(Day 68, Grenoble)
Oh well hey there! It's been quite some time since I've updated this. In all honesty, I may have forgotten that I was doing this until my friend Erin complained I hadn't written about how amazing she is yet. That combined with the fact that it's Thursday and I have no classes comes out to a brand new blog post!
Last post I may have mentioned that I was going to Barcelona for my February break and then meeting up with a friend in Paris. (If I happened to have forgotten part of my itinerary last time, now you're all caught up.) We left Grenoble on Thursday February 21st and took the train to the Lyon airport where we then flew to Barcelona. Despite the trek across the airport from train station to the terminal for discount airlines, we made it there safe and sound. One thing we managed to not realize could be important was that neither myself, Claire, Nicole, nor Aubrey spoke any Spanish or Catalan. We walked out of the airport (no security or customs to go through which was disappointing for the 'fill the passport up with stamps' collection) and were trying to get into the city center to meet a friend of Aubrey's who is studying in Barcelona for the semester when we realized our French abilities were going to come into no use in Spain. We managed to take the Barcelona equivalent to the RER or the Commuter Rail into the city for dinner on La Rambla. Then we took another RER train to the mountain where our hostel was. That's right, I said mountain. We knew this when we booked the hostel, but the $10/night deal was just too good to pass up, we thought. The pleasant surprise: the 500 steps the hostel website had mentioned from the train station to the hostel was actually just 500 feet up a winding road. The ...interesting surprise: we were not the only species that planned on setting up residence there.
There were wild boar that lived on the mountain, as well as assorted wild cats and foxes. ... I was unaware that I would be reliving the assorted African safari's I went on daily during this trip. It wasn't bad, we only saw them a few times (once, one thought Claire and I smelled mighty tasty, but Texas arrived to save our souls), and the other animals didn't make that much of a fuss. Plus, we figured we'd be spending most of the time not at the hostel anyway. Unfortunately, Nicole and I are not the most raring to go people in the morning so it took us a while, and we were all living under the illusion that it was going to be like vacationing on the equator while we were there. Mother Nature had other plans, however, and on Day 2 we woke up to a beautiful snowy mountain.
(Photo credit: Nicole. Stole it, hope you don't mind!)
I legit thought I was back in the Alps. Why hadn't it occurred to any of us to look at the weather in Barcelona before traveling? I checked the weather in Paris!! Regardless of the ridiculous weather we had a bunch of fun. We went to the Picasso museum; found a favorite part of the city; Claire and Aubrey went to the FC Barcelona v. Seville game; we found an American diner which had delicious burgers and milkshakes where we watched the FCB v. Real Madrid game (sad); we saw, and put our feet in, the Mediterranean Sea;
we saw everything by Gaudi in the city like his three Domas and the Park Guell;
and we saw the main cathedral of Barcelona.
The thing that really took the cake for best part of the trip, though, was the Sagrada Familia. This is another major church in Barcelona, but tends the be the one people identify with the city. While that's unfortunate for the city's actual cathedral, I totally understand why. This thing looks absolutely crazy from the outside.
It has spider legs and looks like it should be the cathedral of Atlantis. It his seashells and lizards, cubic statues of Jesus and other religious figures, brightly colored latin worlds written willy-nilly every where. The major thing about the church is that's it's not even done yet! It's been under construction for over 100 years, been visited by 2 popes, and it's still missing major architectural pieces! Unlike Paris where you can buy one museum pass and get into every museum for a certain number of days, we had to pay to get in everywhere. Also unlike France, the churches were not free in Spain unless there was a mass going on, during which you couldn't access the majority of the church anyway. We used our student discount and after 16 euros (nearly $20) we were in and going up one of the towers. What you have to understand is how amazingly unique this church is. It has all of this crazy architecture on the outside, partially unfinished, partially under construction. And then you go inside...
...and your view on life changes. The entire interior of the church is white and every window (once it's done) is a beautiful rainbow of stained-glass. Churches shouldn't be built any other way. This is the perfect church. As crazy as you may be on the outside, God takes over on the inside and makes everything so beautiful. Throughout the day there is always sunlight streaming in from somewhere casting a rainbow onto the white of the church. I think the part that really got me was one of the confessionals.
With confession (as my Catholic education has taught me) you go in with a 'dirty' soul, confess to Christ via the priest, and then come out 'clean'. What could be cooler than coming out of the confessional with a clean soul and then this rainbow shining down on you as if God himself were there thanking you for confessing and wanting to be a better Christian. I stood there for a long time thinking about that, so don't mind me if none of this makes sense. I still can't imagine a better feeling than that. Oh man, my Catholic side is showing.
That was pretty much all we did in Barcelona. We also ate tapas and paella, but the entire time I was craving French food (particularly les carafes d'eau which are free and beautiful as opposed to the water in Barcelona which you always have to pay for), which is why it was handy I was about to spend 5 days in Paris with my best friend from William & Mary!
