Paris!

I started my morning at 5:00 a.m., after waking up around 4:15 in a state of wide-eyed, nervous excitement. The first thing I saw when I opened my phone was an email from Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honors society I'm a member of, saying I'd been selected for an interview of the Sigma Tau Delta journal internship, which I'd applied for weeks before and forgotten about. The email had been sent around 2:00 p.m. CT / 9:00 p.m. my time, and I hadn't seen it before my early bedtime. The interview was supposed to be Saturday (that day)! There was a tight turnaround in the selection process because of factors within the organization, and I imagine they were also testing candidates' reliability. I quickly emailed back with my time difference situation and said I was available in the evening. I got a response scheduling my 12:00 p.m. / 7:00 p.m. interview while I was eating breakfast. I was glad I was up so early it was still evening at home!

I took the 5:54 bus to Perrache and was unfortunately surprised when my TCL pass didn't work because it was the first of the month. I hadn't renewed my card because I had planned to do it at the tram stop by Gare Part-Dieu either when I got there that morning or after returning to Lyon. But I had somehow failed to consider how I would get to the tram station without a working pass! I paid for the individual bus fare, then raced to renew my card at Perrache because I couldn't remember if the tram had credit card readers--it does. I got down to the tram platform. There was a tram there, but I couldn't tell which. There's construction at the end of the T1 line, so the terminus station listed as the direction on the platform sign is different from what the TCL app and Google Maps show, making it difficult to determine at first glance which tram is which. After the tram pulled out, I was able to determine that it had in fact been my tram. The next wasn't for 12 minutes. I could take a different tram and make a métro connection, but it was only four minutes faster and had an additional risk of being unknown. I decided it was safer to stay put and wait for the tram, worrying all the while I would miss my train. With the next tram, I'd get to the station at 6:37 for the 7:04 train. Would that be enough time to find the platform?

Platforms are announced on departure boards 20 minutes before departure, and it truly is 20 minutes. I actually had to wait to hear what the platform was! It was easy to find, scan my ticket, and get to the correct section of the platform. Then I had to wait 15 minutes! I had an aisle seat. Since it was so early, I just rested for the two-hour ride. Before I knew it, I was in Paris!

At Gare de Lyon (not at all confusing that the train station in Paris is named after the city I was coming from), I followed signs through the station's ground level to the bathrooms, which cost me €1. Then I followed signs for the métro D and found a long line for the ticket counter. In line, I realized you could just buy tickets through an app, but I still got the paper ticket to be sure it was the correct type of ticket. (Having the wrong ticket has dire consequences--a fine--if you get caught, and I really didn't need to deal with Paris's terrifying, merciless métro agents.) The métro D was really weird--it looked like an actual train more than a métro--but it got me to Gare du Nord, the closest stop to my hostel. (As the name might suggest if you've been paying attention to the French, this was another train station.) I had a bit of a hard time getting out. Train stations in Paris sort of remind me of Casinos in Vegas. Yes, there are signs, but their helpfulness is debatable; it's like they want to keep you trapped forever. I eventually made it to my hostel, where I was directed to the basement lockets to store my things, as it was several hours before check-in. The kiosk to select and pay for a locker only accepted €1 and 50¢ coins, and it was €7 for the day. I actually had €7 in coins!

Finally in Paris and settled, I set out for the day. I went up to Montmartre and climbed the hill to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. The view of the city and the church was incredible, but the line to get inside was long, so I didn't wait. (This will become a theme.) I wander around the quartier's streets and stumbled across a little shop with a rack of coats outside of it. I had been looking for a black wool coat with buttons, a sash, and real pockets for a reasonable price for a while. The one I found on the rack checked all the boxes and was a complete steal for €39. The saleswoman, who I'm guess was also the shop owner, asked if I wanted to try it on, and I said yes. She helped me get it on, folded the sleeves, and showed me different ways to tie the sash--many French woman do it in the back, she said, and if you want to do it in the front, do it to the side, never directly over the buttons. She spoke to me in English at first, then French as I always responded in French. It was absolutely worth carrying the coat around for the rest of the day.

I got lunch at Ristorante Italiano Toscano to treat myself. When in Paris! I was the only one at the fancy Italian restaurant at 12:30, so it was a little awkward to have one-on-one service. The waitress/maître d'/manager actually explained the whole menu to me and showed me pictures. I got spinach and ricotta ravioli and a tiramisu. The ravioli, though few in number, were some of the best I've ever had, drenched in butter and maybe olive oil and lemon juice. The chef actually asked what I thought after I was done, and I told him it was incredible.

After lunch, I met another USAC student in Places des Vosges, and we set off for the Maison de Victor Hugo, swinging by Place de la Bastille on the way. The famous writer's house is now a museum, displaying his art, his art collection, and various artworks about his written works, among other objects like his writing desk. The man certainly had a thing for patterns! His house in Guernsey is similarly adorned, according to photos I've seen. My literature professor encouraged us to visit the Guernsey house over spring break, when it reopens after renovations and for the season. Guernsey is next to Mont-Saint-Michel, so I could have gone this trip if it had only been open, but I'll be somewhere else during spring break. We stopped for coffee/Allison's late lunch at a pizza place, then continued on to the Musée Carnavalet, which covers the history of Paris. They had the olympic torches from last summer.

