Romance in Paris (with a French accent)

After writing my last blog entry, I spent my time hoping and praying that I would get over my mysterious illness completely before my beau came to visit. I managed to achieve my goal with a few days to spare, and by the time Erik arrived on Wednesday night, I was feeling as fresh and new as a daisy in spring...or something like that. We didn't get him home until after midnight, so there was nothing to be done but to go to bed, with the intention of getting up early and seeing a little bit of the city before my 2:00 class on Thursday. Us being rather lazy meant we didn't get out of the house until about noon...but we still managed to see the area around my program center and get some delicious baguette sandwiches (on my part) and calzones (that would be Erik), and we enjoyed them in a typical French park surrounded by the screams of children and some very brash pigeons, as well as some even bolder sparrows. Very French. I was confident that Erik would enjoy my Medieval French Literature course, so I dragged him along. Up until now, this class had been entirely in English. My luck, Professor Busby decided today was the day he would start doing the lectures in French! Erik held out very well though, and hopefully enjoyed listening to the beautiful language while not understanding a word. We agreed that he would come for the first half (the class is 3 hours long) and after the break he would go off all on his own, speaking no French, and explore the Marais. He was a teensy bit nervous :) I was not. Long story short, Prof. Busby happened to do the part of the class that did not include Erik mostly in English, and Erik had a lovely time exploring the Jewish Quarter, and got more acquainted with Victor Hugo after dropping by his house.

We had planned to spend that evening having date night and celebrating our anniver

sary, his birthday, and Valentines Day all together since we had been in different countries for all of them, but our plans fell through a bit and we decided to do it a different night. We end

ed up exploring Montmartre a bit and ended up at the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle. Erik had never seen it from Trocadero Place, which is where you get by far the best view of it, so it was fun to see his reaction when we rounded a corner and there it was, in all its glory! He experienced those moments quite a few times while in my city. We ended up waiting almost an hour, being bombarded by miniature Tower salesmen, and almost freezing solid, but in the end we saw in sparkle and it was all worth it.

With the best intentions of getting out of the house early to see the city on Friday, we fin

ally left at about...noon. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? We started our day off at

the famous Arc de Triomphe, which is rather magnificent. We climbed all 240 steps t

o the top and got a fantastic 360° view of the city,

including our next destination, the Champs Elysees. We walked all the way down the much-filmed street, and Erik had fun remembering all the movies he had seen it in, and reveled in the fact that he was actually there now. It is a fantastic place to people watch, a very French notion, as well as to shop (if you like designer labels and very high prices). From there we headed closer to my house, to the Madeleine church, which I have decided is my favorite church in Paris (so far). We had planned to hit the market right by it to grab some food for a picnic lunch in the Tuileries, but, surprise, we got there too late. We ended up finding a lovely little boulangerie/pastisserie and indulging in 2 sandwiches, 2 pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants), a lemon tarte, and a flaky apple pastry thing. With this, we happily headed off to the Tuileries where we enjoyed our meal with a 1 euro bottle of champagne and some delicious chocolate. So, I had my favorite boy, chocolate, and some scrumptious French food on a sunny day in a beautiful park. Honestly, what more could a girl need?

Our next steps took us down the river, and dropped us off at Notre Dame. Though Erik had seen the outside before, he had never been inside, so that was a treat. There was a mass going on, complete with some pretty choir music and incense, and it was a wonderful addition to the

walk around the majestic cathedral. I then took him to the Shakespeare Company, which is a tiny, cramped, English bookstore dedicated to the Bard and completely stuffed to the gills wit

h books of all types, and 2 reading rooms, and a free for all piano. It is absolutely brimming

with character. From there we went on to see a tiny bit of the Latin Quarter and my school at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Our final destination was the Louvre, since I could get him in free from 6 to 10 on Friday nights, so after stopping for some Nutella crepes (which turned out to be microwaved...) we found ourselves at the Louvre at night, which is a stellar combination. The whole building was lit up and the pyramids looked very cool.

We had to limit our visit to about 2.5 hours, which is nothing in the Louvre, but we managed to hit all the most famous works and make interesting captions for many of the paintings, in true Erik fashion. We were both exhausted by this time, and Erik was coming down with a cold, so we hit the hay after getting home.

On his last day, Saturday, we headed to one of my favorite places in Paris, Pere Lachaise

cemetary. Before going in, we stopped at a market for some fruit, a boulangerie for some delicious mini baguettes, and a fromagerie for some cheese. We saw many famous dead people including Moliere, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison, and one of my favorite people of all time, Oscar Wilde. On our way out we stopped and had a mini picnic with our goat cheese covered in golden raisins and craisins, our sweet baguettes and our strawberries and oranges. It was the most delectable picnic of my life, to be sure.

Erik being the film buff that he his, he picked out a really cool little art house cinema for us to see a movie in. We saw the movie Winter's Bone, and then looked around the huge film editing table, the historical displays, and the old film-esque murals on the walls. The theater was gorgeous, and the movie was fantastic. He may turn me

into a film buff yet.

Then it was date night! We went to the love wall, which says "I love you" in pretty much every language. We headed up to Sacre Coeur where we finished our strawberries and chocolate while watching the sunset over the city. It was rather romantic :) We also watched a beautiful puppet show on the steps, and then went into the basilica, where, with Erik's luck, we caught a choir of nuns singing. Erik was, of course, hungry by this time (it was 7:00pm), so despite my protests that it was embarrassingly early to be eating, we headed toward the restaurant I had picked out. It was empty. Not only that, the guy hadn't even really started setting the tables yet. We made a couple loops around the area and headed back...He still wasn't done. We looped a couple more times (freezing our butts off along the way). Finally, it was ready! We were still the only

ones there, but the boy couldn't wait any longer to eat. Trendsetters that we are, after we sat down, people started coming in left, right, and center. Erik bravely ordered

escargot, which were delicious, and we had a wonderful dinner with good wine and good company. Our plan was to go out later with my friends, but we were both exhausted and little sick, so we agreed to just hang out with them for a bit before they went out. We didn't get there til about 11:30, and we didn't leave til 1:15, so its a good thing we didn't go out with them! It was great to have everybody get to know Erik though, and they loved him. We will definitely be spending some time together back in Madison!

That was basically the end of Erik's visit. We had to get up at 4:30 the next morning, which was awful after going to bed so late, but he got to the bus on time and then he was gone. I think I instilled in him my love for Paris though, so I think the trip was a great success.

It was back to the real world after that! And the real world is not as fun with a cold kicking my butt, one that Erik managed to give to me... I have had 2 meetings for my directed study, and so far I am loving it! I have been translating Old French and I could seriously do it all day. Its my new hobby!

I am trying to start making my travel plans for spring break, which is harder than it sounds because I need to figure out who I am spending my time with then. I'm sure it will work out when everyone knows their schedule.

There will be much for me to tell you next time, but until then, I think I've written quite enough! Off to bed for me. Hope everyone is healthy and happy, wherever you are!