Czeching out Prague

"Anybody who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old." - Franz Kafka

Four of my sorority sisters are sharing an apartment in downtown Prague so I got to go visit them in mid-October. I didn't really know anything about Prague except for beer was allegedly cheaper than water there and that all the buildings look like they come straight from the pages of a fairytale. Both of these facts turned out to be true, but the city was so much more than that. I got to Prague pretty late on Thursday evening, but we still went out and saw the city a little bit.

Apparently the Old Town Hall Tower holds the title of Most Underwhelming Clock in Europe. On the hour little figures pop out and stuff.

 

Feet cleaner fish! Gross!

Don't worry Mom, we didn't run up a 270 Euro bar tab. The exchange rate between Czech crowns and dollars is awesome: you take off a decimal point and divide by two.

Only $50. When my friends paid their rent they took all the bills, threw them in the air, and rolled around in them, because what else would you do with tens of thousands of bills in a foreign currency?

The weather was just as rainy as in Paris, so we walked around a little bit on Friday, but didn't see much. However, Friday night we went to a hockey game! Hockey is a huge deal in the Czech Republic; during the NHL lockout last year many American players came to play in Prague. The game was really fun and the home team won. Although apparently I was confused about who was who the entire time because at the end when I remarked "oh bummer, we got our butts kicked" everyone looked at me like I should take the short bus home. My b guys.

Pictured: the home team NOT losing

 

Our friend Emily also came Friday night so we had a big reunion and it was great. The next morning the Prague girls set the two of us up with a free walking tour of the city, led by an eccentric Czech lady named Tatiana.

 

Before starting our tour we got some delicious Trdelnik. Pronounced like "turtleneck," it is a hollow sugared donut that you peel off in layers.

There's our girl Tatiana standing in Old Town Square in front of Tyn Church. Built in 1385, it is one of the coolest buildings I have ever seen. It looks like a Sleeping Beauty castle!

Church of Saint James. Yeah okay cool, another European church. Except....

That little thing hanging above the painting is allegedly the hand of a thief who tried to steal jewels from the Madonna statue. She came to life and wouldn't let go of him, so they had to cut his hand off.

Tatiana again! Next to a statue commemorating Prague's son Franz Kafka.

The building on the left is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Europe

The Jewish cemetery in Prague. Despite being persecuted, there was a large Jewish community in Prague before WWII. In the tiny graveyard there are about 12,000 headstones piled on top of each other, but Tatiana estimated almost 100,000 people were buried there.

The Charles River and Charles Bridge



On Saturday night we went out for a traditional Czech dinner before taking a walk on the river.

 

Goulash. Not my favorite food I've eaten abroad, but it was...cultural.

The river at night. The castle in the background was founded in 870 AD and is the largest medieval castle in Europe. It covers 18 acres.

 

Somebody said that Prague is like Paris was 20 years ago. I obviously don't know if that's true, but it is underrated, not to mention cheap! My friends kept talking about this 9 story club that they rarely go to because it's a 9 euro entrance fee so I just pouted and told stories about paying 12 for a single drink in Paris. Anyways, it's a beautiful, historical city and I really enjoyed my time there!

Oktoberfest

"Hey... I'm drunk, you're drunk... everybody's drunk!" - Barry Badrinath, Beerfest

Oktoberfest was fun and stuff. It was cool seeing the tent decorations, the beer maids, and the unreal crowds. I also made a few of my friends go on a walk around the main square on Sunday afternoon so they could at least see something besides the walk from the campsite to the beer halls; I felt kinda bad because I've been before and it's actually a really nice city when it's not drowning in drunk people. That being said, the beer tents themselves were really fun and I'm glad I got to meet up with a bunch of friends from around Europe, both from college and high school.

So strong!

 

The famous Hofbrau tent

"Studying" abroad

Another tent. It's the one with the giant beer on it in the following picture

Look at those crowds

 

Some of my favorite things

 

We stayed in a tent and literally slept on pool floaties. It wasn't too bad really. Except one night I touched a slug on my sleeping bag and that is hands down (no pun intended) the WORST thing that has ever happened to me.

