Paris, Je t'Aime

On January 7, 2008, I stepped foot in Paris for the first time. Precisely one year later, though entirely coincidental, I landed in Paris once more. This time, however, the arrival wasn’t quite as pleasant. Due to severe weather conditions, the Milan Malpensa airport closed until some time in the mid-afternoon! Our 8:55am flight never took off, but we managed to weasel our way through the incredibly aggressive Italian crowds, I avoided an extraordinary overweight luggage fine through sheer luck, and we managed to get on the only of the four scheduled EasyJet flights to eventually take off for Paris, leaving some time after 10pm. Stepping off the plane, we soon learned that some stroke of brilliance had prompted our flight to take off, after all its many delays, without a single item of luggage stowed in the cargo. Suddenly, the fate of nearly all my material possessions which I had worked so hard to drag across Italy seemed quite uncertain.

While pondering over the whereabouts of our luggage during the next twenty-four hours, Christie and I divided our time between cafes, boutiques along Rue de Saint Germain-des-Prés, some Monet waterlilies at the Musée de l’Orangerie, and shopping on the Champs Elysée. We wandered all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe, and took the Metro over to the Fifth Arrondissement for a three course meal off of Rue Mouffetard. Here I was reminded of just why I adore chèvre chaud (warm goat cheese). We finished the evening off with a set of my favorite Belgian raspberry beers at the Café des Arts in the Place de la Contrescarpe. Some time after midnight, in a wonderful turn of events, our luggage arrived. We joyously welcomed it back with open arms. I was never so happy to see those bright pink suitcases.

Early the next morning, fortified by some pain au chocolat, we traveled over to the Louvre to meet up with this year’s set of MIT January Scholars in France, the program that brought me in to France for the first time one year earlier. We got a free tour through the museum with one of the guides I knew from last year, Sophie. Sophie pointed out the Arago monument, which happens to be the first work of modern art to have made it into the Louvre. This non-descript medallion planted in the floor of the museum is one of 121 mediallions scattered throughout Paris along the Parisian meridian. Back in the mid-1800s, an international conference in Washington, D.C. selected the Greenwich meridian as the prime meridian. The French, however, abstained from this conference and continued to use the Paris meridian as the central meridian until some time in the early 1900s. They may have given up the fight over the prime meridian, but they still take pride in their meridian. In 1992, the Dutch artist Jan Dibbens was commissioned to design a monument honoring the astronomer François Arago, the man who drew this meridian. These medallions were placed across a span of 9.2km, making his the largest (yet perhaps least noticeable) monument in Paris.

After lunching together, Christie and I broke off from the group to check out a bit more of Paris throughout the afternoon. We made it over to Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cité, then visited my new favorite English-language bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, just on the other side of the Pont au Double. A couple hours later, we returned to our hotel to prepare for a nice evening out. After a frigid shower leaving me with an awful headache, we donned our new outfits purchased along the Champs Elysée and went out to the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord where we joined the January Scholars to watch Music-Hall de Jean-Luc Lagarce, with Fanny Ardant. The performance was cute and, though lacking a plotline, was an amusing stream-of-consciousness superbly interpreted by the cast of three actors. It left me with a lot to think about. We walked back from the Twentieth Arrondissement to the Tenth where we were staying, stopping at a bar just by our hotel. I enjoyed some vin chaud (mulled wine) and the chance to rest my weary feet.

On our last full day in Paris, we spent the morning in a café sipping coffee and snacking on fresh baguettes with Bonne Maman fruit preserves. I advised Christie to go for the fraise (strawberry), still the optimal choice, while getting some figue (fig) for myself which was also quite good, especially when eaten on a baguette céréale (whole grain) with chèvre (goat cheese). Our day on the town then began with a hike up to Sacré Coeur, the church on the top of Montmartre. After touring around a square where some of the most famous artists of yesterday lived and some of today’s artists can always be found, I brought Christie to the Musée d’Orsay. Having already seen it several times, I permitted myself the luxury of spending the next two hours touring Paris. I went back to the Shakespeare and Company bookshop to buy myself a used book, having just finished Catch-22 and having no literature left for my travels home. I unexpectedly had to change my travel plans with Christie when I got invited in December to a grad school interview in Switzerland scheduled to take place four days after my planned return to the US with Christie. After drooling over too many books and finally making up my mind, I then did some window shopping and stumbled across a most excellent sale on shoes. I returned to Odéon, my greatest comfort zone within Paris as this is the area where I stayed on my first visit for two weeks last January, and from there I wandered back down the Rue de Saint Germain-des-Prés towards the Seine until it was time to find Christie. Together, Christie and I returned to the shoe store and each bought a pair (for 70% off!).

