A weekend in Paris!

Salut!

I started to fall behind on my blog as my math course was demanding a lot of time last week, but finally I have some time to talk about my weekend in Paris with Breanne at the end of Jan! This blog is going to be full of pictures.

Friday morning, I walked down the mountain at 6am to catch my 3 hour train to Paris, to the Gare de Lyon. Anyone seen that movie where Mr. Bean goes to Paris?

Well in his honour, I ordered tea on the TGV train too.

There are over 20 metro lines in Paris, but by some miracle, Breanne and I were able to find each other. Both of us are known for our (lack of) directional sense. By the end of the weekend, we discovered how to get where we wanted to go. Listen to our instincts, then turn 180˚ around and start walking.

And where’d we walk to first? The Galerie Lafayette for some SHOPPING! It’s this beautiful enormous gallery with a bunch of beautiful shoes and bags and clothes from the biggest brands that we definitely couldn’t afford, even with the major sales on right now in France. But it was cool just to be in there!

We headed back to Monmartre, the region where our hostel was located, and stopped at Sacre Coeur Bascillica. It's the highest point in Paris.

A lovely view of Paris!

At that point, we were able to check into our hostel. It was actually really cute and clean. We were in a little room with 6 beds. 

After locking up our bags, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower! First, we stopped for dinner at “Pizza Tina” (you have no idea how much this thrilled me). 

Eating with one of my best friends in PARIS! 

Then came the hunt for the Eiffel Tower. It's embarrassing to ask where the tallest building in Paris is, especially when you know it's close, so we attempted to find it on our own and (eventually) managed! When we found it, our first instinct was to book it towards it (as if it was going to run away?). It was the coolest moment ever!  

At 9, 10, and 11 PM, the Eiffel Tower lights up and looks so pretty! This clip is blurry and doesn’t do it justice, but I decided to post it because the background conversation was funny. It was me trying to kindly tell a man that I didn’t want to buy any souvenirs, I just wanted to look at the Eiffel Tower. 

I wasn’t very effective.

Back to the hostel, I realized we didn't know who we'd be sharing a room with that night. "Do you think there'll be guys in our room...?" And Breanne responded, "Christina, it's not like he's gonna jump on you in the middle of the night, calm down." Well. While I was fast asleep, a guy dumped his stuff on me and then said, "That's my bed." Startled and still half asleep, I responded, "Uhh...would you like me to move?" He responded, "No, that's okay."

Well then, WHY did you dump your stuff on me! hahaha

Saturday, January 28, 2012

The street outside of our hostel had some very bold pigeons and anyone who knows Breanne should know of her insane fear of birds. She attemped to conquer this fear this weekend. (You’ll have to tilt your head).

Get ready for lots of pictures!

On Sat morning, we got up early to see the Louvre!

It is HUGE! I don’t really know much about art, so my descriptions will be vague. We looked at old French and Holland paintings, older sculptures, and then we went to an exhibit on ancient Egypt.

And of course, we stopped for a visit with the Mona Lisa.

Breanne showed her great art appreciation through imitation. (Note the facial expressions.)

(I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to let us into this museum.)

What was actually amazing to me was how huge some of the paintings and tapestries were. We were able to walk though a couple of these sections practically alone, which was surreal. 

For lunch, Breanne had her first French crepe. You should have seen her face.

A trip to Paris wouldn’t be complete without going up the Eifle Tower, so we began the climb (in heals, of course)!

La Seine

View from the top

View of the Arc de Triomphe from the Eiffel Tower

We were only allowed to climb to the second level, so we took the elevator the rest of the way.

Next was L’arc de Triomphe

It's big.

Breanne and I cooked at the hostel that night. Took 2 hours to make a stirfry with one weak hotplate. We visited with a couple of American girls studying in Lyon.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Mornings are hard on Breanne.

But we made it to Sacre Coeur Bascillica for Mass! The readings and parts of the Mass were all written in French, English, Italian, and I think Spanish. After Mass, we walked though some of Monmartre. I love the pedestrian streets!

Doesn't that man with the red scarf look French?

And thus ends my adventure in Paris.

Breanne stayed for a few more days, so I’m going to steal a couple of her pictures.

Next blog: A weekend in Dublin!

Erin go bragh!

~Christina :)

Campus Ecclesia-National Catholic Retreat in Rennes, France

Salut à tous !

So I lied, this blog is not going to be about my adventure in Paris last weekend, but it'll be about this past weekend in Rennes at the National Catholic Student Retreat called Campus Ecclesia. Hopefully I'll have time to write one on Paris soon. School's just been keeping me busy.

