Paris and Amsterdam!!!

Last Wednesday was a national Holiday in Spain (Día de la Hispanidad - Columbus Day) so we got to miss a day of class. Two girlfriends and I decided to take advantage of the day off and make a long weekend for travel to France and the Netherlands!

PARIS

We arrived to a freezing cold Paris on Wednesday afternoon and had to pay 15 Euros to take a bus into the city. We had checked the weather before hand and the temperature didn’t seem like it would be that cold, so we mainly packed shorts and short sleeved shirts. It has barely been below 80 degrees in Sevilla, so we just could not imagine a neighboring country would be so cold. WRONG! We got off the bus in the city and wandered for a minute, shivering and completely lost (none of us speak a WORD of French) and feeling pretty pathetic. It was actually quite funny (looking back now). We finally found a bus map and figured out where we were, and then found a metro station to take us to our hostel called "Oops!" on the Avenue des Gobelins. The hostel was pretty cozy and clean and the walls and shower curtains were, accordingly, green. We made it to our room with plans to take a ten minute power nap and then explore the city – we ended up sleeping for about two hours.

After we finally dragged ourselves out of bed we layered on as much clothing as we could and went to the nearest supermarket to find food for dinner. Then we headed to the Eiffel Tower! The tower was built in 1889 as the entrance arch for the 1889 World’s Fair. A while back I read a book about the World’s Fair (called The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson – an excellent book which I highly recommend) so it was awesome to be there. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid monument in the world and for about 40 years was the tallest man-made structure in the world (until the Chrysler Building was built in New York). It was dark by the time we got there. We had heard that it lights up every hour on the hour, so we arrived in perfect time to see the entire thing sparkling with lights. It was incredible! We sat across the street from the tower and bought some delicious crepes (the guy gave us one for free!) and then opened our stash of cheese and wine. We were approached and engaged in conversation by the park-worker Nielson, whom we since have affectionately dubbed “no-tooth-Nielson.” After some strained conversation, we escaped back across the road to the Eiffel Tower where we opened our second bottle of wine. We were having fun and talking and drinking next to the tower when some police came up to us. One pointed to our bottle and said, “Alcohol?” We all looked at each other and kind of shrugged, ready to accept defeat and have the bottle confiscated. Instead, the police made fun of us for drinking cheap wine!! They were very good looking policemen and came back to talk to us a couple more times before we left. We finished our bottle, went to the middle of the tower to see the view from underneath, and then walked briskly back to the metro station (which apparently closes at 2 am so we had to take a taxi). We saw the tower light up three times in all. Definitely one of the most memorable nights of my life.

The next day we woke around 11 am and hopped back on the metro – to the Louvre! The Louvre is the most visited museum and one of the largest art museums in the world. The actual building that the museum occupies is the Palais du Louvre, a former royal palace. The entrance is in the main court, underneath the Inverted Pyramid  (it took us forever to figure that out). We told the lady at the ticket booth that we were students studying art and architecture, advice we were given by some girls we met under the Eiffel Tower, and showed her our visas – and we got in for free!

We saw all of the most popular pieces in the collection:

• Venus de Milo or better known as Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty – one of the most famous and ancient works of Greek sculpture.
• Winged Victory (or Nike) of Samothrace - 2nd century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory). One of the most celebrated sculptures in the world - notable for its convincing rendering of a pose where violent motion and sudden stillness meet.

• The Mona Lisa - Leonardo da Vinci - considered to be the most famous painting in the world. Once stolen for two years. Most famous for the ambiguity of the expression and the monumentality of the composition. It was one of the first portraits of a person depicted in an imaginary landscape. 
• The Dying / Rebellious Slave – Michelangelo
• Rebellious Slave shows human resistance to the chains of bondage and the temptation to submit to the inevitable.  
• Dying Slave said to depict " that moment when life capitulates before the relentless force of dead matter" 
• Great Sphinx of Tanis - One of the largest sphinxes outside Egypt. The creature was a symbolic representation of the close relationship between the sun god (the lion's body) and the king (the human head), and was the "living image of the king", demonstrating his strength and his close association with Ra.

My favorite was Antonio Canova's statue Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, a masterpiece of its time said to exemplify the Neoclassical devotion to love and emotion.

After the Louvre, we stopped in to a little café and had lunch - the food was okay but not that great - and then we began our long walk to the Arc de Triomphe. During the walk we stopped into a little chocolate boutique and tried some delicious designer chocolates by Jean-Paul Hévin, passed by L'église de la Madeleine (a Roman Catholic Church designed to glorify Napoleon’s army), and may or may not have seen the President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, leave his house (at the Palais de l'Élysée).

Finally we reached the Arc after about an hour of walking, and we saw it at sunset, which was magnificent. The Arc de Triomphe is one of the most famous monuments in Paris and was made to honor the French men that fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Underneath the Arc, on the first floor, is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which has the first eternal flame in Western Europe and burns in memory of the dead that were never identified in the wars.

