Paris - Day 3

For our last day in Paris we decided to go full tourist and cover a lot of ground, so we got metro day passes. We started by checking out the Marais neighbourhood and came across the very French-looking Hôtel de Ville as well as the Tour Saint-Jacques. The tower is the only remnant of a church that was built in the 16th century. There's a little playground on one side of it and lots of benches in the surrounding green space. Next we went to see the futuristic-looking Centre Georges Pompidou. I somehow knew nothing of this building beforehand and James was flabbergasted that I'd never heard of it or seen a photo! It is certainly unforgettable once you see it with its giant pipes and stairs on the outside.

Afterwards, since we didn't want to spend the day in a museum, we opted to just get a few photos of and around the Louvre. We found ourselves in the underground mall by the Louvre, Le Carrousel, where we saw an inverted pyramid similar to the one inside the Louvre and then came across the old wall that was part of the fortress wall built by Philippe Auguste around 1200.

We were getting hungry and James had a plan for us to buy some food and go eat it on the steps of Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, so off we went on the metro. We got off at Abbesses station and after hoofing it up some serious stairs we settled in for lunch with a spectacular view of the city. It's pretty incredible to just sit there for an hour and watch the influx of visitors around you. 

 

However you are also subject to ridiculousness of some tourists. First up an American mother and her (likely mortified) teenage son asked another tourist to take their photo, but then the mother insisted on this stranger taking no less than twenty photos of them in front of the basilica because there were other people in the background. Lady, I hate to break it to you, but you're in the most tourist-heavy city in the world! James and I had a bit of a laugh about that one. Then a young eastern European couple distracted the vast majority of people on the stairs by engaging in the longest public makeout session I have ever been witness to. No joke, almost 10 minutes long. It got uncomfortable at times! But it was somewhat entertaining because in Paris, I guess you just get caught up in the moment. 

We were getting kind of tired but wanted to see a different side of Paris so after a very delicious albeit sticky snack of crepes, we took the metro to La Défense which is the business district of the city. After seeing endless old buildings it was almost jarring to see modern architecture.

After a long day of exploring we caught the RER train (comparable to GO trains) back to the hostel instead of the subway since it's much faster stopping at only a couple of stations. We had a little rest before getting ready for the U of T alumni event we were attending that night. It was kind of by chance that I discovered this event while still in Toronto and the timing just worked out. It was hosted by an alumnus of the Faculty of Music, a jazz pianist, and his wife in their home. Being my first time at an alumni event and taking into account that it was happening in Paris, I had no idea what to expect. But it was a great experience meeting a wide variety people from all over who'd at some point or another lived and studied in Toronto. We spoke in both English and French and I even got to sneak a little Spanish in there! 

One of the craziest moments of the night was when I met Nita, originally from Ottawa now living in Paris with her Swiss French husband and their family. I mentioned that I worked at U of T in the Speech-Language Pathology department and before I could mention Elizabeth's name (the prof I worked for) Nita asked me if I knew Elizabeth Rochon. Turns out she was friends with Elizabeth's sister back in Ottawa and when Nita and her husband moved to Toronto they became friends with Elizabeth and her husband, who is also coincidentally Swiss French. Small world!

After much chatting, snacking and imbibing of wine we thanked our hosts and headed out. We ended up wandering around the 17th arrondissement getting somewhat lost and then stopping for one last drink before meandering back to the metro. We slept soundly and in the morning we made it with ample time to catch our 7am train back to Lyon. A la prochaine, Paris!

Paris - Day 2

After a solid night's sleep on our awesome bunk beds, James and I started out in search of a delicious pastry breakfast. Once we located and inhaled our pain au chocolat we set out on foot to cross the Seine river to the south side and walk towards the Latin Quarter where we were meeting up with our friends from home, Zac and Leanne. Unfortunately the weather wasn't really on our side with lots of rain off and on but we braved it and kept on going (being sure to photograph our dismay). We walked past the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle with the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes just beside it and then onto the Panthéon and the Jardin de Luxembourg. Outside the latter was a comprehensive photo display of shots from the Tour de France to commemorate its 100th anniversary. Pretty cool!

 

 
We met Zac and Leanne at the massive Fontaine de Saint-Michel which is right by the Seine, just up from Notre-Dame. After walking around the small but densely packed block of restaurants in the Latin Quarter we grabbed some Mexican food for lunch and got to hear about their trip. 

