Alright, last weekend: Normandy.
Two hours on a train. A half-hour on a bus. Welcome to Hotel de Ville! Not, as some would have us think, "a very important hotel," but rather the city hall of Caen, a former monastery and church, where there was going to be a wedding in about ten minutes. We hurried through a meeting-room with odd, block-color carpeting that made me think of a primary school, and the plainly church-like area for wedding ceremonies. What happened to the separation of Church and State? Our group was apparently not interested enough for our guide, who spoke English, but very slowly, and with a distinct accent. She frequently asked us what appeared to be rhetorical questions, but then waited impatiently for our answers, saying "I can't read your minds." Lunch was highly anticipated by all.
After lunch, and another hour on a bus (during which many of us dozed off despite the incessant chatter of our jovial bus driver), we arrived at the American Cemetery, honoring the soldiers who died at Omaha Beach on D-Day (some even before reaching the shore, our--much better--guide informed us). We were led through the museum on the site, watching videos narrated by former soldiers, walking through a timeline of World War II, enhanced by the individual testimonials and full mess-kits (something I always find interesting), complete with shaving brushes, Camel cigarettes, and grenades, of the soldiers. The cemetery affected me much more than I expected, never having considered myself particularly patriotic, and I found myself feeling suddenly incredibly proud to be an American. The guide--an adorable young blond woman who spoke English very well--went to great pains to make the cemetery and the beach come alive for us, reading letters from loved ones of soldiers, and reminding us that the American boys were all around nineteen years old, the Germans often even younger. I'm nineteen years old, I thought, and, for me, getting used to Paris is more than enough to handle. I couldn't imagine jumping out of a plane or rowing to shore from a ship, trying to turn the tides of a then-seemingly-hopeless war. Afterwards, we got to stop on the battleground, and although I knew that all of the ditches and exposed stone are the scars left on the earth by a horribly bloody battle, somehow the field--under the gray, overcast sky that had made the cemetery seem just that much more solemn and moving--was breathtakingly beautiful. We got about fifteen minutes to scamper over hills and under dugouts and take pictures (although this seemed a bit disrespectful, the place was just too lovely not to) before we piled back on the bus for the two hours to the youth hostel.
After an unsatisfying "buffet" dinner that happily ended with "Kir Royale" (champagne mixed with sirop de cassis), we went out on the town, only to find that there was very little town upon which to go out. We found a quiet little bar/bistro, and after drinks we walked down to the beach, where Frederique and Becca threw off their shoes and ran to the water, and the sane portion of the group remained by the rocks. I am really going to miss Frederique when we return to the states.
On Sunday, we got back on the bus to journey to Mt. Saint-Michel, the mountain-ish lump of land that becomes an island at high tide, upon which there is an abbey dedicated to the Archangel Saint Michael, surrounded by a very touristy little village and an imposing medieval fortress. Luckily, it was a clear, sunny day, and we got a full view of the mountain when we were still about twenty minutes away from it, and, when we arrived, we found a marvelous English guide (English as in from England) who lead us up the mountain, past the murder-holes from which the fortress was defended against the British (they never did manage to conquer this little patch of Normandy), past the restaurants and homes owned exclusively by about five families, up really a lot of stairs, into the church, where a Sunday service was just beginning, onto a glorious view from a terrace over the treacherous sand that pilgrims from Brittany once crossed (offering such lovely surprises as impenetrable fog and quicksand, in addition to the sudden and dangerous tides), and all through the abbey. The abbey has been used, throughout its history, as a church, a place of pilgrimage, and an awful prison, and our guide did a bang-up job of evoking its multilayered history. Then we had a very strange (for the vegetarians, at least) lunch at La Terrasse Poulard: a very nice chevre salad followed by an absolutely absurd, foamy, and rather cold "omelette" that must have been at least ninety percent cream. Ah, Normandy... And then, after an hour to wander the identical souvenir shops, we were back on the bus. Then back on the train. Then back in Paris. Much exhaustion was had by all. And some of us had quizzes the next morning! C'est la vie...
