Paris Paris Paris. A very belated blog entry in homage to this most magnificent place, visited 24th--29th August 2009 by Sophia, Liv and Jess:
We arrived nice and late on the night of the Mondayn after a hectic to say the least day, full of flights, fears and frantic flight hopping and baggage scares. But it was all worth the pain when we saw our Servas host Dora waiting for us in Charles de Gaulle, ready to take us to our new parisien home for the next two nights. She was such a lovely woman, in her late 60s I think (but who looked very good for her age, damn the French lucky things) who lived with her husband Gilles, so sweet and nice and funny. We were spoiled with our very own loft room all to ourselves, with a little view of the eiffel tower if you stoof up on something. Both Dora and Gilles spoke pretty much no English at all: it was the ultimate test of my French. All those god awful speaking tests, classes, hsc frech continuers…would I survive?! Well, I must say I was pretty proud of myself. It was a challenge relying so heavily on the language, which got easier as the days went by, I had my moments of frustration with myself when i just could remember that word or that phrase or couldn't understand what dora was trying to tell me, but I think it was more of a useful thing than a burden, me with my French. It helped for the most part, and I really did enjoy this kind of challenge, it was good for me to realise that yes! All that knowledge really is in there somewhere, I really had thought it had gone for good after the hsc was done.
While staying with dora we enjoyed many a sight seeing, le champs elysees, le petit/grand palais, l'arche de triomphe, and even a walking tour to and around the eiffel tower by the creepiest weirdest guy we encountered on our entire trip, who started out almost nice but ended up being so odd and angry and just, egh, I cant even explain how weird that was… But equally as beautiful as the parisien scenery and these gorgeous monuments that I have been dreaming my whole life of visiting, was the foooooooood my god the food that we were fed! My stomach has never been so happy to see a baguette. Slash five. So much bread, so much camenbert, jam, ham, salad with this really nice salty dressing, and I remember on our first night she gave us the sweetest rockmelon and peaches. and really good tirimasu which I ate everyones portions of J gooooood times.
Our second host was Marie-Christine, the sweetest woman, living near Balizy-Gravigny, not too far from Versailles actually. She lived in this cute apartment with nice furniture and buddhas and we got our own room with a little balconette, and she fed us probably the most copiest amounts of pastries I have been exposed to since Matildes birthday brunch circa 2007. Marie-Christine was really into Indian life and culture, and we heard some great stories from her travels there, and in Bali too which she raved about. It was a relief not to have to rely on my French with her, she was great to talk to as well as her daughter Caroline, the both of them showed us around Paris the day we met them and it was so nice to be shown around for once! We went to palais de congres, cathedrale de st Genevieve, le quartier latin (so cool to walk through) stopping at many a Boulangerie-patisserie, le pantheon, the medieval museum, Ile de la cite, Tuileries Garden, place de la concord, la tour eiffel again (this time at night, and without that creepy dude), Notre Dame (ohhh my god, one of the most epically beautiful things I have ever laid eyes on, I mean I always knew it would be amazing but it just was so much more than that) and ofcourse le louvre, which I would have liked to spend more time in, we really rushed through it but I'm glad we went anyway, and on the cheap day too! So it was all well and good. Something I really noticed in Paris was the lighting in the evening, it is unlike anything I have seen at home, its like this soft, delicate light that just makes everything more romantic and gorgeous, even though it already is. it's a European thing I guess. I like it.
Another great day was spent taking a trip out to Versailles on the train, to see the most amazing and spectacular Chateau. Incroyable! So much to see there, we didn't even have time to see Marie Antoinette's area, but it was no matter, as the palace itself and the exhibitions inside and the gardens that just went on and on in their most geometric and symmetrical way, was just enough. Perfection you might say. (Ok who says that?) Such a grand day, sitting out at dusk on the wall overlooking some of the beautiful gardens, I thought dear god this is good, very very good, remind me to congratulate myself for deciding to be obsessed with everything French. I was right on the money.