bonjour from paris...our last stop on this adventure of a lifetime! paris is a beautiful city, and it has been bittersweet to wrap up our time here. interestingly enough, it has been raining about every day since we arrived....i think that europe is sad that we are leaving it! enough melancholy. let me catch you up on what we have been up to since our arrival.....
we are staying in the rue cler neighborhood on the rive gauche. it's a sweet little neighborhood with views of the eiffel tower peeking out from each street. since we are staying near the eiffel tower we have walked to the eiffel tower a lot. we have also spent some time just sitting in parks. these have been some of my favorite times. we've also done a bit of sightseeing of course: Notre Dame during mass, walking over the Pont Neuf into the Ile St. Louis, wandering through the Louvre, taking a night cruise on the Seine River, drinking lots of coffee and attempting to become "regulars" at a cafe....the list goes on. i won't bore you with all the details, but i will tell 2 funny stories before i go.....
story 1: this story takes place during one of my favorite times in a park. jonathan and i were in between things to do so we thought we would kill some time in a park. we went in, sat on a bench, and decided to watch the world go by. we watched some people walking through. we watched a black cat. we remarked at how cats always seem to go straight to jonathan who is highly allergic to cats. we remarked that the black cat that we were watching was walking right to jonathan. we started laughing. we started laughing harder when the cat walked up to jonathan's shoe. jonathan sat there with his arms crossed and tried to give the cat the evil eye. it backfired. the cat jumped up on the bench beside jonathan. i began searching my bag for tissues because i was laughing and crying. and then i turned around and the cat was on jonathan's lap. have you ever had one of those belly laughs that make you feel like you just took an hour abs class? well, yeah, that's how hard i laughed. the cat was on his lap for about 20 minutes until he got up. don't worry - we have pictures.
side note: i think that i know why they don't have coffee to go in europe. coffee is a part of life and life is something that you don't just rush through. for this reason i think that this is why the french excel at many things: fashion, cheese, wine, coffee, and cooking to name a few. these things are not to be done just to get it done, they are things to work on, enjoy, and perfect. just my little observation. and if you haven't noticed i really like paris. now onto story 2.....
story 2 doesn't involve a cat, but it does involve someting less intelligent than a cat. story 2: on a recommendation from my best friend and IU pal, Liza, we visited the Orsay Museum. the Orsay showcases art from pre-Impressionism to contemporary art. it's a great museum and much more managable than the Louvre so go if you get a chance. now i'm not a fan of impressionism, in fact, i think that it is a bit overdone. nevertheless, after spending so much time in this museum it was growing on me so jonathan and i stayed a while and decided to explore some of the other exhibits. my story starts while we were walking through an interesting exhibit on furniture and decorative arts from the art nouveau period. i was admiring a lovely wooden wardrobe with beautiful inlaid metalwork in the shape of leaves. the "leaves" were in the wood as well as springing out of the wood making it look almost organic. it was lovely. apparently the man beside us also thought it was lovely because he walked straight up to the wardrobe, past the roped off section and started boinging the metal leaves! i'm not joking! it was amazing that they didn't disengage from the wood and fall off. why did this retard do this? i don't know. to make sure that they were metal i guess??? it was unbelievable. i had to tell him that you aren't supposed to TOUCH the art, only to LOOK at it. he looked me up and down like i was the crazy one and then moved on to the next room. i couldn't follow him. it was unreal. who are these people!?!?!
despite crazy-art-molester-guy we have had a nice time in paris. paris is a great city. but paris is a city and yet it is not. maybe it's all the tree lined streets. maybe it feels smaller because everything shuts down from noon until threeish for lunch. maybe it feels more like home because there are tons of parks, dogs walk off leash following their master, people sit in long lines along the sidewalk sipping their coffee and watching the world go by. the metro here is exceptionally clean, and, if you're lucky, your car will have someone playing "la vie en rose" on the accordian or the violin. i know that it's probably something cheesy that they do for the tourists, but i don't think i would ever get sick of it.
actually, we have had a nice time everywhere. each place has been fun to explore and get to know. each place has helped us to better know ourselves. and we have learned so much about each other on this trip as well. we've talked about what we love (the language, the history, the food); we've talked about what we will miss (the walking, the coffee. the adventure); we've talked about what we're looking forward to when we get home (henry, my closet, peanut butter.....and seeing friends and family of course!). still, i'm in denial that we leave tomorrow. i haven't told jonathan yet, but i might have to fake a GI illness so that we "accidentally" miss our flight (shhhhhhhh). let the fake stomach gurgling begin!......until then.....a bientot......and thanks for following along with us.