Finished with our touring for the day, we took the metro back to our hostel to find KIT in our room! We thought we had the (4 bed) room to ourselves so we had spread our stuff out, and when we came back we found the sweetest guy from Malaysia perched upon one of the beds. We got ready for the night while talking with Kit and then headed out into the cold, destination: Moulin Rouge. We got to the metro and were trying to find out what stop to get off on when we met some French Firefighters (they didn’t speak the best English) who told us that there would be nothing at the Moulin Rouge (it may have been already 1 am by then?) So we followed them to this Australian Bar – which turned out to be TONS of fun! (Side note – French men are incredibly attractive)!!!

The next morning we slept in a little, went to eat lunch at an awesome Chipotle-like burrito place called Boca Mexa, and walked along some back streets heading to the Notre Dame. Shopping was surprisingly very difficult. But it was a beautiful day and a great walk. The Notre Dame was awesome! It is widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic Architecture. I loved it so much – I’ve been in a billion cathedrals all over the place but the Notre Dame is, as of now, my favorite of them all. The entire beauty of it was in the architecture and not focused on lots of expensive “things” inside. It felt much less pretentious than a lot of the other cathedrals. It was just very simple and beautiful.

After the Notre Dame we went back to the hostel to grab our bags then left to catch our 5:25pm train to Amsterdam. We were thoughtlessly riding the metro until one of us realized that it was 5:07pm – and we were still two stops and a line transfer from the train station. We RACED through the metro and through the station, wildly asking for directions and making a couple wrong turns, until the hall opened up into the largest and most packed train station I’ve ever seen. We slowed our pace as the feeling began to sink in that we had missed our train (which meant that we would have to buy new tickets at a much more expensive price) until we saw a sign - trains to Amsterdam delayed by 30 minutes. Such crazy luck!!! It still took a minute to find our entrance and we had to walk forever to get on the train...it was such a relief to be finally sitting in our seats.

AMSTERDAM

The train ride was almost 4 hours long and when we arrived to Amsterdam we were SHOCKED at the cold!! It was insane! We stayed with a friend of Leah’s (one of the girls I traveled with), and he had pizza waiting for us when we arrived at the house. We hung out for a little bit and then grabbed a cab and headed to the Red Light District. Amsterdam was beautiful at night. The buildings all have different shapes and there are colorful lights strung everywhere along the edges of houses and bridges – I felt like I was in a big Gingerbread house! The Red Light District was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. We walked by glass door after glass door displaying women (all of whom were actually very beautiful) who were doing their best to seduce men to enter. Leah’s friend walked us through a house that had a different girl standing at every door trying to get us to come in. One saw us and said “Ladies Night Special!” We all felt so sad and had to keep reminding ourselves to just take it for what it is. We stopped into a bar opposite some windows – we watched a creepy man wearing a hoodie and glasses go into a pretty blonde girl's door. She shut her curtain and after a little while she emerged, opened the door, and ushered him out. He looked flustered and thanked her a bunch of times. Then she closed the door, flipped her hair, and was ready to go again. We left the bar and were ready to walk home.

I slept awful that night because it was SO cold! But the next day we woke to a beautiful sunny day and breakfast at the table. After we ate we rented bikes and rode around the city. I hadn’t ridden a bike in forever and it took a little while to get used to…people there are professionals! And they expect you to be good too. I tried my best but ended up riding wobbly in some heavy, zipping bike traffic. It was a terrifying experience. We found a cute little park and sat in the sun for a while, and then biked into town (even more terrifying) and had some wonderful hot chocolate. From there Leah went with her friend to visit his family, so Erin and I walked around town for a long time, ate some delicious little sandwiches, managed to unhook our bikes and ride back to the house, and then got some dessert and sat on a bridge and people watched. It was the perfect day! We met Leah back at the house and the three of us went out for a couple drinks while the boys went off on their own. We popped into a couple little bars, which were cute and VERY social, and then went to meet the boys. Earlier in the day while we were walking around, there was no one out and we wondered what on earth everyone was doing. Well, when we met the boys at the Cooldown Café, we found out. I’m pretty sure the entire town was packed into that little place! We spent the whole night dancing to the widest mix of music I have ever heard and ended up back at the apartment around 6 or 7am.

The next day we slept in, took our bikes back (one of the seats got stolen in the bike area – not our fault so we didn’t get in trouble, though the man at the counter was kind of upset) and went to find the bus to the airport. There was a marathon going on in the city and EVERYTHING was shut down…transportation was absolutely impossible! We ended up having to take a taxi, which was pretty expensive, but it got us there in plenty of time to grab a little food and hop on the plane.

Overall, the trip was awesome! We had such a great time. We thought that people in Paris wouldn’t like us much because we are Americans, but what we experienced there completely shattered that stereotype. Everyone we encountered was SO kind and helpful! People were interested in us - they wanted to know where we were from and how we liked Paris and about our traveling. We talked to quite a few people and not one was unkind. Amsterdam was a little different…people were nice but we ran into the normal few that are a little grumpy. And we dealt with some especially awful people at the airport. The crime rate is generally low in Amsterdam despite their extremely lenient crime, drug and prostitution policies, but at night I felt kind of uncomfortable and held my purse pretty tight. It was just different than being in Spain or France - not better or worse - and I think it’s definitely a place to get used to. It was extremely beautiful during the day though and we had the best time there!

This trip = forever one of my best memories in life.