 

 

 

 

Les Weekends

"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language." - Mark Twain

Normandy

Everyone arrived in Paris on Monday September 9^th; we started orientation on Tuesday, and went on a group trip to Normandy on Thursday. Needless to say, everyone was still jetlagged and exhausted from exploring the city, which made for a very funny, overtired trip.  Since we left Paris at 7am on Thursday, we made it to Normandy by about 10 and went immediately to a museum that covered WWII in general. We then went to one of the famous D-Day beaches and ended the day with some group bonding activity on the beach next to our hostel.

The program leaders like to feed us very French food, so we had duck at the museum for lunch the first day (which they told us about beforehand) and rabbit on the second (which they didn’t). I thought the rabbit was just really yucky chicken, but apparently not! Dinner was at an adorable little restaurant out in the countryside and it really was chicken this time, but with lots of cream, in the French style. How they stay so thin is still a mystery to me.

We also woke up early the second day and went to another museum. I’m not sure what this one was about since the tour was all in super fast French, but they had a really neat animated D-Day exhibit. We spent some time wandering around Omaha Beach and then had the rabbit lunch. After that charming surprise, we went to the American Cemetery. It definitely had the intended effect of being overwhelming and shocking. We noticed some of the markers had Jewish stars carved into them, which is cool. Overall, my trip to Normandy was a lot to take in so soon after my arrival in France, but it was a good thing to see and an important part of history.

Omaha Beach

 

The American Cemetery

Versailles

Some of my friends and I took a little day trip out to Versailles, since it’s very easy to get to by commuter train from Paris. My host mom’s granddaughter lives around this area so Madame often goes out to see her on the weekends.  Although it’s been a few weeks since we went, I still am not over the fact that actual people lived like that. I would’ve been pretty mad too if I was a French peasant that had nothing to eat but rabbit and bark, or something like that, probably.  Something I didn’t know was that several of the Napoleons also lived there after the French Revolution and before it was turned into a museum in 1837. We explored the palace, took some selfies in the Hall of Mirrors, had a picnic in the gardens, listened to a “musical fountain show” (I think they just piped some music through hidden speakers and then charged me 8 euros, in true Versailles fashion. Whatever, it was a nice soundtrack to pretending I was a princess), and walked through Marie Antoinette’s “little” cottage. I don’t have much else to say about Versailles other than that it’s stunning, so I’ll just show you some pictures.

The king's bedroom.

 

The ultimate selfie is the Hall of Mirrors selfie

 

The royal gardens and a magical fountain

 

 

Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon where she could go to hide from Louis XVI and the stresses of court life, which apparently wasn't all roses and cake

The front gate

 

The back of the palace

Royal chapel

 

Inside the front courtyard

Giverny

Oh man, Giverny. The things I would do to live there. It’s unbelievable that Monet built himself this little Eden in the French countryside and it was wonderful to see the exact spots that inspired some of his most famous paintings. I really like Monet and the Impressionists, especially because their paintings make me feel like I could totally do that and be a great artist. I’ve never tried my hand at painting, so we’ll see. After wandering the gardens all morning we had another delicious lunch of wine and more chicken in cream sauce, then went to a museum on the grounds which had a special exhibition of this modern Japanese artist who is trying to imitate Monet. This was interesting because Monet had originally been heavily influenced by Japanese prints of nature, so things were coming back full circle.

The pond where Monet painted "Nymphéas" or "Water Lilies"

 

Secret garden

 

His house

 

 

Hippodrome de Longchamp

Our friend Grace came up with the great idea to go to a horse race one Saturday afternoon. I’ve never been to one before and it was great! Apparently it was a pretty big deal and everyone was all dressed up with the little fancy hats and pinstripe suits. Of course, we rolled out of bed and stumbled over in sweatpants, as Americans are wont to do. You could make little 2 euro bets and boy, what a rush. I didn’t win anything, but our friend Ben won 8 euros (he spent about 20, but says he had a lot of fun, so it’s a wash I guess). The races were every 30 minutes and went by in a blur, but afterwards the jockeys would walk the horses back by and we could also watch them in the winner’s circle, which was very cool.

