Paris Pics: Week 1

 Sacre Coeur

 Versaille

 Versaille: Hall of Mirrors

 Opera Bastille (Place de la Bastille)

 L'acadmie de la Biere

Gay marriage update

Just to keep updated on the currents events in France, today was the first time in history that there was a  same sex marriage. There were over 200 reporters there, and it was quite funny because my boss came down to us and made us turn on the tv and watch it. She was quite amused!

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/29/world/europe/france-same-sex-wedding/index.html

Work

5/28 -5/29

I’ve learned so much within the past two days and as difficult as it is because of the language barrier, I’m very appreciative of the work environment because it helps me with my French a lot. I really want to improve and I hope (and think) that I’m heading down that path. Yesterday, I wore my glasses because my coworkers wanted to see my natural eye color. I was then told that I shouldn’t wear my blue contacts. I think I told them that I wouldn’t, but considering I didn’t bring any and there aren’t any Wal-Mart eye doctor offices here… they’re just going to have to put up with my fake eyes. On our lunch break I also showed pictures of my families. I know it’s no surprise that they too thought Pepper and MJ were the best looking in the family, just kidding! Haha. They did however see a picture of me with my blonde hair and realized that just like my eyes; my hair was “artificial” as well. I feel like I’m not representing the US well as they are going to think that everyone in the US is fake! Hopefully they don’t ask why I am so tan….. haha just kidding! Other than those embarrassing moments, the past 2 day have been really enjoyable. I continued to work with Claudia on finding and categorizing commercials. I’m kind of just following Claudia around, but I’m trying to give input as much as I can. I’m still in the listen and learn phase I suppose.

Yesterday after work I walked around some shopping places and just looked around. I definitely don’t mind walking around and getting a little lost in Paris. I grabbed some quick food and went home to relax and prepare for the next day. Tonight, I just came straight home after work because I was having dinner with my host mom.

Here's an article about the manifestation that happened yesterday. It was all over the news today and is quite interesting. It was a lot larger and worse that I thought.

http://en.ria.ru/world/20130526/181356880/Anti-Gay-Marriage-Rally-Draws-150000-in-Paris.html

you should look it up on you tube, very interesting!

First day of work!

Day 10: 5/27/2013

Today was first day at my internship. Im interning la maison de la pub. It’s a publicizing company that works with film. I’m still learning about the company and what ill exactly be doing. Today I didn’t have to show up until one because they wanted to take me out to lunch so that I could get to know everyone. There were three people working: Anne, my director; Pablo who is in charge of editing; and Claudia another intern. I thought that Claudia was very intimidating because of how gorgeous she was and because she spoke French very fast. Claudia is a French student studying marketing. She is 20 years old, and despite her intimidation on me, she is extremely nice. All the workers put up with my “broken” French and smiled a lot when I talked which was very reassuring since I was so nervous. The lunch was very interesting for me considering I drank wine, ate duck and had dessert and tea after eating. It was a lot to take in, but very normal for the French. When we returned to work, they showed me around the office. It’s very small and crammed, but very interesting also. The walls are bookshelves filled with videos of all kinds. For the most part I pretty much just watched each person work and tried to get a better understanding of what the company does. At the office, I was still very insecure about my speaking abilities because I felt stupid not being able to communicate properly. However they were really encouraging and at the end of the day I felt very lucky and happy to be at la maison de la pub. I think and hope that this is going to be a great experience!  I took the metro back with Claudia and did my first Bisou! (The French cheek kiss thing) I was very happy about that because it made me feel even more Parisian!

Place de la Bastille and Manifestation

Day 9: 5/26/2013

This morning I woke and went for a run.  It had to have been one of the prettiest runs I’ve been on. I also got a little lost, but was able to make it back okay. After showering and cleaning up I went to the grocery store and got a few items. It was really fun and made me feel even more Parisian. After that I went back and read and napped for a bit. I feel like I’ve adjusted quite well, but we’ll see how I am feeling once I start working my 9.5 hour work days! Ugh!

Later I met up with my friends at Place de la Bastille. I really wanted to see place de la bastille because of all the history that had occurred there (storming of the bastille, basically the French revolution). I also learned quite a bit about this Place in one of my classes and wanted to see the modern opera house called Opera Bastille. After looking around and taking a few pictures, we walked around. It was finally a nice day and it was very enjoyable to just walk around and take in Paris and all of its beauty. However, we got a little bored after a while so we decided to go to a Bar and have some drinks. The bar was called L’academie de Bierre (The beer academy) and it was in the area of Montparnasse. After finishing our drinks we went to look for a restaurant. We ended up eating at a restaurant called Hippopotamus. It was a very modern restaurant with a lot of unique dinner options. It was very trendy and good!

