Sunday, Monday, Tea and Foie Gras

On Sunday I enjoyed a nice sleep in before meeting one of the other Australian exchange students, Simon, for a run at the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was sooo cold running along that we ended up going for lunch after 20 minutes to defrost.

In the afternoon we met up with a bunch of students and leaders of the 'Buddy Program' and went for a walk around the 6th (my) arrondissement, stopping at Sciences Po buildings and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts. The Beaux-arts is a very prestigious school of fine arts, with alumni including Eugène Delacroix and Monet.

After that my friend Zoe and I went to the cafe Paul to get some tea and a macaroon, before I headed off to the Adelaide boys' amazing apartment for dinner. Simon, Ross and all the Adelaide girls were there and we sat around having a few drinks and eating foie gras, cheese and baguette whilst Ross made us all risotto. It was all delicious, but I do not want details on how foie gras is made, google it if you dare...

I ended up getting home very late so slept in on Monday, before heading to Sciences Po to try and print all my course outlines, which was a complete failure because all the printers were broken. I ended up having lunch with a bunch of friends in the cafeteria, before migrating to a coffee shop down the road.

Now I just have to go find somewhere to print!

Run rabbit run

I got my 12 hours sleep and finally managed to drag myself out of bed around lunchtime. I walked around and found a pain au chocolat (choc croissant) and then decided it was probably about time I did some exercise. I headed off to the Jardin du Luxembourg to do a couple of laps...

Unfortunately, the combination of the freezing cold and the fact that I have done no running in a few weeks meant that after one lap I was struggling, so I headed home. I'll have to try again tomorrow.

In the evening we got all dressed up and headed to a club called Showcase, which is under the Pont Alexandre III. It looked amazing but we only actually arrived at 1:30 by which time you had to pay to get in, so we decided to drink elsewhere and try again another night.

ROADTRIP.

Ok, prepare for an essay!

DAY ONE
On Tuesday morning we all met at my apartment to see how many bags we had to squish in the car, the crew is as follows...

From left to right:
Zoe - University of Southern California (USC)
Hillary - USC
Moi
Jake - USC
Natalia - Queen's University, Ontario

We had a fair few bags of food so we sent Jake to go pick up the car, unfortunately when he got to the car rental place he realised he'd left his license on the photocopy machine at uni, so after we all ran around Paris trafficking his license, we finally received our sexy Mercedes (for 5 euro extra we chose to get 'upgraded').

We loaded up and set off into the rainy afternoon. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've gone ripping through the French countryside at 120km/hour belting out the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge!

A few (three) hours after our expected time of arrival we turned into the small town of Rheims, Champagne where we visited the house of G.H Mumm.

Whilst we had missed the official tour, we were still given a tasting and some useful information. The champagne production is an incredibly detailed and interesting process, and it takes over three years for each bottle to reach maturity, at which time they recommend you drink it (unlike red wine, you're not supposed to keep champagne).

We each bought a bottle or two of Mumm before piling back into the car and heading for Strasbourg!

Once again we took a little bit longer than expected, but eventually arrived at around 9:30, where we went to meet my friend Greta at a traditional brasserie for dinner. Greta is my friend from Sydney who is finishing her exchange in Strasbourg this week, so it was lucky that I was able to visit!

Strasbourg is in Alsace, half an hour walk from the German border and the cuisine is pretty unique. We had some traditional foods such as their local sausages and potatoes with munster cheese (not muenster cheese, which is American). It was delicious, and they also made 'beer cocktails', although I will admit I wasn't such a fan.

We then checked into our hotel, which was very cute, before heading out to 'Jimmy's Bar' with Greta and some of her French friends. At 3am we decided it was probably time for some sleep (it was also sprinkling snow) so we walked past the beautiful cathedral back to the room.

I should also briefly explain my sleeping situation... given that most places only accept 4 adults max per room, and we're being cheapskates, we were a bit vague in our reservation so that we didn't have to get an extra room. The result: I slept in a cot. Literally. It was extremely comfortable, I slept like a baby (pun intended).

