Venice. Rome. Greece.

     While sitting on the RER being harassed by accordion-playing dragueurs on the way from Charles de Gaulle airport back into Paris on Wednesday night, I couldn't help but smile. After spending the last twelve days in other countries, I didn't mind the grime of the trains, the drizzling, gray sky and lugging my suitcase up the abundance of stairs in the stations. Welcome home.
     For my two weeks of spring break, Stephanie and I started our vacation in Venice. It rained the entire time we were there, so I mostly took in the absolutely stunning city from under my hood or while darting in-between gelato shops to stay out of the rain. Standing on top of the Campanile in St. Mark's Square, Venice almost blended into the sea, it was raining so hard. We spent a lot of time watching for enormous puddles and stopping to check our map, which is pointless. I don't know why they even bother printing Venice maps since the "streets" aren't even streets and they aren't labeled, either. We were lost almost the entire time, but that's part of the fun of Venice. We were never where we wanted to be, but we found so many beautiful alleyways and quiet canals that it was hard to get too frustrated. The city is one of the most touristy cities I've ever seen, especially around St. Mark's, the Rialto Bridge and the Riva degli Schiavoni, the main promenade along the lagoon. But one turn onto a different street and it's completely different- quiet, empty and achingly beautiful.
     One day, we took a vaporetto (water bus) out to the lagoon island of Murano to see its famous glass-blowing. We watched a demonstration where a man made a horse figurine in about three minutes. It's serious talent. The glass is so beautiful, but I didn't buy too much of it since most of it would probably just crumble up into shards in my suitcase.
     At night, Venice goes to sleep. After the sun sets, the labyrinth of streets clear out, lights turn off and everything is quiet. Each night we would have a little plastic cup of Bellini (Venice's peach and sparkling wine cocktail), take a nap and go to dinner. Traveling is exhausting and especially in Venice!

Dreary weather in St. Mark's Square

Stephanie and I on the Rialto Bridge during a rare sunny moment

     After three days in Venice, we took a train to Rome. When I studied there last May, I never thought I'd be back so soon. I thought it'd be at least ten years or maybe even never. Eleven months later, I'm dumping more euros into the Trevi fountain, fingers crossed for another visit in the future. (The legend is that if you throw a coin in, you'll one day return to Rome.) We met up with Anna and Haley, whose travel plans coincided with ours for a few days. I directed us around Rome, acting like I knew where everything was. We had some memorable moments, including learning Italian from guys who spoke no English while lounging one night on the Spanish Steps and singing in the rain for three hours trying to get from Trastevere to our hotel near the Termini train station. While I love Rome- especially its food- I could never live there. It's an insane whirlwind of traffic and tourists that made me miss Paris, which keeps its insanity under wraps a little better.

Anna, me and Haley in the Colosseum

     We took a trip spur-of-the-moment to Naples and Pompeii one of our days in Rome. Let me just start by saying that Naples is not a city I'll be returning to in the near future. I have never felt so uncomfortable in a city and Stephanie kept pointing out my "worried face" the entire time. We spent a few hours roaming around trying to find a way out to Pompeii and we had people left and right cat-calling us and policemen were on almost every street corner. We eventually found the train station to take us up there, eating some pretty grubby looking pizza that gave me heartburn that I had for about a week afterwards. Pompeii itself was pretty fantastic. It's surrounded by mountains on all sides, one of which is Mt. Vesuvius, whose eruption in 79 AD destroyed the city of Pompeii. We spent the day walking through the ruins and trying to imagine that people actually lived there. It's weird to think that the in 79 AD, the people of Pompeii would never have imagined that in 2012 tourists would be flocking to see what's essentially their cemetery.

Pompeii

     Our last destination was the tiny Greek island of Santorini, which I'd wanted to see since I'd read The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants back in junior high. We spent twelve hours in the Athens airport waiting for our second plane to take us to the island. It was terrible and that's enough said. For ten euros a night, we stayed in our own private villa with its own swimming pool in Perissa, about five minutes from the black sand beach. We rented a car for twenty euros a day, no license required ("Do you know how to drive?") and spent our five days driving along the cliffs, visiting the towns of Fira and Oia (pronounced "ee-YAH"). For my birthday, we spent the day at Santo Wines outside of Fira, tasting wines on the terrace that hangs over the incredible caldera and up in Oia to admire what's considered the world's most beautiful sunset. The little stone white-washed houses with blue doors that are stuck to the sides of cliffs are unreal, they're so picturesque. At this point, we were joking that our entire spring break was basically a romantic honeymoon.

