Dakin devant la Joconde au Louvre.
Dakin in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.
Bonjour tout le monde! Joyeux jour de travail! J'espère que vous allez tous bien! Moi je vais carrement bien, je viens de passer une semaine à Paris et ensuite je suis allé directement à Marseille où j'ai passé encore une semaine à la plaaaage!
Hello everyone! Happy Labor Day! I hope that you're all doing well! As for me I'm doing extremely well, I just spent one week in Paris and then I went directly to Marseille where I spend another week at the beach!
Friday (April 17th) I finished my classes at noon, at lunch quickly at school, said goodbye to my friends, and then ran home to grab my luggage, which I had mostly packed the night before, and I then ran to catch my train to Paris at 1 PM! It was all a bit rushed...
When I got to Paris I met the family that hosted me throughout the week that I was in Paris, la famille Simon, the Simon family. The family is made up of a mother, Christine, and her two sons Alexandre (17) and Antoine (23). The family lives just south of la Porte d'Orléan, which is in the south of Paris. The métro is just 15 minutes from their front door by foot. Alexandre is currently a Junior in high school, and Antoine is a college student at the Sorbonne, one of the most well known universities in France (located in Paris). Christine and her sons are INCREDIBLE and I love them to death! They showed me all around Paris, I saw la Sorbonne, la Tour Eiffel, l'Arc de Triomphe, Montmartre, Sacré Cœur, la Tour de Montparnasse, le Moulin Rouge, le Café des 2 Moulins, la Seine, le Louvre, le Jardin de Luxembourg, le Sénat, etc. (the Sorbonne (university), the Eiffel Tour, the Arc de Triomphe (a large war monument in the form of an arc), Montmartre, Sacré Cœur (a church, but not Notre Dame), Montparnasse Tower (the highest building in Paris), the Moulin Rouge!!!, a famous French café called "The Two Mills Café" which was in a very famous French film called Amélie, the Seine (the river), the Louvre (the museum with the glass pyramid), the Luxembourg gardens (a famous garden), the Senate building, and much more!). As you can see I was very very busy! Buttttt the métro in Paris is AMAZING and I absolutely love it! It's so practical and you can get anywhere in Paris quickly! And then the bus system in Paris is equally as practical it just takes more time in a bus to cross Paris, with all of the traffic. Otherwise I went to a couple of Alexendre's friends' houses to meet some real Parisians and discover teenage life in Paris. All I'll say is that it's insane and very stylish. Gotta love my Parisians!!!
After a fun-filled and crazy week, I was verrrry sad to say goodbye to the Simon family and leave for Marseille. I had really integrated in the family and I really felt like just another brother to Alexandre and Antoine, who showed me around Paris. But, life is life, and leaving is just as much of a part of the experience as arriving (...foreshadowing?...). So, I took the TGV (France's high-speed train) and in not even three hours I was stepping out of the double-decker train into the train station on the other side of the country, on the Mediterranean Sea. You should all look at a map and use this as an opportunity to learn some French geography!
Marseille was absolutely beautiful! I loooove the sea so I already was really happy to be there, and I was VERY ready for some summer weather (which I'm sure all of you from Wisconsin can understand perfectly!). In Marseille I was hosted by an American family affiliated with AFS. The mother, Susan, is from Los Angeles, and she moved to France after meeting her late husband in Jerusalem. Her son, Josh (who is more so French than American seeing as he has lived in France for most of his life), actually went to the outskirts of Chicago (USA was his second choice, after China) with AFS for a year. After returning from the US and graduating from high school, he has become an AFS volunteer and that's how I ended up staying at their house. The two of them are VERY busy with their own lives, special diets (to say the least), and such so I was a little on my own while I was at their house. For two days I visited all of the touristic sights in Marseille, went to the beach, hung out with a friend from AFS who's from Pasadena and some of his friends, and slept A LOT. Some of the things I saw were the biggest port on the Mediterranean, a beautiful church called Notre-Dame de la Garde which is actually the highest point in Marseille, seeing as it's on top of a huge hill (southern France is rather rocky and mountainous), another huge Cathedral on the sea, and the old quartier (district) which is called le Pannier (the Basket). It was very relaxing even though I got a lot of stuff in. Then I took the train to Toulon, which is about an hour from Marseille to stay at a friends house from my school here in Châtellerault for three days. His family has two beach apartments in Toulon on the Mediterranean so I was invited to come. I learned how to skim board, met his family (ALSO AMAZZZING! His uncle is completely tarré (crazy) but he lives in Paris and he invited me to come for a week(end) with Alexandre (my friend from my school who happens to have the same name as my correspondent in Paris) ), met his friends (AWESOME), acted like a stupid American to pick up girls on the beach, and just had an all around good time. Toulon is a very small, clean, and hospitable city and I think I actually preferred it to Marseille, which is the biggest city in southern France with approximately one million habitants. But either way, both of the cities are on the Mediterranean, have gorgeous beaches and buildings, and the weather is GREAT! I hope to make it back some day!
After my séjour (stay/trip) to Toulon, I returned to Marseille for another day (which I spent at the beach, it was great!), and then the day after I took the train back to Paris, where I took the métro to another train station for a connecting train, which broke down at a train station an hour away from Châtellerault, where I had to wait THREE HOURS to get another train to Châtellerault. I left Marseille at 1 PM and I was supposed to get to Châtellerault at 8:15 PM but I didn't end up getting back until 11:00 PM! That sucked big time seeing as I hadn't really eaten that day (except for a sandwich at noon).
So, there you have my vacation en gros (summed up). I hope you are all doing well! This weekend I'm just recuperating from all of the traveling and sightseeing. Also, I'm nursing my sprained toe back to health, which I injured the first day skim boarding (it hurt like a mother!). But otherwise I'm not really looking forward to going back to school on Monday, even though I only have two hours of class on Thursday, and no classes Friday.
Je vous aime fort et vous me manquez beaucoup! Je me suis rendu compte qu'il ne reste que 10 semaines encore en France, et qu'on se verra très bientôt quand même (peut-être trop bientôt? le temps passe trop vite!).
I love you all very much and I miss you all a lot! I realized that I only have 10 weeks left in France, and that we will all see each other very soon nevertheless (maybe too soon? time is going by too fast!).
À la prochaine =)