DAY TWO
We slept till around 9, then headed out to explore Strasbourg. I absolutely loved it, definitely one of the best towns we visited because of the amazing mix of cultures. The streets and town are beautiful, as is the enormous cathedral.

I also found the 'Rue des Juifs', Jewstreet.

After a quick breakfast we began the long, long, long drive to Tours. We drove though Nancy and about a million other tiny towns which were very quaint. We stopped in the Dijon region for a quick snack break, and I tasted one of their traditional mousse de cassis (redcurrant) cakes.

Onwards we forged, eventually making it to Tours extremely late at night and pretty much going straight to bed, as Thursday was the big day of sightseeing.

DAY THREE
We woke up nice and early at 7am and after a quick croissant in Tours we drove half an hour to the Chateau Chenonceau, a famous castle in the Loire Valley.

Despite the cold it was stunning and we spent an hour wandering around inside the castle (there's even a chapel!) and through the gardens.

Eventually the cold got the better of us and we headed back to 'Benzy' (the car) and started off towards Mont St Michel in Normandy.

After a short-ish drive, bang it was there!

We drove up to the bottom of the hill to leave our car, before heading up into the town.

Again with a little help from Wikipedia, here is an explanation of Mont St Michel...

Mont St Michel was previously connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge, which used to be covered at high tide and revealed at low tide. This connection was compromised by several developments and over the centuries the coastal flats have become pasture or have been covered in silt. The small town is now full of shops and the famous abbey which has been used, amongst other things, as a monastery, with a history stretching back to the 6th century.

We then made the decision to try and reach the beaches of Normandy before sunset, so we raced back to the car and sped off to the coastline, where we literally caught the last five minutes of sunlight at Arromanches-les-Bains.

The tiny town is part of the coastline designated as 'Gold Beach' during the D-Day landings and Arromanches was one of the beaches used by British troops. The wind was freezing, but we ran along the beach and stopped for a while at the war memorial. It was a truly special way to end the day.

For dinner we drove one town along to Luc-sur-Mer and went to a beautiful seafood restaurant, as that is the specialty of the region. We all ordered the same dish, salmon in a creamy sauce served with baked potatoes and 'choucroute' (a.k.a sauerkraut) and it was brilliant.

After a short stretch of driving we arrived in Le Havre, a tiny industrial town. We weren't planning on going out, but when we got there we found our hotel was two blocks up from a bar that was buzzing, so we ended up dancing until 4am! We even spoke to a few local French people, who struggled to understand the other guys' French-American accents.

DAY FOUR
This morning we woke up at 6:30 (two hours sleep doesn't do anyone any favours) but we still managed to get back to Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport to drop off Zoe and Hillary who were flying to London. We then somehow found our way back into Paris (the signs are useless) and Jake dropped me at the metro station so I had time to run home and shower before my first class!

It was just an introductory lecture, so I won't go into detail now, but it seems interesting and I look forward to proper classes next week.

I'm very impressed if you've managed to read all of this and now I'm off to sleep for 12 hours straight!!

Faire du Planning

Today was a bit of an administrative day, I just went to uni to finish my official 'inscription' and then met up with the 'road trip crew'. Tomorrow we are leaving on a four day road trip around the north of France, including Reimes, Strasbourg, Tours and Le Havre. We spent the afternoon planning exactly where we wanted to go and booked hostels etc. before heading to the supermarket to buy some snacks for the journey.

Given that the others are all American, I get away with not driving, the look on their faces when I described the fact that I drive on the 'wrong' side of the road means that it isn't really an option.

Catch you in a few days!

Space Invaders

Today was a fairly quiet day, given that I didn't actually get out of bed until 1:30. I did however skype my brother to wish him a Happy 10th Birthday :)

In the afternoon we met at La Tour St Jacques with our French 'buddies' and were taken on a bit of a tour of Paris, but again it was freezing and wandering around in the cold for three hours is not a particularly good idea. We ended up at a bar on Rue Mouffetard, which was fun but I was so tired I headed home around 10 to get to bed!

I also walked past another 'Space Invader'. For a decent explanation I turned a bit to Wikipedia...

