A Minnesotan in Paris: Part 1

As it is already well known, a couple of weeks ago I left lovely Italia and headed up north to neighboring France, Paris to be exact. Evan decided to compete in an international music competition there, and I couldn't miss the opportunity to take only an hour long plane ride to meet him.

We both arrived at Charles de Gaulle, but on (obviously) separate planes and him without a cell phone. We had a plan in place that I would try to meet him at his gate, but in lieu of that, we would meet at the train station that is attached to the airport. For those who haven't been to CDG airport, it isn't set up at all how I am used to, with three different terminals and terminal 2 consisting of areas 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D, etc. All of these different areas had arrival and departure boards only for the flights in their specific section and information desks also only equipped with information on the flights in that section of the airport and with no centralized entrance or information center (at least that I found). It turned out that there were, as well, TWO different train stations, therefore ruining even our backup plan. After walking around trying to find Evan's gate, I headed over to the train station and decided to sit down and stay in one place. Fortunately, only fifteen minutes or so after I sat down, Evan found me there.

Living room in Nanterre

From this station we took a train into Paris and then transferred to another that took us just outside the city to the suburb of Nanterre. There I had arranged for us to stay with a couple in their house through a website (so kindly brought to my attention by Mary Beth!). Once there, we called our host, Randall, who came to meet us at the station to get us back to the apartment where he and his wife, Monique, live. Randall helped us figure out which transportation pass was the best value for our needs, helped us buy it, and then gave us a quick tour of Nanterre. Randall is a native of Montreal in Quebec, while Monique is originally from Normandy, so it was really perfect to be able to talk to both of them, making sure we understood everything through Randall and then clumsily practicing our French with Monique. Soon after we arrived there, we ended up having to leave again so that Evan could get to a practice session with an accompanist in another Paris suburb.  We ended up navigating there successfully, although a little late, and had the pleasure of meeting David, a very nice man and a really excellent musician. After returning to Nanterre, we cooked ourselves a simple dinner at home with food that we had bought at the grocery store accompanied by, of course, French wine.

The next morning, Evan practiced a bit in the morning, so I took breakfast upon myself and headed into Nanterre center to find a patisserie. There I bought us a croissant aux amande (with almonds) and a pain au chocolat and brought them back to the house to have with some good ol' Starbucks Via (donated by the lovely Margaret Mills) that I had brought along. Happy with our breakfast, caffeinated, with a list of things to see as well as our trusty map, we headed into Paris. Getting off at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile stop, we headed up the stairs to start our day at one end of Avenue des Champs-Élysées at the Arc de Triomphe. It was really a wonderful introduction to Paris to see such an iconic monument and a great place to start our exploration. Not stopping there, we decided to head over towards the Eiffel Tower. It sure doesn't disappoint, that's for sure. That being said, the crowds of tourists and almost as many people selling various sizes of Eiffel Tower souvenirs, made it difficult to stick around longer than the time it took to take a couple pictures. We headed down towards the Seine, we and crossed it to walk under the tour but decided save some money and time in long lines, and we skipped the elevator trip to the top.

From the Parc du Champs de Mars in front of the tower, we continued our course, only slightly planned and crossed over the river again on the beautiful Pont Alexandre III towards the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais that both have free art exhibitions. Unfortunately the Grand Palais ended up being closed, but we aren't particular palace snobs so we were more than happy to head across the street and saw the exhibition at the Petit Palais.  From there we reconnected to the Champs-Élysées continued down to end where we found the gold tipped Obélisque, framed by two black and gold fountains.

Point Alexandre III

Le petit palais

At this point in the day, we decided to head back to the Arc, where nearby there is the main concert hall for the Orchestre de Paris. Early that morning, we had researched online whether or not there was a concert and found that there would be one that evening and that there is a special youth price of only 10euro for those under 26 years. We couldn't pass this up, so we got our tickets an hour before the concert and had just enough time to grab a sandwich at a nearby café before the concert started at 8pm. The orchestra was really incredible, playing an Beethoven overture, a violin concerto by Alban Berg, and finally Beethoven's 4th symphony. Satisfied but tired--as you should be on vacation--we took the train back to Nanterre and almost immediately headed to bed.

At the Obélisque

The next morning, we kept our routine: tuba practice, breakfast from patisserie, train into Paris. This time we got off at the Paris Opera, where we tried to take a tour that included a view of the hall, however, a rehearsal kept us from seeing it. From the opera we got a little lost a couple time, found ourselves a couple times, making our way slowly up to the Montmatre district. There we found the Moulin Rouge, which I have to admit was quite disappointing. We continued up to the big hill of this artist district, home to the studios of artists such as Dalì and Monet reaching the Place de Tetre, filled with colorful umbrellas and works of modern Parisian artists. Past the square, we found Sacre Coeur, the lovely cathedral looking over all of Paris like a guardian. We stopped for a few minutes for an espresso back in Place de Tetre, costly at that, but not too much considering the environment that you are really paying to enjoy.

Sacre Coeur

In front of the Paris Opera

We made our way down the hill back towards the Seine. Here we stopped by the Musée d'Orsay and then crossing over the bridge to the Louvre. We were planning on taking part in the special Friday evening hours and free youth admission from 6-9pm, so we walked around and explored the huge palace courtyard before we went into see the famous collections. We found only one flaw in our plan of the day: we were so tired from all of our walking, that by evening it was hard to focus of the great works that we were seeing. We did, however, with strength and great courage see a good deal of the collections offered. Afterwards, we had a quick (and incidentally our only) dinner out where I tried the restaurants croque madame, while Evan had the classic steak frites with a Belgium beer. Very happy and very full, we made our way back to a train station and back to Nanterre.

Louvre

To come: the competition and another day in Paris before heading off the the mountains!