sara(&jonathan)
we are staying in the rue cler neighborhood on the rive gauche. it's a sweet little neighborhood with views of the eiffel tower peeking out from each street. since we are staying near the eiffel tower we have walked to the eiffel tower a lot. we have also spent some time just sitting in parks. these have been some of my favorite times. we've also done a bit of sightseeing of course: Notre Dame during mass, walking over the Pont Neuf into the Ile St. Louis, wandering through the Louvre, taking a night cruise on the Seine River, drinking lots of coffee and attempting to become "regulars" at a cafe....the list goes on. i won't bore you with all the details, but i will tell 2 funny stories before i go.....
story 1: this story takes place during one of my favorite times in a park. jonathan and i were in between things to do so we thought we would kill some time in a park. we went in, sat on a bench, and decided to watch the world go by. we watched some people walking through. we watched a black cat. we remarked at how cats always seem to go straight to jonathan who is highly allergic to cats. we remarked that the black cat that we were watching was walking right to jonathan. we started laughing. we started laughing harder when the cat walked up to jonathan's shoe. jonathan sat there with his arms crossed and tried to give the cat the evil eye. it backfired. the cat jumped up on the bench beside jonathan. i began searching my bag for tissues because i was laughing and crying. and then i turned around and the cat was on jonathan's lap. have you ever had one of those belly laughs that make you feel like you just took an hour abs class? well, yeah, that's how hard i laughed. the cat was on his lap for about 20 minutes until he got up. don't worry - we have pictures.
side note: i think that i know why they don't have coffee to go in europe. coffee is a part of life and life is something that you don't just rush through. for this reason i think that this is why the french excel at many things: fashion, cheese, wine, coffee, and cooking to name a few. these things are not to be done just to get it done, they are things to work on, enjoy, and perfect. just my little observation. and if you haven't noticed i really like paris. now onto story 2.....
story 2 doesn't involve a cat, but it does involve someting less intelligent than a cat. story 2: on a recommendation from my best friend and IU pal, Liza, we visited the Orsay Museum. the Orsay showcases art from pre-Impressionism to contemporary art. it's a great museum and much more managable than the Louvre so go if you get a chance. now i'm not a fan of impressionism, in fact, i think that it is a bit overdone. nevertheless, after spending so much time in this museum it was growing on me so jonathan and i stayed a while and decided to explore some of the other exhibits. my story starts while we were walking through an interesting exhibit on furniture and decorative arts from the art nouveau period. i was admiring a lovely wooden wardrobe with beautiful inlaid metalwork in the shape of leaves. the "leaves" were in the wood as well as springing out of the wood making it look almost organic. it was lovely. apparently the man beside us also thought it was lovely because he walked straight up to the wardrobe, past the roped off section and started boinging the metal leaves! i'm not joking! it was amazing that they didn't disengage from the wood and fall off. why did this retard do this? i don't know. to make sure that they were metal i guess??? it was unbelievable. i had to tell him that you aren't supposed to TOUCH the art, only to LOOK at it. he looked me up and down like i was the crazy one and then moved on to the next room. i couldn't follow him. it was unreal. who are these people!?!?!
despite crazy-art-molester-guy we have had a nice time in paris. paris is a great city. but paris is a city and yet it is not. maybe it's all the tree lined streets. maybe it feels smaller because everything shuts down from noon until threeish for lunch. maybe it feels more like home because there are tons of parks, dogs walk off leash following their master, people sit in long lines along the sidewalk sipping their coffee and watching the world go by. the metro here is exceptionally clean, and, if you're lucky, your car will have someone playing "la vie en rose" on the accordian or the violin. i know that it's probably something cheesy that they do for the tourists, but i don't think i would ever get sick of it.
actually, we have had a nice time everywhere. each place has been fun to explore and get to know. each place has helped us to better know ourselves. and we have learned so much about each other on this trip as well. we've talked about what we love (the language, the history, the food); we've talked about what we will miss (the walking, the coffee. the adventure); we've talked about what we're looking forward to when we get home (henry, my closet, peanut butter.....and seeing friends and family of course!). still, i'm in denial that we leave tomorrow. i haven't told jonathan yet, but i might have to fake a GI illness so that we "accidentally" miss our flight (shhhhhhhh). let the fake stomach gurgling begin!......until then.....a bientot......and thanks for following along with us.
sara(&jonathan)
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