Jours 38-41

Bonjour tout le monde!

Jours  38-41

June 2-June 5

Today is my last day in Paris, which is heartbreaking. However, these past couple days have been completely amazing and nearly perfect (the only thing not perfect was the weather).

On Thursday, while everyone else was doing a walk I had already done, I went off on my own through a random part of Paris and just walked around. It was seriously so freeing. I just had my French music playlist in, and I walked by the Seine which is almost overflowing and into the île St. Louis and it was just awesome. I went home a little early that day to prepare to go to Giselle!! My host sister is so nice, she let me wear one of her dresses and her super nice coat to the ballet which was awesome.

Outside of the Palais Garnier

 I packed a little dinner, or a “picnic” as my host mom calls it (which is apparently the French way to go to an opera/ballet) and I was off on my own. Giselle was completely amazing!!! I wrote about it in my Activités Culturelles post, but it was just incredible. I was so impressed by everyone’s dancing and I had a wonderful sixth row spot and life was so good. I just wished I had someone else that I could experience it with.

Inside the Palais Garnier

On Friday I got to go to EURODISNEY!! AKA Disneyland Paris. So pretty much my two favorite things put together.

In front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle

 It is so interesting how different but how similar Disneyland Paris is to normal Disneyland. For one thing, it’s much smaller. I would probably say it was about half the size. But, there was also about half the people. The longest time I had to wait for a ride was 40 minutes, and that was an a little kid ride. I only used 2 fast passes because I didn’t even need them. Also, the ambiance is definitely different. It’s so interesting the clash of cultures because you have Disneyland which is all happy go lucky, happiest place on Earth and such, and then you have Paris, where everyone wears black, smokes, looks defeated and it rains every single day. But even though it was in Paris where no one seems to be super happy, it was still amazing.

Being super serious on Buzz Lightyear

 It was also really cool because there were people from all different countries there. I would say it was 40% English speakers, 30% French, and the rest was just a mix of Italians, Spanish people, dutch people, just all sorts of languages going around. Another difference is, besides fantasyland which is exactly like Disneyland, the rides are more about the rides themselves then the scenery. For example, Indiana Jones was a roller coaster with loops, as was space mountain. Tower of terror was exactly the same so that awesome. Another thing, food in Disneyland Paris is seemingly normal price because food in Paris is just so freaking expensive so that was a nice surprise. Overall, it was such a fun day, and I mainly spent it alone with my friend Stephanie, so we got on all the rides really fast because we did a lot of single-riders.

Main Street at night

Saturday I felt was my last true day doing things in Paris. Melissa and I had to say goodbye to one of our host sisters today because she was going back to her University for a little while. Melissa, Stephanie and I went to the Palais Garnier (for the third time) and toured around. Then we walked over to the Louvre and the Musée D’orsay and looked at the Seine with everyone else taking pictures of it. After, Stephanie put a lock on the lock bridge for her cousin that just got married. Then we went over to Rue Cler and ate delicious Italian food for dinner, and then I bought myself a warm, out-of–the-oven cookie which was just so amazing because I had been craving cookie for so long.

My delicious Cookie

 Finally, after dinner we decided to go to the top of the Eiffel tower. It was the first time that we had done this since we got to Paris. Although we couldn’t see the sunset because it was overcast, the view was still amazing and it wasn’t raining. Also, it was super cool to look over the city because I knew what all of the major buildings were, and I also knew that I had been inside them all. From up there I could truly see that I had been all over Paris. It was such a wonderful day to end my trip here.

The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower

On Sunday there was a church conference, so we had church in a different place than normal. We wanted to go to Versailles, but the RER C was closed due to flooding so it was going to be really hard to get there. Then we decided to check out Uber, and it turns out Versailles is a 20 minute drive from where our house is! That’s it! So we took an uber to church (which took half the time that it normally takes us) and were able to go to church in Versailles. Then we really wanted to go see the temple, and this super nice older missionary couple drove us over there to go see it and then dropped us off at the train station. 

The Temple getting constructed

Melissa and I had some lunch, got some delicious gelato and then walked through the jardin de Luxembourg. Then, an amazing thing happened. We got the RER B right when it pulled up to the station, and then we only had to wait one minute for our RER A, and then the bus to get home from the RER pulled up right when we got off the RER. Let me tell you, this NEVER happens. We usually have to wait 7 or 8 minutes for each of those things. Also, today the sun almost come out behind the clouds so that was exciting. Overall, it was an amazing couple of days packed with so many awesome things.

À Bientôt,

Claire Hunsaker