We finally made it! Our flight went smoothly and we landed sometime around 11 yesterday morning. Most of us were able to sleep the majority of the flight, so we arrived relatively well rested. We didn’t make it to our apartments until about 2, however. Parisian traffic is insane! There are no speed limits that we know of, and the only road with traffic lanes is the Champs Elysees (but even there people don’t follow them). Add traffic jams into the mix and you get what we experienced yesterday afternoon. I was so glad to get off the bus and finally be able to set my feet on the ground!
I’m sharing an apartment with two other girls for the duration of the trip. It’s definitely very small, but not unbearable. There is one room, a little larger than my bedroom at home, with three twin beds, a table, three chairs, and two nightstands. There are three closets built into the wall, which each have plenty of room for storage (thank goodness!). Our bathroom is a decent size, and is actually nicer than I expected. We also have a kitchen, but we haven’t attempted to cook anything yet. It’s smaller than our upstairs half-bath! We do have a small balcony, and we are literally right across the street from the Paris American Academy, which is awesome!
After we got settled in, we took a trip to buy our European cell phones. They are tiny flip phones with basic calling and texting capabilities, and the only extras are alarms and a calculator. It’s taking some getting used to since I have a touch-screen smartphone at home! Once we all had our phones, we decided to get a snack and head to Luxembourg Gardens. Dr. Ellis, our professor from Meredith, bought us Nutella crepes. As my little sister would say, they are “like Jesus!” (Which basically means that something is really amazing or makes us really happy.) As we finished our crepes, we walked into the gardens. Luxembourg Gardens is absolutely beautiful! There are certain areas in which you cannot step on the grass, because it is maintained so meticulously. Statues and fountains fill the garden, including a model of the Statue of Liberty. This particular one is the original miniature mold for our very own Lady Liberty in New York by the sculptor Batholdi. What I really want to find out is if the playground at the gardens has an age/height/weight limit. It is huge and has some seriously fun equipment, including a modified zip-line and really tall monkey bars shaped sort of like the Eiffel Tower.
Last night 6 of us hopped in a van while Dr. Ellis and one of the other girls grabbed a taxi with Peter, president of the Paris American Academy. We drove around the city, seeing some of the major sites such as the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, the Pantheon, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower. This was yet another insane car ride, and I thought we were going to get hit trying to make it out of the roundabout to drive through the Louvre courtyard. After our ride, we ate a late dinner at a small restaurant by the Eiffel Tower. It only cost us 15 euros each to get a 3 course meal, which we thought was a great deal! Our dessert was two scoops of ice cream, so I ordered chocolate and caramel. It was probably the best ice cream I have ever tasted. Honestly. We ended our night with a visit to the Eiffel tower. That’s when it finally hit me that we are in Paris. And we got to see it twinkle on our first night! We walked down the steps to get our picture under the tower, then we headed back to our apartments. Taking the metro was an interesting experience. I’m definitely going to have to study a map so I can find my way around!
Getting ready this morning was eventful. The shower works great and my new travel hairdryer was perfect, but my flat iron wouldn’t stay on for more than 30 seconds before cutting off again. I did find out that my curling iron is dual voltage (a nice surprise!), so I was able to make my hair look somewhat decent using that. My apartment-mate’s Chi flat iron (which is an extremely nice flat iron for those of you who don’t know) wouldn’t work either, so we decided we would have to buy an iron today. One of the girls in the other apartment had to buy one as well, so we decided to make a trip together after dinner.
Today we had our first Art History class, starting around noon. Our teacher is so sweet and really knows what she’s talking about! We sat in the classroom for an hour before heading the Musee de Cluny for a tour. The museum is dedicated to the Middle Ages, and there are so many beautiful things there! There are stained glass windows from churches all over Europe, tapestries, wood carvings, altar pieces, statues, jewelry, and more! There are even roman baths in the basement of the museum. It was amazing to see all these structures and pieces that are such a huge part of history.
For dinner we ate at a small restaurant on the same street as our apartment. The food was absolutely delicious! They served wine with our dinner, but after only one tiny sip I realized I definitely am not a wine person! It was extremely strong and left my mouth feeling very dry, which I was not expecting at all. The dessert, however, was amazing! It was chocolate mousse, and being a chocolate lover, I was in heaven! After we finished eating, we decided to make a trip down the street to find flat irons and look for postcards. Luckily we were able to find flat irons at a Monoprix, which is kind of like a French Target. We also found some beautiful black and white postcards right down the street, as well as several shops we want to visit later and two Starbucks (for when we crave a little familiarity!).
It has been an amazing first two days in Paris! Tomorrow we have art history class again and will be spending most of the day in the Louvre. Hopefully the weather will turn out to be as nice as it has been the past two days!
PS: You should be able to view all my pictures by clicking on the link below! I’m going to do my best to upload my latest pictures each night!
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2143635709256.137260.1197139952&l=c948545bda
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