I know I recently talked to you guys about how amazing Singer Island is, but I am now here to tell you how perfect Paris, France is.  This summer I went to Paris for five weeks. It was one of the most spectacular experiences of my life.

Now, I am the kind of girl who loves food! I don’t eat half my plate and say I’m done. If it is good I won’t stop until it is completely done! This means that Paris is perfect for me. Not only is it one of the most romantic cities in the world, but it also has the greatest food in the world.
I studied this summer at the Sorbonne, which is right next to the Notre Dame. In between classes my friends Alex, Taylor, and I would go and get crepes. There are so many great creperies, but we liked our crepes in a certain way. We liked them well done, also know in French as “bien cuit”.
I highly recommend trying French cepes while in the beautiful city of Paris.

1. What’s the longest flight you ever flew?

5. How long does a flight have to be in order for it to have TVs and play movies?

Normally international flights have this, but actually, almost all airliners have these or will soon have them. They are re-fitting the older airplanes to put video in each seat. This is good because flying can be boring for passengers and everybody loves to watch TV and movies. You can also play video games on the seat-back units.

To read the first installment of Ask the Pilot, go to: http://www.teentraveltalk.com/2009/10/ask-pilot-1.html

Do you have a question for teentraveltalk.com’s pilot? Ask it in the comments below.

This is not a picture of me, but I like this guy!

Deepest apologies for the delay! I’ve actually been working at the Centre de Loisirs in my cousins’ town for the past week from 9 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening, but before I get into that, I have to back up nearly two weeks to my second day in Paris. On your mark, get set, allez!

I’m going to start with a tip: if you want to fit the Eiffel Tower into your Paris itinerary, you have to get an early start. Going to from the bottom to the second level to the top (insert much picture-taking here) then back down to the bottom took almost two hours total, and that doesn’t even include getting there by metro. It’s SO worth all the line-waiting, but if you have anything else planned for the rest of the day, just remember that it’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

So anyway, that particular day, all of Paris was weeping over Michael Jackson. Under the Eiffel Tower there was a big Michael Jackson mourner gathering, and the occasional outbursts of chanting and singing kept me amused whilst on line. When you get on the elevator for the second level (the first has a restaurant, if you have the time and financial means), try to get a spot near the outer edge for the best view. Once on the second level, after the preliminary ooh-ing and ah-ing, you buy tickets for the top and get in a second line, which isn’t as bad because you can look out on all of Paris while you wait.

The top of the Eiffel Tower, mes amies, is WICKED. I mean, the top of the Empire State Building was cool, but Paris is gorgeous on a sunny day and all of the streets, buildings, monuments, and museums stretch out around you and it’s pretty much indescribable; you just have to go.

With our next destination, the Louvre, closing in 1 hour, we had to take a hasty taxi (haha, try saying that five times fast) across town. If Paris is the most magnificent city I’ve ever been to (it is, hands down) the Louvre is the most magnificent building. Visitors under 18 have free admission, so after my uncle bought his ticket, we set off to see three of the Louvre’s most famous pieces of art: La Victoire de Samothrace, the Mona Lisa, and the Venus de Milo.

The Victoire de Samothrace was oddly inspiring: for those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s a marble statue of the Greek goddess Nike, and she’s missing a head. Then, though I’ve probably seen copies of the Mona Lisa thousands of times, seeing the real thing gave me the chills– I was standing just a few feet away from the most famous painting in the world that Da Vinci himself painted with his very hands. When you go to the Louvre, I highly recommend not only stopping to see La Joconde, but walking in a semi-circle around her; her eyes really do follow you.

Finally, the statue of Venus by Milo was also awe-inspiring. I only wished I had more time to look at everything. We had fifteen minutes before closing time, so I wandered up and the Grande Galerie. Many of the paintings were of biblical events or ancient people like Cleopatra. My favorites were La Mort de Cléopâtre, the double-sided Combat de David et Goliath, and a sculpture of Hercules.

On the way out, we pass a lot of Greek sculptures. Somebody please remind me to reread Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods by Edith Hamilton. Seeing all of the gods, goddesses, and heroes was also a great chance to apply what I read in The Odyssey last year. See if you can recognize the two figures below:

Another metro ride brought us to the Théâtre du Palais Royal and Jardin du Palais Royal (pictures below). From there we walked down Avenue de l’Opéra towards the Paris Opera to see Angela Denoke, a German jazz soloist. On the way, we stopped at a chocolate store called Foucher (30 Avenue de l’Opèra), where you absolutely must go if you ever find yourself in that section of Paris. A box of macarons, chocolate morsels with ground espresso, or chocolate truffles would make the perfect souvenir for a friend (or in my case, the perfect pre-dinner snack). We had dinner at the Bistro Romain on Boulevard des Italiens, where the food was pretty good, but not excellent.

Finally, the Opera. The building itself was (ah geez– refer to the title of this post) — arrestingly exquisite? Truly, though, it came in a close second with the Louvre. The ancient architecture made it seem like we were in a royal castle. The show was excellent, even though most of the songs were in German. Both Angela Denoke and the band were incredibly talented.

Et voila! My action-packed weekend in Paris. The only thing I didn’t get to do was go shopping. In France, there aren’t clothing sales constantly, like there are in the U.S. Clothes are on sale very rarely, but in the beginning of the summer, there are HUGE sales. Fifty percent off, seventy percent off– you get the picture. “SOLDES” (sale) decorated the windows of clothing stores throughout Paris while I was there. However, clothes are still more expensive then in the U.S., so don’t blow all your money on something you can get back at the mall in your state.

Tomorrow, you shall hear about Bretagne (Brittany) and the city of Angers.

