So I have noticed with this blog that I can't say where I went, only where I am. Just letting you know that I'm not actually still in Paris right now, but wanted to write "from" Paris, minor detail...

Ok, so where I left off. Like I said, I was going to a day trip to Girona and Besalu on Saturday. Both cities were very beautiful, but definitely only worth seeing in one day. We didn't luck out too much with weather, in fact, Barcelona area had an extreme wind storm which blew down tons of trees and actually killed 2 children. You probably don't want to hear about this, but the bus we were on was actually kind of terrifying in the wind, but I am alive.

Both cities are tiny and very old. Girona is well known for it's arabic style bath houses, which we saw on our tour. I thought seeing them was very interesting, especially with a tour guide because I learned that there were different bathing rooms and also the means in which they heated the houses. In the winter, it was very common for people to come into the bathhouses to get away from the cold. Girona also has the widest catedral in the world without pillars, interesting fact.

Besalu is a medieval walled city about 30 min from Girona. This village is extremely small. We saw one of the only Mikvas in the world. The Mikva is a ritual Jewish bath that was in the basement of a destroyed synagogue that we saw. We didn't stay in Besalu very long, but I did buy some chocolate (not kidding, I am really becoming addicted to chocolate while I've been here) in a small shop that was made in Girona and was some of the best chocolate I've ever had.

On Sunday I did something extremely fun that I am so happy I decided to do. I joined an extracurricular type group called "Voluntaire Linguistic" which is run through my host university UPF (ESCI is the business school at UPF which I only have classes at, hope that makes sense). It set me up with an intercambio as well as coordinates excursions and tours. It is cool because it is for all exchange students studying abroad in Barcelona as well as for Spanish students that want to be involved as well. Anyway, we took a tour of Esplugas which is a small town in the mountaneous part of Barcelona.

Esplugas is famous for making tiles, something that might not seem too interesting but is actually quite important considering that most of the architecture in Europe consists of tiles. They have an enormous tile making factory which is now a museum and also another museum that we saw which explained the history of azulejos (tiles) and also different eras of tiles. To be honest, I am not too excited about looking at tiles all day, I enjoyed the rest of the city more.

The rest of the town is gorgeous, it is very quite and quaint. Actually, Esplugas is the location for the new Woody Allen movie that is out now called Vicky Cristina Barcelona and we saw the house where the movie was filmed.

Although all of those things were very fun, my favorite part of the trip was the fact that I wasn't surrounded by Americans. Only one other girl from my program was there (Ashley was the one who told me about it, I'm so happy for that!). I met girls from Finland, Mexico, Italy, Peru, and Portugal. After the tour, we all went to a tapas bar and ate and drank sangria together. It was so nice to meet all of them and make new friends. Actually, 2 of the girls are in one of my classes and so I get to see them a couple of times a week. Sigh of relief for something different!

On Tuesday of that week, I met one of the girls that I have an intercambio with. Her name is Eva, and thankfully her English is just about as bad as my Spanish so we are forced to attempt to speak in the others language. We sat near the Arc de Triomfe and chatted for about an hour and a half. I was so happy to practice my Spanish and I think she was happy to chat with me also. We made plans to see that Woody Allen movie (Vicki Cristina Barcelona) on Thursday of this week so I am excited about that! The other girl I have an intercambio with is Cris and her and I are supposed to meet sometime this week as well!

The week was kind of a blur, especially because I was only in Barcelona until Thursday afternoon, because at around 4:00 I got on a bus to the Girona airport to get to PARIS! The flights went smoothly, except that we flew Ryanair which makes me nervous because they are usually pretty unreliable. Actually, one of the girls in our group of 6 was told that her flight was moved to 7am that morning (they sent her an email at 6:50am telling her so although she didn't get it, not to mention get to the airport in 10 minutes). She was given the option to either not go or to spend 200 euro on another ticket (even though Ryanair was the one who messed it up completely!). She ended up paying it, yikes, that's a steep price I woudln't pay...

Anyway, as soon as we arrived in Paris, we found the metro. I am so surprised/proud that I am "fluent" in metros now. Figuring out a metro system is extremely easy, but thinking back to the first days in Barcelona, I was terrified and so confused. Now that I know that metro language is basically the same everywhere...

When we got on this enormous elevator to get out of the metro, all of us were giggling and talking because we were so excited to be in Paris. A Parisian man that was standing behind us interrupted with a "Can I say something?" Just when we thought he was about to yell at us for being loud Americans he said, "I just wanted to tell you all that we are very happy about your new President. We really feel that it will help France and America become closer." I think all of our mouths dropped to the floor, we gave an enthusiastic "Yes, we are too, thank you" and walked out of the elevator. I had noticed that a couple people around were smiling after he said that also and couldn't help but smile at his comment. We had been in Paris maybe a matter of minutes and the first encounter we had with a Parisian was extremely kind. Although I know that this is only one man that said this, he had no obligation to say it. When all I've ever heard is that the French hate Americans and that our relations are horrible, I did not experience any of this. Like I mentioned in my other blog, it has been fascinating seeing how Europe has reacted to the election of Obama. From what I've heard, Europe seems to think we've finally made it out of the Dark Ages, or the Bush Age at least...

