Last Day

As I am sitting here writing this, the sun is setting over Paris, making all the beautiful buildings look as though they've been doused in golden paint. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful last day in Paris. The weather was mild, the sky was as blue as I've ever seen it, and the sunshine was absolutely brilliant. I woke up early and took the metro to the Musée d'Orsay with some friends, where we wandered around exhibits we hadn't yet visited. We lounged in my friend's apartment and ate lunch, then walked to the Eiffel Tower where we sat, opened a bottle of champagne, and talked about what an amazing adventure this semester has been. I truly can't believe four months have gone by so quickly. They have been unrepeatable and I have adored every moment.

I will be honest, my first few days in Paris, I found myself asking the question, "What were you thinking, doing this again?"I knew from my experience in Dijon that adjusting to life in a place so different to what you are accustomed to is never easy, at least not for me. But I kept reminding myself what an experience Dijon was, how much it made me grow, and how much I loved it in the end. I'm so happy I pushed myself to dive into Paris, embrace it, and experience it, because I've had the time of my life. The experience, though comprised of my day-to-day "quotidien,"seems surreal when I really process the life I have here: The other day, I woke up in my apartment in Paris. I got dressed, had breakfast, and brushed my teeth. I walked past the Arc de Triomphe, got on line 2 of the metro, then switched to line 3. From Anatole France, I walked to the hospital where I've been interning, where I spent the day standing beside a surgeon as she performed three cesarians in a row, welcoming three new beings into the world. When I step back and think about it, it doesn't seem real.

Paris has truly become another place I am lucky enough to call my home. I've come to know its streets, its customs, its people, exactly where to catch the metro, and a few of the many more hidden gems the city has to offer. I will forever be grateful for the time I've spent here and will be sad to leave tomorrow morning, despite how thrilled I am to be going back to my other home in the US and to spend Christmas there with my family and friends who I've missed so much. As one of our professors said to us this week, we are never truly able to feel the magic of Paris unless we leave it and go elsewhere. I'm so happy that my "elsewhere" is a place I love just as much.

I have no doubt I will return to Paris someday, one way or another. As I said to my colleagues at the hospital before I left on my last day, I love it here too much not to. Goodbye is too strong to use. Instead, I'll say "à bientot."

Amsterdam

As a final trip before our depart from Europe, a couple of weekends ago my friends and I took a two-day trip to Amsterdam. I really enjoyed spending time there, as it is a city unlike any European city I've been to before. Amsterdam is really beautiful; it is a city whose stone streets intermingle with snaking canals and stone bridges. Lining the streets and overlooking the water are tall, thin buildings whose colors and styles reminded me a little bit of typical Nantucket homes. Our first day, we took a boat along the canals to see a bit of the city:

Among other sights, we were able to go see the Anne Frank House, which is where Anne Frank lived in hiding with her family and where she wrote her infamous diary during the second World War. Very interesting and moving to see. We also walked through the famous "red light district," saw the Heineken building, toured a gallery, and hung out at the "Iamsterdam" sculpture. We also got to try Dutch pancakes, which are a bit of a hybrid between crepes and pancakes, coming in different varieties and served with syrup. A very unique city with a culture unlike any other. I'm really glad I got to go!

 A week from today, I will be back home in Massachusetts. In the meantime, I've been taking advantage of the numerous parisian Christmas markets, shopping, and seeing as much of the city as I can before my depart. I finish my internship on Wednesday and present my academic analysis of the experience on Thursday. The semester has absolutely flown by.

Budapest Vienna and Prague, Oh My!

Again, a belated post, but I couldn't not do one on my amazing week-long trip that I took at the end of October. We had a week of vacation before starting our internships (which I will get to), and I was very fortunate to visit three very different, very charismatic cities.

The day after finals, some friends and I flew to Budapest, Hungary with tightly packed backpacks serving as our luggage. I had no idea what to expect from this city as I had heard little to nothing about it before, but the first thing that surprised me was how warm it was! Mid 60s to 70s for most of the day in late October. Definitely unheard of back at school in Maine. We had a very nice private apartment rented to us by our hostel where we left our things and went to explore the city. There were three things about Budapest that I remarked on the most: the food, the architecture, and the people. In terms of food, the Hungarians don't skimp. Large, heavy dishes like goulash soup and paprika chicken with dumplings are very popular. Also, you can always find people walking around the city with ice cream cones.
The architecture was especially interesting, as I'd never seen anything quite like it. On nearly every building were numerous larger-than-life statues of people and animals that seemed to be jumping out at you. I was impressed by the intricacy, but the statues definitely caught me off guard a few times. Other than this, we saw some of the beautiful famous monuments Budapest has, such as the Chain Bridge, the Pest Castle (Fun fact: Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest, that associate with one another.), Parliament, and the Obelisk, which was near where we lived. I loved seeing buildings lit up at night the most. It almost felt like an entirely different city.
The people in Budapest, we remarked, were typically very young. Lots of young families and lots of college/grad school-aged students. We met many students from America as well as Australia and some European countries who were there taking a gap year or on study abroad vacation like us. Halloween was also a big deal there!