From Sacrè Coeur, we continued to walk through Montmartre, stopping at Café Turgot to eat lunch, where I thoroughly enjoyed my lamb kebabs with fries, pictured below. Oh, by the way, if you ever go to France, I hope you really love carbonated mineral water, because you’re going to have it with every single meal. I kid you not. However, having just escaped the fiery pits of hell colloquially known as Chemistry Honors, I always have much fun reading the label to see what ions I’m consuming as I down a glass of Eau Minérale Naturelle.



After a considerable amount of trekking and metro-riding, we found ourselves at Avenue des Champs-Elysées, the most famous street in the world. It’s lined with trees and it’s got L’Arc de Triomphe on one end and the Obelisk of Luxor on the other with the original Luis Vuitton store somewhere in the middle. Exemplifying an obnoxious tourist and vexing several taxi drivers, I stopped in the middle of the street to take about three thousand pictures. Then we made our way towards the Arc de Triomphe end, crossed the street again, and walked down a flight of stairs and under the street to access the monument. The tomb of the unknown soldier was quite pretty, the eternal flame reminding me of the JFK grave in Arlington National Cemetery. Also beneath the arc is a plaque commemorating the return of the Alsacian region to France after WWI, which I know all about (yay education!). So far, France has been a great place to apply history and, obviously, French lessons from the past three or four years.


Nearly three hundred steps later, we were at the top of the Arc, where you could see nearly all of Paris, but particularly the wealthy streets. It was the pictures from my French textbooks come alive, and I could’ve spent ages just looking out at the city. However, seeing as we only had two days to experience as much of Paris as possible, we had to press on. Next we walked to the quarter where Victor Hugo lived, which also happens to be the Jewish quarter, which also happens to be the gay quarter. There were men in wigs, make-up, and revealing policewoman costumes. There were also crowds of people walking around wearing rainbow flags as capes and skirts. It was fabulous.


Our last stop before hightailing it home for dinner was the Place des Vosges, a cute square containing a park with a statue of Louis XIII and lots of people relaxing on the grass. We had a quick dinner of fruits de mer (seafood), baguette (always), and (you guessed it) eau minérale back in Montmartre. Then we took the metro to Place de la Concorde (the site of Marie Antoinette’s execution), where we crossed one of the 37 some odd bridges of the Seine River and walked along the water, stopping to look at L’assemblée Nationale and the Musée D’Orsay. Something I had noticed earlier, but that particularly stood out at night, was the number of couples walking around the city. We passed many, many couples (straight, gay, young, old, French, tourist…y?) holding hands. So they aren’t exaggerating when they call Paris the City of Love. It was actually a little nauseating sometimes. Ha. Je blague (I’m kidding).

We finally boarded a tour boat and set off. I really enjoyed seeing everything lit up, and the cool breeze of the river was refreshing. It was another way of experiencing Paris, but our feet didn’t get sore and the Eiffel Tower would sparkle like festive Barbie eye glitter on the hour. We saw (and learned about) several other famous places in Paris. I actually looked for the hunchback when we passed Notre Dame (which, by the way, was even prettier than I thought it would be). And under this certain bridge, you can close your eyes and make a wish. The tour guide’s English was in need of improvement (did you know the Eiffel Tower was “imaginated” by Gustave Eiffel in the late nineteenth century for the World Exhibition?) but overall, it was an amazing ride, and I would highly recommend it. Oh, and my cousin Claire and I stood on the rail at the back of the boat and sang the Titanic theme song at the top of our lungs when the tour guide was taking a coffee break. I would recommend that, too.

And that, young-uns, was my first day in Paris. More to come!

To backtrack a little, as I was flying over France this past Thursday morning, I noticed that the entire country looked like patches of different colored grass. Well, if you add some cows, horses, hay bales, and teensy little cottages, that’s EXACTLY what France is, until you hit a major city. The 5-6 hour drive to Paris was like driving through the most gorgeous farm I’d ever seen. There were huge fields of vegetables, vineyards, and empty fields with big rolls of hay. My favorite part, though, was how the animals were just chilling out by the highway (which was small, by the way, with no traffic or huge cars) and eating grass. I tried to get a picture of the cows (we must’ve passed ten thousand cows in total) but alas, my camera failed to capture anything worth posting. If you are ever in France and find that you have to go for a long drive, not only will you enjoy the sights, but it’s a good opportunity to sleep off some jet lag and write some postcards.

We arrived at Paris late at night, and we were fortunate enough to get to stay in a small apartment in Montmartre.

***

For the third morning in a row, I had my favorite breakfast: pain au chocolat and café au lait. Some other options, though, are regular bread (croissants, baguettes, etc.), fresh fruit, eggs, fruit juice, or club soda with syrup. Flavored syrup is incredibly popular here, and it’s on nearly every supermarket or Tabac (convenience store) shelf. You can add some to regular water, club soda, or (if you want to get creative) soda, which I really want to try, even though apparently nobody here adds it to soda. My favorite flavors so far are framboises (raspberry) and grenadine (cherry).

The first thing we did was walk through Montmartre, which is sort of an artists’ quarter. It was full of beautiful old buildings covered with ivy. There was even a little vineyard on someone’s property. According to my uncle, that section actually used to be where artists lived, and it wasn’t so affluent and touristy. Now, there are many street vendors and performers, but it’s very pretty all the same. From there we walked to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, a beautiful basilica that overlooked the city and la tour Montparnasse, one of the only structures in Paris that is higher than Notre Dame.

Alas, internet time is costly, so you shall have to be patient for the next installment!

COMING UP: L’Arc de Triomphe, cross-dressers, Michael Jackson zealots, la Tour Eiffel, le Louvre, German jazz band, and MORE!

**Disclaimer: I have no time to edit, so apologies in advance for spelling/grammatical errors!