Santo Wines Winery with a view of the caldera

Enjoying the Oia sunset on my 21st birthday

     One day, we missed our bus and then tried walking from Emborio to Fira in the desert-hot weather on the side of the highway, desperate to make our 11 AM boat tour. Right as we were about to literally hitchhike, another bus came and we made it for the next tour at 2. The tour took us to the active volcano of Nea Kameni, where we got to hike for an hour and then to the hot springs on Palia Kameni. They advised people to swim only if they could handle swimming in extremely deep water for thirty meters before reaching the shallow hot springs. Stephanie opted out as I jumped in and the water was, as I put it, "like the Titanic." You could see my breath as I was doggy-paddling my way- I never passed swimming lessons- and the springs were definitely not "hot." It's very cool to say that I got to swim in the Aegean Sea in April, even though it was extremely difficult for me!
     Now with my fading tan lines, bags of black sand and bottles of Vinsanto (Santorini's specialty) I'm ready to carry on with life in Paris again.

Rachel

Here's to your first job in Paris!

        "That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me."
-Midnight in Paris, 2011

     I feel like I'm in a dream. It's like I've been here for ages and I still have to think for a minute that I'm here. Last night I had a dream, a nightmare, really, that the semester was over and that I was home in Minnesota. Not to say that I don't love home, but seeing as I've been waiting for Paris for six years, I try to sweep those thoughts of leaving under the rug.
     I'm ridiculously happy all the time here, too. Despite bad days at my internship, getting my laundry stuck in the machines countless times and more choses à faire than I would prefer, I can't help but find myself smiling on the métro, sandwiched in between the man who needs to stop staring and take a much-needed shower and a sea of Longchamp bags. I don't know if it's the 200-calorie-croissants (And I rarely eat just one) or what, but there's no other place in the world that I'd rather be. I think Gil Pender said it pretty well in Midnight in Paris:

You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city? You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

     This week is my eighth and final week as an intern for French Travel Partners. Though at times it's been really difficult, it has really been the best way for me to use my French skills in speaking. Our classes at the Catholic Institute are made up of almost all Americans and there's not as much of a participation aspect in French classes, so this is the biggest chunk of my week that I have had to communicate entirely in French with my coworkers and clients. I've also made so much improvement in my ability to write formally, since I send out about fifteen demandes de réservation a day to French hotels. It'll be wonderful to have four-day weekends plus Wednesdays off, but I'll miss lunching in the Place des Vosges, my jambon-beurre sandwich from my boulevard Beaumarchais bakery and my coworkers that have been extremely welcoming and kind to me. Saying goodbye will be a little triste, and I'm glad to have had such a rare opportunity to do something like this. I'll probably never be able to say again that I had to visit the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre for my job.

The Catacombs of Paris

Easter mass at Notre-Dame

     This weekend, after three attempts, I finally made it to the Catacombs, which is in my neighborhood. Some two-hundred steps under all the noisy streets and crooked buildings, the Catacombs are lined with an innumerable amount of skulls and bones from as far back as the eighteenth century. It's surreal to think, as you're taking a flashless photo of a yellowing skull, that this used to be a living, breathing human being that's now anonymous. It's a weird experience.
     On Sunday, we went to Easter mass at Notre-Dame. The line to get in stretched out onto the Left Bank, so we had to wait for a long time to get in. The service was in Latin and in French, so I couldn't understand much of it through the swarms of people taking pictures, but now I can say for the rest of my life that I was there for Easter!
     Starting this coming Saturday, I'll be on spring break, traveling to Venice, Rome and Santorini, Greece until April 25. The Trevi Fountain must really be magic, since I'll be back in Rome so soon after studying there last May! I'll also be celebrating my twenty-first birthday in Greece, which I never imagined would ever happen.

Until next time,
Rachel

Je pense, donc je suis…fatiguée.

     As much as I love Paris, I am exhausted. Sometimes, okay a lot of the time, I sit at my desk at my internship and I ask myself over and over again, why did I agree to do this, again? (Answer: Because where would I be interning in Minneapolis for French?) I have twenty-three hours of internship a week and twelve hours of classes, which amounts to thirty-five hours of work a week- coincidentally that's how many hours the French work a week- and on top of that I need to study, cook dinner, write my 3,000-word rapport de stage (In French) and also have time to enjoy myself in this city that I love. I stay up late most nights just trying to wrap my head around everything that's going on (Case in point: It's 2:39 AM right now.). I'm habitually late, so I show up to my internship and classes at least five minutes late everyday and try my best to keep my nodding-off-in-my-chair to a minimum. During my forty minute commute to and from work in the eleventh arrondissement, I try getting some reading done but even then my eyes start fluttering and I have to close my book. Tonight we went to see "Don Giovanni" at Bastille and I think I was awake and paying attention for twenty minutes. Classical music, dark theatre, I'm out like a light. All the Red Bull in the world can't save me at this point.

Rachel