Finalement! Nous sommes arrivés à Paris hier. Maintenant, nous sommes dans la Ville du Monde, la Ville Lumière. [Finally! We arrived in Paris yesterday. Now, we are in the city of the world, the city of lights.]
Everyone made it safe and soundly through Charles de Gaulle airport and to our hotel early Tuesday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, most students were jet lagged from their overseas flights (excluding the Iceland group), however our travel exhaustion didn’t stop Dr. Vanderboegh and Dr. Calvert from launching us straight into the program. After giving us a brief orientation on hotel and Parisian etiquette, as well as allowing us a short break to withdraw money and check out the Monoprix (France’s much nicer version of a dollar store), our professors guided us on a pleasant walk toward Île de la Cité.
During our walk, Paris welcomed us with remarkably nice weather, fascinating architecture, and impressive street performers. Even if we were a little too tired to absorb everything we passed, we were still entranced by the hypnotic pulse of the city on a bright afternoon. On Dr. Vanderboegh’s recommendation, we took fifteen minutes to explore an excellent bookstore in le Quartier latin (a dangerous place for bibliophiles – trust me) before continuing our tour down Sébastopol.
Crossing the Seine on our sunny walk through Paris. Notice the road snaking along the right side of the river. Originally, the route was open to traffic, but recently, the city’s only opened the road to pedestrians, meaning you can now enjoy a lovely stroll next to the Seine.
Dr. Calvert and Dr. Vanderboegh treated us to dinner afterwards. We scarfed down our various pizzas and pastas before students finally began hitting the wall and drifting off in the restaurant. That was our cue to return to the hotel for some much needed sleep before our first full day tomorrow. (Fun Fact: During WWII when German soldiers occupied France, Nazis camped in the very hotel we are staying in!)
The next morning, we visited le Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, a beautiful local site filled with colorful flowers, artificial rivers, diverse wooded areas, and captivating views of northern Paris and Montmartre. As you walk through the park, the entire place comes alive with a sweet melody in contrast with the city’s typical allegro as the cool breezes shake leaves like tambourines, the birds perform nostalgic arias, and the water maintains a steady pulse in the fountains and down the man-made stream. It truly is a musical gem in Paris. (Traveler’s Tip: If you want to get an authentic taste of Paris without the crowds, visit Buttes-Chaumont. Very few tourists know about it, and it really is a breath of fresh air – hence it’s nickname as one of the “lungs in Paris”.)
Known as one of the “lungs of Paris,” Buttes-Chaumont is a beautiful historical and locally loved park with few tourists haunting its walkways.
Students and Dr. Vanderboegh walking through the artificial grotto in Buttes-Chaumont.
Ironically, the aesthetic appeal of the park conceals Buttes-Chaumont’s dark historical past as an execution site and dumping ground for Paris. Before Napoleon III constructed the park to model the British gardens he loved so much in the 19th century, the hill was brimming with carcasses and waste from animals and humans alike. Buttes-Chaumont even inspired Ballades des pendus (“Ballad of the Hanged”), an epithlet written by the famous French medieval poet François Villon while he contemplated his own mortality before the impending threat of execution.
Of course by the time we finished discussing Buttes-Chaumont’s gruesome history, we’d all worked up an appetite, so we headed over to the world famous Champs Elysées for a quick lunch. Following our déjeuner at La Brioche Dorée (a French fast food restaurant), we wandered over to l’Arc de Triomphe for touristy photos and to see memorials for the unknown soldiers and combatants who’d given their lives during the Napoleonic, World Wars, and Algerian Wars.
Arc de Triomphe feat. the Iceland Squad.
We ended our day by running around the Louvre in our own small groups. Some of us followed Dr. Calvert – our faculty expert on Islamic culture, Middle Eastern civilizations and classics – through the Egyptian section of the museum and learned quite a bit about ancient Egyptian culture, rituals, and symbols. Sticking to Dr. Calvert was definitely a good decision not only for his insight, but also because we probably would have accidentally passed some important Egyptian relics without a guide (like the Book of the Dead). Others split up to see Greek antiquity art and Renaissance paintings.
Venus de Milo, the epitome of classical beauty.
You know you’re looking at a famous painting when you recognize it from a Coldplay album cover.
The Louvre’s most famous painting – La Jaconde, or the Mona Lisa.
All in all, we’ve had a fabulous introduction to Paris and we’re eager to continue learning about la ville du monde.
Au revoir,
Geai Bleu
Jays in Paris 