my exit from paris was straight out of a movie. i walked along an empty sidewalk in the dark, hunting for one open boulangerie (it was about 6 45 AM) to get a baguette as i trudged on to the metro. it began to snow as i soldiered forward, bags already tugging at my arms, and i passed a delivery truck with two men arguing with one another. until next time paris, arrivederci!
now for more times than not, this would be an ideal spot to end the tales of my travels. however it would be stopping short, because although my travels were pretty much over, my tales were not. thanks to the aforementioned snowfall, flights leaving paris were justly delayed. my luck earned me an hour and a half, although what lay ahead on the plane was worth waiting for. sadly i didn't know this until after it was too late.
my first stint, i think around 7 hrs long, was from paris to toronto sure felt longer. that's because when you have a family of 4 in front of you, 2 of which are young and decide their in-flight entertainment would be screaming, it tends to drag. especially when she's convinced underneath her seat (which translates to my foot room) is a trash can. well the trash i've kicked out into the aisle on behalf of you disagrees ma'am.
however! once you do in fact get into toronto, through security (thanks canada, way to slow down efficiency), and to your gate it's not so bad. thanks to me paying it forward, my delay in paris did not cause me to miss my connection to LA. and in about 5 short hours, i was finally back to california, southern california that is. grazie a dio! so it's been a large circle, but i did in fact make it back to where i started -- LAX, only this time returning after many new adventures. ciao ciao!
xx
a
Sunday, December 27, 2009
paris -- in the thick of it
so our first full day started with a quick walk to a street which was known for its baked goods, and was nearby the pantheon (and what we soon discovered) the mosque. starting the day as every day should, with a baguette, we made our way in the rough direction of which we could remember was the right way. we did end up finding the street, which handsomely rewarded me with an almond croissant, which i acquired with my very little, very butchered, french.
after our morning walk, we headed to the flea market (real original, i know. but it seems to be what i do on the weekends) to hunt through whatever they had to offer and then some. sadly, this flea market had more antiques and less obviously stolen items, so prices were a tiny bit higher than what i have grown accustomed to. but that yields a better selection of higher quality goods set up in slightly more permanent establishments than the usual newspaper or bed sheet laid out on the ground.
from there we headed to the champs elysees to see the arc de triomphe and window shop a bit. i had us pull over, it's nearly required, at la duree to sample some macarons of the finest quality. after the champs, which was very nicely decorated for christmas, we headed to the latin quarter to find dinner and explore that area a bit.
that evening we got our dinner (went with the steak this time) which more than made up for our first blunder, and earlier that afternoon we discovered the joy of low-cost sandwiches from just about every boulangerie. after this meal we headed off to montmartre to explore and go see (not literally of course, no one can afford it) the moulin rouge.
the following day, we set off to the louvre where we were sure to get our ticket prices' worth and spent quite a few hours exploring. after leaving, fully 'museum tired' we went off to recoup in our room before meeting with my friend josephine, who's studying in paris for the year, for dinner.
she took us to bastille for a fantastic dinner, i had a chicken skewer, we headed to an apartment of josephine's friend's where we ate, drank, and were merry for the rest of our night.
james, sadly, had to leave the next morning so i saw him off in as best shape as either of us could be. i spent the rest of the day further exploring the montmartre/latin quarter/notre dame/left bank (at least i think it's the left -- the 'not notre dame' side)/palais de tokyo. i made sure to do my last minute shopping and had as much hot spiced wine (vin chaud) as was available, that is a delicious idea to get rid of the cold.
i also saw some of the christmas markets set up along the bottom (away from the arc de triomphe) portion of the champs elysees which pretty much just sold snacks, like soft pretzels/crepes/waffles/hot wine/hot chocolate/etc and a couple christmas items.
i kinda just explored what that area had to offer as i'd never been there before, and my destination was a hotel and store designed by and carrying goods done by my favorite graffiti artist. after a bit more walking around i started thinking about dinner options.
i settled on cous cous with a lamb skewer which turned out pretty good, but not ideal, as i'm sure i could've found a higher quality moroccan restaurant. oh well, it wasn't bad plus i got some free mint tea since business was slow that night -- score. i went from there to grab my bags from my first hotel and meet josephine who generously offered me her apartment to spend the night before leaving the next morning.
we went to get dinner (she hadn't eaten yet) and i got a creme brulee which was fantastic, she's yet to steer me to bad food -- che buona fortuna! so we hung out at her apartment with her friend that night before we settled in for a couple hours of sleep before i was up and off to the airport.
after our morning walk, we headed to the flea market (real original, i know. but it seems to be what i do on the weekends) to hunt through whatever they had to offer and then some. sadly, this flea market had more antiques and less obviously stolen items, so prices were a tiny bit higher than what i have grown accustomed to. but that yields a better selection of higher quality goods set up in slightly more permanent establishments than the usual newspaper or bed sheet laid out on the ground.
