Yes I went to Paris. After four days in the Spanish Basque country, I spent about a day and a half in Madrid and I flew off to Paris on Easyjet on the Wednesday. Of course, I was excited as ever to visit Rosalie, and this trip coincided with Valentine’s day? Was it a coincidence or was it planned that way, you may ask? Definitely planned that way!
So, something I’ve learned about during my travels thus far is to plan for everything. I’ll give an example. You have to pick your flights and try to find the cheapest possible ones that get you to your destination, but then you also have to consider airport transfers into the city you’re visiting and how much that will cost. In Milan and Rome, for example, that will cost 5 euros, which is not that bad. However, in Paris…
In Paris, Ryanair flies to this airport called Beauvais, which is about an hour and a half away from the city, and though it’s easy to fly cheaply from Beauvais, your airport transfer will cost you 15 euros one way, so 30 euros return. So hey, your 30 euro plane ticket has just doubled in price!
So, I, knowing this, decided to take a flight that was slightly more expensive with Easyjet and fly into Charles de Gaulle airport. Then I find out that there’s an urban train that stops at the airport that can bring me directly to Rosalie’s residence, but that would cost 10 euros. So therefore, I got myself a cheap airport transfer with this company called Easybus, it was 8 euros round-trip, but I don’t know if I’ll ever travel with them again… The bus going to Paris from the airport was over an hour delayed and the one returning to the airport from Paris was quite delayed as well, and when it finally did arrive the driver announced he’d be taking a half-hour break. Luckily I convinced him not to and thanks to that I actually caught my flight.
Oh and you wanna fly low cost into London?? Get ready to pay more than you ever had before for airport transfers. I’ll definitely need to find viable alternatives when I do visit the British capital.
So, interesting story. I met these two Spanish ladies in line for my flight at the Madrid airport, and they were telling me that this was their first trip ever outside of Spain, and they were 26 and 30 years old respectively. Got me thinking, that’s so crazy, us North Americans come to Europe to travel, and we’re amazed at how easy it is to do here in Europe due to the relative proximity of all the countries, and here are some locals never leaving their countries. We should never take anything for granted I say.
Anyways, so I got into Paris eventually, and took a nice walk around the Seine River while Rosalie was still in class. It was nice, Paris at night is really illuminated and impressive.
Finally I met up with Rosalie and we walked to her residence, about 45 minutes away.
So, something else about Paris. So as you all know, or perhaps you don’t, Rosalie is studying abroad in Paris, but she’s not spending a year there, rather she’ll only really be there from January until the end of April.
On a side note, congratulations to her for getting an internship with the Canadian government this summer!
So, since she’s staying such little time, she was unable to benefit from student pricing when it comes to metro passes. See, in Paris, a monthly metro pass costs 76€, but you can get a student pass for roughly half that price, however to do so you must commit to getting this student pass for a year and pay it all up front, which therefore renders it useless for students staying there temporarily, like Rosalie. Unfortunate, really. But Rosalie opted not to pay 76€ per month (and really, I wouldn’t either) and instead walks or takes a Parisian version of a Bixi Bike, which is pretty efficient nonetheless.
The following day, the Thursday, we did a full Paris tour:
So beautiful! The Parisian architecture does greatly resemble the one you find in Montreal, I mean, perhaps not completely but there are some resemblances, particularly with the cobblestone streets. I guess it makes sense that it was the French who settled there. There are lots of nice churches in Paris and the Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower are just HUGE. I guess I knew they were big before going, but seeing it in person is something else. I was a tad bit disappointed by the Champ d’Elysees, however, seeing as it’s just a really big shopping street and there’s not much to see other than stores.
On that note, security in Paris was so tight while I was there that there were people checking our bags as we were getting into stores. Yes, we had to line up to get into the stores and show our bags to the security guards. Crazy.
Of course, it’s not Paris until you head to Versailles, and that is exactly what we did on the Friday, amid an extremely rainy day.
It would have been nice to actually take a promenade in the gardens, but unfortunately weather was definitely not permitting. In fact, every day I was there following the Thursday (so Friday to Sunday) it was cold and rainy. Paris weather huh. I was missing sunny Madrid.
Regardless, the Chateau was beautiful, and just seeing it from the outside, completely covered in gold, was amazing. The inside was also quite impressive, and it housed quite a large family I must say! Unfortunately we did not go visit the gardens much, and surely one day I shall return in the summer to do so. One day.
