Hello Friends and Family!
Somehow the month of May has completely flown by, and I find myself writing this from my bed in Madison, NJ! I have been a bad blogger and missed an entire month! I'll try to summarize the month in Reader's Digest form...
The month started with a bang, as I had just finished saying goodbye to Kristina when it was time for me to say hello to Paris! Marco and I set out on our journey on Saturday, the 1st of May, and got to explore Munich a bit (including seeing the Bayern Munich stadium and eating some goulasch at Hofbrauhaus duh) before catching an evening flight to Charles de Gaulle. We felt pretty confident as we navigated our way from the airport to our neighborhood of Les Halles with relative ease, but were jerked back to harsh reality as we got lost in the maze of our destination metro stop (slash shopping mall) Chatelet! We finally used a map (imagine, a real, paper map, no GPS!) to find our way to the hotel, and got some pizza for dinner before settling in for the night.
Sunday morning brought an early alarm to get ready for our first stop: the Louvre! We made it there by 9:15, and while there was already a line stretching through the inner courtyard, it moved quickly and we were inside the museum by 9:30ish. We beelined to the Mona Lisa, paying our respects to the Nike of Samothrace in passing, and were then inundated with amazing views of the great works from too many genres to name!
I started having major flashbacks from slides in Art History classes through my Santa Clara years, and this caused frustration similar to that which I felt in Rome last year! Veroneses's Wedding at Cana, Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, David and his many celebrated history paintings... it was pretty mind-boggling, and those were just 3 rooms! Added to the fact that I was being constantly nudged by other eager visitors, and I had reached my limit after about 2 hours. We stopped being able to concentrate on one piece of art, much less be impressed by it (despite the fact that we were walking amongst some of the greatest works of all time!). Noon rolled around and we were outta there!
After a quick stroll to Notre Dame, we headed back to the Louvre to meet my friend Emily in front of the IM Pei pyramid for a Paris tour/lunch date. We walked along the Seine towards the Latin Quarter, tourguide extraordinaire Emily narrating all the while (there are some major perks to having history buffs as friends!), then stopped at a cafe for some foot rest and sustenance. Emily guided us towards the Jardins de Luxembourg and the Catacombs, but rain kept us from the gardens, and lines kept us from the Catacombs, so we ended up rewriting our afternoon plans. We said goodbye to Emily (who surely had something amazing to do that afternoon, like meet with the Mayor to discuss her newest Saint Chapelle research, because Emily does stuff like that!), and headed off on the Metro towards Champs Elysees.
When we surfaced at the 7-lane roundabout in the Place Charles de Gaulle, we had a hard time doing anything but just watching the chaos of traffic in front of us! Rumor has it that no car insurance company in the world that will insure you in an accident in that intersection (12 roads coming together in one circle, can that be called an intersection???), and I'm sure the Arc de Triomphe witnesses countless fender-benders each year. We sat on a bench for a while just imagining how anyone drives in such a mess!
While watching the madness in front of us, we also tried to locate the hotel where Marco's grandpa stayed back in 1944, the "Hotel d'Europe." He had given us some vague instructions on where to find this gem ("next to the Champs Elysees" haha), but for some reason we couldn't find it... Therefore, onward and upward to the top of the Arc, where we found ourselves with momentarily amazing weather, and what we've decided is quite possibly the best view of Paris!
From the top of the Arc, it seemed like the Eiffel Tower was pretty close, so we mapped out our route from our aerial position and set off down the 284 steps down on our way to the next destination. Our eyes seemed to have tricked us, however, because the Tower was not nearly as close as we had imagined! We got there by around 6 PM, and while it was remarkably beautiful, we didn't have the energy to wait an hour in line to go to the top, so we took a gazillion pictures and headed back to our hotel for some dinner. All in all, a pretty amazing day!
Sunday brought us a failed attempt to get into Saint Chapelle, then some Metro confusion on the way to the Jardins de Luxembourg. But we tried to keep our spirits high, and by the time we got to the gardens, we were excited enough to take a few customary jump shots. We then went to Napoleon's Tomb (closed, duh, first Monday of every month!), and then to the Moulin Rouge, where we sipped some much-needed hot chocolate. Next was Sacre Coeur, where our hammies, sore from the 568 steps in the Arc de Triomphe, got another painful workout. We stopped shortly on the way down the hill to pick up some souvenirs, then off towards Cemetiere Pere Lachaise to see Emily Guerry once more and pay our respects to Jim Morrison!
All in all, it was an amazing trip, and definitely a reminder of why I am so lucky to be living this life! A short plane flight brought us back to Munich, where we remarkably found our car in the garage (we weren't really that sure we would ever find it again), and set off back to Klagenfurt. I still haven't gotten over the fact that I went to Paris for a weekend!
The next two weeks practically vanished into thin air. Kristina was gone, so my days were sometimes lonely and boring, but that led to some great concentration, and I was able to pack up the apartment and get it clean without too much procrastination. Sophie and I were able to spend some time together, most memorably on a failed expedition to Pyramidenkogel, the mountain next to the Worthersee. We had a last team dinner of pizza and cake, which was absolutely perfect. Next thing you know, it was May 14th, and I was on a flight from Vienna to JFK!
Being home has been wonderful, and I've gotten to spend a good amount of time hanging out with my brothers and sister that I see so rarely! We went camping with the Boy Scouts the weekend after I arrived, which was a blast. I got to visit the twins' school to watch them make a diorama presentation, something that I otherwise would never be able to see! I helped Jack make a cake for his French monument presentation, and have nothing but respect for the Cake Boss after trying to sculpt the IM Pei pyramid out of vanilla cake and frosting. Over the weekend, we got to see the O'Neill clan in NYC before watching Jordan's soccer game at Rutgers! Then we headed up to Verona to spend a couple days getting spoiled by Grandma. It has been a great visit!
I'm headed back to the Golden State on Thursday, where I'll be excited to see my California family and friends! I've somehow managed to land with my bum in the butter once again, as I'm moving down to Redondo Beach for the summer to live with Crystal, who might be one of the funniest people alive. I might come back with 6-pack abs just from laughing so much!
Love,
Anna