The weekend before: Amsterdam
This was a much more exciting adventure than Normandy. This particular adventure made me entirely forget my infatuation with Paris and want more than anything else to move into a house-boat in Amsterdam. Really, it is the perfect place. After seven hours on a bus, during which I was able to sleep a little but then ended up just gaping out the window at the funny Dutch signs, Lucie and I arrived at Amstel station, desperately in need of coffee and a bathroom. The bathrooms were closed. We were to discover, over the course of this weekend, that Amsterdam is rather a bad place to need to use the bathroom, since public toilets are few and almost always cost at least 40 centimes, even after you've paid for a meal in a restaurant. So bathroom use was out. But a convenience store in the station was just opening, and after we stared in puzzlement at the Dutch instructions on what appeared to be a coffee machine for a few minutes, the fellow at the counter, who, of course, spoke perfect English, got us two cups of coffee. It was some of the best "kaffie" I have ever had. Maybe due to the seven hours on the bus. In any case, we had to get to Centraal Station to find our hostel, so we took the metro (really a lovely train, clean and all painted inside with colorfully-frosted cupcakes and galaxies and even a pixellated pit-bull) and then, from Centraal Station, wandered down Prins Hendrikkade (did I mention that they speak a made-up language in Amsterdam? It's supposedly Dutch, but Lucie and I developed the strong suspicion that it's just nonsense that someone made up to mess with tourists--we just couldn't take the signs seriously) towards Oosterdock, where we hoped to find our lodgings, a passenger ship called the Avanti. As the sky lightened, we took what we later realized was a ridiculously roundabout route, past a floating Chinese restaurant, a floating "trick theatre," a floating museum, and a monolithic building designed to look like a ship called the NEMO (we would later discover that it was a science museum, and was designed by the same architect who designed the Pompidou Centre in Paris), before we eventually ended up at Jetty 4, home of the Avanti. It was about 8am, and although I'd e-mailed the manager to notify her of our early arrival, the flustered-looking woman who met us at the door informed us that we could not check in until 4pm since a group of teachers had reserved the boat for the day. She let us leave our luggage in the kitchen, and we headed off to find some breakfast.
At Cafe de Kloonprins, we got buffet breakfasts of sliced meats and cheeses (the traditional Dutch breakfast), fruit, yogurt, cereals, odd biscuit-type products, jam, chocolate sprinkles (yes, they were at the Avanti too, no, I don't know what they were for), and, of course, coffee. Well-fed and caffeinated, we found an inexpensive map and, after waiting in line for the buses, decided just to walk to the Van Gogh museum. Damrak Straat, the road we had to take, was absolutely overflowing with tourists and souvenir shops, and I had already spent a ridiculous amount of money on gifts for folks at home by the time we reached the museum, to find a line out into the street and a price that was not reduced for students. It was too nice a day anyway. We opted for a cheap canal tour, and got to see all the important canals and former ports of the city, as well as endless rows of houseboats lined up along the canals, the inhabitants of which I envied immensely.
We walked back to the Avanti to check in at four, and after the protracted process of getting the exact change for the balance on our room (the woman, besides just being exhausted from work, had a distinct, slow way of speaking that indicated a rather profound absentmindedness, probably a long-term effect of living in Amsterdam...), we got to see our cabin. And by cabin, I mean cabin. There was barely room for Lucie and I to stand between the door and our bunk bed, which was set right into the wall of the ship. We did have a little sink and a closet, though, and the dining room--to which we had free, unlimited access--was really lovely, especially since it provided free coffee and tea at absolutely all hours.
That evening, we decided to keep it low-key, and after a marvelous (and surprisingly cheap) dinner of soup and bread with aioli (which, we found, one must pay for in Holland--this is most certainly NOT Paris.), we lingered in a quiet coffeeshop for a few hours, where we watched very strange music videos and ran into four other students who were staying in the Avanti, then stopped into a bar so I could try absinthe (for only 3 Euro! Cheaper than a coke in Paris!) before heading back to the ship. At just about the exact moment we decided to leave the bar, it began to rain. Then, as we got about a third of the way back to Oosterdock, it started to pour. I cannot properly express just how inviting (after being exhausted, then soaked, and having had a sore throat all day that just wouldn't quit bothering me) the warm, dimly lit dining room of the Avanti was, especially its free tea. Our beds were gloriously comfortable. We were asleep by midnight.
On Saturday, I had a whole itinerary of museums mapped out on the free museum guide that the Avanti provided, and it looked like rain, so we headed towards the Van Gogh Museum. Or at least, I meant to head there. But we found ourselves much closer to the museum Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder, or "Our Lord in the Attic," a lovely little museum that is actually a well-preserved 17th-Century house with a full Catholic church hidden in the attic. It was built when the city government had officially banned Catholic masses, and had been saved from demolition by a group of junior historians. We each took little pamphlets that indicated the route through the house and followed little purple arrows on the wall through a family room overlooking the canal with an adorable little box-bed set right into the wall; a parlor decorated in the symmetrical Dutch Classicist style; the miraculous secret church, complete with an organ set into a cabinet and a baroque pulpit; a little chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary with a closet-sized confessional (the privacy screen of which might as well not have been there at all); and two antique kitchens, one from the seventeenth century and one from the nineteenth century (which was built with historical materials, so it actually looked much older). A worthwhile adventure off the beaten path!
