France!

Just like in my trip to Spain over spring break (which you can read about here), a lot happened on my trip to France, so I'm splitting it up over several posts.

Beforehand/ Wednesday, May 4
I knew that before leaving Europe I wanted to visit France. Its one of those things in the list of "integral study abroad experiences", along with wearing scarves and judging other less-enlightened americans for not having enough of a multicultural perspective. In a manner similar to my trip to Antwerp, I read about a dance competition being held in a city just outside of Paris and used that as an excuse to travel. My plan was to just go and watch, rather than compete.

"But Matt", you might interject, "why would you go all of the way to France for a competition that you are not even participating in?" First off, perceptive reader, I would like to thank you for your well-placed question, giving me an excellent opportunity to segue into talking about the competition in more detail. It is readers like you that make blogs like this possible. Secondly, this competition is not a typical one. Instead, the event promoters managed to get 7 of the worlds best powermovers (powermoves being the momentum-based bboying moves, such as spinning on your head, that people normally think of when they think of bboying). It was going to be a great time just to watch.

The week preceding the event had several holidays, so I had the time off and was able to leave wednesday night, spend two days in Paris, one in some other city, and then sunday in Dourdan at the competition. I would take the Eurolines night bus to get to France - it is about a 6-hour ride, so if I grabbed a late bus, I would be able to sleep on the way and get there early, without having to spend extra on a hostel.

I had this rough plan several weeks in advance, but didn't put too much thought in it, and so on wednesday I was still scrambling to figure out my travel plans. After reading travel website Wikitravel for a while, I decided to go to Marseilles on saturday. I then quickly bought my bus tickets and reserved my hostel rooms several hours before leaving. Around 8:50 wednesday night, I rode the train over to the bus stop, and began the long bus ride.
Having used this company once before (on my trip in Spain), I should have realized that getting any amount of good sleep was an impossibility. The seats are perfectly angled to keep you alert as possible, and the temperature of the bus ranges from too cold to awkwardly warm and humid. It is a little bit worse than airline seating - at least airline seats recline. Sorry - I'll stop whining now. It was convenient enough.

Thursday, May 5
I arrived in Paris around 6 am, and headed off to my hostel in order to drop off my bag and grab a map of the city. Since I got there so early, they let me have breakfast, which was great. I also grabbed some extra baguette rolls for lunch and dinner. The fact that they were free meant that they became the primary staple of my diet for the next few days.

Outside the hostel.

Arc de Triomphe

From there, I walked over to the Arc de Triomphe. It seems like there are a lot of triumphal arches in different cities I've visited. I then headed downtown in search of the free walking tour - I was impressed by the free walking tour in Seville, and so wanted to go on one again. However, I could never find the group, so I ended up just walking around the center of town for a while (not a bad fate in itself), eventually heading over to the Louvre. You enter the louvre through the largest of the three glass pyramid structures. They look cool but seem to work like a magnifying glass and focus the light, heating up the inside - I feel bad for the security guards who have to stand in that all day.

I was able to enter the museum for free because of my temporary residency in the Netherlands, and so I proceeded to check out the lower two floors, which contain the statue of ramesses II, the statue of aphrodite/venus de milo, the code of hammurabi, the french crown jewels, and a lot of other art.

venus de milo

I was surprised by the large amount of Egyptian artifacts present in the museum - they have over 50,000 objects from ancient Egypt, including scrolls, statues, and jewelry. For some reason, I only expected Western European art, so seeing the Egyptian collection was a nice surprise.

Though this is often the case with more famous museums, the building was as impressive as much of the art. I later learned that the building used to be a palace for French kings until 1682, when they moved to Versailles and kept the Louvre as a place to display their art collection. Its a huge and beatiful structure.
Eventually, I made my way over to the mona lisa. There was a big room set aside primarily for that picture, with several other pictures in the room as well. Honestly, I was surprised by how large it is - I had always heard of how small the Mona Lisa is, but it actually is a normal sized painting.

The French crown jewels in the Louvre

Mona lisa = actually smaller than my face.

Also that day: a sandwich and french fries - in france! To my dismay, the french fries were not leagues above other non-france french fries I've had before. In fact, they just tasted like normal french fries. Though, I guess thats to be expected, considering that french fries don't even originate in france. The scandal!

That evening, I went over to the Eiffel tower, and took some pictures with it. It was not hard to find the tower, because it rises so much over the rest of the skyline. I didn't end up going in the tower. I later walked along the Seine, found another one of the statues of liberty, and checked out the hippodrome d'auteil (a horse racing track) on the western corner of the city.

That night, after I returned to my hostel. I walked to a nearby convenience store and bought some cheese and meat to put on my baguettes. It wasn't that far from my hostel, but I still managed to get lost for a few minutes on the way back. PROTIP: never say to yourself "hey, i didn't get lost on this trip!" until you actually get home.

Entirely unrelated song post:
This is a song by Kyprios, a Canadian rapper that used to be in rap group Sweatshop Union. I think I originally heard this song on the indie rap blog pigeons and planes. The production is really unique for a rap song - kinda dark and drum'n'bass-ish, and it works out really well. Plus, you can download it for free! (Without getting fined over 200,000 dollars for pirating a few tracks). Check out the link below.
Kyprios - Go Away (Superhero Remix) by listentosuperhero