Having my family in Paris was a mixture between pure excitement and enjoyment and frustration that my parents and little brother know only ten words of French. Their arrival made me incredibly excited as I watched their entrance into the Gare Montparnasse standing right across from a massive TGV train. I did give them the biggest hug ever when they arrived with their tiny suitcases rolling on the tarmac ground from their shuttle bus (that I gave exact directions to follow from Roissy airport). It was wonderful to take them to the Metro and navigate through so that we could arrive at our destination and hotel (which I had scouted out a day in advance so that there would be no problems). The first day we rested and then went out to the Champs Elysees to the Christmas market, grabbing a market pizza, chili, and mauled wine among other delightful things. The next day, we tackled the touristy things hitting the Eiffel Tower first and climbing the mountain of stairs to the second floor just so we could skip the interminable line stretching out underneath the girth of the cast-iron structure that was deemed horrendous by many Parisians at the time of construction. Upon mounting the 900 ft high tower, we took pictures and did as any tourist would, asking other tourists to take our pictures. Not a huge deal, but still it feels weird asking other people to take one`s own picture.
We kept doing the touristy thing looking around at the Galeries Lafayette (mainly looking for a bathroom) and rescheduling our visit to the Palais Garnier (Opéra) for the the following day. The visit to the Opéra was enjoyable but we just looked around, caught a glimpse of Box 5, where the Fantome from Gaston Lereux's famous novel lingered in the shadows and haunted the opera house, eventually shattering the gorgeous chandelier that dangles over the red velvet laced sièges that line the beautiful auditorium. We followed our visit with a trip to Montmartre to see Sacré Coeur and to the Cremaillère, an interesting café and brasserie complete with a silly French variety show.
Wednesday was enjoyable as we went to the Louvre, a museum I have been longing to visit. My family and I arrived before opening and took the shortcut in the Caroussel underground entry, buying our tickets through the automated machines. My father and I went to see the Egyptian and Mesopotamian antiquities such as the sarocophogus and Hammurabi's Code, while Mom and Josh visited Mona with the rest of the crowd. We made our way, skimming the surface of the French art, Renaissance tapestries, and medieval stained glass. After three hours of looking, we headed back to our hotel for a nap and then heading to a brasserie just down the street from our hotel. It was delightful.
We went to the Musée D’Orsay on Thursday, which my parents enjoyed much better because it was less crowded. Although disappointed by the fact that the Monet paintings (most of the 52) were in the Grand Palais a block down, they were able to still appreciate a number of paintings from the Impressionist and Post-impressionist period, including some from Degas and Renoir. I was glad to see some of the paintings I had not looked at before. On Thursday to top off all the touristy stuff we did this week, we did a Bateau-Mouche ride down the Seine, which was both relaxing and yet rather cold. Of course, we were surrounded by tourists from all over. My brother, who took about 1000 photos the whole trip, got some good shots from the Seine and the Eiffel Tower. At the end of the day, we chose to do some non-touristy shopping at Montparnasse at the Galleries Lafayette and turning in pretty early around 10pm. My parents would leave the following morning.
The next morning, I said goodbye to my folks, happy that they had come to see me, very grateful, but ready to see them go their separate way. This was a wonderful Christmas present to have them come see me, but I was ready to enjoy the New Year without them just as I had enjoyed the first three months of my assistantship without them. I have come to the point where I feel comfortable here in France as a francophone, and seeing my non-francophone family leave was in some ways a good thing for me. I’m not saying I don’t love them. I do very deeply. It’s just that this entire experience has been designed for me to engage in the French culture, perfect my French, and allow me to exchange with the culture in teaching English. This is my job for seven months and I want to do it to the best of my ability. So off I go. And I will already look forward to being reunited with my family in May but with the expectation that I’m going to enjoy every minute of the journey to get there.
I spent New Year’s Eve for the most part alone. I went to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to read some Camus while waiting to meet up with my friend, M. to prepare for the evening. I went to M’s girlfriend’s apartment where I would spend two quiet evenings. She basically gave me the key and said I could have the apartment for the short stay. Very nice and generous. M. and S. invited me to come with them to the New Year’s Eve party at a French friend’s house in north Paris. I gladly accepted and met up with another Middlebury friend named H. in her apartment. So we shared some Champagne at H’s apartment and then went to North Paris to the French friend’s apartment. The atmosphere was convivial with wine to go around, hors d’oeuvres, chocolate. And I met several German people, who were kind and talkative. I spent about four hours in this atmosphere, drinking, eating, and dancing. I had never been to a New Year’s Eve party outside of my house. It got a little funky, but I enjoyed it for the most part.
However, realizing that my drinking limit was pretty low in comparison with others, I left by Métro (which was free the whole evening) before the others headed to go clubbing. Drinking even a little bit can be disorienting. And for me, the impairment was evident when I had to navigate back to the S’s apartment, which was all the way across town. Granted, it wasn’t all that difficult, but still, I took the Line 12 in the Direction of Mairie d’Issy and arrived at Pigalle, where the rest of the line was closed. This was at 1:45am. I talked to one of the transportation authorities, who told me that I needed to ride Line 2 to Charles de Gaulle-Etoile and then Line 1 to Concorde, so I proceeded to do those two things, fortunately without complete mental impairment. (keep in mind I was also alone) I walked to the exit from the Concorde metro and saw drunk men of African descent yelling at the police and causing a hold-up, because the lines were closed. I proceeded to the exit, knew where I was going (by some miracle), and headed across the Seine to the Rive Gauche (Left Bank). I saw the Louvre to my left and then the Musée d’Orsay to my right, and knew I was going in the right direction (because S.’s apartment is not too far from this spot). Crashed at the apartment.
I did not wake up until 11am, after which time I went looking for a café and found one just across from the Solférino métro stop, called the Solférino. I ordered an Entrecote steak with béarnaise sauce (which my mother loved when she ordered it for one of our meals), mousse au chocolat, and an espresso à la française. Pretty tasty. Afterwards, I was still tired and had to take an hour nap to recover from the exhausting party from the night before. I decided to take it easy and go see a movie at the cinema, not too far away at Montparnasse. I went to see the “Tourist,” which fortunately was in English with French subtitles. It was a pretty interesting movie with some intrigue and mystery, but in some ways, it was just predictable. In any case, it was good to see the gorgeous Angelina Jolie strutting her stuff as an undercover spy (very sexy indeed) and “woman of mystery.” That perhaps was the best part of the movie. Any man would go for her as she is quite the item, especially with her carefully crafted British accent. After the movie, I grabbed McDonald’s, chuckling quietly seeing many French people out buying fast food in Paris. Went to bed and got ready to leave the next day.
Today:
Left the apartment at 9am to meet M. at the Montparnasse-Bienvenüe metro station. No problem
with the trains at Montparnasse. Took the TGV to Le Mans and made a quick transfer on the same track
platform to a regional train and arrived home around 12pm.
Coming home, I didn’t realize that my host mother would cook an elaborate meal. We had a lot of seafood this afternoon. Starting out with shrimp and delicious sauces, we took the aperitif of Champagne. Passing into the dining room, we took some salmon and sauces, oysters, and then escargots. I love escargots, sometimes cannot get enough of the garlic butter which enshrouds the little animals! For the main course, we had duck salad in a vinaigrette dressing. To top it all off, chocolate from Bizeray, the chocolatier where I bought my mother’s present, and an espresso. Muwah. Very delicious. It feels so good to be home and I’ve had a beautiful vacation, and I am looking forward to beginning lessons tomorrow. Speaking of which, I have a lesson to prepare for tomorrow. Off I go to the next assignment…
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