The 4 C's of Paris

Croissants, Champagne, Crepes, and Couture

As promised I enjoyed the champagne

In preparation for my study abroad experience I had no intention of visiting Paris, as I already had the privilege to sing my way through the beautiful country of France two years ago under the direction of Clayton Moyer(thanks Moyboy you're the best). Anyway, somehow eight of us 'Czech' students found cheap flights to Paris so voila there I was. The week leading up to our trip other students asked me if I was excited to visit the city of love, lights, and champagne. My response all week was "No, not really I've already been there before.' How arrogant of me.  Once we were there and I got to watch the other seven people experience the city for the first time, I realized how incredibly fortunate I am to be back in a city that most people don't get to visit even once in their lifetime. After this realization I stopped being a little brat and enjoyed a wonderful weekend in Paris.

Traveling

Fortunately our class schedule is put together so we can travel easily. We are done around noon on Fridays so we took a train to Prague to catch our flight to Paris. Unfortunately after arriving to the airport we were informed our flight was delayed for an hour making our arrival to Paris later than we hoped. Once we arrived in Paris our plan was to use the metro to take us to our AirBnB, however due to our flight delay we were too late to use any of the public transport we planned on. We have all have become pretty resourceful when traveling due to our lack of mobile resources, but luckily at this point we were still connected to Orly's wifi and were able to get an uber to take us to our home for the weekend. Upon arrival to the apartment we were renting for the weekend the Eiffel tower was doing its final 'twinkle' of the night. This was the moment I realized how lucky I was to be back in this city as Clark, Alexander, and Sami sat in awe watching the iconic tower sparkle. We called it a 'night' or maybe an early morning as it was 3am by the time we were all settled and checked in to our apartment and got a little nap in before our weekend began.

The steps behind the Chateau looking at the gardens.

Day One

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and headed out of Paris to the beautiful palace and gardens of Versailles. I visited the palace when I came with Claybaybay, and was more than excited to go back to see the gardens. The inside of Versailles is something out of a dream. I have never seen something so beautiful and it is absolutely HUGE. My favorite thing about walking through places like this is knowing you are walking in the same place as Marie Antoinette or her husband Louis once did, it is surreal. The only sad part about my visit this time was how extremely packed the chateau was. I was walking shoulder to shoulder and back to back in every room I visited. I even had issues in the vast Hall of Mirrors finding personal space. Although this did take away from the experience a little bit it was cool to see how many people want to see this piece of history. The part that I had not seen on my previous visit was the gardens. It was a little chilly so it wasn't as pleasant as it could have been but I was still left awestruck. These gardens built by Louis the 14th  holds 55 pools and fountains, 600 water features, A closed circuit water consumption of 4500 meters cubed per hour, 77 hectares of formal french gardens, 86 sculpted groups, 155 statues, 235 vases, AND 300,000 flowers are planted each year to fill the gardens. I thought the rock garden at good ole Harmon Park was cool, but the royal gardens of Versailles might just have it beat. We left the gardens to find something to eat and to warm up a bit and hit the ground running back in Paris. That afternoon we saw the Place de la Concorde which hold the famous fountain Anne Hathaway throws her phone in during the movie 'The Devil wears Prada, La Madeleine Cathedral which is absolutely beautiful and I teared up a little bit reminiscing about singing the choral arrangement of Ava Maria in the same space two short years ago, the Moulin Rouge where I tried to take a jumping picture and might have accidentally flashed an old man, climbed all the stairs to visit Sacré-Cœur and have the city of Paris at our feet, and finished the night with a bottle of Rosé in the Parc du Champ De Mars watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle yet again.

Day Two

Notre Dame

We had a little later start Sunday morning(God bless) and headed to a free walking tour around 11am. The cool thing about Europe is the free walking tours that they have in almost every city. The tour guides are free lancers who allow you to put your own price on the tour after you have been on it. So, the tour isn't really free but you can hand the tour guide 5 euro instead of the 30 euro you would spend on a hop on hop off tour. Alberto, our tour guide was incredibly knowledgable about the sights he showed us. Out of all the tour guides we have had he has been the most informative, but we saw the least so I'm not really sure which situation I would rather have. Never the less Alberto took us to the famous Notre Dame, Pont Neuf bridge which is the oldest bridge in Paris, the new lock bridge because the old one was torn down, and the Louvre. I wish I could write about all the fun facts he told us, but sadly my fingers can only type so much. However, I will tell the most interesting and maybe the most gross thing I learned on the trip. Alberto talked to us about the French Revolution and the beheading of Queen Marie Antoinette. The guillotine was used for her beheading and many other nobles, but what I did not know as the ritual of this death sentence. A person would lie down and be told why they were receiving this sentence, have their full name read, and any other thing that needed to be said before their lives were taken. While they were laying down all the blood and oxygen would collect in their head and once the guillotine had done it's job the executioner would hold the head up and low and behold because of the blood and the oxygen in the brain the person was still conscious and would be shown its decapitated body. How gruesome but how incredible that our bodies can do that. After the walking tour we ate lunch and headed back to a cute little macaroon shop. The big task for the day was heading to the Arc de Triomphe. We were still down by the Louvre so we started our 3.4 mile trek from the Louvre to the Arc. Before this trip I wouldn't even walk down the block and now I'm walking around 15 to 20 miles a day. This walking is absolutely exhausting, but I think its my only saving grace so I don't weight 500 pounds after all this yummy european food. We finally made it to the Arc had a mini photo shoot and headed the 2 miles back to lay in the grass by the Eiffel  for the rest of the evening. Another early wake up call was awaiting us the next day and we had to say Au Revoir to the city of Paris. Next stops the Bohemian region of the Czech Republic, Greece, and then The States! Until then, I'll keep drinking my fill of champagne, eating croissants and crepes, and wishing I could buy everything couture. Au Revoir!