En Reconnaissance de Paris: The longest blog you ever did see...

Hello, my loyal readers (Jaime?)!

This has been the longest you’ve been forced to wait on the edges of your seats to be updated on my European whereabouts. So where have I been this past week? Budapest? Helsinki? Minsk? Warsaw? No, no, no and no. I’ve been in the greatest capital city of them all: right here in Paris, France.

And now you must be wondering, what thrilling activities have I been doing that have kept me away from you for so long? Well, the answer is simple: Midterms. Can you believe that this semester is already halfway over? Where has the time gone?

But I’m getting ahead of myself now. Let me take you back to last week:

On Tuesday we had our midterm for wines. During my study break, I was fortunate enough to be able meet my friends Jocelyn, Kristin and Arielle, who were traveling Europe on their Cornell spring break. We went to the Jewish Quarter, grabbed falafel, and walked around for an hour. It was nice to see some familiar faces but a little weird to be reminded that life is really going on back at school without me.

Thursday afternoon, Abbey’s parents arrived for what would be the beginning of their short visit here. They were tired from their travels, but we decided to take them on a bit of a walking tour anyway. We took the metro to the Tuileries and proceeded to walk through the gardens, past the Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Elysées, over to the Arc de Triomphe. We then returned to Republique, where their hotel was, and went out to a very nice Mediterranean couscous dinner.

Friday morning, Abbey and I had an excursion to attend for our wines class. The event was the Salon des Vignerons Indépendants, all the way out across the city. This is a wine show that occurs twice a year, once before Easter and once before Christmas, in which independent winemakers from every region in France come together, set up tables, and have the largest wine-tasting event in Paris. There are over 5,000 different tables of wines, each of which displays bottles from unique wineries that have been produced with care and passion by the very people standing beside them. The wine is for sale, of course, but the point is to travel around the tables, tasting the wines and interacting with the people.

The nature of the French wine-making process is, in general, very traditional, and thus, the majority of the winery owners are individuals descended from families that have been on those very lands for centuries. Of course the wines themselves are spectacular—some cannot be purchased anywhere except directly from the hands of these sellers, in person—but it was really this historical and familial element that made the event so amazing.

Oh yeah, and no one spoke any English. All this did for me was force me to recognize how competent I’ve become in French. Of course, I do not speak perfectly, but when placed in this situation, I was able to engage in exchanges that were detailed, lengthy, and impassioned. While I was proud of myself in seeing my progress, I was more impressed by the histories shared with me by these vignerons. To see them display such affection and fervor as they shared the fruits of years of labor was really so inspiring.

We finally left this wonderful event to meet back up with Abbey’s parents and mine, who had just arrived in Paris as well. After taking ten times longer than necessary to get out, we all voyaged over to the Jewish Quarter, where everyone had a taste of our favorite falafel. We then took a long walk along Île de la Cité and to Notre Dame.

On Saturday, we took a train out to Versailles for the day. The lines were long and it was starting to get hot, but the place was truly remarkable. While it was certainly a major tourist attraction, it was pretty cool to walk where some of the most famous kings and queens have been, to see just how lavish it really was, and to actually experience the enormity of the grounds.

After Versailles, Abbey and I had to break away for a few hours. Our roommate, Christy, had won tickets to a Rugby match in a raffle, and she offered her extras to us. It took us a while to get there, and as soon as we sat down, it started to rain, but aside from all that, the experience was awesome. The match was Racing Metro 92, a Parisian team, versus Toulouse. Every seat in the stadium was packed, and we were sitting just eight rows back directly behind Paris’s goal. The fans were so alive and the game was so exciting! Although Toulouse had been projected to win, Racing Metro took the prize with a final score of 43-21 and a fireworks display.

After the game, we met back up with our parents at our corner brasserie where we had a really nice dinner. Everyone’s meals were very good, and we all enjoyed a bit of escargot. We left very full and very tired from our long, long day.

Sunday morning, Abbey’s parents left early to fly back to New York. Later on, we met up with my parents near the Eiffel Tower to have onion soup at one of our favorite places. We followed this with a visit to the Rodin Museum. This was an outing that I had to be convinced to participate in—I’ve never been so fond of sculptures. I couldn’t have been happier, however, that I decided to go along. We got to see some famous works—The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell—and I really obtained a new appreciation for this type of art. For once, I was really able to see the way a skilled sculptor can capture emotion, movement and life in something is, in fact, so lifeless.

Monday and Tuesday morning were devoted to French and Communications exams, but when it was all finished, I met back up with my Mom and Dad for what would be a long walk further south into the city. We explored the Latin Quarter a bit, and I took them to Première Pression Provence, the olive oil and spreads place that Brian and I discovered back in February. We bought a few of the best we tasted and then wandered further south through the Luxembourg Gardens. The day, which had been pretty dreary, really cleared up and made the walk that much nicer.

We continued past the gardens and finally reached our next tourist locale: the Catacombes. The Catacombes de Paris is a famous ossuary. Originally, these caverns and tunnels were Paris’s stone mines, but eventually, when cemeteries were beginning to overflow in the late 18^th century, they became the new home for decomposed bodies. The ossuary holds the remains of about 6 million people, stacked and organized with precision. It was a bit overwhelming at first to see all of these bones, but we agreed that after a few minutes, we became detached from the idea that these had been actual people. It is simply too overwhelming to think of the faces and personalities that had belonged to these bones.

After the Catacombes, we agreed that we all needed a glass of wine. We had a seat for an hour outside at a café where we enjoyed a glass each and then returned to the 11^th arrondissement to pick up Abbey and get dinner. We chose a Brazilian place called Ave Maria and were surprised by how much we enjoyed our food. This was a great new discovery for Abbey and me, especially because it is right in our neighborhood. We will be sure to go back there again another night.

On Wednesday between our classes, Abbey and I took my parents to our favorite boulangerie for lunch. The lady there (read: our best friend) was thrilled to be giving us four, rather than two, of our daily Indian chicken sandwich. We sat out by the Centre Pompidou to eat, and then stopped for some cafés. We separated again in the afternoon and met up later that night for dinner.

Dinner itself was a great activity because a friend of mine from school, Jenni, was visiting Paris for the week with her mom and siblings. The four of them, my parents, Abbey, and I made a reservation at an Italian place called Le Cherche-Midi. I think we caused the waiter a bit of a headache when we had him translate the entire menu for us and repeated all of our questions ten to fifteen times each in spite of his consistent answers. It was worth it in the end, however, because we were able eventually to order and really enjoy our meals.

On Thursday, I met my parents after class for our last few hours together. We went the Musée Jacquemart-André, which someone on the plane recommended to them. I had never heard of it, but it proved a great decision to go. The museum was originally the private residence of Edouard André and Nélie Jacquemart. Edouard was from a Protestant banking family and had quite a considerable fortune. The couple traveled the world, acquiring precious works of art that they decorated their astonishing mansion with. Some of the pieces that we saw, by artists like Van Dyke and Rembrandt, were really amazing, but to me it was the house itself that took my breath away.

We finally returned to my parent’s hotel where we said our farewells. The week had been long, exhausting, and activity-filled, but worth every minute.

Now Abbey and I are enjoying our breakfast omelets and our class-less Friday! I hope I haven’t lost you somewhere in this blog post of record-breaking lengths… Oh, and there are more pictures to come when my parents send theirs along.

À la prochaine!