Sarah, Ash and Tal discover what's underneath Paris!

So Ashley's gone back to England (soooo sad), but we did go out for one more adventure before she left.  We explored what's UNDERNEATH Paris, which was amazing.  I would recommend the National Geographic issue that just came out - it explains that under the city there is a maze of old quarries that have been transformed into an ossuary that can be visited by tourists, which is exactly where we were on Thursday afternoon.  We went below the sewers and the electricity lines, below the metro and RER trains, right into ancient caves that are under the Montparnasse area of Paris.

What we saw down there was , in one word, CREEPY.  There are over six million bodies worth of bones down there - that's three times the population of the bustling city above.  The bones were placed there when an epidemic broke out and was blamed on the nearby Cemetery of the Innocents.  To avoid the spreading of disease, the bodies from that cemetery and many others were exhumed and poured into the catacombs.  It took two years to move them all!

Going through the creepy catacombs under Paris!

Yes - those are real bones.

Ash and Tal - feeling claustrophobic

CREEPY skulls

The bones were placed in patterns in the catacombs, there were hearts, crosses, circles and waves of skulls.  There were also poems written in Latin and French along the walls, as well as carvings of castles, wells and records of the inspectors who came down there in the 18th and 19th centuries.

After the creepy catacombs we resurfaced - taking HUGE gulps of air - and decided that hot chocolate would cure us of our lingering claustrophobia.  Then the three of us, Tal, Ash and I, gathered supplies at a nearby market and came home to make a wonderful spread of baguette, cheese, hummus, vegetables, nachos, guacamole, fruit salad, and dessert. YUM!

Ash woke up this morning and headed to the airport - I miss her already!  At least I know I get the see her again, as in two weeks time, we're meeting in LONDON!  I'm so excited for that!  In the meantime, I'm freaking out about Jordan, because I leave tomorrow!  I went desert shopping this afternoon to find clothes that I could wear in Amman, because all of the longer-sleeved shirts I own are built for Ottawa winters, not Jordanian deserts.  Anyways, I hope I'll be able to pull everything together by four tomorrow, that's when I head to the airport.  Raph and I will get into Amman at about one in the morning, and it's the ambassador's wife's birthday!  I'm bringing her Parisian macarons as a gift, since letting me stay with them is such a nice thing for them to do - especially if it's your birthday!

I probably won't be able to update my blog for a week or so - but I'll be collecting lots of stories to post later on.  Hope everyone in Canada had a good winter break, and I hope I get to talk to some of you when I'm back! <3

Sarah and Ashley go to Versailles!

Guess what happens when Ashley and I are let loose in Versailles, the palace built by Louis XIV?  Yes, we do spend all day pretending we are royalty!  But the chateau makes you feel that way, it is absolutely phenomenal!  Ash arrived in Paris a couple of days ago for her reading week, and has been sleeping on the couch.  While I went to class in the morning she's been spending time at the Louvre and in the Tuileries gardens.  When I came back in the afternoons, we went to Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysees, and Place de la Concorde.  Since today was my day off, we decided to spend a day trip going to the castle, and it was definitely worth it!

We started the day by taking the RER train out of Paris to Versailles, and walked through the drizzly rain to the palace gates, where we got in for free (hurray EU student cards!)  The palace is impressive, and HUGE!  We walked through dozens of rooms lined  with art, decorated with sculptures and wonderfully intricate furniture.  The chapel used by the kings and queens of France was immense, and beautifully painted.  My favourite was the Hall of Mirrors - lined with crystal chandeliers, mirrors and windows it was absolutely breathtaking.  On the ceiling, Louis XIV had designed his military victories painted, which is a pretty cool effect.  As we were walking through the Hall, we remembered where this was where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 and where Marie-Antoinette had walked down the aisle in her wedding gown.

Ash, me, and VERSAILLES!

More royalty was in store for us though!  We saw the king and queen's apartments, as well as the dauphin's rooms, and after a bite to eat wandered through the gardens which were even bigger than the palace.  Despite the rain, it was still quite a nice walk, and I've decided I have to go back when the fountains are on and when the sun is out!

We walked to the Grand Trianon, another part of the castle built not too far away.  The best part of this building?  IT WAS PINK!  So cute.  I could definitely see myself living in a pink palace.  My first thought was of my friend Amy Cook who's in Ottawa at the moment - she loves pink and I feel like she's destined to live there someday!  Next we visited the Petit Trianon, which was a "little" castle designed for Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour.  This was the present that Louis XVI gave Marie-Antoinette,  and what I loved most about it was the gazebo in the garden that looked exactly like it was from the movie Pride and Prejudice!  Luckily Ash is also a Jane Austen fan, so she understands my obsession!

Although I have class tomorrow, I'm waking up early and grabbing croissants from the bakery to have breakfast with Ash before I go.  Then afterwards we're meeting up to take a tour of the catacombs of Paris!  Apparently there are the bones of six million people (three times the population of Paris) under the city.  Creepy... but cool!

And I still have to pack for Jordan, AH!  I am the worst at packing - wish me luck!

