Francia: Estilo de Vida de los Ricos y Famosos

Paris.  Yes, I went to Paris.  I actually just got back.  But my story really starts on Tuesday morning.  My aunt Betsy and uncle Bob were visiting my cousin Michelle and me.  In order to meet them before my flight to Paris, we met up at 7:30 at this small breakfast cafe called Hicuri.  We ate, caught up, and at the end, Aunt Betsy presented me with a small, but necessary gift: Craisins.  She had read my blog and saw that I missed my dried cranberries.  This gift made saying goodbye even tougher because I received something from home and I had to say goodbye to my family.  But I needed to move on and leave them so that I could reunite with other people from home.

A bridge in Paris where people in relationships put locks to symbolize their eternal love

Now comes some bad parts of the trip: the actual traveling.  I got to the airport in Málaga an hour before my flight and I asked a man where to go.  He looked at my ticket and saw that it was RyanAir and told me to go to security.  I go and give my ticket to security, and she lets me pass and I cleared and then I waited around to find where my flight was arriving.  Once it is announced, we all scurry to the gate.  RyanAir has it so that you get your seat on a first come, first serve basis.  I wasn't going to be picky, so I didn't mind being at the end of the line.  While we were back there, us passengers started comparing tickets and though they all had the same destination, there was one key thing missing from my ticket: a stamp.  RyanAir also requires that non-European Union citizens must get before they pass security.  I have flown with RyanAir once before, and we did have to get it stamped, but they didn't let us get passed security without it.  That's why I thought that it wasn't necessary or that they would do it after or something different was going on.

I cut the line of people and asked the stewardess about it and she said that she couldn't allow me to fly without it.  I ask her if she thinks I have time to get it.  She responded with, ¡corra!, which means "run!"  I booked it.  I pushed people out of the way and ran all the way back to security who told me that the location, which is where RyanAir baggage check is located, was on the far side of the airport.  I kept running. I cut another line and got the stamp.

Honestly, all they did was check my passport and give me a stamp.  Not a job that they have to hire another person to do...but I still had a plane to catch, so I ran all the way back to security where I hit a stop.  I removed my belt and all of the technologies weighing me down.  They scanned through for a second time and as soon as they were on the other side, I grabbed them and ran.  This means that I was running through the most popular airport in Andalucia, the autonomía of southern Spain, holding my pants up because I didn't get a chance to put my belt back on.  I get back to terminal and I'm sweating more than bullets.  I'm sweating cannonballs.  I get in line practically where I would have been if I had stayed.  There is a Spanish woman in front of me who turns around and laughs at the sight of me putting on my shoes and buckling my belt and wiping the copious amounts of sweat from my face.  I tell her about my dilemma that had just passed and she laughed again and gave me some kleenex to wipe my face.  Turns out, actually, that the French Air Traffic Controllers were on strike, or hacían huelga.  We didn't leave the gate until an hour after I got onto the plane.  I honestly believe that there is someone up there watching me and when there was a chance I would miss my flight, they caused the ATCers to fight for better rights.

I'm sorry for that little blurb about the mayhem before the trip, but I thought that it was a funny story to open up my trip to Paris.  Obviously, it wouldn't be funny if I hadn't made my flight.

But I did get to Paris really late on Tuesday night and we just went to bed so we could start the day early on Wednesday.  The first site we saw was Notre Dame.  Obviously, you have to see Notre Dame when you go to France.  Now, at his point in my life I have seen my fair share of cathedrals, but was most impressive about this one was the stained glass.  They were so vibrant and colorful.  Then there was the lighting that emphasized the arcs of this Gothic cathedral.  It was a quick walk through the entire church.

Next, because my friend had a class, I was left up to my own devices.  I decided to walk from about where the Luvre was to the Eiffel Tower.  That isn't possible, but I didn't realize that.  I followed the Seine down on one side and when I found myself no closer to el torre, the tower, after an hour, I turned around, but I walked on the other side.  This was nice because I got to see a lot of the city.  Most of my friends had been to Paris before and we didn't want to wait in line for all of the tourist traps, so by taking this walk, I saw the Luvre, Muse D'Orsay, and other cool buildings that we did not get a chance to enter.

After my walk, I had my first crepe, which was ham and egg and was really cheap compared to every other place.  Yet again, something the US lacks.  This food would be great for a college town like Amherst.  Then we went back and met my friend's friends and we hung out the whole night in the dorms.

Thursday, we wanted to go to Versaille, the castle in which the last French monarchs lived.  Now, I don't know if you heard about this little quarrel called the French Revolution, but they essentially destroyed the monarchy because of the extravagant lifestyle.  Actually, it's more complicated than that, but if I saw the people living in Versaille, I'd be mad too.  The outside, gold colored gate can be seen from a mile away.  I asked a stupid question when we saw it because I asked, "Is that it?"  Yes, that massive building with gleaming gold gates was in fact the castle we were going to see.  We were lucky, too, because we were both European Union students, we got free access.  And then we started the tour.  As I have said before, Spain loves showing how Christian it is.  Here in Paris, however, they showed a lot of pagan art.  For example, there is a room in Versaille for each of the Olympian Gods from Greek Mythology.  I really like Greek Mythology, so it was cool for me to look at the picture at the top of each room and guess who was represented.

Versailles

The next big room to see was the Room of Mirrors, which is essentially a room with mirrors lining one wall and windows lining the other.  As you can imagine, the room was bright because the natural light was reflected throughout.  And the artwork on the ceiling was amazing and all of the walls were decorated with gold.  Honestly, this showed the true wealth that France possessed during it's golden age.

Finally, we went to the gardens which were just massive.  If we wanted to, we could have gotten lost in there, but we decided to follow a simple path and walk through the giant bushes that blocked our sight of everything except for the sky.

Due to the length of this first post, I'm going to stop here, after my first day an a half.  There are still two and half more days to go!