Fall Break in France

It’s been a busy past few weeks. Since I last wrote Mandy came to visit me in Barcelona. That was a good time, but we really only got to spend a few hours together, because she was only in the city for a few hours each day. After that, came midterms that really weren’t that bad. One exam, two take homes and a paper. The rest is in the coming weeks when I have two exams and two presentations. But after that it’s Prague and then not much until finals.

I spent the last week in France visiting Seva and Mandy. This was lots of fun, but also super expensive. After taking Ryan Air and two busses, I arrived Paris only to realize that I know no French, making life rather difficult. After figuring out how to take the metro walked up the stairs to street level to see landmarks in every direction. One side was the Eiffel Tower, while on the other side was the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees. The Seine was gorgeous with statues by every bridge. I spent the afternoon wandering around until Seva got off work. We met under the Arc de Triomphe … it was very romantic. After dropping stuff off at his dorm we didn’t waste any time seeing it was the free night at the Louvre. After the Louvre we went out to eat and I ate snails. Afterwards, we went to a bar and hung out with his friends. Being the good Jew that he is, Seva went to Synagogue the following morning and where he was invited to eat lunch with a family. We spent all afternoon eating lunch the French way. That evening we wandered around looking at historic sites including Notre Dame and had dinner at an Indian restaurant that was unimpressive, but I did eat with my hands. Sunday we went to the Musée d’Orsay, Sacre Coeur, and a bunch of other places. Monday Seva had work so I traversed the city in the rain. Paris is beautiful in the rain, but also very wet. That night we were super tourists and went up in the Eiffel Tower. On Tuesday I made it to Versailles and like everyone says the gardens were much more impressive than the inside, especially with the fall foliage. I even go to see a rainbow.

Wednesday morning it was off to Marseille. Mandy met me at the station, meaning I didn’t need to speak any French. We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and climbed a mountain to see Marseille’s version of Notre Dame. The next day we also went on a boat to see the Château d'If, the prison where the Count of Monte Cristo is based. In Marseille, I took it much easier, but still walked a lot. We didn’t realize until our last day that South Marseille is where all the beaches and the ritzy part of town. We also didn’t realize how far away we were but managed to make it back before Mandy’s train. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera that day, but I have plenty of pictures of everything else. There are way too many pictures of this trip to put on the blog, so if you are interested check facebook.