Without further ado, I am pleased to present my most lengthy
update so far. I of course know that only the bravest will read it in its entirety, but as GI Joe said, knowing is have the battle.
After what was easily the most challenging 10 weeks of school I have ever had, I awoke on Saturday Dec. 9th at 5AM, in order to catch the
6:53 train to Paris. London is linked to Paris by Channel Tunnel and the Eurostar express train, which speeds travelers from city to city in just over 3 hours.
In addition to its comfort and speed, the Eurostar is a feat in itself when one ponders the innummerable years of reciprocal hatred which the French and English had to overcome
in order to simply build the tunnel.
When I arrived in Paris at 11:30 (one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time), I found myself in virtual French class, a place I had not been (or wanted to) in three years. I began to see words on billboards that I should have remembered, but couldn't,
signs in the street that I should have understood, but didn't, and a language which I should have comprehended, but didn't...
The last time I spoke French was the AP French test in May 1998, and after perhaps the worst oral portion the test has ever seen, I decided that I would pursue other fields of academia in which I had a bit more expertise.
But when I stepped out in the Rue from Gare du Nord Train Station in north Paris, I realized that my four years of study in French language would soon be of some use.
I was, for the next four hours, in Paris alone, with what felt like an 80 pound rock attached to a North Face backpack, so if someone had asked me
whether I would be walking around for 5 hours, I would have said no. But, for whatever reason, that is exactly what I did, and by four o'clock had seen the famous Latin Quarter, the Eiffel Tower (on the
other side of town), the Champ Du Mars, the Galleries Lafayette, and Ecole Militaire.
When I finally found the Three Ducks Hostel in the 15th Arrondisement of Paris, I was about ready to faint.
My next step, however, was to get in touch with my friends Ted and Dave, who were to arrive from London on the 11:53 Eurostar.
I met the two of them for dinner at a typical french restaurant, where fois gras is served and the waiters come by to push the plates closer to you, just in case you
forgot to eat what was on them.
When it was all said and done, we had a nice meal and I had practiced the very basics of my french.
I left the guys at their hotel, headed home to the Ducks and found the hostels' own bar to be heavily populated with English speaking Americans, Aussies and Canadians. I met Tim from Australia, who
makes surfboards for a living but with doing construction in London to earn a flight back to the Gold Coast. I met Allison from Montreal, who took respite from her rounds to let me in to the bar's side door entrance, and
I finally met my bunk bed in Room 24 of the hostel to be the most inviting friend of all.
I slept for 10 hours that night, and, considering my lack of sleep the night before and the excess of exercise that day, it was understandable.
I called Ted and Dave at their hotel, and we met for breakfast crepes and set off for the Musee D'orsay. The D'orsay covers artwork dating from the late 1840's
to the early 1920's thereby filling in the gap between the Louvre and the Museum of Modern Art. Specifically, and this comes from the most docile art critic of all,
it houses many of the post-impressionist painters such as Claude Monet and Claude Manet.
No misprint, but regardless, our trip to the renovated train station was well worth it. After a quick lunch in a cafe across the river, we met our last friend Alex, who had been preoccupied and had been unable to meet us
until 5 o'clock. We met at perhaps the most incredible places in all of Europe, the Eiffel Tower. And, because it was nighttime, our ascent up the tower was accompanied by the million flashing lights of Christmastime fare.
To say that the views were spectacular would be to understate.
Dinner and wine at a fancy Parisien restaurant, and the surreal nature of a European train trek was finally taking shape. It was an all day, and an all night affair, and when we finally called it an evening, a taxi took us home.
