“Paris is always a good idea.”- Audrey Hepburn

     Paris in the winter is a whole different animal than in the summer. It's hard to think back to being here in the summer of 2006 and have the memories match up. Paris was crowded, touristy, sunny and HOT (Like 33 celsius). Paris right now, at the end of January, is drizzly, cloudy, cold and quiet. It's serious. The métro is full of people in black suits avoiding eye contact with one another and homeless people curled up in sleeping bags in the stations. I'm constantly just in people's way, it seems. In a lot of ways, it feels much more like New York than I remember. The architecture in my neighborhood in Montparnasse is full of concrete and modern, sober lines, that don't seem to fit the Parisian image that comes to everyone's mind. I'm excited for spring to spruce everything up, not that Paris isn't already beautiful!

     People are as friendly as you would expect in a large city (only when they have to be), which is part of the reason why Parisians get a reputation for being "rude." I don't think it's fair to say that people in Paris are any worse than other city dwellers and people can be quite nice actually; they just have a lot to compete for (i.e. space). I think people in a lot of European cities are much more accommodating than in American cities, because if you don't speak French (or another local language), you'll be fine since English is so widely taught here (Plus pointing and gesturing helps). If you come to America from Europe and don't speak any English and go to a restaurant, would the waiter or waitress be able to take your order? It'd definitely be hard. 

     This weekend was so much fun despite the temperature dropping and I can't believe I've only been here a week! It was nice to take a break from trying to fit in as "locals" and just be Americans in Paris. On Saturday, a group of us girls visited Notre-Dame (which I think I've done every day I've been here so far), and walked around the Right Bank to see Hôtel de Ville, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Archives nationales and the Marais, where I tried really hard to find the apartment my family and I stayed in on the rue du Temple. From there we went to Trocadéro métro stop to take pictures of the Eiffel Tower. We ate on the heated terrace of a cute little Italian restaurant off the rue de la Huchette, which I found out later is nicknamed "Bacteria Alley" for reasons I hope don't happen to me. I've had enough food poisoning for one year! I treated myself to wine that cost €12,00...but at least I got an entire 37.5 cl bottle, instead of one glass. It was definitely a fun night of laughing and meeting new people in Paris!

   Today a few of us went to the Chinese New Year celebration in the 13th arrondissement after going to mass at Notre-Dame. Imagine the amount of people at the MN State Fair in about two city blocks to watch the parade. I couldn't move at all. There were firecrackers going off everywhere that apparently hit a few people and it was just nuts. I felt like it could've gotten dangerous really fast and being trampled was a big possibility. It was fun to see so many different cultures in one place though! Tonight I just went to a little party in the kitchen of my foyer with galettes des rois where I met some of the other girls that live here and found la féve- the porcelain trinket hidden inside the cake- so I got to wear a gold paper crown! (This link below explains more about this tradition.)

Rachel

Better-than-Swiss-Miss chocolat chaud- makes a cold day lovely!

The ladies mapping our way to the Eiffel Tower

Every tourist there got one of these!

This wine was worth every euro- it was délicieux!

Outside Notre-Dame