Paris je t'aime!

Because of the sheer mind numbingness of the month of January and because I've been really missing Paris for awhile now, Rachel (my friend who is an English Assistant in Reims) and I decided a couple of weeks ago that we needed to meet there for a day. We were in Paris together in 2006, and Paris will never be quite Paris for me without her there with me. Plus, it was great to see someone from home. My friends here in Saint Etienne are great, don't get me wrong, but they don't know that part of me. Just like my friends at home don't know this part of me. Rachel is the lucky one that knows it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Anyway, a day trip to Paris seemed very practical to me. However, when I started telling people who have lived in this region their whole lives of my plan, I started to doubt myself. Let's just say, I know quite a few Stephanois who have NEVER BEEN TO PARIS (gasp!). I said to myself, 'Self: it's only a 2 hour train ride from Lyon! These people are delusional!' While all of this is true, doing the aller-retour PLUS an action packed eight hours in Paris was the most exhausting thing I've done in awhile. While I still think it's absolutely feasible, and was definitely worth the time and energy, one must truly be in pleine forme to do so.

Anyway, it was the absolute perfect day in Paris. We spent most of the day just 'flaning' (wandering in franglish) around Paris, seeing new things and old things, feeling like we had never left. We had an amazing lunch at our favorite café, and did some catching up. We did some shopping of course, and rode some buses and the metro, just taking in all of the sights and smells of Paris (the smells I'm sure nobody loves as much as the two of us). Also, I'm pretty sure we made more friends in Paris yesterday than we made during our whole study abroad in 2006. I'm talking phone numbers, invites to 'faire la fete' later, and a group of middle aged woman who I'm pretty sure wanted to adopt us.

One of the new things we did was a generally pleasant visit to the Musée Rodin. This museum is set in a beautiful part of Paris that I must admit I (regretably) didn't frequent. The museum itself consists partly of a small building with marble floors, intricately painted ceilings, and an impressive staircase leading down to an even more impressive lobby with chandeliers hanging everywhere. The rest of the sculptures are in a perfectly manicured massive garden. And all of this offers views of Les Invalides (where Napoleon is buried) and of course, La Tour Eiffel. All very impressive, all of which the setting for another priceless fall to remember (read: try to forget) for years to come.

Imagine: this beautiful staircase, inside this amazing museum, in one of the most posh quartiers of Paris. Then imagine me, after having been forewarned that the stairs were scary, making my way 'carefully' down said stairs. At the bottom of the stairs are sculptures, tourists, and Rachel. On the stairs are me and two people working at the museum. Everything is silent and then BAM! My ass is on the stone steps, with one of the two workers giving me a dirty look and walking past me and the other saying 'At least you didn't fall further!' I looked down immediately, to see if Rachel had managed to catch my gracefulness, so that at least it hadn't been for nothing. Of course, she had seen the entire horrifying display and was choking back tears. I burst into laughter so loud that in case everyone in the museum hadn't already seen (or heard) my fall, they all were all staring at me anyway.

The actual site of my fall.

So, we saw the rest of the museum, I got a couple of pitiful looks from perfect strangers, and we continued on our way. When it came time to go our seperate ways it was a shame, but now, at least we know that a perfect day trip to Paris is not as impossible as the Stephanois like to believe!