Wednesday: Paris is Better With a Friend!

Note: I'm typing this entry over a week after the events, so it's not as fabulously spontaneous and fresh as my earlier vacation entries. Oh, snap. That's what happens when I don't turn on my computer.

Wednesday started off bright and positive - a good night of sleep does that for me! My hostel was pretty noisy at night (typical of hostels, I guess - people moving their things, talking, and turning on the lights at all hours), so being the oh, so clever person that I am, I took some benadryl.

It worked fabulously. There could have been a jackhammer outside and I probably would have slept through it. I love the sleep-inducing effects anti-histamines have on me, but it means I usually have to suffer through my random allergy symptoms during the day if I want to be able to drive.

Gladly, I had no issues with allergies while abroad.

ANYWAY. After yet another hostel breakfast of cocoa crispies, orange juice, and bread with jam, I pulled my massive quantities of luggage next door to the Holiday Inn to meet up with the lovely Maria and her mom.

Let me tell you, it was pretty fabulous to have an entire sofa sleeper all to myself. Kudos to Maria's dad for setting us up with a hotel for a few nights!

It was a pretty lovely day: Maria and I ventured off to Musee d'Orsay - and what's not to love about Impressionist art? The museum isn't nearly as overwhelming as the Louvre, and you feel like you can take your time a little more. Definitely enjoyed it!

Musee d'Orsay: A converted train station that houses Monet, Renior, Degas...a lovely way to spend part of the day!

After that, we headed to Notre Dame and then Sainte-Chapelle. Notre Dame is impressive - I saw it on my walking tour, and on Wednesday Maria and I went inside. Sainte-Chapelle is smaller, but the windows are definitely worth paying to see. It was actually sunny outside when we went in, and the stained glass is amazing. Beautiful. It's not something to be missed.

Yours truely in front of Notre Dame.

Following this, we headed to Shakespeare & Co. - an English bookstore in the Latin quarter. If you're a fan of kitschy bookshops, be sure to stop by this place. Although I absolutely love books, there are so many other little things to love about this place: the typewriter, the entire room (complete with books-not-for-sale) devoted to reading, and especially the wall covered in notes from visitors from all over the world. The more I visit bookstores like this, the less and less I like chain bookstores.

The day finished off with dinner - onion soup (sooo good!) and something akin to a hamburger with extra tasty sauce. Mmm.

Tuesday: Sopping Wet Walking Tour (and Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower!)

Today started off with another tasty hostel breakfast (cereal, juice, bread & jam) and a quick jaunt to the store for batteries. Yay for a camera that works! I took pictures today, but don't plan on posting any tonight...it's already late so I'm going to try to keep this short.

The touristy portion of the day started off with a 4 hour long walking tour offered by New Europe. Fun times! Tour Guide Matt was knowledgable and very perky/spunky and wedged in enough Paris trivia to create an entire column of questions in Jeopardy. We popped by all the major landmarks - didn't actually go inside anywhere, but it was a fabulous introduction to everything and made for some good photo-ops. I'd recommend it! All the tour guides work on tips alone, but they make it a really interesting/fun time.

The only downside of the tour was the weather - rainy and windy on and off. At one point I was pretty well soaked, but gladly I am not wicked enough to melt.

Following the tour, two other girls from the hostel and I made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. The tunnel is kind of fun in it's own way, the stairs are a work-out, and the view from the top is pretty terrific.

It doesn't compare with the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower though. If you're going to do Paris, you must do the Eiffel Tower - and if you're going to do the Eiffel Tower, you must go all the way to the top. Cold and windy, yes - but still pretty amazing. We went after dark and the lights were pretty fabulous. It was also fun to pick out some of the monuments/buildings we saw earlier in the day.

I'm beginning to understand why Paris is known so well as a city for romance - factor in a bunch of love-y dove-y art (Cupid and Psyche, The Kiss, etc), breath-taking cathedrals, astounding views - and heaps of couples enjoying it all - and everything kind of falls into place.

I forgot to mention the deliciousness that is a crepe. YUM.

