Au Revoir, Paris

Whelp, I’m on my train out of Paris right now, to Marseille :( I’m super excited to make it to Marseille, especially because it’s to visit a good friend of mine from there, but leaving Paris was very hard. So here’s a little run-down of these not-so-exciting last few days in Paris (as a local, that is). I’m coming back to Paris with my family at the end of our trip—they come in on Sunday to Marseille!—but I’ll be on the tour bus or using single-use metro tickets, not my Navigo monthly pass… Soon after thermo on Wednesday, we had our CEA goodbye dinner. It was at a restaurant rather on the northwest side of the city. The restaurant was way nicer than we were expecting (especially after the last slimy horse-intestine dinner), and the food was very delicious. My table was all kids in thermo, as we had to go straight to the dinner from class.

Salad and Dessert at CEA Farewell Dinner. Unfortunately I didn’t think to capture the main course :(

Thursday morning was spent mostly packing and studying for my sports class’s final exam. I then went to go buy a sweatshirt from the Jewish Quarter, Pletzl. See, there are two major rival restaurants right next to each other in Pletzl—the always-busy, well-known L’As du Fallafel, and the less visited but in my opinion better Mi-Va-Mi, which I frequent and where the owner recognizes me. Think National versus Lafayette Coney Islands in Detriot. But L’As du Fallafel has sweatshirts, which I find very sweet. I’d wanted one since my first trip to the quarter. I was anxious, though, about making sure that the guy at Mi-Va-Mi didn’t see my treasonous habits. I was so anxious, in fact, that I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about how I’d approach the restaurant as to not get recognized. As I was walking over there, they were actually getting deliveries. So I slipped between the restaurant and the delivery truck and made it into the restaurant without even seeing Mi-Va-Mi. I guess I overthought it too much…

Taken at my friend’s house in Marseille After class, though, I was finally able to make it to a restaurant that I’d always wanted to, a Senegalese place called Le Petit Dakar. We all got Senagalese fruit juices, and a dish that was beef, peppers, and onion in a peanut butter sauce. It may sound not that good, but it was super delicious! Would certainly recommend it, but it’s definitely a dinner place, not a lunch place. Thursday night was really fun. After thermo, about half our our class, professor Youcef included, went out to a little student restaurant/bar on a boat! Our professor is a really great guy, and we’ve know that all along. When the idea came up for this a few days ago, he said just to the entire class, “Ian, you like boats, yes? We can go to a boat. I know a great boat.” But that night, I got to know him a lot better, and I think all of us have an even better opinion of him now than before (which I didn’t think was possible!) We knew he was Algerian, but it turns out that he’s actually of mixed French and Berber descent. He grew up speaking both French and Berber at home, and learned Arabic in school. He told us a little about the cool Berber alphabet and described his city to us.

Group sunset photo on the boat!

It turned out that some of his friends also just happened to be at the boat that night, so they sat with us, shared the fries we had for the table, and talked. We heard the gossip about PhD programs, and the troubles of academia. Though Youcef’s friend is one of only a hundred or so experts on quantum gravity in the world, he’s been unemployed for the last several months. So as I mentioned, Youcef grew up speaking Berber, Arabic, and French, and has been teaching us in English. But his PhD program is in Germany, and he’s picked up German in the last three years as well. The two of us had an, albeit short, conversation in German which I, and the others who couldn’t understand, thought was kinda funny. The night was a really great time for everyone, but I wish we had done it earlier in the semester. I raced with two friends from the boat, on the very east side of the city, to the Eiffel Tower, on the very west, to try and make it to the midnight light show, as one last hurrah before I left. We did make it, sitting down on the Champ de Mars at 11:52 PM. We went home soon after, and I said goodbye to the people still awake in my dorm, as most of them took a trip to Giverny today.

Last time under the Eiffel Tower for now… Instead of going to Giverny, Monet’s Garden, I opted to go to the Musée de L’Orangerie—the French Impressionist art museum housing many of Monet’s works, including many Waterlilies. I enjoyed the museum, and I found it always amazing that we’re able to recognize distinct shapes and objects from just singular strokes of paint. The museum is in the Jardin des Tuileries, which has plenty of sculptures and benches. Walking through the gardens to the museum, I had two funny encounters with people in the garden. The first was when I saw two German ladies giggling about imitating a sculpture in the gardens. I told them „Das tun ich auch gern! “ (I like to do that too!) and they helped me get in the right pose and take a photo of me. Just a few minutes later, I was walking down and saw three people on a bench, being filmed by a phone camera. They looked to be in a goofy mood, and as I passed, I heard « …afin de massacrer des bébés phoques » (in order to massacre baby seals). I looked back, chuckled, and gave a funny face. They thought it was quite funny and laughed too.

Imitating the sculpure “Cain coming from killing his brother Abel” in Tuileries, and Monet’s Waterlily Room in the Orangerie. From there, I took the other “bis” line of the metro (see last blog for context), 3 bis. It was a bit of a pain getting out there (as the line runs far out of the center of the city), but the trip was so worth it! The line only has four stations it serves, and I got on as one of three in my car. By the time we were moving between the third and fourth stops, I was the only one on the train! Please enjoy my short little vlog from that train car…

From there, I met up with friends for one last falafel in Pletzl, before heading to our thermo exam. I’d wanted to stop at my go-to crêpe place on the way back from the exam, and one by one, the whole class decided they wanted to come along. Youcef included! So we all walked to Bastille, only for them to be doing construction today. I was very disappointed, but we ended up getting crêpes across the street. Those were way worse. I’ll certainly be back to Crêperie Elo on Rue Saint Antoine when I’m back in Paris in a few weeks from now with my family. I went back to the dorm, zipped up my suitcase, and headed to Gare de Lyon for my train to Marseille.

Gare de Lyon voie (platform) 21, to Marseille, and the rainbow we saw on the way! I’m very sad to be leaving Paris, but excited for the next two weeks! What a time it has been, but that’ll be the subject of next blog, I suppose.

À Plus Tard, for one more post!