A Weekend in Paris

Bonjour!!!! I spent this past weekend traversing through Paris with one of my very best friends, who lives in Barcelona who I have not seen in over a year, and it was one of the best weekends of my life.

I left Rennes after school on Friday and took the five hour bus ride up to Paris. I arrived in Paris around 10, and took a metro to the Airbnb, where I met up with my friend, Sofia. Wanting to make the most out of our time in Paris, we walked to the Eiffel Tower and to the Arc de Triomphe. Even though it was late at night, there were people everywhere, and seeing the Eiffel tower lit up was SO magical. Even though I have already been living in Rennes for a while, being under the unofficial symbol of France, the Eiffel tower, made this summer seem more real. By the time we got back, it was around 2 AM and so we quickly fell asleep.

The next day, we woke up and immediately walked to Montmartre and the Sacre Couer, where we ate an early brunch overlooking the city. Then, we explored the neighborhood, which is full of cute shops and restaurants. Afterwards, we went to see the Notre Dame. The inside of it is SO beautiful and really interesting because it is a mix of a tourist attraction and a functioning religious center, with historical details of the church and pews where people were actually praying. We decided to go to the top to see the view, and it was spectacular. The fact that we got to get up close and personal with the gargoyles and the bells in the bell tower made it even more special. Afterwards, we finished out the day by exploring a bit around the Latin Quarter, which is very lively and full of so many different food shops. Since we were exhausted, we returned to the AirBnb and just ate dinner and watched Harry Potter in French. After an entire day spent walking around and exploring, it was a much-needed relaxing end.

Sunday, we walked to the Eiffel Tower from our Airbnb, making sure to stay along the Seine when we could. While we could have easily taken a metro, we wanted to really see the city, and we figured the best way to do that was by walking.  Then, we picked up sandwiches, fruit and wine and ended up having a picnic on the lawn right in front of the Eiffel Tower. The temperature was beautiful, and it was the PERFECT day for it. After, we decided to go to the Catacombs. This is when our day got… interesting. It was an hour and a half walk there, but once again in the hopes of seeing more of the city, we decided to walk. Half way there, we spotted a FREE public bathroom, which is really rare in Paris. We ended up having to wait over an hour in line, and it made us miss the catacombs. Even though we still arrived 2 hours before they closed, because so many people were trying to see it that day, they did not let us in. Instead, we sat at a park and people-watched for a few hours, then went to a coffee shop to recharge (ourselves and our phones). Afterwards, full of caffeine, we hit our second wind and ran through the streets of Paris, back towards the Notre Dame, to see the little bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. This bookstore has an interesting history, it was originally started as a safe haven for “starving artists”, with a communist philosophy. If you worked a few hours at the shop a day, and wrote a biography or novel for the rest of the time, you could stay in the bookstore at night, free of charge. It has been around since the 20’s, and has boasted names such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Elliot, and more, and it continues this practice to this day. Downstairs, it is a regular modern bookstore, but upstairs is the personal collection of the first ever owner of the shop, and it has a wall called “Lonely hearts and missed connections”. On this wall, people from around the world leave notes. Notes of encouragement, of longing, of love, of sorrow, of thankfulness. It was such a beautiful thing, and thanks to the pen and paper of a kind women from Pennsylvania, I left my own note. Exiting the shop into the warm night, to see the Notre Dame, arm in arm with my best friend, after spending an hour reading intimate pieces of peoples lives, left me more than a little emotional. I’m not someone who cries a lot, but one tear slipped out because of how happy I truly was in that moment. That, I believe, is the magic of Paris. While the monuments and attractions were truly wonderful, it took something smaller for me to really connect with the city. So many people come and go each year, and each have a story and a connection to the city when they leave. Being able to tap into that, even for just an hour, was such an amazing feeling. After the bookshop, it was around 11, and we were once again right by the Latin quarter. We got falafel pitas to go, and ate on the side of the Seine. We just munched and talked, and I truly felt content. After, we walked back to our Airbnb, took a small detour to see the Pompidou at night, and passed out.

The final day was quite bittersweet. We woke up, and realized that everything we had originally planned to do that day was closed. So, instead, we decided to go to the Louvre. We only left ourselves three hours to explore, which was a really bad but unavoidable idea. We got to see parts of the Egyptian, Roman, French, and Greek collections, and nothing else. A good way to imagine how big it actually is, is to realize that if you spent one second looking at every piece of art in the museum, you would be there for an entire month. After we rushed out of the Louvre, we took a metro to the bus station, and waited together until Sofia embarked back on her fifteen hour ride to Barcelona, and I took my five hour ride back to Rennes.

Overall, the weekend was so magical and amazing for so many reasons. I am so thankful that I got to go to Paris, and it was very bittersweet to return to Rennes (no matter how much I love it there as well).

Maya Ungar, University of Arkansas