As the sun set, Christie and I returned to the Ile de la Cité and did some wandering, warmed by vin chaud (mulled wine) until it was time for evening mass at Notre Dame. The musicians were amazing, the church was of course awe-inspiring, and the experience quite enjoyable, though by the end my stomach was just about ready to eat me alive. We headed straight back to the Fifth Arrondissement to get crepes at a cute little crêperie near Saint Michel. We closed the evening out with a hot chocolate (it turns out the French drink them a bit more like us and not like the Italians) and a coffee at a restaurant just beside our hotel. We sleepily gathered up all our things, ready for an early morning. Both of us were exhausted from all our travels but in agreement that, if given the chance, we would absolutely do it all over again.

The next morning, after sharing drinks at the bar and enjoying our last baguettes together, we dragged our luggage for a final time through a public transportation system. We got on the RER, headed in different directions, and thus ended our adventures. I arrived at Lozère where I was met by my good friend Jeremi, the only MIT student studying abroad in France this year who, conveniently enough, lived on the same hall as me for the past two years. Honestly, given the odds, it amazes me that I actually lived next door to the only student out of 4000 undergrads who would choose to spend this year abroad in France. Jeremi agreed to host me (and my luggage) so that I would not have to travel to the US and then get on another transatlantic flight about 36 hours later so that I might interview in Switzerland. Jeremi and I braved the great hill for which the Ecole Polytechnique is known and successfully ported all my luggage to the plateau on which the school is located. Then we went into the city, wandered around, got hot chocolate (and vanilla) at a certain café Jeremi likes, and met up with Alicia, an MIT ’08 who participated in the January Scholars in France program with me last year and is currently spending half a year researching in Paris. Together we ate falafel at a restaurant in the Marais, the Jewish neighborhood in the Third and Fourth Arrondissements. Over the next few days I have a good deal of papers to read to prepare for this interview in Switzerland, and then perhaps a bit of soul-searching before my final grad school decision. At least I know, wherever it is, that I’ll be back in Europe well before the year’s end. It doesn’t seem like my pace of life will be slowing down too much in this new year, though I suppose that this is exactly what I’ve chosen for myself. And it does keep things interesting.

Leaving Italy Behind

Things I've missed most while abroad

• American parties and dancing (Italians love to talk, pretty much whenever and wherever they find an opportunity, including at parties despite the presence of a DJ or a band which just requires they talk with more volume and greater expressiveness.)
• Root beer
• Big warm drinks in the winter time (Think a cup of TeaLuxe to go?)
• Hugs (I hate this fluffy European cheek-rubbing deal. But at least I know that English people hug each other, so at least there is some culture on this side of the Atlantic that appreciates the feeling of arms around one’s shoulders and chests pressed tightly, if briefly, together in a show of friendly affection.)
• Chunky peanut butter (Thank goodness I managed to transport some from the US to help me survive my time abroad.)
• American optimism, hope, and focus on the future (There is a certain attitude, an energy, a work ethic, and a spirit that seems to be quite lacking in Italy.)
• A male population that generally permits me to wear heels and still be shorter than my date (Who knew Italians were so short?)
• Blue eyes (At least wherever I choose to study, be it Paris or Lausanne, I will find them much more readily when walking down a sidewalk or into a crowded room.)
• Cafes with comfy furniture where purchasing a pair of drinks is all it takes for you and a friend to command a set of armchairs for several hours' conversation (For the evil empire it may be, Starbucks does have some things going for it.)

Things I’m missing now

• My wonderful, crazy friends. I may have met them horribly late in my time in Europe, but I will never forget them. And I will most certainly see at least some of them again
• Italian coffee, especially, believe it or not, caffè al ginseng
• Cobblestone streets (They are adorable, though I won’t miss them when I want to wear heels.)
• Castles, cathedrals, and old architecture
• The good old Leaning Tower
• Sleeping enough, or at least way more than I will when back at MIT
• Easy travel between cities
• Those incredibly awkward and amusing lost-in-translation moments
• Living in a different culture
• Getting to hear English accents on a daily basis (Am I allowed to say that was a guilty pleasure?)
• Being mistaken quite regularly for a French woman