When choosing what we wanted to do, we had to be very careful because there was a giant protest going on. It was called the manifestation. Basically people were protesting because they were upset with the president and the government because they passed a law that allows gay marriage. The president didn’t really take into consideration other peoples opinion, which is what angers the French. There were about 30,000 people protesting in Paris in popular areas such as Champs Elysees. The ending place of the protest was at les invalids. Jon, our advisor and my host mom warned us to stay away because in the past these protests have been very dangerous and violent. When we took the metro, there were several stops that were closed because of the protest. We also saw several people with rolled up flags and such that were heading home from the protest. It was very interesting to see, and to learn about this topic. From what I understood the French view gay relationships as an unspoken topic. It’s not necessarily prohibited, but it’s definitely not accepted. The French act as if it does not exist.

Versailles

Day 8: 5/25/2013

We met Jon at 10:10 and took the RER to Versailles. There were also 2 other girls from Michigan that we met as well. Their names were Kelsey and Paige. They were taking a 2 week class and then going to start there internships. They were pretty shy but nice, and much better at French then all of us. When we got there, there was a 2 hour wait for the line but luckily Jon had bought our tickets beforehand so we got to skip the line and get on with the tour right away. We first looked at the castle. It was massive. Every room had intricate details ad either a massive painting or some kind of grand furniture. It was quite extraordinary to see and to think that it was done so long ago. I was quite often thinking about the time that this fortress took to make and all of the paintings, curtains, sculptures, etc. The left wing of the castle (I believe!?) was the queens chamber. Again it was very large and much more feminine. It wasn’t quite as grand, but I guess they were still sexist when they created it. One thing I noticed about this was that the beds were very short. They seemed to be about 5 feet, which is ridiculously short! Especially for someone like me!!

After we finished the palace, we went to the jardins (gardens). I didn’t think it was possible, but this was even more enormous then the palace. Luckily we went on a day when the fountains were working; however they only were turned on from 3:30-5. This is because the amount of water and electricity used is an abundant amount so they can only turn it on for short periods of time. It wasn’t quite 3 so we walked around the gardens for a bit and grabbed some lunch. After lunch, Jon left us so we could have some free time to tour. We waited until the Water show (as they called it) began and then started to walk around the gardens looking at all the fountains. The gardens were breathtakingly beautiful. It was unlike any other garden I have seen… other than the beautiful garden of my backyard… Just kidding obviously haha! We then went to see the Chaumau de Marie Antoinette. This was a humble cottage for Marie Antoinette for when she wanted to have fun and pretend to poor. (Literally, it was a game for her and friends to take a few days off from their luxurious life and pretend to poor.) However, if that is how the poor lived then I would love to be poor. The cottage was still very large, and the inside was much more conservative and cottage like.  This was very far from the castle and it was almost like its own little village because there were several other smaller houses that were made for servants. It really was so beautiful with all the flowers and animals. Yes, there were even animals. There were several barns with cows, geese sheep, etc. We tried finding out way back to the castle and got terrible lost. Don’t worry though because we ran into the queen’s theater and were able to somehow find our way back. After that we started to head for the exit because the gardens closed at 6:30. On the way out we say the orangerie garden which is an orange garden. This was also just as beautiful.

All in all we spent about 7 hours at Versailles and were not able to see everything. Maybe I took too much staring at everything because it was all so beautiful. After we took the RER home and I got dinner with Paige and Kelsey at a restaurant around champs d’elysee. I tried duck for the first time and had a crepe for dessert; it was all very very good!

Day 7: 5/24/13

We had another orientation meeting this morning about our internships and what to expect. Again, it was pretty boring but didn’t last as long as yesterday’s meeting. Since it was shorter, this gave us a longer lunch break. We decided to go to look for “les magasins” (stores) so that we could buy jackets and umbrellas since it is so cold here. Some of us (me especially) also needed to set up our French phone. We found the Orange (the phone place) first and so we went there to set it up. Luckily, my sisters international phone that she used when she studied abroad still worked which saved me a couple bucks, however this phone is very old so we’ll see if it makes it haha. We then were in search for the store ZARA because we thought it would be the only store we could afford. We found it and thankfully I was able to buy a coat there. No more cold Caitlin! We grabbed a quick cheap lunch by the Notre dame and then went to meet back up with Jon. We met up with Jon in Montmartre, where he showed us several sights and explained the historical significance of them. It was really interesting and I learned a lot. We ended on the Sacre Coeur, and we went inside and checked out the inside of the building as well. IT was incredible on the inside and we entered at the end of a service. There were several people just looking at the building, but there were several people there for mass also. It was cool to see an actual service with the priests and all. When we came out of the building, it was raining pretty hard so we all went our separate ways on the metro to go home and relax.