They had just returned from a month in India where they stayed at an artists' retreat while learning some different traditional techniques of block printing and tie dying. Check out their website & blog here: http://goldandginger.wordpress.com/. Having rented a place through AirBnB just east of the city in Fontenay-sous-Bois, they kindly invited us over to hang out, eat some snacks and drink some wine which we were delighted to do! They showed us all the incredible prints and scarves they bought in India and described their favourite dishes that they'd eaten as well as their experiences on outings around the city. We also discussed some of the serious stuff they were confronted with - what it's like to be a foreigner there, issues of violence against women and culture shock among other things. Love chatting with these two. Overall we are really glad it worked out for us to meet up and chill out in Paris! 

Knowing that we had our Eiffel Tower tickets to make use of, and going on the recommendation of Mariana that being at the tower before, during and after sunset is the ideal time, we left Zac and Leanne to head to Paris' iconic site. We arrived around 9pm but since it's summer the sun doesn't set until about 10-10:30pm. It took us about an hour to get to the top after waiting in the two elevator lines, one to the first level and one to the third level (the second level is a restaurant). Once we got up there I felt that exciting feeling of oh-my-god-I'm-standing-at-the-top-of-the-Eiffel-Tower and it just kept going for the next hour that we were up there. Hilariously enough, we even saw a guy propose to his girlfriend right in front of us, and sure enough she said yes and everyone at the top clapped for them. Cliché yes, but also a pretty adorable memory! 

One cool part about being up there that night was that Dîner en Blanc was happening right across from us down below at Trocadéro. We couldn't figure out what the event was from seeing it at the top, so after we were back on the ground we walked over to check it out.

It's essentially a giant picnic in public that guests attend dressed entirely in white, only learning of the location the last minute. But you have to sign up! Check out the website http://dinerenblanc.info/ to learn more about the concept and if you want to know the history of it. If you're in Toronto and you're interested in being a part of the next one, it's on August 29!

With tired legs and hungry stomachs we headed back to the hostel around midnight to eat some kebabs before calling it a night. One more day to go!

Paris - Day 1

In mid-June, two weeks after James and I settled in Lyon, we headed off on the TGV (train à grande vitesse, the high-speed trains that travel about 200 km/h) to the one and only City of Light. It was the second visit for both of us which was good because we'd both done a lot of the major tourist attractions previously and this time could do more meandering. Aside from just wanting to see the city again and some friends that live there, we had a couple of other reasons to be there. One was that there was an alumni event for U of T and the second was that our friends Zac and Leanne were going to be visiting the city at the same time. Perfect timing!

We booked a hostel right behind Gare de Lyon as we had a 7am return train ride back to Lyon so we wanted to be able to get there easily. With three days in the city our plan was to meet my friends who live in Paris on the first afternoon and evening, so in the few hours before that we decided to stroll around our neighbourhood. We checked out the Place de la Bastille, the famous square from the French Revolution where the Bastille prison formerly stood (it is now a giant roundabout intersection with the July Column at its centre) followed by Place des Vosges, a lovely enclosed garden and the "oldest planned square in Paris" according to Wikipedia. We walked around a bit more before heading back to the hostel to get ready to meet my friend Mariana.

I met Mariana about six years ago when we worked in the same building, and in the last five years she's been living in France. She moved here to learn French and ended up marrying a Frenchman! After meeting up at the Madeleine metro station, she took us on a lovely walking tour of the area which is her favourite part of Paris. We went past the Opéra where I quite possibly saw the car of François Hollande, Place Vendôme which is a super fancy square and home to stores with the most expensive brands, le Jardin des Tuileries and on down the Champs Élysées. We stopped for a beer to people watch and chat, and because she is a super person who happens to work at the Eiffel Tower, Mariana gave us two complimentary tickets to go see it. Neither James nor I had ever been to the top so we were pretty excited! After a million thank yous we headed to the Arc de Triomphe for a photo op before parting ways.

Next we were off to meet up with Fanny who I met about 15 years ago when she and Natalia were foreign exchange partners and she lived next door to me with the Martinellis for three months. Natalia and I stayed with her five years ago in Paris as well, and even though it had been years since I'd seen her it felt like not much time had passed. My friend Benoît, who I'd met in Toronto through our French/English practice and thanks to whom we found our apartment in Lyon, joined us as well. Yay for convenient scheduling! It was a great little bar called Le Gobelet d'argent, with a tiny patio facing onto a square nicely tucked away considering it was in a crazy busy part of the city. It's also one of the oldest Irish pubs in Paris and possibly the smallest! We all talked both in French and English about lots of different things and it was really awesome to catch up. Feeling a little hungry Fanny and I crossed the square to order pizza for the group from a restaurant that conveniently delivered it to us on the patio at the bar. Amazing. 

After a great day and night we were pooped so we headed home to rest up for day two.