We walked to our hostal (very easily!) which was situated in the village of Montmatre in Paris. Our hostal was actuallylisted in my travel book and was very cute. The other 5 girls stayed in a different room than I did because I booked later than they did, so I stayed in a room with random "roommates." The first 2 nights I had some art history students from the Nederlands stay with me. They were visiting Paris for about a week and visiting various art museums. The last night I had 2 Australians and a Canadian stay in my room. I only got to chat with them very little, but it was cool to meet them!

Anyway, Thursday night we had gotten in around 1am and I was exhausted. Some of the girls went to get crepes and get to bed, but I slept right away.

Friday morning we woke up early and went to our continental breakfast in the basement of our hostal. It was actually really good breakfast (straight carbs of course, crossaints, baguette, cereal with whole milk yuck, orange juice, coffee and toast). On a side note, I have a funny story about milk. I actually had a dream while in Barcelona that my good friend Matt (I think you all know him) from SM came to visit me in Barcelona. In the morning after he arrived, I went into the refrigerator and found an entire gallon of Kemps milk. I was ecstatic and asked my host mom where she got Kemps milk. She said I was crazy and that she didn't buy it. Matt said that he brought it from home so he could eat his cereal. I woke up actually laughing about it because Matt is obsessed with cereal which is why I think he brought the milk, Kemps is the type of milk we use at Starbucks and most importantly, I miss milk so so much. Milk here comes in boxes that are ultra pasteurized and stored in the pantry. It makes me sick to think about so I don't drink it...maybe I am too picky...

Ok, I'll quit the tangent, after breakfast we decided to go to the Louvre Museum to get it out of the way in the morning (we heard that sometimes the lines can be about 3 hours long). There actually was no line when we got to the Lourve and we walked right in. I have to say that the Louvre is actually somewhat overwhelming and I didn't enjoy it all too much. I love art and we did spend a good 3 hours there, but that era of art is just not my favorite. Yes, I saw the Mona Lisa which was actually really cool. I did a 180 walk around the painting and stared so curiously at it. It really is true that her eyes follow you wherever you stand. It was definitely cool to see the most famous painting in the world. My favorite painting at the Louvre, however, was not the Mona Lisa, it was a painting I had never herad of before called "The Wreck of the Medusa." If you haven't seen this painting, I really recommend you google it or something although I know it will not be the same as seeing in real life. I couldn't stop looking at this painting, I really felt like I could feel each of the people's emotions in the painting through their expressions. Mostly for Dad, but did you study this painting at all? I don't know why I loved it so much, but it was very impressive...

Next we walked along the river to Notre Dame. I actually was not very impressed with Notre Dame, but I think it is because I have literally seen enough cathedrals to last the rest of my life (and I still have to see more, the Sistine chapel is in my top 5 must sees while I am in Europe).

After Notre Dame, we ate lunch at a little cheap restaurant/cafe. I had just a panini, coffee, soda, and a nutella crepe. On our way to the cafe, we stopped at one of the plazas and decided to ride the caroseul. I think it must have been ridiculous to see 6 20 year old girls riding a caroseul but we figured it was a rather French thing to do.

After lunch we walked to the Place de la Bastille. As we walked around the huge circle utterly confused, we stopped at a crepe stand to ask the man where the Bastille was. He looked at us puzzled before asking "the Bastille? You mean the prison?" "Yes" "It was destroyed in the 1700's." Hahaha, I guess we missed that minor detail. All there is in the Plaza Bastille is a large monument that symbolizes democracy (the prison was destroyed about 2 days after the "storming of the bastille," I think I needed to pay better attention in World History). This man was also very nice to us and gave us free churros (the stereotypes are wrong!!).

We then walked all the way back to Montmatre where we climbed the huge hill that led to the Sacre Coeur, a beautiful cathedral at the top. If ever in Paris, I would really recommend going here because it is gorgeous, one of the most beautiful cathedrals (on the outside) that I have seen. It also gives a great view of the city of Paris.

We walked around the cute little village of Montmatre for awhile and also stopeped inside of a cafe that was also a piano bar with little scraps of paper completely covering the walls of tourists and travelers that had left their mark. It was very cute.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to freshen up, and walked to the Moulin Rouge which was also very close to us. The Moulin Rouge was honestly nothing too special, the windmill is not originial at all and to see a dinner and movie there will set you back about 140 euro. Yikes

Unfortunatley we stopped at an Irish pub/restaurant for dinner (I would have liked to go somewhere French, but it is fine). The most interesting part about this place was that they had old plaques hanging all over the walls and the one we sat right next to was a Pabst Blue Ribbon football one! I was really excited because I haven't seen a single American beer in Europe and we happened to sit next to PBR, Milwaukee beer! I took a picture by it :) I just had pizza here and ordered a French beer (just a blonde, it tasted like Blue Moon) to have something French haha. One of the girls Coca Light (Diet coke) was 4.40 euro while my beer was 3.70. Haha, soda really is an expensive commodity.