Magdalena, Kat and I met up for some dinner later. Kat was running a little late because she lives pretty far from us so Magdalena and I went and split an “entrée” (appetizer) and had a glass of wine. Once Kat go off the Metro we went and met up with her and then went to a pizza and pasta restaurant. (Unfortunately I can’t remember the name right now). We got mistakenly got a bottle of Perrier (sparkling water) and all got different pastas. It was very fun and yummy! As we were finishing up dinner, a man who had just finished eating his dinner started talking to us. It wasn’t in a creepy way because he was 50 and I think just liked to speak English with us. He did however buy all 3 of us a glass of vin rouge (red wine). He left before the wine arrived, but we were all very surprised and gracious!

amsterdam pics!

Day 6: 5/23/13

I had to go to an orientation for my program. EUSA is located in the Montparnasse area, and so I had to take the metro to get there. The morning was quite boring. Jon, our main advisor basically just went on about the French lifestyle and the transition to it. We had an hour break after for lunch and we went and got French version fast food. Basically, we just come some cheap Panini’s at a stand. When we got back, Jon took us to see Le Madeleine. This is an old church near place de la Concorde and champs d’elysee. We then went on a bus tour to familiarize us with the city. We pretty much saw all the sights. It got me really excited to actually go visit them! After we met up with Jon again, we went to café and had snacks and a drinks. I went home after and had dinner with my host mom and I learned a lot about herself and her family. After dinner, I relaxed read and FINISHED my book finally, which was also very exciting for me haha.

Day 5: 5/22/2013

Already knowing my skills with managing my luggage and myself, I was a lot more prepared today. I went at a slow pace and the transition on and off the tram went quite smooth and easy. We got to the train station about an hour early and just waited and relaxed. We finally boarded at 9:19 and took off for Paris. I spoke with a very nice Asian American couple who were traveling to Brussels. As expected when I arrived in Paris at the Gare Du Nord (North Train station) it was mass chaos with people walking in every which way. Surprisingly I was able to get my luggage off the train easily but ran into trouble when I realized there were no elevators, only stairs. We went to an “information” help desk to find the Jasmin line or line 9 as instructed by our host families. Fortunately, Magdalena and I live very close and we took the same metro line to get to our homestays. We had to go on to two different lines to get our destination. All in all it lasted about 45 minutes, and 15 minutes probably consisted of me lugging my luggage around. Usually with my klutzy luggage problems I just smile and laugh it off, like in Amsterdam. However, the people are not as smiley as other Europeans. On the metro I studied the French people. They are very different than other Europeans, as in they don’t seem the most happy. They don’t smile at one another or even at cute little children. Another interesting part of the metro was when a lady came on and announced in French that she was “pauvre” (poor) and needed money. She then went up and asked everyone for some money. I decided to give her 50 euro… just kidding! We got off shortly after that and I soon became very sad when I realized I had to go up 3 flights of stairs with my luggage. I made it up the first set of stairs in two trips, and then a young man kindly offered to carry my heavy 50 pounder up the other two flights of stairs. This gave me that the French are actually nice people. Once we reached ground level, Magdalena and I had to part ways. I’m not sure if Magdalena made it to her house, but I was able to find my house/apartment quite easily; although I got one hell of a workout lugging my bags there. I easily entered the apartment building and buzzed for her parents as instructed. They let me in and the father came down to greet me. He had to take a separate elevator with my 50 pounder suitcase because my two bags and I would not fit in the elevator. I was quite embarrassed. When I reached the actual apartment, I was very happy. It was a medium size apartment with big open windows. The parents gave me a quick tour, chatted a bit and then left. They informed me that their daughter Patricia (who I had been in contact with) was not able to be here today because of work and would be home around 7:30. It was about 2 when I arrived so I had time to myself to rest and get settled in.

                I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that I have my own bedroom. Patricia informed me that her daughter used to live here, which is very obvious based on the design of the room. I was under the impression that her kids still lived here but I don’t believe they do anymore. Their son’s room is occupied by another foreign exchange student. His name is Slava. He is Russian and about my age and is studying French and chemistry at the university. I don’t know him too well yet, but he is very nice and well mannered. When Patricia arrived home she introduced me to Slava and then started dinner. The three of us ate a beef patty, salad, and a puree thing. It was very good! After, we had a chocolate cake for dessert. It too was very good! Slava and I helped clean up a bit and then we all went into our bedrooms. I don’t know if it’s normal for a French family to separate after dinner like that, but it gave me a chance to continue to unpack and rest.

