What a whirlwind my ten-day trip to Paris was!
Let me rewind. Having never been to Paris before, I was eager to sign up to take a course there when Stern offered its students a once in a lifetime chance to go. To be honest, it didn’t matter to me what the course was, even though I did end up enjoying it—but more on that later. I was lucky to be joined by two of my friends who roamed the Parisian streets with me, and I was going to Paris.
So cut to June 16th, the day I touched down in the beautiful and enchanting city of Paris with eleven fellow Stern students ready to see what the city had to offer. Just so you know, everything you hear about it is true—from the buttery croissants to the colorful and perfect macaroons, all the way to the Eiffel Tower and the iconic Arc de Triomphe—these are the iconic elements of Paris that bloggers brag about and magazines artfully describe, and they are every bit as stunning in person as they are in printed words.
We dined all over the city, with L’As du Falafel as the first stop on our list, of course. Having heard of this restaurant, which is in the Jewish quarter of the Marais, we were ecstatic to be able to enjoy their delicious falafel followed by a walk around the quaint—yet now super hip—arrondissement, the French name for the districts that section its beautiful capital city. The meals were nothing short of délicieux. I can even taste the foie gras from Kavod on the famed Champs-Elysees as I recall the delicious treat.
My classmates and I filled our days with sightseeing, which included the most sought-after tourist attractions and Instagram-worthy spots. Notre Dame, to which the Disney movie does little justice, truly does have frightening gargoyles adorning its walls. The Louvre, an architectural masterpiece of a museum that houses some of the greatest works of art of all time, holds the Mona Lisa—a bit overrated, in my opinion (and a place to get pickpocketed). Musee d’Orsay, my personal favorite, is actually an old train station, which houses the most exquisite impressionist paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, and countless others. And the obligatory day trip, of course, to the overly crowded and ornate Palace of Versailles, which drips of gold from every corner.
After an evening boat ride along the Seine River, we managed to watch the sunset while picnicking under the glamorously lit Eiffel Tower. But aside from experiencing these obvious splendors that Paris has to offer, I still had a class to take. Ugh. To my surprise, however, Paris became the perfect backdrop to my course on the French Revolution. Rather than sitting in a sterile classroom, watching the clock tick and hearing the drone of my teacher’s monotone voice, I experienced the French Revolution in the liveliest, most engaging way possible.
I took in the French attitudes (at their finest), and the sensory of that allowed me to get a glimpse of what the French in the 1700’s were like. Unlike the young Country of America, Paris is a city that has been around for centuries; there is a wealth of history that you sense even as you walk along the cobblestone streets and gaze at the beautiful architecture of each building. In short, Paris is a time capsule—carefully preserved since its most iconic eras, yet brilliantly alive as a modern, metropolitan city.