I love road trips, so I was excited to ride in the bus for our France excursion. Our first stop in Colmar was a bit of a struggle because the weather was terrible and almost all the restaurants were closed. The Isenheim Altar was interesting though, because the depiction of the Resurrection was almost psychedelic. I've never seen religious art in that style before. We then rode to Beaune where we had dinner and slept in a cute little hotel. We toured the Hotel Dieu the next day. I was very impressed by the beauty and quality of the hospital facilities for their time. It was also inspiring to learn about the nuns who worked long hours caring for the sick in that hospital for their entire lives. We then piled in the bus for our 190 mile journey to Paris. Somehow, it took us 6 hours to get there.
For some reason, I hadn't given too much thought to our Paris excursion. I've seen Eiffel Towers and cute little Parisian cafes painted on so many different things that I assumed Paris would be touristy, gimmicky, and probably overrated. But you know how people say that you fall in love when you're not looking for it? That's pretty much what happened to me and Paris. Getting my first glimpse of the city from the bus was an absolute thrill. It's a huge city with beautiful monuments sprinkled throughout the landscape and the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance. It hit me then that I was in possibly the most spectacular city in the entire world. That night, we checked into our hotel and ate dinner at the Creperie. A group of us sat at a round table with Dr. Wasser. For dessert, we each ordered a different crepe. We had a system where we rotated the crepes every minute so each person would be able to try each crepe. We had a really great time and I think the waiters were amused! The next morning, I opted out of Julien's bike tour to go on a bus tour with Alexa, Clara, and Cerci. We had a fun morning seeing the sights and met up with the group after lunch. It was funny to hear their stories of the bike tour, and I ended up being glad that I skipped because several people crashed. We then had a tour of the Museum of the History of Medicine. We were all pretty tired, but the tour guide was really knowledgeable. I spent the afternoon walking around Paris with Kyle, Christine, and Amran. We met up with the group that night to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. With the Tower lit up in a brilliant gold, the atmosphere was electric. The view from the top was great. A storm blew in and we laughed as we were buffeted by extremely strong winds and fog. We went back down and then rode the carousel with the Eiffel Tower sparkling in front of us. That night was a blur of pure happiness. Everything was so exciting, beautiful, and fun.
On Thursday morning, about half of our group took the tour of Montmartre with Julien. We first went to Sacre Coeur, which was beautiful on the outside and inside. We were lucky enough to visit during Mass, during which a nun sang beautifully in French. We then walked around the neighborhood and saw studios of famous artists and old cabarets. During our lunch break, Kadeja, Michelle, Raju, and I walked to the Moulin Rouge. We then headed to the Louvre. The Louvre was absolutely huge and very impressive. One day, I'd like to go back and spend hours going through as many rooms as possible. Highlights from our visit were the Winged Victory, Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, and the Mona Lisa. I actually wasn't underwhelmed by the Mona Lisa. I was expecting her to be very small because that's what I'd been told, but the painting was actually a decent size. It was really cool to see her in person after seeing her depicted so much in modern culture. I was also struck by another work of art that was not as famous- a sculpture of Crouching Aphrodite. She had obvious fat rolls visible on her stomach as she crouched there, which made me realize that our modern standards of beauty might not be so definite and final after all. After that, we walked around near the glowing Avenue des Champs-Elysees in search of food. We ended up eating at our favorite place, Vapiano.
We took a trip to Versailles on Friday. The palace was opulent and covered with gold. The grounds were extensive, but probably not as spectacular as usual because it was still winter and the fountains were turned off. Touring the insides of fancy palaces and castles is actually not my favorite thing to do. I get slightly disgusted by the level of materialism and excess of royalty back in those days. However, I really enjoyed the Parisian picnic Julien put together for us. We all felt so cultured eating the cheeses, butter, and meats on huge baguettes. That night was the end of our excursion and the beginning of our spring break. We hugged each other goodbye like we would be separated for months. It sounds silly, but we're so used to being together all the time that the thought of being apart for a week seems pretty drastic. Our spring break group spent an additional night in Paris. We walked around with Stephenie's mom and rode the ferris wheel. We ate Italian food for dinner and spent the evening taking in the beautiful views of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower from Stephenie's mom's flat. The location was awesome! Later, I walked to the Arc with Kyle, Nathan, Kendrick, and Michael. The Arc was beautifully lit and a joy to look at up close. I walked around and could see the ferris wheel and the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the distance. As I took it all in, I felt perfectly happy.
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