For the record, nothing particularly disastrous happened to me today. : )

Monday: The Louvre!

I set aside an entire day for the Louvre, which may or may not have been necessary. First off, I proceeded to get lost looking for the appropriate metro stop. On my mini-adventure, I came to the realization that Paris has a lot of, well, smells. Bakeries (yum!), Asian food, flower stands (my favorite so far!), and lots and lots of colonge/perfume. Whew!

Importantly, I also located a super market, which eventually helped me acquire that most impossible to find item on the Paris Scavenger Hunt List: WATER. I was practically giddy upon acquiring my one bottle of the stuff.

On to the Louvre! Getting a museum pass was worth just being able to slip right on in to the museum - you get to go through a special entrance where there is NO LINE. Security was a breeze and I was on my way to seeing some awesome art within 15 minutes.

The Louvre is pretty overwhelming...not only is it huge, but it's also pretty confusing. My almost non-existent French vocabulary has been supplemented by one word today: sortie (exit). Trust me, even surrounded by vast quantities of awesome art, you will eventually want to leave.

Despite the fact that the lovely Mona Lisa is probably the most famous piece of art in the world, I've never been too impressed. I was by far impressed with 1.) how hard she was to find despite all the signs pointing me in her direction (limited French considered, my brain jumped to the conclusion that Spanish might be useful if necessary - donde esta la Mona Lisa? was running through my head the whole time I looked) and 2.) the crowd of people gathered around her (it triggered memories of waiting in line to see a baby panda. I liked the panda better).

Favorites: all the medieval coffin lids with precious pets carved at their masters' feet, Cupid and Psyche (and lots of other beautiful statues in the same room), and, as always, practically any painting featuring children (too many to list).

I'm definitely looking forward to meeting up with Maria and her mom, because while Paris solo is interesting, it's also lonely. There's no one to discuss anything with and no one to take your picture. Bummer. I didn't take many photos in the Louvre because 1.) my camera's batteries keep going dead, 2.) I've taken photos of art pieces before and never did anything with them, and 3.) the art always looks better on the postcards you can buy anyway.

Post-Louvre, I headed back to the hostel (with a little detour to the super market for my precious water) because my feet hurt, where I proceeded to take a two hour nap (a result of lots of walking and not much sleep last night) and then update this crazy blog.

Tomorrow, I'll probably do the walking tour offered by my hostel (it hits most major sites) and then...who knows? Musee d'Orsay is on the list, as is Musee de l'Orangie and the aquarium. I doubt the aquarium has much I haven't already seen, but there's just something about watching tropical fish that I like. Oooh...I wonder if they have jellyfish. : )

Phase 2: Welcome to Paris!

Did I mention that I slept for a whopping eleven hours when I was in Serbia? Well, I did. This was in addition to all the dozing I did in the car and on the plane.

Flying from Belgrade to Paris was not as nice as flying in the other direction. I was in the exit row again, so I've now memorized the pictograms that detail how to remove the panel in the plane's side (not that I ever actually want to do it...I'm not to keen on any sort of emergency landing/crash). Now, why was this flight not-as-nice? Same company (Air France), same seat, same whatever.

Disgusting lunch. Amelia, if you're reading this, think back to our cafeteria days of orzo. Orzo by itself is probably okay (despite it's vague resemblance to small maggots), but every time I've had it, it's been mixed with a conglomeration of random stuff so as to prove less than patable. This wouldn't be too bad, except that the flight attendant never picked up my tray. Hence, I was forced to endure the presence of orzo for (almost) my entire flight.

The rest of the afternoon/evening proved exhausting.

After landing in CDG airport (once again), I proceeded to passport control/customs. Oh, the joy of waiting in line with all the carry-on junk you don't actually need with over a hundred other people. And, of course, I ended up in the slowest moving line possible (China line, I am jealous). I don't why it was so slow...when I finally got to the window, it took all of ten seconds to get through. Maybe they thought an idiot with a bunch of hideous pink baggage was pretty harmless (they were right).

