Going on VA-CAY! Part I

Last week was “winter” break for all Lyon students, meaning that I picked up and cleared out for a Tour de France in the northern-ish parts of France, aka Paris, Tours, and Reims. And because I was (mostly) without internet access for this little adventure, I have not told anyone anything about it, so here comes an in-depth explanation of my life for the past week.

I started out bright and early Saturday morning headed for Paris. The TGV ride was good, except for that part where I was sitting at a four person table thingy with three people who knew each other and that part where the little girl across the aisle started puking. Thus, I spent most of the ride either asleep or feigning sleep.
Upon arriving in Paris, I struck out for the humble abode of my dear high school friend, Miss Caroline King. Caroline has been in Paris since last fall, and has thus had many France adventures that I had not heard about, so after getting to her place, we spent a good deal of time catching up. I met her friend, who was also living with the same host family, and we went to see the dress rehearsal of A Little Night Music at the Chatelier theater, which is where they have their internships. This was AMAZING, partly because it was in English and thus I was able to understand/appreciate it, partly because it had the woman from Gigi and An American in Paris in it (who Caroline had met a few nights before), and partly because the theater is GORGEOUS. It made me really miss doing theater for one of the first times since I left Woodward.

The next day was remarkably uneventful. We slept in and then went to a late brunch at a restaurant called Breakfast in America, where all of the wait staff was American as far as I could tell and where I ordered a meal in English for the first time in a month and a half. The food was amazing as well…overall a good experience. We then drifted back to Caroline’s, where we went out and got an insane amount of cheap (and delicious!) sangria and proceeded to celebrate Valentine’s Day in style. Thus, the first two days in Paris were spent mostly indoors.
Monday was a different story. Caroline had class/work for most of the day, and I took the world’s longest walk. I started out near the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is near the hotel I had stayed at the last time I was in France and features prominently in most of my memories of Paris. I then walked to Notre Dame, and then from there walked past the Louvre, through the Jardin de Tuilleries, and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. I didn’t want to spend money on an expensive restaurant, and thus had the wonderful experience of discovering a Monoprix on the Champs Elysees (yay for bargain pricing on the most expensive street ever!) and buying a sandwich there. Exhausted but desiring to stop sightseeing and start sight going-into-places, I took the metro over to Pere Lachaise, a cemetery known for all the famous people buried there. Of course, there are a number of normal people buried there as well; in fact, my host mom just told me that she’s pretty sure her family has a plot there. This makes me eternally jealous. Anyway, the place is huge, and if you ever want to find anyone famous you have to use the labeled maps, which can be tricky. As it was, I got there kind of late and didn’t plan my trajectories very well, so I never found the graves of Proust or Rimbaud (frowny face!). However, I did succeed in finding Oscar Wilde (go Anglophones!), Eluard (this was the reason I wanted to find Rimbaud…and it makes me sad that they’re not buried side by side, which would probably have made me tear up. At least they’re in the same cemetery), Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhart, La Fontaine, and Moliere. I also took pictures of just about every other grave I saw because they are all SO COOL. And, I saw a movie being filmed. Don’t know which one, though. I also fell in love briefly with this gorgeous guy I found who was sitting alone on a bench in an abandoned part of the cemetery, looking pensive and eating Nutella straight out of the bottle. The highlight was probably when I followed two Italians who were being shown a grave by a man who works at the cemetery. As the man was walking away, he noticed me, and here lies a transcription of our following conversation (translated to English by yours truly):
Man: You’re looking for Moliere and La Fontaine?
Caitlin: Yes.
M: Haha, it’s always the same! Hey…do you speak French?
C: Yes.
M: Do you know [garbled]?
C: …yes?
M: Follow me! You clearly have a French culture. These Italians, they wouldn’t know about him, haha! But if you’re, say, Belgian…? (inquisitive look)
C: Actually, I’m American.
M: Oh well. But you have a French culture!
C: Haha…yes?
We then arrived at a grave of someone I’ve never heard of, but I exclaimed over it and took pictures, so apparently I managed to convince another French person that I’m far more cultured than I actually am. At that point it was getting late, so I returned to Caroline’s, where we watched Baby Mama with her roommate. Oh, la culture francaise!

The next day was looooong, as I left early and stayed out for about twelve hours. I started out at the Musee d’Orsay, which I had visited before but had only seen one floor of. Sadly, they’re in the middle of reservations right now and so my favorite painting was not out. However, I did see a bunch of really cool paintings, statues, and furniture, and took a stalker picture of two teenage boys who were drawing a statue. From there, I found a falafel shop that SB recommended to me, where an extremely friendly man took my order outside the shop (I say “friendly” because he started to English me and then when I spoke in French he switched back). Then, while I was talking to the man who was making my falafel, he started using Spanish with me. This recalled the time that I ordered a ticket for a party at the university and a guy started joking in Italian with me. Apparently, I do not come off as American, which is good I suppose…but where are these other nationalities coming from??? Italian? Belgian? Spanish?? I need to ask my host family what my accent sounds like so I can puzzle this out.

After falafel, I went over to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, where I spent most of the later afternoon. It’s really a gorgeous area, and it wasn’t too cold so it was nice to sit and watch street performers while admiring Paris. I then had the great surprise of running into Sindbad, another guy from Georgetown at Lyon 3. We chatted for a little before I went to meet India, an Australian from Lyon 2 who I’d met during orientation, for dinner at a Basque restaurant that SB had also recommended. It was a great restaurant, very popular, and so it was a good thing that I followed SB’s advice and got there early. India and I, unwilling to go home right away but unsure of what to do, ended up in a McDonald’s eating mcflurries (which the French apparently missed the “flurry” memo on. It’s not blended…the toppings just sit on top. Gooooooooo France!), where two extremely sketchy Moroccan men started hitting on us. After the offer to be shown around Paris at night, complete with French kisses from the middle aged man with two kids, India and I politely (but swiftly) fled. And so ended the first leg of my journey.

I'm too lazy to add photos...sorry!