Sojourns in France

This week, my friend from BYU’s study abroad London group came into Paris, which meant that I got to serve as his tour guide while he was here. It was really exciting getting to visit so many of the locations I hadn’t returned to in the last little while, as many of the places had gained new meaning since the beginning of the trip when I first saw them. For example, at Saint-Denis, I was able to tell stories about several of the kings that were buried there, who I had not even heard of prior to coming to France. I was actually pretty proud of how well I knew my way around the city and its historical and cultural sites. I even got my friend to order food in French by the time he left the city. It was a pretty exciting mark of my progress in French that I was able to help someone else with the language when I used to be in a pretty helpless state not too long ago myself. In thinking about how I want to spend my last month in Paris, I am quickly realizing that I have done most of the...

This week I took the metro from my apartment to my morning class without looking out to see which stop I was at or counting, so I guess you could say I’m starting to feel like a local. I was a little worried that after spending an entire week outside of Paris that I would have to take some time getting back into the rhythm of things and to relearn the metro, but more than anything, coming back to Paris felt like coming home. I may still be really bad at the language, but coming back to Paris was so familiar and comfortable.  The weather even stayed warm for a bit, which was a pleasant mid-autumn surprise. I took the opportunity this week to finally catch up on a few of the locations that I had been putting off visiting, mostly all around the Place de la Concorde, and I was really blown away. Almost all in a straight line from each other are the Palais L’Elys é e (home of the current president of France), the Luxor Obelisk (symbol of Egypt’s relationship with France), the locatio...

This week was a little rough since I spent most of it sick, but I still saw some pretty great stuff. I felt like I finally got to really kick off October with a visit to the underground catacombs. I was a little claustrophobic but the thousands of skeletons was definitely worth the trip down through some old tight tunnels. The walls were literally made of human bones. While that kind of macabre doesn’t really spook me out, there is a super unique atmosphere to the catacombs that doesn’t really match anywhere else I’ve been. A little dark, and a little reverent at the same time. The big trip of this week was to Reims, which was actually really cool. I keep thinking that eventually every new church I go into is going to start looking exactly the same and I will stop being impressed at some point, but that has not happened yet. The cathedral at Reims was amazing. The variety of stained glass from so many different centuries was so incredible to see, as was the more flamboyant gothic...

This week I got to spend an afternoon in Chartres, and it was a really interesting reminder that most of France isn’t Paris. Paris is so true to basically every stereotype it has, including being fast paced and quite presumptuous. However, from my experience so far, you don’t have to leave all that far for that to change. The obvious destination in Chartres is the cathedral. It is on a hill in the center of the town, and you can see it from basically any location in the city. The rest of the city was just like something out of Beauty and the Beast. While Paris has a lot to offer, it also has a lot of expectations. And don’t get me wrong, I love being in Paris, but it was really relaxing to be out of that for just a bit. I have been dying (get it?) to visit a cemetery since I have been in France, but I hadn’t made it out to one before this last week. I think cemeteries are the coolest places, and the older the better. The P è re Lachaise Cemetery was easily the most inter...