But first, Grenoble had it's first snowfall! Wooohoooo!

From my res

The mountain with my res

So! Friday night, I prepared myself for an 8.5 hour drive to Rennes “par car” (which means by bus?) according to google maps. We left Grenoble (a bus of about 30 students from Grenoble) at 7 PM and arrived in Rennes TWELVE HOURS LATER at 7am for the beginning of the retreat!

Le car?

My "sleeping bag"

About 2500 students and a bunch of priests and nuns came, basically a giant, Catholic party or a mini World Youth Day. 

Rennes (the city) is located in a region called Bretagne, which is similar to Acadian Canada, so there was traditional music and dancing from the area to greet us when we got there. It was neat! Plus baguettes with butter and caramel...yummmm! 

French streets are so pretty!

There was a talk given by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin which was AWESOME (or at least, what I could understand of it with my level of French and tired-ness). Then he celebrated Mass with about 30 other priests and 2 other bishops! Pretty sweet!

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin

This was followed by our flashmob outside (official video to come later!) It was huuuuuuuge!

On the right: a priest practicing for the flashmob

I met up with Siobhain from Peterborough! She's studying at Nantes (an hour and a half from Rennes) through Trent. It was great to see her!

We had our ateliers, which are basically smaller workshops. I chose one for exchange students. It was amazing listening to people from all over the world talk about their experience in France. A common theme was racism, which unfortunately still exists in France and has affected many of the students. It was definitely a culturally enriching afternoon. Particularly interesting: hearing talks by a Masters Psychology student from Haiti and a Dental student from Peru. Something that shocked a guy from Africa: seeing white people living in poverty in the metro.

Catholic exchange students at our atelier

There was all different kinds of prayer throughout the city. We had access to all the buses and metro system, so the transit was a lot like World Youth Day (praise and worship everywhere). On my way to adoration, I obviously got lost, so I ended up going to the Cathedral where there was Taizé music. It’s really popular with the youth right now, it was beautiful.

For dinner that night, we had crepes, wrapped around a sausage. Might sound gross, but it was actually not so bad. These are some of the students from Isèreanybody, the Catholic group from Grenoble, who I ate with that night.

Side note: before I came to France, when I thought of crepes I’d often picture them covered with fruit and sweet stuff, but they also have crepes salées, which are like “savoury crepes”. You can eat them with meat and vegetables and all sorts of things. Last Thursday was La Chandeleur (A feast day for the Presentation of Christ in the temple) where French people all eat crepes (I haven’t figured out the connection yet, but any reason is good enough for me to eat crepes!) Sophie from Germany and I made crepes with vegetables and ham this week. They were delicious!

Les crepes salées with ham and vegetables

My German friend Sophie!

That night, there was a huge concert with EssentCiel and Glorious. I hung out with Siobhain and her friends from Trent. What a party!

Anyone who was at WYD in Spain will like this clip…

The Cardinal at the Concert!

Adoration was cancelled that night because it snowed… ?

We slept on the floor in a classroom at McMaster University that night...just kidding, but doesn’t this high school look like Mac? It was the best sleep on the floor I’ve ever had. I was exhausted.

McMaster?

The next day, we began all together in the Cathedral with prayer, then divided up into 5 groups to listen to some more talks. I was too tired to understand. But Im sure they were good talks.

Talks by Brother Maxime, Laurent Gay and Fr. Jean-Michel Amouriaux

We had lunch after that, and again, another huge party. Man, if you want to see my jealous face, you should have seen me watch these dancers. Looked like so much fun! I miss my dance partner

Finally, the Messe d'envoi, which is roughly the "sending-off" Mass, which was at the Cathedral. Beautiful. One thing that so cool about the Catholic Church is the unity. No matter where you are, Canada or France or anywhere in the world, it's the same Mass everywhere! 

It was great meeting more Catholic students from Grenoble!

Our 12 hour drive this time ended up being a 14 hour drive because a student had some minor medical problems (he was fine) and we were behind the salt trucks for a few hours, but I was able to sleep for part of the trip. We left at 5PM and arrived at 7AM Monday morning, just on time for class. What an amazing weekend!

This Friday, I’m heading to IRELAND for the week! I’m flying into Dublin and hoping to see Cork (where my family came from) and Galway. I’ll also be staying with a couple that Maureen (Frank’s sister) lived with for a few months last summer, on their farm. Going to be a fantastic week! I’ll let you know how it goes when I’m back.

À bientôt !