At night we went back to the residence for dinner and just hanging out with Rosalie’s residence-mates. And that’s what I will talk about now. So, Rosalie lives in a residence for Canadian students in Paris. Essentially, she lives in a large campus in town called Cité Universitaire (CU), and in this University city there are houses representing probably every country you can imagine. There’s a Canada house, a Spain house, an Italian, American, British, Portuguese, Lebanese, Mexican, Indian and Argentinian house, among others. And so, most applicants get placed into the house of their country, but there also exists this concept called ‘shuffling’, where a person, either at their request or sometimes against their will, might be shuffled into a house from a different country. I get how this could be awkward for the person shuffled since they are now in a house with people who probably speak a different language and who talk about different cultural things than them.
Luckily for Rosalie, she did not get shuffled, though the Canadian house is basically full of Quebecers, and that’s it. Not like there’s anything wrong with that, not at all, but it means she’s only really getting to know people literally from her own city, Montreal, and not people from other countries. It’s just a shame, really, because in this CU there are so many nationalities, yet very little mixing between them.
The thing I do like about this residence life, however, is that there’s always people to hang with. Everyone gets assigned a kitchen, a pretty big kitchen at that, and it’s shared among maybe 10-15 people, so you can always find people in the kitchen to hang with and eat with, which is an advantage, I’d say, compared to roommate life where you’re few in the house and often find yourself eating alone (not like I’m complaining!).
Anyways, so Rosalie’s kitchen-sharing-mates are all really nice, though a bit older and completing their Masters’. Regardless, I really liked them.
So, on the Saturday we visited Le Louvre. Wow is the museum huge, even the lineup was quite long to get in, but it was worth it.
Over the past few months I’ve been to so many art galleries that at this point I merely skimmer through the museum. After you’ve been to as many as Rosalie and me, in such little time, it’s normal to get tired of them I think.
So earlier I addressed how the Parisian weather was quite shitty when I was there. Time for me to address Paris problem #2. The RUDE people. Wow, are they rude though. Not everyone, and I really can’t allow myself to generalize, however, we encountered a fair amount. One pattern I think there is, is a general dislike among Parisians (again, not all of them) for the Quebecois accent in French. God forbid I ask for ‘le reçu.’ I got greeted by a grumpy waited saying that that’s incorrect, and in France they say ‘l’addition.’ Whoops. I was served by maybe one or two polite people, but generally everyone I went to ask information to or everyone serving me in general was just rude, ouff… and waiters are the worst, really.
Regardless, Rosalie and I stopped in a good amount of Parisian cafes for some coffees, croissants, some ham sandwiches, some ‘croques Monsieurs’ (those are really good) and some pastries, like crepes, ‘choux a la creme’ and Macaroons.
Everything was delicious, but it’s time to address Paris problem #3: PRICES. Example: the choux cost 10€ for six of them. Macaroons: 10.80€ for five. Your coffee and croissant combo: minimum 5€, but more likely 6€. Lunch in a cafe for two: €15-20. Hey, at least in Paris water and bread are actually free though…
Yes, living in Paris is sure to render you a lot poorer than living in Madrid would. Viva Madrid! Regardless, such things like the choux or the Macaroons are Parisian staples that you need to try once in your life despite the ridiculous costs. 10€ is a normal price for macaroons.
Which leads me to my next topic: Valentine’s Day. How nice it was to be together in Paris for Valentine’s Day. God knows when that will happen again. So it was OK to let loose and splurge a little bit, and generally enjoy each other’s company. We opted to go for a three-course French dinner, and it was all delicious!
The appetizer was either tuna or salmon with soy sauce. Quite good! For the main course, Rosalie had a tartare accompanied by fries and a salad, whereas I had veal with potatoes and leek. It was soooo good. The veal was actually served rare, which I found strange but it was delicious nonetheless. And finally, the dessert, we both had our own speculoos cheesecake, probably one of the best cheesecakes I’ve ever eaten, though it was quite filling.
We then proceeded to try and burn off all of those calories by walking over to the Eiffel Tower and taking in it’s beauty at night.
And that was it. The following morning I was whisked back to Madrid and I had to recuperate after missing nearly a week of school. Though I really did enjoy my time in Paris, and I am missing Rosalie, I was quite happy to return to Madrid, where the people are friendly, the prices are extremely reasonable and the weather is simply beautiful.
I mean, upon my return I got a huge 4kg bag of oranges for 2€ (and these oranges are the best I’ve ever had), and 1kg of kiwis for 0.89€ and a bunch of other stuff. Just the cheap, fresh, delicious groceries readily available in Spain make it a destination worth remaining in.
Looking forward to a trip to Dublin with Rosalie in two weeks!
Dan.
P.S. Shout-out to my biggest fans: Vic and Holli, Romina and Kyra and the rest of my sister’s friends! I appreciate your undying support!
Studying Abroad in Madrid!! 