By the time we came out of the museum, the sun had emerged, so, after some lunch near the market, we decided to check out the botanical garden. We found it down this adorable little street, verdant with trees and vines and little gardens practically spilling out onto the sidewalk. In the garden, we first followed the "Evolution Route" from trilobites to cycads and palms, into the rainforest and all the way to modern plant life, then we wandered a bit on our own, through the desert of South Africa, the jungles of South America, and a little butterfly greenhouse that absolutely perfected our visit. Also, there happened to be a wedding going on, so there was a brightly-dressed, chanting procession (following a very young-looking couple) for everyone to marvel at. I have never seen so much glorious life all in one place! If you're in Amsterdam, you simply must see it.
We made our way back to the Avanti, expecting to change before going out but then discovering that we were just to comfortable and deciding to go out just as we were. We found more cheap soup at a Mexican restaurant, La Guadaloupe, then went to Durty Nelly's Irish Pub to join the "Red-Light District Pub Tour," free to the first ten girls. In lieu of describing the night (full of other American tourists just like us), I will just say how surreal it is to see, behind glass, under glowing lights, a half-naked woman who, provided you have the money, you can buy (or rather, rent). Seeing women lined up in windows like so much merchandise was really quite strange. I could only think "humans for sale." And yet, isn't that how it really works anyway? It's just a bit more aboveboard in Amsterdam.
Sadly, the next morning our adventure was over. We left the Avanti (saying farewell to the woman, who, though absentminded, was incredibly sweet and even had her boyfriend make us a map of where to go out on Saturday night) a little after nine in the morning, and by eleven we were on a bus back to Paris. The return trip took about eight hours, and was really quite uncomfortable. I had intended to finish my reading for history, and although I had the time I lacked the energy and the attention. I just couldn't stop thinking about how lovely Amsterdam had been, with its quiet streets (everyone rides bikes), picturesque canals, friendly inhabitants, and cheap food. I was not excited to return to Paris. However, when I did finally get to my familiar metro, for which I had only to swipe my Navigo Pass before entering, and then onto my familiar 164 bus back to Boulevard Bineau (just in time for dinner with the Bijassons), I had a feeling of coming home, of being somewhere familiar, and of no longer having to hold on to my bag so tightly, that was not altogether unpleasant. So from my first excursion outside Paris, I gained a rather sad sense of disenchantment and a rather nice sense of familiarity. In any case, if you ever have the chance, GO TO AMSTERDAM!
The weekend before that: La Nuit Blanche
All-night outdoor art exhibitions throughout Paris. We only got to a few: a weirdly lumpy soccer field set up by a Spanish artist, on which both children and adults were playing through the wee hours of the morning; a rather disappointing indoor swimming pool, which, despite flashing lightning-bolts in the windows, had neither music or much else to see, and the lights were on, which greatly reduced the effectiveness of the lightning-bolts; and La Butte Charmante, a lovely park that was not as crowded as those in the Marais and was really quite charmante. Picture a field covered with open red umbrellas, a man-made pond outfitted with blue and red lights flashing underwater, a little river whose banks were lined with hundreds of desk-lamps, and a cupola atop man-made cliffs, spilling over with reveling Parisians. All this under the most glorious, yellowish full-moon light, at 3am. Really a glorious night. Or morning, I should say. I didn't get home until 2:15 the following afternoon!
Also, earlier that day, I visited Paris's Museum of Modern Art, in the Pompidou Centre, and it really is a marvelous museum to which I simply must return. We saw a special exhibition on female expressionists from the '60s, a room dedicated to COBRA, the group of abstract expressionists from the Netherlands, the work of one artist who both experimented with folding his canvas and splattering the exposed areas with paint to create a completely nonrepresentational piece and spent YEARS copying religious and philosophical passages onto a canvas until the entire thing was covered with multiple layers. There was even some work by Jackson Pollock! Also, vastly less crowded than the Orsay. Vastly.
This upcoming weekend: Halloween in Dublin!
I have loads of plans for my five-day stretch in what is reputedly the birthplace of Halloween, where they speak ENGLISH and my last name will (I hope) finally yield some advantages.
Looking up into the trees:
...is closed. 