Sarah books her reading week trip... JORDAN HERE I COME!

According to the well known scholar/traveler/housemate/friend extraordinaire, Marla MacKinnon, I've heard that Jordan might just be the coolest place on Earth.  So I booked a trip there for reading week!  Actually, Raph did the booking, and I'm in charge of the itinerary-planning! 

A map!  Sooooo exciting!

The plan is to fly to Amman on the 26th of February to meet Raph's friend (who happens to be the Canadian Ambassador to Jordan.  HOW CRAZY IS THAT?) and stay with the Ambassador's family for a while.  So far I've been concocting fun tourist plans about wandering around Amman, going to see the Dead Sea, visiting Petra, and maybe the port city of Aqaba or the beautiful Wadi Rum.  We might even have time to visit Jerash to the North or even go desert camping!

I just have one requirement: I must ride a  camel while I'm there.  As long as I get to do that, I'll be blissfully happy when I get back to la belle Paris!

The only downside to this fantastic plan is that I am super distracted and can't concentrate on school when I would much rather look up pictures and tourist tips on the Internet!

Sarah celebrates Valentine's day!

Joyeuse Saint-Valentin!  Right now, I'm celebrating Valentine's day with my roommate Natalia!  We made a lovely Valentine's Day dinner of quinoa salad (my contribution) and Chinese food (Tal's contribution)... AMAZING.  We're sitting at our dining room table eating, procrastinating instead of doing the ton of homework that we have.

Earlier today after class, we had an awesome picnic with some of the girls at Sciences Po at a cute little park on the Right Bank, not far from our school.  We brought wine, cheese, baguette, chocolate and macarons and sat on a park bench for a couple hours and chatted.  It was the greatest!  On our way to and from the park, we spotted French couples going Valentine's day shopping, buying roses or chocolates - after all, Paris is supposed to be the romantic city!

YES - that is an Eiffel Tower lollipop.  The French are geniuses.

In other news, last weekend I spent the whole time touring around with two friends of my friend Raph, Carol-Anne and Marie-Michelle, who both are on exchange from Ottawa U.  Carol-Anne came up from Lyon where she's on exchange, and Marie-Michelle came up from Vienna.  We had an awesome weekend being tourists, and we hit up the Hotel de Ville, Notre-Dame, my favourite bookstore Shakepeare and Company, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, les Invalides, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc the Triomphe and the Champs-Elysees.  My feet were about to fall off from so much walking!  It was worth it though, because otherwise I'll get to wrapped up in school and forget to look around the city!  Another problem is, there's just so much to do in Paris, we didn't even cover everything in a weekend.  Luckily, my friend Ashley is coming to visit next week from Birmingham so hopefully I'll get to go around everywhere with her!  So far we're planning a trip to Versailles, and maybe even to EuroDisney if we have time!

Marie-Michelle, Me, Carole-Anne and Raph in front of the Eiffel Tower all lit up!

I also booked my flight to London on the weekend of March 11-13 for me and Ash to celebrate turning 21 in Europe!  We're going to get a hostel, stay Friday-Sunday, go see Legally Blonde the Musical, and hopefully go to Hampton Court, the palace of Henry VIII!  I can't wait!

Sarah finishes her first week of class and develops an addiction

Yes, it's true.  I have developed a very serious addiction to a substance that I think should be illegal but is widespread in France: chocolate mousse!  It's everywhere - in the cafeteria, in the grocery stores (sitting innocently beside the yogurt shelves) and now, most importantly, in my fridge.  I can't help it!  Chocolate mousse just happens to be the best thing to eat with tea as well, which means I'm doomed!

(I have inserted a paragraph break here just for Hugues Beaudoin-Dumouchel, because he complained last time.  So Hugues, here you go!)

On to more Parisian things, like the reason that I'm actually here - school!  I had almost forgotten about it, but last week it came creeping back up on me.  I survived the first week of my (SEVEN!) classes, and I like all of them.  The best class so far is US Foreign Policy, ironically taught by a French-Canadian prof from Montreal.  So our overview of American history involved a lot of talking about Samuel de Champlain, Quebec City, hockey, and the population of Canada.  He asked everyone except the Canadians in the class to guess the population of Canada, and most people guessed something around 160 million!  So I feel like our class is going to end up learning just as much about Canada as they are about the US. 

My other classes are also pretty neat.  I'm taking a course called Understanding Pakistan, one about Comparative Middle Eastern Studies (focus on Egypt and Turkey), Contemporary Strategic Studies in World Politics, European Integration, Gender and Politics and French.  So I have a lot of reading to get started on, which is why I'm blogging instead!  Most of the coursework is actually presented to the class - there's a real focus on speaking and communicating ideas well.  At the beginning of my time at Sciences Po, they presented methodology courses, to teach the "Sciences Po" method.  I wasn't a fan, because we were told that the professor is like a god, and therefore the subject he or she asks you to research and write about is divine.  We were told never to question the structure or the question asked, but always to respect the form of the assignment, whereas my normal reaction would be to look more critically at what the prof was asking and why.  Basically they really care less about what I have to say here, as long as I say it well!

