A lofty load has decided to pack it’s bags off of my shoulders last week. Finals had cut right through me like those spanish ham slicers (graphic?) but I have enough confidence to say that I passed them. Quote me on it. I dare let la UAM give me any sort of F after this semester. Trumpets and bells are going off in my head right now. ..ba da da da

By the way, funny story. That last blog I wrote was the supposed night/morning before my last final. Haha, no, silly girl. I read the date wrong and it was Tuesday. Haha! I went to la uni and high-knee sprinted to class (because we all know I will always be late to everything) to find not a soul in the aula. Panic, Heart attack, panic, panic, other classroom? where? WHERE? *&^%#(*&($#*&)@&#&^@!!! corre freaking corre girl!..and to WHERE? As I went frenzy-ing down the hall (can we discover this trend?) I looked at my phone and in this moment of revelation, found that that day was the 9th and my exam was the 10th…. my god. Someone just put a bag on my head…

—–PARIS FRANCE—–
Just hauling words out and jumping right into it. I had a few days of breathing and sleep after the antropologia urbana exam, which were thoroughly enjoyable, and again, off!! If it’s one thing I love, it’s feeling my ears pop as I descend into a new place from the sky.

Well, that is, if I don’t have flight drama…

Alright. This time it wasn’t my fault at all. I arrived perfectly on time, checked in, security, diet coke, la dee dah, and embarked the plane without the least bit of pain. We entered the flight strip and did a series of vueltas until the plane stopped, and the pilot told us there were technical problems. Wonderful. So we went back as their engineers did us a few favors. We waited an hour until the problem was ‘resolved,’ just to find us going out on the strip again, and the pilot coming back on, telling us that they weren’t fixed. So they herded us off the plain to a new flight that left oh, 2 hours later. So we waited. Two hours came, passed… Finally, 3 hours later, we get on the plane. We didn’t arrive to Beauvais until 1145, then took a bus into the city, which was about an hour. After all this, I could no longer use public transportation and took a 40 euro cab to the hotel, which took me about an hour to hail… Oi vey!!

Done with that. The good stuff. I stayed with some friends in a very nice hotel in the southern part of Paris, Place du I’talie, which was fantastic! Perfect area, quick trains, restaurants every 5 feet.. I latched myself on to my friend’s group of students who were reaching the tail end of their 1 month Euro minimester course, so while they were in a seminar the first day, I had the grand opportunity of exploring parts of the city by myself. Sometimes, it’s really rewarding learning the city on your own, as we have talked about previously.

I had spent a whole day before leaving studying, reading, marking maps, and writing down french words. I’m sorry, I’m really proud about that… On my first day, I strolled through the jardin des plantes, then stopped in a cafe to realize a cup of coffee in Paris is 4 euros, passed by the Notre Dame up to the modern art museum, Pompidou, which is painfully hideous– an entanglement of pipes and tubes in bright reds, greens, yellows, and whites–It’s a masterpiece, i’ll give it that..But modern design makes me want to gag a little!

More strolling in the Place du Madelegne, (shopping), and sight seeing knocked me out for a good siesta. I had to return to the hotel anyway, the phone didn’t work in France for reasons beyond EU capabilities, so I found a few friends arriving back from seminars. We had bought some sandwiches, and began some night festivity preparations. The night was a wild confusion and a string of communication complications, but a few of us finished off the night with a jazz club and pina koladas.

The next day was a long Musee du Louvre session, which encompassed me drooling over the Mona Lisa, Venus, egyptian art, and statues of greek gods..It was as if I had stepped into a greek god dance party. Thousands of interestingly positioned marble bodies where lined through the arched hallways. If you looked up, the bold colors of angels and skies greeted you, and the golden windows welcomed the sun inside. Heaven!!! Again!!!

We met up with some other friends to go see the Moulin Rouge–… You know, pause for a second. This is ridiculous. This city has more sites that I have dreamed about since I was 5 than any other place in the world. It’s so remarkable. You feel like something in your life has finally been fulfilled. It’s as if the things that people always talked about were sitting right in front of me every other 10 minutes. After Moulin Rouge, we climbed to the top of the hill to see the Sacre Cœur that overlooked the entire city, and then had dinner in a quaint little restaurant, right off of a little square, lined and stacked with artists and the smell of fresh paint.

The last day marked my Musee d’Orsay visit, which had me beaming for the rest of the day. ..Monet!!!!!! I was like a child looking for easter eggs. Ever since I was a young girl, my grandmother has really expanded my appreciation for art, and Claude Monet, by far, was my favorite. Seeing Monet, finally, in my life, was like the most rich, smoothe, and creamiest chocolate I could eat with my eyes. Let’s not play down Van Gogh or Degas…But this reality was more rewarding than any dream could have offered me. ….!!!!!…

After d’Orsay I paid a visit to the eiffel tower during the day to photograph, and while sitting on a bench a french guy came up to me and asked if I was a model. This is a bit embarrassing to comment on, taking as I am nowhere near a model, but he continued to speak only in french and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I kept telling him je non parle francais but he refused to believe it. Then, he pulled out his guitar, and sang to me for 10 neverending minutes. Passerbys were giggling, and I was turning as ripe as a plum… Haha!!!

Later on that night, after a filling pasta meal, a group of us headed to the eiffel tour to barely snag the last elevator up. This Champion of a structure glowed in tempestuous orange, accenting every blazing rod of iron. Every few moments, the tower blew aflame with sparkles made by thousands of blinking lights, which were reflected in the building windows outlying it’s circumference. The entire city was cast in a rich violet purple, from the dark blue of the sky and orange radiation from the tower. We all had cappuccinos, which made our bodies as warm as our full hearts!! I kissed my imaginary boyfriend Juan Carlos, while the overlook Paris just kindled our romance… bahhaha

I took a monton of photographs, which I must get to tomorrow, considering the hour. Paris, indeed, a success all around. The tourism was quite heavy, but I let it slide taking I decided to come in June. Nonetheless, this precious city was another place that has ornamented my soul and fulfilled many childhood dreams. An irreplaceable experience!