We left Budapest for Vienna next, but unfortunately arrived later than expected after missing our connection out of Berlin. But despite our time in Vienna being shortened, we did a lot! We saw several museums, ate schnitzel and strudel (portions in Vienna are HUGE and definitely surpass the stereotypical large American plate), tried the famous beer, toured the Opera house, went shopping, and saw the city's castle. I absolutely loved Vienna. It's beauty really struck me. Everything we saw seemed so delicate and intricate. I hope to return there someday and spend a little more time!

To end our trip, we took a (long) bus ride to Prague. I was immediately taken aback by how a city could feel so cozy. Prague seemed to have a little bit of everything, all in one place. It is a city that possesses aspects of a city, but at the same time it often felt like a small town.
Architecturally, Prague is beautiful. It is built on two sides of a river, and the side we lived on slopes upwards into a big hill. There is a beautiful stone bridge connecting the two halves, and it is always packed with people, musicians, street performers, and artists. The buildings tended to be small, capped with red roofs, or were painted a pastel color with pretty, decorative moldings. Old town square was beautiful. The city's charm is summed up so well here:

Some of our other favorite spots included the rose gardens at the very top of Petrin Hill, where we spent a long time wandering one after noon. I also loved the John Lennon Wall, which we were touched to discover made a tribute to our home city:

Another great part about Prague: tredlnik. We all fell in love with this traditional food. You can find it being sold along the streets, in restaurants, anywhere. It's a dough-based pastry that's baked on a rotating metal spool. It is sweet and is coated in cinnamon and sugar-- kind of a Czech donut if you will.

All in a ll, a great trip with so much to see. I'm now back in Paris for my internship and am loving it. I work in a Parisian hospital shadowing different doctors in different services each week. I've done Functional Explorations (mostly cardiac diagnostic services), radiology, internal medicine, surgery, the ER, and obstetrics. So grateful for this experience and will undoubtedly keep treasuring the few days I have left here.

Loire Valley and London!

Since coming home from Dijon, I had forgotten how easy it is to travel around Europe. Train tickets generally aren’t too expensive, they’re fast, and they run extremely frequently. Needless to say, I’ve been taking advantage!

A couple of weekends ago, a couple friends and I took a day trip to the Loire Valley. We got up at an hour earlier than I care to admit and took a train from Paris to Tours, a city in the Loire Valley in close proximity to all the chateaux the area is known for. I visited the Loire Valley when I was living in Dijon two years ago, but regardless, it was really fun to go back! I had forgotten a lot about the castles I had seen, and I saw some new castles, too. It’s a beautiful area with lots of countryside. We were also able to do a wine tasting and tour at one of the local family-run wineries. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day:

This past weekend, I was also lucky enough to get to go visit one of my best friends from Colby in London! Conveniently, she had been visiting there on vacation, so it was a perfect opportunity for me to see her. It was so nice to get to be with her, and we saw some great parts of the city, too. We did some shopping in the Piccadilly Circus area and Harrods, had afternoon tea, rode the London Eye (my personal favorite activity. Amazing how high up it goes! You can really see the whole city.), saw the changing of the guard, visited the National Gallery, and were able to see a bunch of other classic monuments.

(For some reason I am having trouble getting the London pictures uploaded, but I will work on that!)

I had never been to England before, and I’m really happy I went! It was really nice to take a break from French and get to speak English for the whole weekend, too. It did feel slightly strange to be speaking English in a European-feeling place, though, which is perhaps why I came to the conclusion that London felt like a hybrid between an American city and Paris for me.

I’m back in Paris now and am working hard to start preparing for my finals in two weeks. Next weekend I’m thrilled to be heading back to Dijon with two Colby friends! I can’t wait to spend time with my host mom and program director, and visit all my favorite spots in the city I still consider to be one of my homes. I’ll update again soon! À bientôt !

