So, yes, I went to France for a week! Obviously, I'm not going to do a day-by-day summary or that would take forever and you would probably get bored. Instead of painstakingly inserting pictures into my blog post like I normally do (i.e. I'm becoming increasingly lazy), you should look at my facebook albums to get a better idea of what my week was like. I spent far too much time editing the albums down to about 200 pictures from the over 600 pictures that I took (yes, 600). Here are the public links to my albums if you don't have a facebook: (and yes, I have devoted an entire album to food.)
The 15 hour bus ride that we took from Copenhagen to France wasn't actually as painful as I thought it would be. We each had two seats of the bus to spread out on, I brought my pillow and blanket, and I just slept the whole time. Yes, I forgot my toothbrush so I went a day with disgusting teeth, but I just dealt. I probably got more sleep on the bus than I did most other nights in the hotels, actually.
From the moment we got to Verdun, our first stop, things boded well. Sunshine, blue skies, and amazing food greeted us when we arrived! As I've said before, DIS always picks the BEST restaurants to eat at and our first lunch was a wonderful wake-up call to the fact that we were in France and they have good food. I was very excited to see Verdun, as I learned about it last semester in my WWI class. It was pretty shocking to see how much the landscape is still so affected by the constant bombardment of shells. Every pit or dip in the ground we saw, even where trees are growing now, was from the war. As usual, pictures never do justice and it's insane to actually see it in person. We got a tour of Fort Douaumont, which was creepy and dark and wet, and there was also a great exhibit on the battle with a lot of artifacts. Verdun is a beautiful little town and I would love to visit it again when it is a little more lively (a Sunday night in March is not exactly peak tourist season).
We worked our way up to a bigger town by going to Reims, with its gorgeous Gothic cathedral. It's unreal to see this thing in person! Most of the French kings had their official coronation here and I got a big kick out of slowly walking down the center aisle of the cathedral, knowing that famous kings walked in my exact footsteps. It's mind-blowing! This is the part of history I love the most--walking in history's footsteps and seeing things in person. Sometimes it's hard to comprehend how old things are, even when you're standing right there looking at it all. These are the times when I wish I had a time machine so I could just go back and just see what it was like 500 years ago! We also got to go on a tour of some champagne caves that used to be below an old abbey, which was very cool. They were originally chalk pits dug out in the 4th century when the Romans were still around, and then became the crypt to the Saint Nicaise Abbey in 1211. Even though the abbey is long gone, the caves have remained and are very good for fermenting champagne. Talk about old! Even Peter the Great visited the caves in the 1700s, which I think is pretty cool. (Peter seemed to go everywhere, didn't he? He went up the Round Tower in Copenhagen, too.)
The last four days were spent in Paris, and I don't think I've ever done more walking in my life. By the end of the week, I was so sore! It was completely worth it, of course. It was so refreshing to understand most of the signs, or least be able to pronounce them! (unlike Danish.) Even though I didn't get to use my limited French that much, I still attempted to order food in French and even succeeded a few times. Although, sometimes I got myself into trouble when I would order in French, not understand a question they had, and then automatically say "Quoi?" Then they would just repeat the question in French and I would look at them idiotically until they switched to English. Oops. Ah well, at least I could finally say "Bonjour" and "merci" without looking silly (my friends know I say random things in French all the time...). It was also exciting to see words that I learned in French class for vocab tests come alive in the city. They're real! They're really used by French people!
The weather was FANTASTIC and we didn't have a drop of rain the whole week. Most days were sunny with blue skies, and it usually got between 15 and 20 degrees C!! (That's in the 60s, for all you Fahrenheit people.) The day we went to Versailles was especially beautiful, and it was wonderful to walk around the gardens without our coats on and soak up some vitamin D! The early spring flowers were already blooming and the forsythia and crocuses and daffodils were in full force! I was maybe a little overly excited whenever I saw flowers, but I'm just so deprived of spring weather that I couldn't help it! (It also made Copenhagen a bit depressing when we came back, because it's only 5 degrees C here and no flowers blooming yet.)
I saw all the main tourist spots in Paris, including: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre (my favorite part was Napoleon III's lavish apartments!), and lots of other monuments. We also visited the Jewish quarter (AMAZING falafel there!) and Belleville, a more multi-cultural neighborhood where we had delicious Lebanese food. I started to get the hang of the Metro, ate crepes with Nutella, and had a meal sitting outside at a cafe. Even though it was only a week I felt like I had a great French experience and it made me want to live there someday. Maybe I should have studied abroad in France, eh? But I love Copenhagen--coming back was a relief because it's so much cleaner and simpler and I actually know how to get around. I'll just be patient for spring here and then I know I won't even miss Paris!
P.S. I had to change the background of my blog because I'm fickle and also I wanted something happier and more springy. (even though I have a sneaking suspicion that this background is actually in the Netherlands...)
Moi, je ne veux pas travailler aussi. Mais je craigne que je n'ai un presentation dans neuf heures.
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