On Friday March 1st, I left the hostel at 7:00am, and hour and a half and 7€50 later I finally made it to the airport where I met a man from Chicago who was going to Paris for a vacation with his wife. I was spotted by my L.L. Bean backpack, très américain évidement. Then I waited in Charles de Gaulle for 3+ hours to see the wonderful, most amazing person in the world Erin! I love my friends here and my French life, and I'm totally not looking forward to leaving here, but I didn't realize how much I missed my ginger comerade until she walked through those automatic doors. We stayed in a hotel (an upgrade definitely needed after life with the boars) in the 11 arrondissement very close to where the Bastille was, which was perfect for us revolution lovers. Over the course of 5 days we saw EVERYTHING. On Friday, after a stroll and dinner along Boulevard Saint-Germain, we walked past both the Notre-Dame and the remains of the Bastille on our way back to our hotel. Day 2 was Notre-Dame for real, Sainte-Chapelle, Musée d'Orsay (where the hunt for Saint Sébastien began), and the Eiffel Tower. I also introduced Erin to Kinder chocolate that day which may or may not have been a very big mistake as I now may as well take some stock in the company as I'm bringing so much of it home for Erin. Day 3 we decided to do some furniture shopping for our future D.C. apartment at Versailles. We saw the palace, the gardens, the Grand Trianon, and the Petit Trianon before our legs gave out. We paused back at our hotel before hitting up the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. I just want to pause here so we can all compare the Arc de Triomphe with that of Barcelona. I'll let you figure out which is which.
All I have to say is "Vive la France". After dinner we also went to see Les Misérables (my 5th time seeing it, sorry I'm not sorry). It really improves the movie when you come out and walk the streets where the real story took place. Honestly, I have so much patriotism for France after that movie, I cannot express to you how weird and wonderful it is. Day 3 we set ourselves up at the Louvre and worked from ancient Egypt all the way to 19th century France. It also took us 5 hours, but we found my favorite ever painting ever (after some serious stalking of every painting by David in the Louvre), "La mort de Marat" or"Marat assassiné".
Now I know I posted other paintings by Jacques-Louis David from the last time I went to the Louvre, but I literally found every single painting of his in that museum and it took us 5 hours to find the painting that added to the fire that was the Terror. I had almost lost hope, thinking that maybe it was in another museum somewhere across the world when I walked down a small set of stairs which opened up into another room (room 54, I do believe), lifted my head, looked to the right, and there it was. I gasped, loud enough that people in other rooms paused their contemplation and glanced my way, and went to stand in front of that painting for a while. No, really.
(Photo credit: Erin)
You may or may not have guessed that I have a thing for the French revolution and this painting gets me every single time. I just, LOOK AT IT! David, what a rascal. Time to get back on track I suppose. Post Louvre, we walked through the underground mall attached to the Louvre and then jetted back to our hotel for another siesta. We decided to be extra American on our final night in Paris and go to the Hard Rock for dinner with a stop over at Laduree on the Champs-Élysée for macaroons (if they're still there when you get the chance to go to Paris, get the Marie Antoinette flavor. Trust me.) to add a smidge of France to our meal. On our last day we treked it to l'Hôtel des Invalides to see Napoleon and then up to Sacre-Coeur because why not.
Not as cool as Sagrada Familia, but I'll take it. We then parted from Paris that night on a train to Grenoble. While I did drag Erin to my History of Contemporary France class, we did go out and about in Grenoble too. We even took the famous bubbles up to the Bastille. The bubbles are the fancy cable cars that lead from Centre-Ville up to the Bastille itself. Much better than walking, in my opinion, although I know that not many others would agree. The walk is pretty cool. I also took some of my first pictures of Grenoble. Now here is my reasoning. For the past 2 months, it has been cold, rainy, occasionally snowy, and very cloudy. Once or twice it has been nice, but I don't carry my camera with me all the time. I did, however, this time, so take a minute to appreciate the city I'm living and studying in. (I'll even add pictures from my hike up the mountain.)
(Photo credit: Nicole)
(Photo credit: Nicole)
(Photo credit: Nicole)
(Proof I exercised!)
After our bubble rides, we went to the Musée de Grenoble which is actually a pretty cool museum. They even have a Saint Sébastien painting, a painting by David, and a piece from Andy Warhol.
They also had some stuff that Erin and I had a tough time accepting was art. This piece, for example.
Now it is entirely possible I just don't get it. I am not an art student by any means, but it kind of looks like they just forgot what they wanted to do on this canvas and gave it to a museum anyway. But I digress. Thursday we had a final French dinner for Erin with savory crêpes and crème brûlée, and then she left by a 7:20 train on Friday morning.
It was an absolutely crazy two weeks, but totally worth it. Barcelona is an amazing city, and I could get lost in the corners of Paris and still be loving it. It was so, ridiculously nice to spend time with Erin too. My friends even noticed it here when we all went out for Indian food and crêpes that I was significantly more cheerful than usual. But I guess that's what William & Mary gives you. I mean, one Tribe, one family, right TJ?
(Photo credit: Erin)