from there we headed to the champs elysees to see the arc de triomphe and window shop a bit. i had us pull over, it's nearly required, at la duree to sample some macarons of the finest quality. after the champs, which was very nicely decorated for christmas, we headed to the latin quarter to find dinner and explore that area a bit.
that evening we got our dinner (went with the steak this time) which more than made up for our first blunder, and earlier that afternoon we discovered the joy of low-cost sandwiches from just about every boulangerie. after this meal we headed off to montmartre to explore and go see (not literally of course, no one can afford it) the moulin rouge.
the following day, we set off to the louvre where we were sure to get our ticket prices' worth and spent quite a few hours exploring. after leaving, fully 'museum tired' we went off to recoup in our room before meeting with my friend josephine, who's studying in paris for the year, for dinner.
she took us to bastille for a fantastic dinner, i had a chicken skewer, we headed to an apartment of josephine's friend's where we ate, drank, and were merry for the rest of our night.
james, sadly, had to leave the next morning so i saw him off in as best shape as either of us could be. i spent the rest of the day further exploring the montmartre/latin quarter/notre dame/left bank (at least i think it's the left -- the 'not notre dame' side)/palais de tokyo. i made sure to do my last minute shopping and had as much hot spiced wine (vin chaud) as was available, that is a delicious idea to get rid of the cold.
i also saw some of the christmas markets set up along the bottom (away from the arc de triomphe) portion of the champs elysees which pretty much just sold snacks, like soft pretzels/crepes/waffles/hot wine/hot chocolate/etc and a couple christmas items.
i kinda just explored what that area had to offer as i'd never been there before, and my destination was a hotel and store designed by and carrying goods done by my favorite graffiti artist. after a bit more walking around i started thinking about dinner options.
i settled on cous cous with a lamb skewer which turned out pretty good, but not ideal, as i'm sure i could've found a higher quality moroccan restaurant. oh well, it wasn't bad plus i got some free mint tea since business was slow that night -- score. i went from there to grab my bags from my first hotel and meet josephine who generously offered me her apartment to spend the night before leaving the next morning.
we went to get dinner (she hadn't eaten yet) and i got a creme brulee which was fantastic, she's yet to steer me to bad food -- che buona fortuna! so we hung out at her apartment with her friend that night before we settled in for a couple hours of sleep before i was up and off to the airport.
gay (gray?) paris!
after getting to the airport from the city center of rome, and checking in, i made my plane with just about no problems. security was very easy, and continues to probably be the easiest i've endured of all my travels, and i found my gate relatively quickly. after a flight (of which i undoubtedly slept through), i had landed in paris!
thanks, sort of, to the parisian metro system you can get into the city's center by connecting a couple lines. both good and bad. good since you don't need a separate way of getting into the center, but bad as it does start you off pretty far out and isn't 100% direct. after my metro trip, i hopped out onto to the street to be greeted by my soon-to-be constant companion in paris -- the cold.
think "going snowboarding/skiing/to the snow right when you first get out of the car and don't have proper clothing," only without any snow, cold. and of course, gray.
so i walked (the map made it seem pretty short, it turned out to be short-ish), to my hotel and checked in to wait for the arrival of my cousin - james, my other companion for the trip. after about an hour, he found the place and we were settled in to go out and start our hunt for dinner as we were both hungry and tired from a long day's travels.
we finally settled on a place nearby the hotel and instead of going with the 'steak frites' option, we did a "andouillette" sausage and frites. it was described as a "chitterling sausage with fried potatoes" which, literally, on paper sounded pretty good. i have had andouille and knew that french sausage is more often than not good, and plus - neither of us have encountered a sausage we didn't like.
until this one.
with the term 'chitterling' as the tell-tale sign of what to expect, we bravely ordered. i figured the word, which i had no concrete definition of, had to be similar to crackling as in maybe cooked until the casing split, aka ideal. this sounded great as i am generally a fan of "well done" meat items, and a big fan of meats in casings. but boy was this not what i had hoped. the casing was rubbery and did not cut well, or pretty much at all. the interior mass was of bits of pork and a general brown mash (which is never a good sign with meat, as i've learned with the possible fried brain incident in rome).
its taste was both sour and unpleasant. it squeaked as you chewed and was only kept down by the fact that you could not think about what you just ate. james managed to get the whole thing down and i was lucky enough to keep down about a third before calling it quits and heading for the (thank god) frites and bit of salad that was included.
after the meal we asked the waiter and learned that this 'delicacy' (big red flag right there) was made of pork tripe. fantastic!
so we left and headed off to see the eiffel tower, since it was a mellow activity that would allow us to get to bed at a reasonable time in order for me to get healthy, at this point i definitely had a cold, and get up early for sightseeing.