After the museum, I headed back to the hostel to rest before my interview, which seemed to go pretty well. The interviewer, the managing editor of the journals, told me there were 121 applicants, 40% of those got sent to a faculty review panel, and 10 were selected for interviews. There are three internship spots. I was supposed to hear back by the end of the weekend, but I still haven't gotten an email; I had thought she was going to let us know regardless of whether it was an acceptance or rejection, but given the time that's passed, I don't think I was chosen. It was still pretty cool to get as far as I did! I got dinner at the sports bar downstairs--not my scene but convenient. And reception had given me a free drink coupon that I had to use. Then, I turned in for the night (or tried. Re: the loud sports bar downstairs).

Sunday, I took the métro to the Louvre. The last time I was in Paris, the métro seemed so simple, and I was proud of how quickly I figured it out. While it's still not difficult, after having lived in Lyon, the Paris métro is a new, grittier kind of beast. Lyon seems like a big city, but it's about 500,000 people in comparison to Paris's two million (or several million more counting the suburbs). Its métro lines are pretty straight and don't cross a ton. So you take the métro in a straight line for a couple of minutes in a dark tunnel, and you leave through stations that are relatively small in most cases. Not in Paris. In Paris, the various lines are a complex web. The stations are white-tiled underground mazes, albeit pretty well labeled. The tunnels turn and vary in depth, and lights on the walls permit you to see graffiti and other trains. Many of the trains themselves are almost vintage, not appearing to have been updated in several decades. It's a wholly different experience.

Anyway, I made it to the Louvre around 8:15. My ticket was for 9:00, right when the museum opens. I took some pictures of the mostly empty courtyard and then got in line at the pyramid. I was in the first fold of the stanchion maze with maybe 15-20 people ahead of me. The museum opened, and people started making a break for the Denon wing. I hadn't really looked at a map beforehand, but it was pretty obvious the Mona Lisa was that way. I don't really care about the Mona Lisa, but I figured I'd never have another change to get so close, so I followed. I got the stand right in front of her without having to wait. Then I wandered around the rest of the wing, stopping at paintings that I recognized or that caught my eye. I think I must have walked around the Denon wing three times before I finally asked someone how to get to the other wings. I had to go back to the atrium and rescan my ticket to get into the Sully wing. The cool thing about the Sully wing is that it houses earlier sketches and smaller versions of other paintings in the Denon wing, like Le Sommeil d'Endymion. I decided to skip the Richelieu wing because there wasn't anything there I desperately wanted to see and I was getting tired. I made it through the underground maze of shops (again, think Vegas) and back into the world.

From there, I went to Angelina for a Mont Blanc to revisit out last trip to Paris. I ate the meringue, whipped cream, and chestnut paste confection on a park bench in the Tuileries by some ducks. I continued through Saint-Germain-des-Prés, stopping at the beautiful Saint-Sulpice. I tried to see Sainte-Chapelle next, but the line extended the entire block. Sadly, I couldn't get a good picture of really see the exterior, as the church is surrounded by other buildings. I continued on the Notre Dame. The line was beyond imagination. Timed tickets had sold out before I could get one, and it ultimately didn't seem worth waiting for probably over an hour in the unticketed line.

I visited the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore next, which didn't have a terrible line. If you're wondering why a bookstore would have a line, it's a) very famous, and b) they limit the number of people inside so you can actually move around. It was super interesting to see the upstairs reading room and learn a little bit about the woman that started the publishing company/bookstore, as well as the famous writers that had connections to Shakespeare and Co., like Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes, James Joyce, and Simone de Beauvoir, to name but a few. Shakespeare and Co. published Ulysses before anyone else would. Tired of walking, I got an iced (iced!) latte at the café downstairs and worked a little on this blog post.

After a while, Allison came to meet me. We got a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. We split escargot and an oyster risotto dish. Escargot are actually pretty good! They mostly taste like the garlic butter they're drenched in, and the texture is chewy but not terribly so. You have to hold the shell with a special tool and pull out the meat with a little two-pronged fork. The risotto was divine, though I wouldn't have known it was oyster.

We crossed back over to the right bank to see some more churches, including Notre Dame de Lorette, Sainte Trinité, and Église de la Madeleine, which is dedicated to Mary Magdelene. With its classical temple exterior and gold-limned interior, it ranks as one of the most gorgeous churches I've ever seen. We went up to the terrace of the Galeries Lafayette to look out across the city. Then, we hiked back up to Montmartre to see the sunset from the top of the hill. We got dinner at a crêpe place before splitting up to head back to our respective lodgings.

Monday morning, I got up bright and early at 4:30 to finish packing up and get ready for the day. I checked out of the hostel and headed to Gare du Nord. In my effort to have plenty of time to catch my train, in the event of any unexpected surprises, I was a little too early. The gates closing off the métro weren't opened until 5:20, so I had to wait. I was on the first métro of the day at 5:30, alongside all the early morning commuters. At Gare de Montparnasse, I read my book while waiting for the platform to be posted 20 minutes before departure. And then I was off toward Mont-Saint-Michel!