Proceed to the baggage claim: no bag. My trip really is cursed! I think I was more concerned about losing the 4 tubs of Eurocreme Branislav's family sent with me than anything else. However, the lost baggage people were extremely kind/reassuring. I described my bag. I filled out forms. I was thrilled to hear my bag would most likely be delivered to my hostel in the morning. They even gave me an overnight kit, even though I had everything I needed in my carry-on (maybe you really do need to tote around all that junk...).

And then I saw my bag on my way out of office.

They let me keep the overnight kit anyway.

Proceed with the further difficulties of situating oneself in Paris upon arriving all alone. It's like being on a scanvenger hunt with a huge pile of baggage (I find that I'm really starting to resent all my stuff). You must find:

ATM
Tourism office (for museum pass)
Photo Booth (for Pass Navigo, if you choose)
Place to exchange large bill received from ATM for small bills to use in photo booth
Transport office
Appropriate train
Appropriate metro stop
Appropriate place to get on metro so that you're going in the right direction
Appropriate metro stop to get off the metro (this, at least, is easy)
Hostel
Toilette (difficult to find)
Water (near impossible to find)

Easier said than done! Gladly, every person I approached for help was genuinely helpful - one guy even carried my 20 kilo bag up the metro steps for me. Now, for future reference, if you're going to take a crazy amount of stuff on the Paris Metro, bring a very sturdy bag. Mine's lost a bit of a wheel already. : / Now, huge bags aside, I love public transport. Yes, the seats aren't always comfy and the company isn't always the best, but it's definitely convenient!

Finding my hostel was a little tricky (I might have been lost for just a wee bit), but I got there in one piece and the place is nice.

No tourism the first night. My introduction to CDG/Paris transport/hostel was enough for one day. : )

Phase 1: Serbia

So...even if I'm writing about all my travels thus far on the same day, I'll split everything into separate posts. I should have journaled sooner, but...I didn't. That shouldn't be any sort of surprise.

The flight from Paris to Belgrade was a-okay: I was in the exit row, so that meant a little more leg room, and they fed us a second breakfast after my oh-so-delicious (not) egg thing. A croissant, a chocolate croissant, and a yogurt - not bad!

Now, nobody told me quite what it's like to go through passport control/customs, but as a U.S. citizen going into Serbia, it's not bad. Still, it was a little confusing...go through one window, get all your bags, go though another check... Picking up your baggage is also an experience: in Belgrade, you don't have to pay to use a luggage cart, so everyone gathers around the baggage claim with carts/kids/whatever.

Everyone in Serbia was extremely nice, and it was definitely neat to see the place my brother-in-law is from. The only pitfall - I was pretty beat from my glorious overnight plane ride. Not too disastrous, because I was definitely still awake to completely enjoy the great spread of food Branislav's family had waiting for me! Everything was delicious (hence the few Serbian words I learned - torte and pie - are both food words) - but one thing tops all. I don't know what it's called...pardon me while I do a quick little search on the ever-helpful 'net.

KAJMAK!!! (<--look, Branislav, I learned another word!)

It's like cream cheese, but softer and most definitely tastier. It's also pretty addicting. I ate a lot.

One thing about Serbian food is that it's very, very hearty - which is something I'm not used to. Bread, kajmak, soup, and lots and lots of meat make for a very full Sarah! I swear, I'm probably still full a couple days later.

I do have one goofy food story - in the evening, Branislav's family asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I said, "Anything but eggs."

Bright and early the next morning, there was a great big skillet of - you guessed it! - eggs! Oh, the language barrier. When I mentioned that I don't usually eat eggs, the response was, "We asked what you wanted for breakfast, and you said eggs, so that's what we made!"

I seem to be on a bit of an eggs-for-breakfast run.

What else about Serbia/Novi Sad? We dashed out for a quick bit of sight-seeing, but the weather (wet and cold) made it a very quick bit. Petrovaradin Fortress is AMAZING - I would have loved to see more, but it was extremely cold. Look it up on the web - this place deserves more attention!

I could write a whole lot more, but I call it quits for now. : )

A post?! For real?!

