Good morning, Blog Readers! It is a calm Sunday morning as I write this post over here in Paris en mangent my granola. This past week was awful for one big reason but also pretty great for a much larger collection of big and small reasons!
The awful part of this week was that somehow I ended up being super sick again. Like, REALLY, France?! I have been sick at least seven times during these last 10 months! I eat well, run at least four times a week, shower like a normal human, wash my hands often, and I always wear warm clothes when it is cold outside so I really don’t understand why this keeps happening. Over my year in Paris, I have had lots of little four-day-long colds and a couple of flus and while some sick days have been worse than others, being sick while working as an au pair is just an all-together inconvenient experience. So when I woke up on Monday morning feeling energy-less and congested, I could hardly believe the nerve of my immune system. Then thing about me being sick is that when I am sick, everything else in the world seems beautiful and promising so I tend to be in a good mood and focus on getting better. However, being sick during my third-to-last week in Paris was extra-annoying because cancelling plans when I have so little time left feels terrible!
Since I am stubborn and really didn’t want to cancel my Monday morning plans, I simply skipped my run, had some tea, and then headed off to Paris to meet up with Chloe and cross some things off from her bucket list. Together we explored Saint Chapel near Notre Dame before heading over to the Grand Mosque and walking around inside. Both of these places were small but beautiful and very different from each other. Being in the Mosque sort of reminded me of CTTB because even though they are for different religions, inside the Mosque I felt a sense of community that was similar to the one I would feel at CTTB. :)
After that we went and got avocado smoothies before I went home to nap before work because I was not feeling too great! I was glad I had gotten myself out of bed and seen those two places because it was probably my last chance!
On Tuesday morning I woke up feeling twice as sick as the day before and actually ended up canceling my coffee plans I had made with Maira. That day was not a very fun one because I was exhausted but not sleepy and I had a throbbing head ache so I couldn’t read or watch movies! So I pretty much just hung out in bed all day, trying to rest and letting my mind wander. I was very happy that my headache had gotten much better by the time I had to go get Prune! Lucky little me hahaha.
After those first two days, my week got a lot lot better! On Wednesday afternoon I got coffee with Bianca (my German au pair friend from my French class) because she was going back home early. We talked and laugh and had a nice last day together. We have never been close but we definitely enjoy each other’s company, and I hope she comes and visits me in California sometime!
On Thursday morning I woke up feeling a little less sick and I met up with Jess and Camilla at Arc du Triomphe. None of us had ever gone to the top so we decided to do that before going on a picnic in a park nearby called Parc Monceau. It was a warm and sunny day and the view from the top was pretty incredible! We stayed up there looking at Paris and taking pictures for awhile before heading down and going to a grocery store to get stuff for our picnic. When we got to the park, we discovered it FILLED with young succesful looking Parisians having similar picnics, and we stayed there for about two hours, enjoying our fresh fruit in the shade and taking a stroll in the sunshine. It was a lovely way to spend the morning/early afternoon and I hope to go on more picnics like that before I go home!
Friday morning I woke up wayyyy too early because I was wayyyyyy too excited! When I was living in Chile, my closest exchange student friend was a girl who came from Southern California named Alex. She and I shared the same host families and over the year ended up meeting all of each other’s friends and passed a lot of hilarious and life changing moments together! Last year while I was a Senior in the US, she started her first year of college at UC Berkeley and even though she only lived two hours away, we NEVER got around to seeing each other! Well, now she is working as a tour guide in Granada and decided to come visit me in Paris! I woke up way too early Friday morning because I was too stoked that I was actually about to go pick her up from the airport!
On the way to the airport, I made an interesting new friend, too! Since there are lots of transportation strikes in Paris right now, AND also a flood, AND, you know, the EuroCup, trains have been a pretty iffy way to travel over the last couple weeks. Because of this, even I had difficulties trying to figure out how to get to the airport (and I have been there so often this year!). When I finally figured out which train to take, a young woman stopped me and asked me in incredibly broken English how to get to the airport. She looked like she was really worried and probably running late so I told her to come with me because I was going there too. I helped her with her suitcases as we ran up the stairs to catch the train to the airport, and once we were sitting down and had caught our breath, she began to try to tell me things but I didn’t understand. I asked her a few questions and discovered that she was from Korea but had been studying Opera singing in Italy for the past couple years! I asked her if she spoke Italian, and she did, so we began a long conversation where she spoke to me in Italian and I replied in English. She told me she had studied English for a long time but since she had been speaking Italian she had forgotten a lot of it. I told her I totallyyyyy understood that kind of problem and we laughed together and she told me some stuff about her singing! At the end of the train ride, she asked me if we could be friends on Facebook and invited me to visit her in South Korea whenever I wanted! It was very sweet of her hahaha. After that, she rushed off to get her plane and I rushed off to greet Alex!
I ran all the way to Alex’s terminal and there she was! She looked the same and smiled the same and I was so happy to see her! We took the train from the airport to Sacre-Coeur and then walked around Montmartre a bit before heading over to Asnieres to go get Prunette at school. On the way to get Prune from school, we stopped at a grocery store and got things to have a picnic in the park with Prune and Anastazja. Prune was so excited to meet Alex hahaha. She greeted her with a BIG hug and then we all headed over to the park together. Alex tried a baguette with tomatoes and Camembert and then we ate lots of grapes and strawberries and raspberries! It was delicious. After the park, we came home and gave Prune her bath and made her dinner. Cecile came home early, which was really nice because that gave Alex and me more time to explore Paris in the evening! It was really nice getting to show someone what I do at work everyday and getting to show off all the things I had taugh Prune. Alex was very impressed with her manners and how much we understood each other, and that made me feel like I am good at my job and I was proud of myself hahahah.
That evening, Alex and I had another picnic near the Eiffel Tower! We bought some pre-made couscous and some peaches and some bread and we sat on a ledge near the river and ate our couscous with little coffee stirrers that Alex had convinced a vender to gift us. There were EuroCup fans all over the places and the Eiffel Tower kept changing colors and it was pretty cool hhaha. We headed home at about 11pm; Alex to her little hostel and me to Asnieres. We knew we had a big day of walking and sight-seeing the next day and we wanted to have enough energy!
On Saturday I met up with Alex near her hostel at 9am and we set off to do the big touristy walk that I have taken so many different friends on this year. We walked from the Arc du Triomphe, all the way down the Champs-Elysee to the Tuileries Gardens and around the Louvre before walking along the river all the way to Notre Dame. I showed Alex Shakespeare and Company and then we walked over to Hotel de Ville and got bagels before going to my favorite cafe to get some coffee. When we had about an hour left before she had to go back to the airport, we walked around in the Marais and she got to see Pompidou and try her first street crepe! When it was time for Alex to head back to the airport, I took her on the metro all the way to the direct airport RER B train and that is where we said goodbye. It was not a sad goodbye AT ALL hahaha because, as I said, she goes to Berkeley and I really should just visit her more often and I will have many chances in a few months! I was so glad she had come to visit me and honored to show her around my Paris. I love Alex. I love all our weird stories and memories that we have together and I can’t wait to see what other countries I end up seeing with that girl!
That evening, I stayed home with Prune so Cecile and Fred could go to a dinner party. We had a good time together. I let her wear my pijama shirt as a night gown so she went to bed very happy! Hahaha :)
This is my last Sunday in Paris, which is super weird! Next weekend I will be in London and the weekend after that I will go to Brussels and three days after that I will go back to California! This Sudnay I think I am going to hang out with the host family and enjoy my last little weekend time with them!
That is all for this week, then. Can’t wait to tell you allllll about London next week!
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