I suck at running....really!

- Travel journal: September 13, 2007 -

Today is very exciting since I am spending the night at Sandra's house at the 7e arrt. Her apartment is located at the top floor, and we have to climb the stairs all the way up to the top floor. This process is called "the 100 steps". But anyway, we had fun once we caught our breath upstairs and had some sparkling wine. This picture below is the view of La Tour Eiffel at the street in front of her apartment complex.



After a brief nap, Sandra invited me to a 30-minute run, in which I instantly reminded on how bad I am at running. My lungs could not keep up, and my legs felt like led after the first 7 minutes. Add that to my habit of taking pictures at almost every corner of Paris, and you get a very sucky running partner. Sandra is a very sweet girl, fortunately, and we finally resorted to a speed walk instead. From her place near La Tour Eiffel, we ran/walked alongside the Seine River and encountered both beautiful Paris scenery and interesting street merchants. We reached L'Eglise de Notredame and walked around St. Germain Boulevard and collected a bunch of business cards from various fashion stores and promised to visit them later when we have more time.











After a quick shower and makeup, we met the Pepperdine alumni that I promised to meet in front of "Tribeca" restaurant at 9 pm. Unfortunately, the restaurant was quite packed (it's a famous restaurant after all), and we decided to have a light meal at a nearby restaurant called Le Bosquet. Their cooking was not so bad, I thoroughly enjoyed the French Onion Soup. The alumni was really sweet and showed us around the block a little bit. We also went to the The Lady at 11 pm and watched the lights glittering around its long, slender neck. This picture below is Sandra and I with The Lady at the background.



All was dandy and fun, but by the time we got home, we did not have time to study for tomorrow's test. Great. I glanced over my notes for several minutes and decided to go to sleep. Heaven knows how I would do in the test tomorrow morning. For now, I just wanted to sleep.

Oh, you can access the full album of "Wandering Around Paris - part 2" from here.

- to be continued -

Les Impressionnistes: Auvers sur Oise et Giverny

- Travel Journal: September 12, 2007 -

Another amazing field trip. I love the countryside, and seeing the Impressionists museum and home of Claude Monet were just an experience out of this world. Moreover, my friend and I found a vast prairie that Vincent van Gogh used as an inspiration, located near his final resting place in Auvers sur Oise.

The trip home was interesting, as some Scottish guys (complete with kilt) boarded the train and started singing. Later, I gathered there was a Scotland vs. France football later that night. The thing that bothered me was not their singing, but it’s their cursing. They did say the “f” word quite casually, and I could not help but internally cringe at that.

Back home, I finished my homework and prepared a little for tomorrow’s sleep over at my friend’s apartment while watching Japanese Iron Chef episodes at YouTube. It was definitely a mistake, since their great food kept me hungry all night long. Sigh…X factor pork, giant lobster, giant eel, oh my, it’s just not fair. On the side note, I have to start cooking soon if I want to keep myself within my food budget.
I wonder if they sell white rice here; I thought I saw it somewhere...hmm.
In relation to food, tomorrow I will have dinner with one of Pepperdine alumni who tried to help me look for an apartment. We will be dining at one of the popular restaurants in Paris, near the Tour Eiffel. The restaurant’s name is Tribeca. So, I’ll be judging its reputation tomorrow night!

For the mean time, here are some of my personal favorites, some of them taken by my friend, Sandra. She is an awesome photographer! Anyway, feel free to visit the full "Les Impressionnistes" album here.






















- To be continued... -

Where was the RER train?

- Travel journal: September 11, 2007 -

Wow, what a weird dream I had last night. I was back in Indonesia, my wedding with my boyfriend was in four days, and everything’s been settled without my knowledge. My brother sent out all the invitations whereas my mother and mother-in-law settled everything else. I was just told that I would have my wedding in four days. Of course I rebelled since what’s supposed to be my happy day was arranged without my knowing. What a crazy dream. I am so glad it’s just a dream. Wow.

Ok, anyway, this day started off on a strange note. I woke up a little later than I expected. I went to the metro station, and something was off. Announcements were blaring inside of the station, unfortunately I had no idea what it was about. I guessed it was either a strike (I heard it happened often in Paris), a renovation, or a construction. Anyway, the main point is that it took 35 minutes to reach the transit point (Auberg) whereas it usually took 15 – 20 minutes. As a consequence, of course I missed the RER train that would take me to Cergy.

I looked at the monitor, wanted to know when the next RER train to Cergy would arrive. To my horror, there was none. I waited for a couple of minutes and a couple of trains passed by, still none of them going to Cergy. Remembering one of my classmates advice to go to another station nearby (St. Lazarre) and catch the suburbs train if there is no RER train going to Cergy. I walked out of the station and did just that (no, I did not get lost). However, there is no suburb train going to Cergy at 9 am! Oh my.

After texting my classmate about my inability to get on RER train to Cergy, I went back to Auberg and to my relief, I saw “Cergy” written as the destination of an upcoming RER train on 9:31 am. I would be very late, but I don’t care. Long story short, I got to ESSEC at 10:15 am. But voila, I was there at ESSEC. Right after I opened the door, the teacher greeted me, “Bonjour, Mira!” and I immediately replied, “I’ll explain everything to you later.” The funny thing was that there was another person coming in later than I was (11:30 am!!). Everyday, the class starts at 9 am and ends at 12:15 pm, by the way.

After class, I got another chance to see the Lady, Tour Eiffel. I went to my friend’s apartment located only a few blocks away from Tour Eiffel, and of course I opted to walk under the gorgeous tower one more time. This time, no camera. Feast to my eyes, I tell you, feast to my eyes. Her apartment is a total eye candy, too. It’s classic but modern at the same time. Oh, and I have to mention the 100 steps we took up the spiral stair case. Her apartment is located at the top floor after all!