Invader is a French urban artist who pastes up characters from the Space Invaders game, made up of small coloured square tiles that form a mosaic. He does this in cities across the world, then documents this as an ‘Invasion’, with books and maps of where to find each invader. In Montpellier, the locations of mosaics were chosen so that, when placed on a map, they form an image of a giant space invader character.

I have already found four!

Marché d'Aligre

Today our teacher told us to meet for class at a cafe in the 11th arrondissement because our discussion topic was the 'French Method of Integration' and the 11th arrondissement is probably the only quartier where 'French' and 'immigrants' mix a lot and live together (others are very much one or the other). We all ordered cafés (espressos) and sat around talking, lots of fun.

We then went walking through the Marché d'Aligre, one of the most typically French markets, with amazing cheese, meat, fruit and vegetables.

I also made the most incredible discovery.... A KILO OF LYCHEES FOR 1 EURO!!!!

Not even kidding, I bought half a kilo for 50 cents and they are delicious and all the other fruit and veggies are also very cheap.


We then went back to lunch at the sushi place which is just around the corner.

In the evening we went for a drink in this really cool warehouse/bar in the 20th arrondissement called La Bellevilloise, but decided that it was probably a better place to go for an actual meal, so we headed to Rue Oberkampf, which was absolutely buzzing! After seeing the line for the one club we ended up going to 'Favela Chic', where everyone was going crazy, drinking cocktails and dancing on the tables!

We got home at 4:30 so I fell asleep in a millisecond and definitely enjoyed my semi-sleep-in today!

Châtelet

After minimal sleep I trudged into class but luckily I just had to sit there and listen to other people give their expose. We then all caught the metro over to Châtelet/Les Halles where a final-year Sciences Po student met us to give us a walking tour of the area. It was really cool, but today is around -1 so it was absolutely FREEZING and thus a little bit unpleasant towards the end.

The area is right across from  Île Saint-Louis

This is something important on the Boulevard Sebastopol, but I can't remember what it is.

I think I was more distracted by this street sign... (Harry Potter fans will understand)

Finally we went past the Centre Georges Pompidou which I will explain in more detail another time, because I am going to a Mondrian exhibition there.

After the tour we went shopping around the area, and my friend Sidoney took us to an incredibly vintage  shop, which was HUGE and perfectly sorted into categories (unlike Vinnies!!). I didn't really buy anything though, vintage isn't so much my thing. I did have some success at H&M :)


In the evening we went to my friend Hallie for dessert and a few drinks, before heading to a really cool bar called 'Les Disquaires'. A few of us left at about 1 though to catch the last metro home because tomorrow night is the official welcome party so sleep is the priority!!

Bateau Mouche (booze cruise)

Bit of a crazy day, had my class in the morning and gave my expose which was fine, and then we went to a little 'Asia Pacific' student welcome. I only stayed for a few macaroons and then went home to get all my clothes ready for the evening (it's definitely much colder than earlier in the week).

We had a library visit at 5 so they could show us how to use the fairly complicated system, because given that the uni is in the middle of Paris they don't really have space to keep all their books on shelves so you have to order them at least a few hours in advance and they go to the 'closed stacks' or the library further away to pick it up.

I then took my first metro ride to Bastille, where a bunch of girls met for sushi! Yes SUSHI! I was very excited as it's delicious and fairly cheap, so will definitely be heading back there (my area is quite pricey).

We then realised we were running hugely late for the boat cruise on the Seine, so we sprinted through the station, squeezed onto the metro as it was pulling away, ran along the river and made it just in time to catch the Bateau Mouche.

A bateau mouche is basically a barge that give tours along the Seine, but no one really paid that much attention to the audioguide as I think drinking to stay warm was a much higher priority. It was pretty awesome.

The cruise went for an hour, by which time everyone had pretty much polished off the secret stash and we headed back to some of my friends' share apartment in Le Marais. La Tour Eiffel also decided to put on a show...

After a few more hours at the apartment we headed out to a club called 'Hideout' which was lots of fun and we danced like crazy (especially avoiding sleazy French men). We got back to their apartment at 4 so I slept on the couch before heading home around 9, sitting through class today might be a challenge...