Yikes...I really am like the worst blogger ever. I even included my blog in my Christmas letter this year (with a warning that it's rarely updated) - and I haven't posted a single thing since before that letter went out.

So...right now I'm stuck in the airport in Paris, waiting for a flight to Serbia. Crazy, huh? You don't know the half of it. I was supposed to be doing all of this yesterday.

Here's the story, morning-glory: I made it safe & sound all the way to Chicago, where I was supposed to catch my next flight. Being the naive first-time International traveller that I am, I was completely oblivious to the fact that you catch Air France flights in a completely different terminal. Instead of high-kicking it over there, I ate some McDonalds, surfed the net (it's crazily expensive in airports, peeps - I'm being self-indulgent and it has to stop), and responsibly checked the flight boards for my gate assignment. By the time I was freaked out enough to ask someone, I had about half an hour to get all the way to another terminal, hurry through security, and run to the gate...

...to find out I had just missed the final boarding call.

Commence the horror of having to get my flight re-routed. Air France said to go to the ticket counter, so that's what I did...and no one was there. One phone call later and I was dragging around about a hundred pounds of luggage (mostly clothes and chocolate) to another terminal and checking at the Delta ticket counter. Delta told me to talk to my booking service, who then told me I had to talk to Delta again. At this point about three hours have passed.

What's a girl to do? Apparently you need evil witch facilities to get your flight re-routed promptly...and I'm sorely lacking in them, I think. I cried. I called my mom. And my sister & brother-in-law. I paid the ridiculous airport internet fee and skyped. I cried some more. I spent an hour on the phone with three different Delta agents (who were all lovely and responded well to my distraught pleas for assistance) who managed to get me re-routed with only a day of travel time lost. Kathleen, Sue, and Kathy: you saved the day!

To my awesome sister Jess: thanks for booking me a hotel that night. Crashing into bed hasn't felt that good in a long time.

My first International flight was spent attempting to sleep. You get a pillow that looks like it came from a doll hospital (it works surprisingly well) and a blanket which resembles a sarong made out of T-shirt cloth. Cozy. Fabulously, however, there was an empty seat between me and the other person in my row - yay for a place to dump all the junk you don't really need to bring with you on a plane! Also, it was a nice place for elbows.

Dinner was lovely (a sort of unidentifiable mass of pasta, pesto, and cheese - but it was tasty); breakfast was swallowed quickly enough that it didn't have to be tasted (it involved an egg).

My only other comment for now is that I'm surprised at how cold I am. The flight was cold; the airport is cold - and I'm wearing a wool coat. The oncology nurse in me briefly suggests that maybe I'm going to spike a temp...not likely, but that's one of the first things that came to mind. ; )

Winter Approaching...

I have to say again...I stink at blogging. Waaaay back when I was a college freshman, I made entries on an almost daily basis (old blog still exists, but will not be revealed!). I'd really like to get into the habit, what with heading off to Singapore next year.

For now though, I'm still in Wisconsin, and the holidays are sneaking up on me. My family is getting together for Thanksgiving - I'm so glad I have off!! I volunteered to bring a cheese plate - we'll see if my cheese arranging skills are on par with the fruit-arranging abilities.

Tonight I got a head-start on my Christmas baking - I don't want to miss out this year! Next year I'll most likely be abroad during the hols, and apparently baking isn't all that common in Singapore - so best to enjoy it now! I tried a new recipe (Chocolate Mint Chip cookies) and one of my favorites - Russian teacakes/Mexican wedding cakes/whatever-you-want-to-call-them.

I've also been on a sock-knitting spree...right now I'm working on a pair for my dad that MUST be done by Christmas. They've been in progress for...well...over a year. I can't even remember when I bought the yarn, which is really bad.

That reminds me - there's now a yarn shop in M-field! Bummer that I really shouldn't buy anymore yarn. My mom and I were talking about the vast amounts of yarn and how that's going to work with travelling - the best route would probably be to choose a few projects and pack together the pattern, needles, and yarn for each.

We'll see if I actually manage to be that disciplined.