Day 1: 5/18/2013

Well to all those who thought I wouldn’t survive… HA! I did. After getting no sleep on the plane and traveling for what seemed forever, Magdalena and I finally made it to Amsterdam. We took a train from the airport to the city. At first, I thought Amsterdam looked pretty similar to the US… then I saw all the weed gardens and the whore houses… just kidding! Once we got to the city however, I definitely knew I wasn’t in good ole’ Minnesota anymore. We arrived at the central station, and it was MASS CHOAS! Mainly it was just mass chaos for me because I was “that girl” that was lugging around 2 suitcases and 2 big purses. As hard as it is to admit… my sister and mother was right about my over packing problems. Along with my packing problems, my “klutziness” came out as well. While on the train, I had the unexpected difficulty of maintain my luggage and myself. (There weren’t any seats available so I had to stand) Needless to say, I fell on an Asian girl multiple times. To my surprise however she was very nice and kind, much like the majority of the Dutch people. On the plane from Dublin to Amsterdam, I spoke with a Dutch man. He was very nice and offered a lot of tips and advice. We became friendly enough where he showed me pictured of his kids, and I showed him pictures of my dogs. (My dogs were cuter… just kidding but not actually) I also saw the Dutch kindness when the tram door proceeded to close on me while half of me and my luggage were outside and half was still inside the tram. He graciously helped me get my luggage out of the tram and onto the street where we then walked to our hotel. We stayed at the Ostterpark hotel, a little hole in the wall hostel. Luckily we were able to get a double room with our own shower sink and toilet. It was no 5 star hotel, but as broke college student it worked fabulously.

While the luggage and the klutziness caused a few issues for me, I was so mesmerized by the beauty of Amsterdam that it really didn’t matter. I first got a taste of this when we arrived at the central train station. This is located in the central part of the city and the architecture of the central station and other buildings were incredible. Every road was cobblestone and every building was different with historic sculptures, designs and moldings. The buildings were back-to-back lined up next to each other. Shops, cafes, and restaurants were on the first floor of the buildings with doors opened trying to get as much business as they could. These were modern day touristy things for the most part such as souvenir restaurants, small museums, shops, restaurants, and arcades (aka casino). It was extremely busy with people going in and out of places and trying to get from one place to another. Amongst all the craziness of scattered people one could still see and feel the presence of the historic beauty of Amsterdam.

I was also fortunate because my hostel was located right in front of a beautiful park called ossterpark. I walked around it the first night after taking a nap. (We were pretty tired and jetlag so we took a nap) It was a great little park with paved sidewalks for runners, walkers, and for those who just wanted to see what it was about like me. There was a lake in the middle surrounded by vivacious greenery of trees, plants, grass and flowers. It was also interesting to see the people who were hanging around the park. I would describe these people as hippies or gypsies, along with more typical park “goers” such as families and runners.  After walking around for a bit, I headed back to the hostel and went to bed.

Day 2-3: 5/19/2013-5/20/2013

We woke up a little later than expected, but quickly got ready and headed out for the day! We first went back to the central train station to buy our train tickets to Paris for the morning of Wednesday the 22nd. This was a bit of a process as I did not bring enough money and unlike the Dutch that we met on the trams and streets, the workers were not too pleasant and helpful. I ended up having to borrow a few euros from Magdalena and bought my train ticket. I ended up finding an ATM and was able to withdraw some money. Finally having money, we decided we needed food and went to a little café. We ate Panini’s and I had my first Netherland beer called Amstel. We were conveniently located to our first destination, the Niewe Kerk (New Church). This is a church that informs about The Netherlands governmental history ranging from the 1600 monarchy to the newly crowned king and queen. There was an extremely large beautiful organ and stained glass window. The inside also consisted of several sculptures and different displays ranging from clothing items of each king or queen to paintings and important historical documents. We then went to the Kings palace which was also conveniently located in the Dam Square (one of the most well-known and popular squares). We mainly just looked at the architecture, murals, sculptures and rooms. There were several bedrooms, dining rooms, offices, and other random rooms on display. They showed what the rooms once looked like and they were all very eloquent and had a lot of rich colors of red and gold and had several large murals and paintings. We then went and looked at the national monument which was just outside the king’s palace in the dam square. This monument is dedicated to those that were lost during WWII. It was a very cool tall oddly shaped monument. We quickly looked at this and then headed over to the red light district to find a museum called the ons lieve heer op solder, or the hidden museum. When we were walking there I didn’t notice anything too crazy about this area other than there were a lot more “Koffie shops” than normal. (The koffie shops are where people go to legally smoke weed... I didn’t bother seeing if I could get my skinny vanilla latte there! We easily found the museum and learned that the building was once a hidden church for Protestants because the practice of their religion was banned. This was one of my favorites of the day. We then went to look at another church called old church.  This was also in the red light district and we unfortunately didn’t make it on time, so we decided to walk around and look from the outside. We read in a book that this church was the only church in the world surrounded by whore houses. As we were around the back alleys I didn’t notice anything but then I saw them. The “escorts” as they like to call themselves were stand in display windows kind of like mannequins except they were in lingerie and would take you in back room if you paid. It was a sight I will always remember and I hope to not see something like that again. After this unforgettable sight we went and checked out Amsterdam’s University. It’s called Amsterdam Van University and has a business school and several others as well. Being the studious people that we are we left rather quickly and went to spuit which is another popular square. Since we were there on a Sunday, they had a section of tents set up with art sales. We walked through it and looked at the art. Following spuit we walked along the beautiful canals and then headed home to rest. Magdalena had a friend studying in Amsterdam so we met up with him. He showed us around a little and we ended up having a relaxing night sharing a bottle of wine and just talking.