We drank some white wine, tried (unsuccessfully) to hook her wifi, and saw the Live feed of 9/11 Memorial at New York. I was in New York in 2005, and I saw how big Ground Zero was. Only then, I understood the magnitude of the attack. My prayers go not only to all the victims and their family members, but also all people in the world who deal with terrorist attacks almost in daily basis.

After hanging out for a few hours in her apartment and asked her permission to spend a night at her place on Thursday night, I went back home. Now, I have to prepare for my field trip tomorrow (yes, another field trip!). This time, I will go to the beautiful small villages in Normandy where the French impressionists used to live!

- to be continued... -

Starting to Make a Little Sense of It

- Travel Journal: September 10, 2007 -

As expected, I had a difficulty waking up this morning. Not only because I am normally not a morning person, but also last night’s effort of uploading the videos for “Exhausted Traveler” footage took its tool on me. Nevertheless, I got to school 10 minutes late (let me remind you once more that 15 minutes late is common in France).

Today I did not do any particular explorations, but I found out that Le Louvre (the famous museum housing Léonard de Vinci’s “Monna Lisa”) is free for students every Friday from 6 – 9 pm. Isn’t that heavenly? Right away, I planned to go there this Friday.

Moreover, I ate at the school’s restaurant for the first time. The process is quite efficient, I must say. For a meal ticket of 2.80 Euros a piece, you get one main entrée and three side dishes. In addition, you get some bread for free, if you want. That is, in my opinion, cheap and very worth it. I blamed myself not to eat there sooner. Lastly, since I now have a residential address (Yay!) in Paris (no less), I finally can complete my ESSEC registration and put down my address. Woooh, you cannot imagine how satisfying it was to put down Paris as the city of my residential address. Jealous? Oh yeah, get in line ^_^. Sorry, it was not nice of me to say that, but I just could not help feeling tremendously happy that I live in Paris right now.

Anyway, I spent some time surfing other people’s blogs last night and today. Siduahuruf’s EuroTrip really inspired me, and I am very excited to explore more of Europe as time goes by. Already, my classmate invites me to go to Czech Republic and Frankfurt, Germany. I would be a fool to pass this opportunity. Moreover, my boyfriend recommended me to check out the spots Rion.nu took pictures in Paris. Seeing Rion’s pictures really made me embarrassed. His pictures tell stories at a great volume, and it is something that I lacked from my pictures. I realize I often stop at arranging compositions and forget about story telling. However, I have to be realistic in my (borrowed) camera’s ability. This Fuji FinePix F30 is not without its limitation. However, considering practical reasons, I had to opt not bringing a SLR camera and settle with this “little girl”.

- to be continued... -

A Peaceful Sunday

- Travel Journal: September 9, 2007 -

Ah, I messed up in remembering the mass times for today. I thought the Notre Dame D’Auteuil Church (yeah, I decided not to go to the American Church; it's too far) would have morning masses at 9:00 am and 11:30 am, but apparently they were 9:30 am and 11:00 am. Therefore, when I got there on 11:30, it was already on the consecration part. Oh well, better not make the same mistake next time. The church is beautiful, although my pictures hardly do it justice:





There were some homeless people in front of the church today. Now that I have an experience on how hard it was to find an apartment, I have a newfound respect for the homeless. I now realized how hard it is to be without a roof. I know my experience was nothing from what they were going through right now, but I would never see a homeless person the same way as I did before. I don’t have to say what I did to the homeless people in front of the church, but the least I could do is look at them in the eye and whisper “Bonjour”. God, you did not abandon me…I am certain you won’t abandon them, either.





After that, I went to the nearby Bois de Boulogne Park to get some walking done today. On the way there, I noticed that the pastry shop just 3 doors away from where I live still had a long queue outside of the shop. I said “still”, because the queue was there when I got out from the apartment.



Anyway, the walk in the park went nowhere, and after sick of getting sand and small pebbles in my shoes, I decided to return home. The park is so huge though, so I will be coming back to explore more of it next time.




It is rather a short entry today, since I have to update the blogs and do my homework for tomorrow. A bientot!

- to be continued... -

A Walking Adventure to Paris

- Travel Journal: September 8, 2007 -

I had a very nice, deep sleep last night that I woke up around 10:45 am today. At first, I thought I was going to be up and ready by noon, but apparently editing pictures and such took longer than I thought. Still, by 3 pm I was out of my apartment door, ready to explore Paris. My original destination was the American Church in Paris. In order to get there, I purposefully designed my walking route to pass the Eiffel Tower.

Seeing Eiffel Tower for the first time was just unreal. All of the sudden, the Lady appeared in my vision and I skipped a breath. “This is so cool!” was what I thought. I wonder if it’s going to be cooler than meeting Johnny Depp in person….hmm, I wonder. If you go to my album, you would see the pictures as I walked closer to the Eiffel Tower, walked underneath it, and continued to walk away from the Lady.

Now, at first I decided that's all I was going to see today besides the American Church. However, I impulsively decided to pass the Musee de L’armee, Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and even went as far as seeing the famous Le Louvre. I did not go in, but it was surreal standing in front of the pyramid and taking in my surroundings. Unbelievable, three days ago, I was not sure where to live, and today, I was standing in front of where Mona Lisa resided in. By the way, of course I found the American Church, but I barely spent my time there (since there was a wedding ceremony about to take place when I arrived).
















After that, I decided to go back home. My feet started to feel numb after all that walking (from 16th arr. to 15th arr., then to 7th and 1st arr.). After a quick look on mass schedule at a church near where I live and a quick grocery shopping at a nearby small supermarket (it will be closed tomorrow), I happily returned home.

- to be continued... -