Paris, Je t'aime!

Here I am sitting in my dorm room at King's College in Cambridge listening to the Stroke's new album and just bumming around on the internet, so I thought that I should actually finish writing up about Paris so that I can get on to the present. To be honest, its all a bit of a blur even by now so I will just share some highlights and of course some pictures.

1. Bene has an amazing apartment in the 16th district of Paris. I got my own room with a fantastic view of the cool apartment next to us which had these awesome outdoor staircases.

2.  The first day I was totally exhausted just sitting in the living room checking my email while Bene cooked dinner when a young man unexpectedly entered the apartment. He looked at me in shock.
"Umm...bonjour," I said. "Je suis Jenny..."
He continued to look at me confused until Bene came in and explained who I was. Turns out that it was Gabriel, her son. He apologized profusely for the confusion, but it was pretty funny all the same seeing as I had no idea what was going on. He lives in his own apartment but he came over a couple times and we had some really good conversations about NGO's (he works for PLAN) and American politics (he is much more passionate about that subject than I am).

3. Bene's husband was really cool and we had some awesome conversations about international affairs, especially when waiting in line for the Catacombes

4. I had a different babysitter every day. Thursday Bene's oldest sister Guenolee took me to Saint Chapelle, Notre Dame and some other places around Paris. After that her daughter Flore-Aline (who spent a few weeks in St. Louis about ten years ago) took me out to dinner and then to a choir concert.

5. Friday, my mom's other cousin Laurence had me over for lunch and took me for a ride on the Bateau Mouche. This is a boat tour on the Seine. Both she and Guenolee were super nice and we had good conversations (In FRENCH!)

The Old Fahioned Elevator in Guenolee's apartment (the apartment used to belong to my great grandmother)

A Cafe near Guenolee's apartment. The buildings here were designed by the same architect that did the metro signs

I think this was the most famous building by that metro architect

Same goofy metro-like design. This was the door to an apartment building

Bible scene carvings outside the door of Saint Chapelle

Saint Chapelle (I think)

Palais de Justice - we walked in and saw lawyers in fancy formal robes! Oh, also I'm wearing that scarf because Bene wanted to help my cough to get better. She was very motherly.

The Metro. See how the designs are similarly whimsical?  They call the style "noodle"ly

Notre Dame (duh). There was this huge long line and Guenolee's tried to jump it by claiming that she wanted to go in to pray. The man said no, so we went to the other line and just added ourselves in at the front. It was quite audacious.

Back view of Notre Dame. There is a cool little park right there

Typically awesome building

Me on the Bateau Mouche (remember I was roughing it without a suitcase so I had no suitcase or hair straightener and Bene made me wear the scarf again so I didn't catch a cold. hopefully this explains a little bit why I look so silly)

On the side of the river

N for Napoleon of course! This was on one of the bridges crossing the river

Laurence and I. Pretty sure that day was the first time I met her and it was just the two of us all day. Luckily she was super nice and spoke English really well so by the end of the day when I was really tired we switched back to that.

I thought this was a really cool angle off the "Tour Eiffel"

an add for Harry Potter on the metro!

6.I actually spoke French pretty well! I went for long periods of time speaking pretty much nothing but french. I know I made lots of mistakes but people were generally very complementary of me and said that I didn't have an accent! I'm sure that they were being nice but enough people said it enough times that I must be pretty decent. Also I could understand pretty well. This is very exciting as I have been studying French very hard over the last few years. I definitely think that I could survive if I moved there.

7. On saturday Bene's husband and I went to the Parisian catacombes! They were made during about the French revolution as a place to store unsanitary bones from cemeteries. It is estimated that about 6 million people are buried down there.  All the bones in this picture are REAL. It would have been so easy to just reach over and take one. ...But why would I have? 

There were a few little carvings that one of the catacomb workers did in his spare time about a few hundred years ago. Pretty cool/random hobby huh? This was on our way down the tunnel into the actual catacombs.

This was the entrance into the catacomb part after going down the tunnels. The sign reads "Stop! Here it is the empire of the dead"

Bene made me wear her coat so I didn't catch a cold :)

That's right. These are real human bones. They were all just piled up like this on either side of us as we walked down the tunnels which were way far down below the streets of the city.

Later Bene and I had lunch with her cleaning lady who was from Portugal and we had a nice conversation. After that Bene and I "made of the shopping" (a literal translation) and then went to mass. Her nephew (the oldest child of the family I stayed with last time I was in French) just became a priest and I went to one of his first mass's. To be honest it was a little boring because I didn't really know what was going on and I was super tired but it was nice to be an ambassador for the crazy Mormon branch of the family.

On the top of the Grand Magasin. Pretty sure that's the Paris Opera House behind me

You could see everything from up there!

After that we went out to dinner at this chic little restaurant at the Bastille square (where the Bastille used to be!) They played really cool music and it was full of beautiful young people. Bene was so funny- she kept dancing around and being silly.

The next morning we all had to get up at about 4 in the morning to get me to the airport. Bene is NOT a morning person but she was SO CUTE as we headed out. She was just being really goofy and while we were in the elevator she kept pretending to fall over from fatigue and she was quoting the scene from Romeo and Juliet when they wake up to the sound of the lark. "Hark what light from yonder window breaks!" she exclaimed melodramatically with her adorable french accent.

We then took a taxi to the airport, they got me all checked in, we got some drinks at a cafe and talked a little bit and then I was off! The trip to Cambridge was a bit of a hassle but I will save that for tomorrow.