thanks, sort of, to the parisian metro system you can get into the city's center by connecting a couple lines. both good and bad. good since you don't need a separate way of getting into the center, but bad as it does start you off pretty far out and isn't 100% direct. after my metro trip, i hopped out onto to the street to be greeted by my soon-to-be constant companion in paris -- the cold.
think "going snowboarding/skiing/to the snow right when you first get out of the car and don't have proper clothing," only without any snow, cold. and of course, gray.
so i walked (the map made it seem pretty short, it turned out to be short-ish), to my hotel and checked in to wait for the arrival of my cousin - james, my other companion for the trip. after about an hour, he found the place and we were settled in to go out and start our hunt for dinner as we were both hungry and tired from a long day's travels.
we finally settled on a place nearby the hotel and instead of going with the 'steak frites' option, we did a "andouillette" sausage and frites. it was described as a "chitterling sausage with fried potatoes" which, literally, on paper sounded pretty good. i have had andouille and knew that french sausage is more often than not good, and plus - neither of us have encountered a sausage we didn't like.
until this one.
with the term 'chitterling' as the tell-tale sign of what to expect, we bravely ordered. i figured the word, which i had no concrete definition of, had to be similar to crackling as in maybe cooked until the casing split, aka ideal. this sounded great as i am generally a fan of "well done" meat items, and a big fan of meats in casings. but boy was this not what i had hoped. the casing was rubbery and did not cut well, or pretty much at all. the interior mass was of bits of pork and a general brown mash (which is never a good sign with meat, as i've learned with the possible fried brain incident in rome).
its taste was both sour and unpleasant. it squeaked as you chewed and was only kept down by the fact that you could not think about what you just ate. james managed to get the whole thing down and i was lucky enough to keep down about a third before calling it quits and heading for the (thank god) frites and bit of salad that was included.
after the meal we asked the waiter and learned that this 'delicacy' (big red flag right there) was made of pork tripe. fantastic!
so we left and headed off to see the eiffel tower, since it was a mellow activity that would allow us to get to bed at a reasonable time in order for me to get healthy, at this point i definitely had a cold, and get up early for sightseeing.
wrapping up rome
so it's taken me quite a while to get back here, and that's for good reason -- i've been busy. my stint in rome ended with finals (par normal), a goodbye dinner, and the ever-favorite joy of last minute packing and getting out of an apartment by 11, which soon turned into leaving at 11 45.
the finals were pretty much what i'd come to expect, plenty of studying followed by plenty of writing. i was lucky enough to have my cousin rebecca come visit but sadly didn't get to spend too much time with her as i was in the thick of studying. all of my classes included zero multiple choice and plenty of short-answer questions on one-sided, slightly too long, italian test paper.
after finals, we had a final 'good-bye' dinner (we had a welcome dinner at the start of the program) with all the faculty in attendance. it was there that i was able to tell my sociology professor that his picture on the faculty page of the program's website made him resemble tom wolfe nearly to a t. he responded by saying he hasn't seen it in a while but kinda laughed that i pointed it out.
the next morning we had to be up relatively early to entirely clean and leave the apartment by 11. we did a great job cleaning, however ended up making it out by 11 45ish. good thing no one stopped by to make sure we were out early, huh? after that my roommate philippe and i trekked over to our hotel for the night by the stazione termini where we'd stay before leaving the next morning.
on our final night, all of us roommates and some others who had not quite left hung out by the trevi fountain with plenty of libations to ward off the cold. it was pretty low-key, but that was a good thing because i was starting to get a cold and a night of clubbing probably would've resulted with me in pieces. this couldn't happen because that next morning on was set to head off to paris! and in a city like that, i'd need all the strength i had left.
the finals were pretty much what i'd come to expect, plenty of studying followed by plenty of writing. i was lucky enough to have my cousin rebecca come visit but sadly didn't get to spend too much time with her as i was in the thick of studying. all of my classes included zero multiple choice and plenty of short-answer questions on one-sided, slightly too long, italian test paper.
after finals, we had a final 'good-bye' dinner (we had a welcome dinner at the start of the program) with all the faculty in attendance. it was there that i was able to tell my sociology professor that his picture on the faculty page of the program's website made him resemble tom wolfe nearly to a t. he responded by saying he hasn't seen it in a while but kinda laughed that i pointed it out.
the next morning we had to be up relatively early to entirely clean and leave the apartment by 11. we did a great job cleaning, however ended up making it out by 11 45ish. good thing no one stopped by to make sure we were out early, huh? after that my roommate philippe and i trekked over to our hotel for the night by the stazione termini where we'd stay before leaving the next morning.
on our final night, all of us roommates and some others who had not quite left hung out by the trevi fountain with plenty of libations to ward off the cold. it was pretty low-key, but that was a good thing because i was starting to get a cold and a night of clubbing probably would've resulted with me in pieces. this couldn't happen because that next morning on was set to head off to paris! and in a city like that, i'd need all the strength i had left.
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