LES ROLLERS!
I am slowly getting better at this traveling thing. This time I actually planned ahead for Paris, but didn’t plan for some pleasant aspects of the Italian culture, like a strike of the whole transportation system (Buses, trains, etc.). A transportation system that a whole country depends on, including the American foreign exchange students. If there is one thing I can say about the strikes is that they try to be as courteous as possible by telling you what time they are striking at earlier in the week, but really no matter what if you strike from 9-5 you will most likely screw up a persons plans. This specific strike was beginning at 9 am last Friday, but as a person leaving out of Venice at 1 pm this wasn’t exactly the ideal situation. Anyways, I had wake up at 5, to take the 6:30 am train out of Ferrara to get up to Venice in time. By the time I got to the Venice bus station it was 8:40 and I was late to catch the last bus to the airport. Luckily I found another American and we split a taxi, but considerably more expensive. Good start…
Hours later… I arrived in Paris… A little tired, but mostly excited.
For those of you who don’t know, in Paris I was meeting my good friends Felipe “I am now 40” Simoes, Connor “The Pianist” Martin and Seena “The Director” Haddad. Seena lives in Paris and studies film and for 4-5 months he is living there with his Mom and his little brother, who is going to school there and learning french (lucky kid). They were renting this really nice apartment really close to the Arch du Triumph. Felipe was obviously coming from London, Connor from Madrid and myself from hmmm… for a little international weekend in Paris.
They said they were going/at the Louvre and to meet them there. I don’t know if you have heard of this place before, but it is kind of big. And, FYI… if you are ever in Paris and under 26 the Louvre is free from 6-9 pm on Fridays, so we saw the Louvre for free. At the Louvre I saw paintings from a guy, Picasso and Da Vinci. Have you heard of the Mona Lisa?
(I think she has a crush on me)
She was really excited to see me. After the Louvre we headed back because I hadn’t dropped off my backpack yet. The first night we walked around Paris, headed to the Latin district (I think that’s what they call it) and realized how small the world was. When we were at the Latin district, walking down the streets, I noticed a person that looked vaguely familiar. It happened to be Gavin Halladay, a kid I played soccer with and a kid Connor went to K-12 schooling with. Pretty ridiculous. Needless to say, a scene was made… thanks Connor. We hung out with Gavin for a while, but headed home not too long after that.
2nd day: Slept a bit. Woke up and Connor, Felipe and I went to a pastry shop, which was incredible and spent about 20 Euros for breakfast. Once we were all ready to leave, we headed out on our adventure. So, basically we were either going to go on a free tour or self-tour ourselves. Self-tour won. On our self-tour we witnessed incredible things… A hostage situation practiced on the River by the Paris Police. We also witnessed Les Rollers! If you didn’t know, the Paris Police force has a Roller blade division, instead of bike. I guess bikes aren’t stylish enough for the Paris Police. And gargoyles! The second night we decided to go on a Pub Crawl, which obviously was extremely fun and since I left early in the morning we decided that the best idea would be to stay up all night (not quite sure if this was the best idea). Before I knew it the weekend was over and I was heading home.
My concluding thoughts… Paris was a really cool city. For me, I felt it was really similar to London, but I think I might have liked it more. The weekend was great and cool because it felt like just another weekend with my friends, but transported to Paris. After Italian, French will be my next language. Half because I like Paris and half because I think it would be a lot of fun to speak. And, crepes are delicious, pastries there are amazing, watch out for Gargoyles (they could strike at anytime), Felipes moustache is ridiculous, Connor is good at the piano, and thank you Seena. Oh, and LES ROLLERS!
This weekend: I am going bungee jumping of the highest bridge jump in the world, 500 ft. It is located in between Torino and Milan. And, I am terrified; in fact I am getting butterflies writing this right now.
Allora, a dopo,
Ciao Belli
Notre Dame!
There is some cool tower there. Never heard of it.
