Monday was spent in class. After our regular grammar class we all shuffled on over to the Phonetics Lab. It was fascinating but difficult. Half the class is spent dissecting sentences and the other is in the actual "lab" where we all wear headphones and repeat phrases after the teacher. I was shocked when they played all the repetitions back at me. Is that really how I sound? Yikes. The phrases that they pick are really hard too. Right now we're learning about liasons and when to properly use them. For you non-French speakers, liasons are connecting a usually unpronounced ending consonant with the following verb. Doesn't seem that hard but it is tricky when they give you these long tongue twisters to repeat. My problem isn't really the pronunciation but my short term memory. I can read the phrase fine but when I have to repeat the entire phrase I forgot half the sentence. Woops. I basically sheepishly smile at the professor the whole time (who I'm 75% sure is the mean woman who administered the oral portion of my placement exam. Womp) while she helps me remember the entire phrase. It's bizarre because she speaks into my headphones instead of directly to me. I have fun with it though and she smiled at me today so it can't be that bad.
After class on Monday we wandered around the Montparnasse Cemetery. It was creepy but absolutely beautiful. We went there because Kaley swore Jim Morrison was buried there. When we actually got to the cemetery I asked Kaley why his name wasn't on the map. Turns out she thought that we were at the only cemetery in Paris. She was wrong by a longshot. We'll go find his grave someday in one of the dozens of cemeteries of Paris even if I'm not really a big The Doors fan. Not that I'm not a fan, it's just that I've never really listened to their music. Perhaps I will have to now. The Cemetery ended up being a really nice way to spend an hour on a gloomy Monday afternoon. It was very peaceful and while creepy was very enjoyable. After our excursion to the Cemetery we went to a lecture on Oenology: Wine tasting. Success! The seminar blew my mind! I thought that swirling your wine around in the glass was just for show, but letting the wine breath changes it's chemical make-up entirely! It also made me feel guilty for buying my 2 £ bottle of wine and drinking the cheap stuff. I guess I'll have to indulge in my newfound sophisticated appreciation of French wines. The question remains however, how many bottles will I attempt to bring back? During the lecture I envisioned myself bringing back a beautiful bottle of French wine for all my friends/family, but when I asked the professor how much a good bottle of wine cost I quickly changed my mind. I love you all, but I simply cannot buy a 40 £ bottle of wine for everyone. Unless you send money, that is.... :)
Today it rained nonstop and harder than ever. Class and Phonetics went well and afterwards Kaley and I were planning a lazy rainy day lounged around the apartment and studying for our first French test tomorrow. Now, I should know by now that all my plans never work out in this fine city. Planning on going out for a drink with friends ends up spending the entire night at a club, taking a quick metro ride ends up being a debacle with 3 line changes and much confusion, taking a quick 2 hour tour of Versailles turns into an entire day of heat and exhaustion, etc. Basically, I should prepare to be surprised, but somehow it always sneaks up on me. So the lazy rainy day did not happen. Instead I spent most of my day out in the rain running back and forth and stressing out.
There is a group of 5 of us who are all going to Nice this weekend! I am very excited! Kaley and I bought our tickets together while the other three (who all live together in another CEA apartment) bought theirs. Surprise! They bought different tickets. But, wait for it, not just a different time but different days. So, Kaley and I will be arriving in Nice on Saturday morning and leaving Monday morning whereas the rest of our crew will be getting there Friday night and leaving Sunday afternoon. Not a big difference, but I still find it hilarious how we had a "planning session" to avoid this problem. I'm not affected by it, but I swear Kaley is going to have an aneurysm.
So today after class Kaley and I thought we'd take a brief detour to CEA to print out our train reservations since we couldn't pay online. We asked the lady at the front desk where we could "redeem" our reservation and she informed us that every metro station would be fine. Ok! We took her word for it and headed back home thinking we could stop by the front desk at Cite Universitaire and quickly buy our tickets. Wrong. The ladies at the counter told us we had to go back to Denfert-Rochererau, which is one station over. Easy enough. So we get back on the metro and ride to Denfert-Rochererau. The very nice man at the counter there told us we could only buy the tickets at the SNCF (travel company) boutique. He gave me directions and we headed out of the metro and into the rain to find this office. Lucky for us, it was only around the corner. Once inside we took a number and patiently waited for 10 minutes. When I presented my printed receipt to the woman behind the counter typed everything up and I was all set, I just had to pay. My card got rejected. Great. I think it was because the Europeans have special debit cards with really cool microchips in them. Half of the time my card works and the other half I end up using cash. I guess this was a cash moment, only I didn't have 280 £ just hanging out in my pocket. I went back out into the rain and found some random ATM. My card was rejected there too. This is about when I started freaking out. It was also at this time that Kaley came out of the SNCF building. Her card had been rejected as well. We went to a different ATM and discovered that if we had multiple transactions of smaller amounts of money that we would be fine. 150 £, 100 £, and a 50 £ withdraw transaction later I had all my money in order, but Kaley's card was still being stubborn so we went all the way back home, walked through the park in the pouring rain to get cash from the apartment and then turned right back and returned to SNCF where we took a number again and waited in line for another 15 minutes. This trip was successful and I now have two tickets to Nice for the long weekend. If all this rain has prepared me for anything it is the sunny beaches of the Mediterranean. I literally cannot wait!!!
I promise I will upload pictures soon. Love
The chronicles of my travels, studies, and adventures en l'Hexagone.
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