A Much Needed Update

Seeing as this is only my second post in a month (and two years ago I posted nearly every week), I suppose I owe some sort of an explanation. It may sound like a bit of a canned excuse, but I really have been so busy! I could write pages on the adventures I’ve had since starting my life here in Paris, but I’ll do my best to limit this post to a few brief anecdotes.

            The second weekend here in Paris, I visited Versailles with everyone from the BU group. It was a GORGEOUS day, and we enjoyed touring the beautiful estate and its surrounding areas. My favorite part of the visit (as it was two years ago when I visited for the first time) was taking “le petit train” (a convenient but extremely rickety contraption on wheels) to Marie Antoinette’s village that she lived in during her time as queen. It’s an adorably quaint area with lots of green space and several cottages that look as though Cinderella might have lived there.

            The following weekends were very busy as well. BU offers several cultural activities to do on the weekends throughout our stay. We are required to do at least two of them. The first one I did was a visit to the Musée du Vin (Wine Museum) of Paris. There, we spent several hours sitting around a table and sampling wines from different areas of France. Of the selection we tried, my favorite was a red wine called Le Benjamin de Beauregard Pomerol.

            This past weekend, for my second cultural activity, I took a cooking class! My grammar professor taught it at the kitchen in the Fondation des Etats-Unis, where some of the students are housed. We spent a really fun day crowded in the little kitchen making chocolate macarons (my dad’s personal favorite), chocolate mousse, apple tarts, and a salad that’s literal translation is “hot goat cheese salad.” It’s a salad with balsamic and mustard vinaigrette, walnuts, and pan-seared goat cheese. I highly recommend it! It was delicious, as were all the deserts we made.

            The day after cooking, some friends and I got up at an hour earlier than I care to admit, hopped on a train, and went to Troyes in Champagne for a day trip. Upon arriving, we rented bikes and rode down an absolutely beautiful countryside bike path. We stopped at a lake called Lac d’Orient where we sat on the beach, had a picnic lunch, and enjoyed the sunshine. It was so nice to get away from the city for a day and be surrounded by the trees and the water.

After, we were able to walk around the town for a brief amount of time before catching the train back to Paris. Troyes actually reminded me a lot of Dijon! I’m excited to head to Dijon in several weeks to visit my program director and my host mom. In the meantime, I’m keeping very busy with schoolwork, presentations, and cooking for myself (this is actually proving to be much bigger of a task than I originally expected). I am going the Loire Valley this weekend with some friends to visit chateaux, so I will update again soon!

Encore une fois

Didn't think I'd be saying it so soon, but I am back in France! This semester, I am studying with Boston University's Paris Internship Program. Yesterday we started classes at the VERY nice BU academic center in Paris. It is a very short walk from the Eiffel Tower, and I've been enjoying buying a sandwich or salad at a boulangerie and eating it in front of la Tour Eiffel at lunchtime. This semester, I am taking a French language course, a French literature course (which, conveniently, will count towards my English major at Colby), and a course called "Paris Aujourd'hui" that studies Parisian culture through theater, films, and music. These courses are all taken the first seven weeks of the program, and then the second seven weeks, I will be doing an internship in health and human services, likely at a hospital or clinic in Paris (details to come). As all of this encompasses my love of French, literature, and medicine, I'm pleased to have found the program.

I arrived in Paris on early Sunday morning, taking a bus from CDG airport to my new neighborhood, the Arc de Triomphe. As nothing is open on Sundays in France, the streets were completely barren. As we turned the corner into the city and the Arc de Triomphe became visible, I was taken aback by the sight of it standing so tall and fortified at the center of the city with the sun rising behind it. It was a beautiful sight.

I then walked a short distance to my host apartment. I am living with another girl in my program in addition to the woman hosting us. Most nights a week, we cook our own dinner, which is proving interesting! Luckily, we discovered an outdoor market near our apartment, and one of the vendors sells pre-made meals, which we have already taken advantage of. There is also a Monoprix around the corner (think of a higher-end French version of Wal-Mart), which will prove useful. It's been so fun to see all the typical stores I used to go to in Dijon! Paul, a chain bakery I visited frequently two years ago for lunch, has not one, but two stores just a couple blocks from my apartment. (I've already expressed to some Dijon friends back home how content this has made me.)

Since arriving, I've taken a boat tour of the Seine with the other students in the program, found a beautiful hidden park, climbed the Arc de Triomphe, and successfully remembered how to use the metro. Living in Paris is definitely much different from living in Dijon, and I still have a fair amount of settling in and adjusting to do. But as always, I'm constantly discovering, so I'll update again soon!

Bisous.