The racetrack. You can see the Eiffel Tower in the background if you squint

 

One of my loser horses 

The Marais

The Jewish quarter in Paris is called the Marais and is located pretty near the Seine, on the right bank. It’s our favorite place to visit on Sundays, partly because it’s one of the only things open and partly because it’s awesome. Every weekend that we’ve been in Paris we’ve gone to the famous falafel restaurant called L’As du Falafel, which is apparently recommended by Lenny Kravitz.

I don’t know what As means, nor do I know who Lenny Kravitz is, but I adore this falafel.

 

It's just like Jordan, only without the food poisoning and 103 degree heat!

All the falafel in the quarter is the same price and pretty much the same ingredients, but I haven’t tasted any of the others because I only go for the best, obviously. I should probably do a taste test before I leave though. There’s also a block of “Kilo” stores in this neighborhood where they charge you for your clothes by weight. Finally, and best of all, we have discovered two wonderful cheesecake stores near the falafel place. The layout of the Marais is very cool and we’ve spent many hours there, but we’re always discovering something new.

Hotel de Ville on the edge of the Marais. It's the mayor's house now, but there used to be a guillotine in that plaza. Fun fact: France guillotined their last person in  1977.

One day we wandered into a beautiful big building that turned out to be the national archives museum and it was displaying some pretty neat medieval tapestries inside. Europe is just the best.

Some medieval tapestries, no big deal

 

La Vie à Paris

I had really hoped that putting this blog up and having actual people read it would guilt me into updating it more often, but apparently that didn't happen! Oh well, c'est la vie. So as of Monday I've been in Paris for a month. In that time I've gone to Normandy, Versailles, Oktoberfest, and Giverny and have spent every free minute exploring the city. I've decided the best way to cover it all is to split my writing up into three sections: everyday life, weekend adventures, and trips. So here is the first installment of what it's like living with a host family and studying in Paris....

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." - Ernest Hemingway

 

Home Life



I took the train from Frankfurt to Paris and arrived in my new neighborhood in the late afternoon of Monday, September 9th. My host mom is a retired widow who lives on the top floor of a beautiful old apartment building in the 17th arrondissement. It's pretty close to Montmartre and the Arc de Triomphe, but across the city from where I go to school, so the morning metro commute is about 45 minutes. The apartment is huge, especially by Paris standards. My roommate Mollie, who is one of my sorority sisters back at Richmond, and I each have our own bedroom. We have dinner with our host mom 3 nights a week and she is a very good cook! I was a little worried about living in someone else's house, and it is still a little uncomfortable at times, but Madame Rolloy is super nice and we have a lot of independance. She only speaks French and is 80 years old, but is super active and has a great sense of humour. Her favorite little joke is teasing us about the few times we haven't drunk wine at dinner: she says "oh, you must be very sick then!" Her husband passed away a while ago and her granddaughter is grown and has children and a house in the suburbs, which Madame visits a lot.

 Our neighborhood

 

Our building

 

One of our living rooms. Our host mom spends her days sewing dresses in here for children in the local Catholic orphanage and playing bridge with friends all around the city. She's the best.

 

The elevator in our building, which is the coolest and oldest I have ever seen. You have to physically open the metal door, then pull the wooden grate across. It can squeeze in 3 people maximum.

 

This is our shower.

 

As much as I love our apartment and host mom, there have definitely been some adjustments to the French lifestyle. For instance, take another look at that shower. Notice how the curtain doesn't move, much less swing around the front, and how there is no hook to hang the faucet on. So why not just take a bath? Because there is no plug. I have yet to figure out a better way than sitting down in the freezing empty tub and pouring water on myself. :(

 

However, I think the thing that has taken the most getting used to is simply living in a big city. In Boulder and Richmond I've never really dealt with basic things like morning commutes, crowds, being lost, and even meeting up with people who live on the other side. It's both exciting and overwhelming.