That night we went out to a bar, but I did not have too much fun so I won't talk about it.

On Saturday, 2 of the girls in our group went to Versailles while 4 of us decided to do the rest of Paris. I would have wanted to go to Versailles but I wanted to see Paris more. It was also very nice to have a smaller group of people for awhile. I think in the future I am definitely traveling with less...

We got up early again and decided once more to do a museum first. We went to the Museum D'Orsay which I have to say was my favorite part of Paris. It was my favorite because it had all of the art that I really love, impressionism, post-impressionism, moderinism, etc. Monet is my favorite painter and seeing so many of his paintings in one building was unreal. There was also Van Gogh, Picasso, Manet, Renoir, Whistler, and Edgar Degas, a painter that I did not know of but really enjoyed his work. This museum was also a lot smaller than the Louvre and more managable which I liked. There was a special exhibit going on while we were there with Manet and Picasso. Apparantley Picasso painted dozens of "replicas," or as replica as Picasso can do which basically means something out of a dream of a Manet painting called "Lunch on the Grass." In the Manet painting, there are 2 women and 2 men eating a picnic. One of the women in the background is getting water and is fully clothed, as well as the other men. The other woman is in the forefront of the picture and is nude. In Picasso's renditions, he paints both woman nude as he thought fit...he also comes up with so many different versions of the painting. It is actually very fascinating and I think the best exhibit I have ever seen. If you are interested in it anymore, type "museum d'orsay exhibit manet and picasso" and click the 3rd link down (from the museum's website, they give you an entire story about the exhibit). Sorry I can't paste the link, this blog won't let me.

After the museum we headed over to the Eiffel Tower (finally!). It was extremely amazing and much bigger than I expected (actually I don't really know what I expected). We took our touristy pictures, but decided not to go up as it was 19 euro.

We found the metro after asking a cute old French man in galoshes and cordoroy pants where it was (again, extremely nice! He even dug around his car for awhile to find his metro map). There was a half outdoor/half indoor crepe restaurant that we stopped at. I had the most amazing crepe of my life here. The man who worked it refused to talk to me in English and told me to speak in Spanish (which I thought was funny) and gave me complimentary mushrooms (his gift to me for being American which he told me he would never give to a French person). Anyway, this crepe was enormous, it has basil marinated mushrooms, tomatoes, chicken and cheese, all wrapped together in a crepe. I thought it was heaven for sure. And then of course I ate more chocolate because I am OBSESSED, it's horrible.

We got on the metro to get to the Catacombs. As we were waiting in line at the Catacombs, one of the men working informed us that they would be closing in about 20 minutes. We were at the end of the line when he said this and were bummed because he told us that it depended how many people would get in by how many people exited. We decided to just try it out and see if maybe we would make it in. The line behind us got longer, and with 2 minutes left we were almost to the front. They called out that they wouldonly allow 15 people in, andas he counted heads, the 15th person was one of the girls in my group, we had all gotten in! Kind of a funny story

The Catacombs were crazy, we walked down the longest spiral staircase I have ever taken into these tiny tunnels. The Catacombs used to be a stone quarry but was abandoned in the 1700's. After illnesses from overcrowded cemetaries, Paris decided to remove the bones from cemetaries and basically "stack" them in the empty quarry. 6 million (yes million) bodies of bones were moved underneath Paris and I walked past all of it. It was so eerie and creepy to actually see 6 million bones and skulls just stacked all along the walls beside me. Cool but creepy...

After the Catacombs we went back to the hostal. I had a dinner of french onion soup at a cafe nearby and then we went to the Eiffel Tower again to see it at night. IT was very cool, and it even sparkles every 30 min, so I got some nice pictures. After the Eiffel Tower, I tried to meet up with some other friensd that were also visitng Paris but that fell through so I went to bed.

The flight home was smooth and when I got back to Barcelona, I was thankful for the humid air (France weather was too much like Wisconsin!). I napped a long while, did some hw, and went to bed.

The entire trip was amazing, but I know that I could never live in Paris, it is much more touristy than Barcelona and is only worthwhile to visit I think. Most of all it made me excited for more traveling. I am going to Madrid this weekend, Sevilla the weekend after, hopefully Edinburgh/London at the end of February, and booked Dublin and Amsterdam for March. I am trying to do more things in Barcelona during the week, but I do feel as though I have time to see everything that I would like.

Anyway, I hope that was detailed enough for you all. I love you and will blog again soon! Besos

Love,

Amyx, Amanda, Mandy