So that's what I'm up to right now - my first assignment is in my french class, where I have to give a ten minute presentation.  We actually get to pick our topics, since the project is basically an assessment of our grammar and vocab skills.  I'm undecided - I've found two possible topics.  My first reaction was PARLIAMENT!  Because we all know how much I love the Parliament buildings.  But then, I thought about giving my presentation on joual and French-Canadian expressions.  Just because I want to see the look on my (very proper, very articulate, very French) French professor's face.

Soooo now I'm going to make a cup of tea and maybe (just maybe) have another chocolate mousse while working on my presentation!

P.S.  I forgot - I love posting pictures, so here are some of my apartment building and neighbourhood! (1. My apartment, 2/3 the view on my street, 4. the view from my kitchen window, 5. view from my living room window)

Sarah goes to BULGARIA!

Dobar den from Bulgaria!  I know!  Crazy!  I haven't updated my blog in a while, so this is going to be a super-long post since I spent three days in Sofia, Bulgaria's capital, last week.  I got the chance to go after my friend Raph decided to visit his grandmother who lives in Sofia for half the year.  We left on Tuesday and came back Friday, and had the most AMAZING time.  When we got off the plane, Raph's grandmother Maria was there to greet us.  She was so excited to have us there and promptly told us she had the whole stay planned and that we were to be "acculturés" - cultured - by the time we left!  Was she ever right!  We spent two whole days wandering through wonderful museums, art galleries and cathedrals.  Needless to say, I was in heaven.  The first morning, Raph and I decided to set out on our own to explore downtown Sofia and take a look around.  As neither of us speak Bulgarian, and the writing is in Cyrillic, I was super lucky that Raph can read maps regardless of the language, cause I was lost as soon as I stepped out of the apartment!  We found our way to the Alexander Nevski cathedral right in the heart of the city, and it was absolutely stunning.  The architecture was amazing, with domed roofs and gorgeous mosaics.  From the outside it was impressive, and from the inside, even more so!  Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the church, but there were murals that covered the entire thing.  The detail was incredible, and we were almost the only ones in the church.  The few others that came inside lit candles for prayers, which gave the cathedral an even more impressive aura.  We then went down to the crypt on the left side of the church, which has been turned into an art gallery, and saw Bulgarian art that was hundreds of years old, taken from the inside of churches all over the country.  Bulgarians really seem to like Saint Demetrios, who was always depicted on a horse stabbing the Antichrist, and Saint George, on a horse stabbing a dragon. Leaving the cathedral, we continued our walk around the capital until our toes got frosty, and then headed back for lunch (in a typical Canadian fashion, we decided to visit Sofia on the two coldest days of the year, when the temperature went down to .... minus 7!  OH NO!  We were thinking of all our friends and family suffering the minus 30 degree weather, so minus seven didn't seem all that bad!).  We walked past Sofia's university (which we mistook for parliament since we couldn't read a word on any signs), the library, theater, and a host of other beautiful pastel buildings and churches.  Back at Maria's apartment, we met our tour guide for the next couple days, Dmitri, who was Maria's best friend's grandson.  Dmitri was so lovely, and on the first afternoon took us around the city some more to look at Sofia's art gallery, housed in the last Tsar's palace, and the hot water springs.  He told us that the city was named after a Byzantine princess called Sofia who was healed by the water's powers.  I wasn't the only one who liked the water - all the pigeons were smart enough to warm their feathers there too!  Dmitri took us to a restaurant where there were a lot of classic Bulgarian dishes served, and as soon as we sat down he eagerly asked if we wanted him to recommend something.  "Of course!"  I said.  "What's your favourite thing to eat?"  Dmitri replied, "Stomach Soup!" UH OH.  Needless to say, vegetarianism and Bulgaria do not mesh very well together.  Despite my decision a couple days earlier to be more flexible and eat meat when I had to during my stay in Europe, I didn't think I was prepared to eat a soup made from the intestines of a cow.  So Raph had the soup, and I had Shopska salad (also a traditional Bulgarian dish - very good!), but I managed to try a spoonful, just because Dmitri was so keen on his favourite soup!  The next day, we met up again with Dmitri and this time, his uncle as well.  His uncle drove us up to the palace of the last Bulgarian dictator, Zhivkov, which has been turned into a Bulgarian history museum.  It was SO COOL.  There were artifacts hundreds of thousands of years old, and I learned all about the long and intense history of Bulgaria - Dmitri gave us a crash course in about three hours!  On our way back we made two more stops - one at the tiny but wonderful Boyana Church, and one on top of Mount Vitosha, the mountain that overlooks Sofia.  We saw the whole city below us, and got a wonderful view!  That night we ate at Maria's brother, Asen, and his wife, Katie's home.  Katie made a superb dish which tasted like the Bulgarian version of Spanakopita, and I tried Rakia, a type of Bulgarian brandy made from plums.  The next morning we were off on the plane home to Paris - what a wonderful couple of days!  I met some really wonderful people, and can't have had a better host.  Now, I promise my next posts won't be as long, or take too long to put up!