 

Exploring the City

My friends and I usually get out of class around 2pm and spend the afternoon doing stuff around town. Mollie studied here one summer in high school and loves desserts so most of our outings involve going to famous sweet places, like La Durée and Pierre Hermès macarons and Bertillon ice cream, but we like to go shopping and visit the gardens too.

 

We've decided Pierre Hermès is underrated and better than the more famous La Durée.

 

Le Bon Marché is one of the huge luxury department stores. Its name means cheap, but that's a little Parisian joke.

 

Les Jardins du Luxembourg

Mollie and our friend Elizabeth met Dakota Fanning in the Tuleries Garden during Paris Fashion Week a few weeks ago!

 

Not Bertillon ice cream, but gelato from this wonderful Italian chain called Amorino.

 

I've picnicked under the Eiffel Tower twice!

 

 

We go home for dinner at 8, and meet back up again at night. Unfortunately the metro closes at 12:30 on weekdays and 1:30 on weekends and the night busses are a little confusing, so it's taken a while to figure out the timing of our nights. I've recently started taking the bus instead of the metro more often during the day which is awesome because not only does it help me figure out this huge city, but it's like a free tour every day! If I take the bus home from school we casually pass Les Galeries Lafayette, the Eiffel Tower, the Panthéon, the Madeleine Church, les Invalides, and the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysées. It's so amazing here; for the first few weeks I would alternate between feeling like "omg I'm in Paris!" and "of course I'm in Paris, I've lived here forever."

 

I wish I could post some People of Paris pictures, but seeing as people glare if you are eating a croissant (or anything) in public, I don't think I could get away with taking photos of them. My sociology teacher says the most popular Parisian sport is to sit at a café for hours, smoking, drinking coffee, and judging people. Seems pretty accurate to me. Everybody here is so fashionable and beautiful, but they definitely have some hilarious habits. Lots of people carry a purse and a rolly backpack, I've seen multiple professional people on Razr scooters, and everybody has a tiny dog! They also do this thing where they open the door and get off the metro before it comes to a complete stop, which I think looks really cool and have obviously tried to copy, but one time I smacked into a wall because the train was still moving too fast, so I haven't done it since...

 

School

I'm in a program called IES Paris with all Americans from different schools around the states. Our teachers are French and they are all very nice and intelligent, many with jobs at the Sorbonne or published books. All of our classes are in French, but the teachers realize that everyone is at different levels, so it's not too bad, even though I really had to concentrate at the beginning. When we first started, if I tuned out one sentence I would be lost for five minutes, but it's definitely improving. I'm taking two sociology classes, one on contemporary France and one on immigrants in Paris, a course on the history of photography, and a English-French translation grammar class.

 

I am also taking an outside course at a French university called the Institut Catholique de Paris with real French students. It's pretty funny to see how different our standards are. The French kids literally talk through the entire class (it's 3 hours long, once a week) and last week one guy was straight up watching a movie. The professor ambled by and said "pause it, you wouldn't want to miss anything because of me." Any of my American teachers would have hit the ceiling if they'd seen that. I really can't figure out how anybody learns anything, since they don't even have textbooks. It's a developing economies class so it's definitely a challenge, but two of the guys in my American program are taking it too so that makes it better and we can whisper about words we don't understand. We didn't have internet for a while so we couldn't look up any vocabulary. The teacher kept saying "croissance" in Africa. Apparently he wasn't talking about Africa's obsession with delicious flaky pastries, but rather their levels of economic growth. So yeah, it's a little rough. After the 4th week we finally broke down and asked somebody for the notes and he was all, yeah totally and I'll add you to the Facebook group too. So now the weird foreign kids are in the Facebook group and it's great; actually, from what I can tell, two kids in the entire lecture pay attention and take really good notes for everyone else. Socialism!