Hello all. Again I must apologize for being lazy about these blog entries, but truth be told I've been traveling a lot on the weekends, leaving less time to catch up with writing. Luckily, I have kept the photo albums almost completely up to date, so please check those out.
With a little help from Uncle "french" Sam, I now have a little extra spending money. Man socialist governments rock. Well, at least governments with more socialistic programs rock. And what have I done with this extra money you might ask? Well, I've been traveling basically as free as I want to within France. Ok, so now I feel like I'm bragging, but basically what I'm trying to get across is how lucky I've been. This whole experience is probably one of the best decisions I've made for myself. So enough gushing, let me catch you up on all the weekend fun I've been having.
I've already noted my trip to the Alps, which was then followed by a weekend visit to Dijon, Montpellier and a past weekend in Paris. Dijon, which is quite close by to me was a little adventure with my friend Morgane, who used to live out in that neck of the woods. Basically Dijon to Morgane is like New York City to me and the fact that she took me along for another ride in her favorite city was great. I got the chance to meet many of her friends and speak French the WHOLE weekend and truthfully, I met some great people out there who were extremely interesting. A quick sketch: there were French anarchists squatting in this old house, Noemi, a quirky little thing most reminiscent to Amélie Poulain, who often sports up to 10 layers of clothing at a time and many more who sweetly welcomed me with open arms.
Next on my weekend adventures was Montpellier, what I like to refer to as the Miami of France, mostly because the city is adorned with palm trees. That's right dad, big healthy palm trees. I've been wanting to go down there for awhile to visit my friend Allison, who I studied with in Besancon and finally I was able to do so. Before this trip, I had only seen Nice in terms of the south of France, so I was really excited to discover more of the south. It was great, very tranquil and a fabulous mix of Parisian architecture with classical roman ruins. There are really some great Roman ruins throughout France, especially in the south since that's where the Roman capital was constructed.
Last, but not least is gay Paris. With a long weekend due to Easter, I headed to Paris to meet up with a Penn State friend who was over there for her vacation. Since I'll be back there shortly, visiting with my family, I was a bit worried that I'd be hitting a lot of tourist sites twice. Luckily my friend Sarah was more interested in feeling like a real Parisian rather than seeing all the sites. Instead, we went out freely and did a lot of people watching with Sarah's friend Cindy who was kindly putting us up. Crashing in her king sized bed, the three of us were literally snug as a bug in a rug. Did I mention that Cindy and Sarah are both Jewish as well?Man it was great to be surrounded by some Jewish humor, feeling free to use Yiddish whenever I wanted. Cindy opened my eyes and heart to one of the Jewish sectors of the city, as well and man did we have the best falafel ever. Situated in the fourth arrondissement, this little nook of the city was great, good shops, great Jewish bakeries and even some awesome thrift stores. And just like Florence, a rabbi situated himself in a prime location next to a bustling falafel restaurant to entice boys to wrap tafilin. I don't know if it's just the food or the smells, but being in a Jewish neighborhood, no matter where, just feels like home for me.
So folks, that's a quick catch up on all my weekend adventures. I think the pictures speak more than my ramblings. As for now, I await for my friend Allison to visit me this weekend and then the grand visit of mom, dad and Meg!!
picture: little girl playing with duckies outside of le Louvre. Probably hit Eurodisney that day, as well. Quel chance!
No comments:
Post a Comment