Unfortunately, Magdalena and I somehow managed to wake up even later than the day before which set us back more than expected. The weather was rainy and cold, fortunately I brought my super cute bright pink raincoat. While I may get many compliments back home, I pretty much got stared at by the Europeans and managed to somehow look even more American than I already did. We first went to Wester kerk (western church) which is the tallest church in Amsterdam. The actual church was closed because of “service” (still not exactly sure why it was closed) but we got to climb the tower which was an awesome experience. We did a guided tour and were informed about the components and history of the church. We got to ring some of the little church bells and see the main massive bell. When we finally reached the top, we went out onto the terrace and experienced a beautiful view of Amsterdam. It was an eerie experience as there was a lot of fog from the rain, but none the less it was still mystifying and beautiful. This was another one of my favorites... and I also got quite the work out from all the climbing of the stairs. We then grabbed some lunch at a local café by the western church. I got a traditional Dutch meatball dish that was very good. Whenever I would ask about the Dutch food, often the people would say that it’s not very good; however I would definitely disagree with them based on my meal! After the west church we went to the Van Gogh Museum. While walking there we accidently ran into the “I am Amsterdam sign”. We were planning on going to this but couldn’t find where it was so we were pleasantly surprised with this accidental find. We snapped a few pictures and then headed to the Van Gogh Museum. It was very crowded but really interesting to see all of Van Gogh’s works and learn about his life as well. We decided to head home after this and rest and get ready for the night.

We had a big night planned considering we were going on a pub crawl called “The ultimate party”. We met our “guide”. He wasn’t a typical guide considering he was pouring us shots and taking shots with us, but he got us to the bars which was all we needed from him. Other than drinking, I was quite the socialite and made friends with people from Australia, Canada, the U.S., and England, and Sweden. I also met some of the locals at a few of the bars. I found it very easy to make friends when we all have a common goal of having a “few” drinks.

Day 4: 5/21/2013

Unlike the other days, we actually woke up early today. We wanted to get up early to beat the line at the Anne Frank house. We got there around 9 and still had to wait in the line for about 30 minutes. Again it was cold and rainy, and it was pretty miserable to wait in line, but the wait was well worth it. As expected the Anne Frank House was as incredible as one would assume. Having read The Anne Frank Diary, I already had an understanding of what Anne and her family had gone through. However, by going through the secret annex my perspective became much clearer as to what they really had to go through. It was an emotional inspirational experience and by far the best part of my trip to Amsterdam. We grabbed lunch at the Anne Frank Café and decided to go back to the hostel and take a nap considering we didn’t sleep all that much because of the pub crawl.

After the nap, we to the central area and went on an hour long boat excursion. We saw a lot of areas in Amsterdam that we had never seen before and saw a lot of other unique structures. We went through a more business working area, an area full of a factory buildings, and upper class neighborhood. We saw where the mayor of Amsterdam lived which was very cool. He obviously lived in a very nice looking elaborate building in an upper class area. After the canal tour, we decided to get dinner. We wanted to go to a little bit of a nicer dinner since it was our last night. Magdalena had read about a restaurant (I’m not even going to try spelling it because I would butcher it too much) so we went there. It was an Indonesian restaurant and we got a meal where we got to taste a little bit of everything. There were different types of chicken, pork, veal, green beans, eggs, salad, rice and fried bananas for dessert. I wasn’t brave enough to try everything, but overall it was very delicious! After a nice long dinner we went back to our hostel and packed up and prepared for our trek to Paris!