Things I’m not sad to have left behind

• Italian secretaries
• The phrase, “Piano, piano” which gets you nowhere in life and is the excuse for copious amounts of laziness and procrastination. It may sum up Italy all too well.
• Italian men
• Italian “efficiency”

A Very Snowy Day in the Fashion Capital of Italy, Milan

As our train cut across northern Italy, the ever-growing snowstorm made the countryside appear so quaint. We passed through Verona, setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but the graffiti we saw of the station didn’t do any justice to the tragic romance for which that town serves as a setting. The snow lining only became a bit less appealing as our train slowed down while pulling into the Milan station and we realized we’d be in for a real treat. After taking a metro and a bus ride to find the hostel, my luggage became a set of mini snow-plows as the wheels were utterly ineffective through the thick, freshly fallen snow. Fortunately, my luggage had been decreasing in size as I left a trail of my worldly possessions in trash cans across every major Italian city at which we’d stopped. The sore arms could to a number to one’s materialistic desires. Still, the effort required to drag those bags through the snow was remarkable. Furthermore, I found that the most comfortable pair of shoes I had left was a pair of pointy (albeit low) stiletto boots. (Un)fortunately no one was around to witness the perfectly comic scene as I had to lean so far while pulling my bags that I fell flat on my face in my super-high-maintenance shoes with my two hot pink suitcases in tow. It made for a good laugh at the least.

Our theme throughout this trip was low budget: we made reservations back in August and selected only the least expensive (safe) places to stay in each city. Still, I think we topped everything by making our Milan reservations at a hostel in a mental ward. Now that was awesome. In fact, the place was very pleasant and is run by some of the most highly functional patients. Nonetheless, as we had to leave before 6am the following morning, we needed special written permission in order to not be mistaken as escapees.

Having completed the paperwork and my efforts for the day as a human snow plow, Christie and I hit the city with every intention of going shopping. First we checked out the duomo, which most Italians have advised me is the best thing to check out in Milan. This is the second largest church in Italy and is decorated with all sorts of artwork. The Piazza del Duomo was absolutely incredibly covered in a coat of fresh, brilliant snow. Upon leaving the duomo, we discovered that unfortunately between the date (the Annunciation) and the hour (7pm) nearly every store was closed. After swinging by a few along Via Torrino and Corso di Porta Ticinese, the snow began sinking into our shoes and we decided that perhaps it was high time for dinner. Our restaurant quest brought us down to the Navigli district along the Milanese canals. Yes, surprisingly enough, Venice is not the only city to boast of a canal system. Here, at a restaurant along a canal called Da Noi 2, I had my last (bizarrely American proportioned) pizza al salmone e crema, a white pizza with salmon and creamy cheese often referred to as pizza norvegese. Afterward Christie and I both had a torroncino semifreddo affogato al caffè. This was an absolutely unforgettable nutty vanilla-based gelato topped with crushed nuts and doused in a wonderful Italian espresso. It was unquestionably my best Italian dessert, and a fine way to part with the country I’d called home.

Nearly back in our hostel, I found I could no longer resist. After all, I was already a human icicle: the freezing water that had seeped into my boots had left my toes without feeling for hours, so what would be the difference? The snow was so soft and untouched, so I threw myself into it after we had entered the mental ward and I made myself a perfectly wonderful snow angel, complete with purse as this is Milan, the fashion capital of Italy and arguably the world. Christie was concerned that they might think I was an escapee of the ward, but no nurses came running out to catch me. I was thoroughly pleased. Making snow angels is one of my favorite things about winter.

Sparkling Glass and Jet-Black Pasta: Venezia

At the end of a very long day traveling with heavy burdens through Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, and the Veneto, Christie and I lay ourselves down on twin beds in a small hotel room on the island of Lido. We had successfully made our way to Venice, despite missing a handful of trains that day. The next morning we found our way, sans baggage, to a little café when I sipped my last caffè al ginseng and nibbled on a cornetta alla mandorla, an almond paste-filled croissant. We then caught a boat to the island of Murano, where glass-blowers have been making the world-famous Venetian glass having to leave the mainland of Venice in 1292 due to all the fires they’d regularly caused. Instead of paying entrance fees for a museum, we dedicated much of the day to simply touring all the different shops, displaying all sorts of museum-worthy creations for sale at prices to prevent me from doing anything more than what I’d do around art at a museum. Still, the Venetian glass clocks, statues, chandeliers, trinkets, and jewelry were enough to keep anyone sufficiently entertained, especially given that they were nearly all indoors and the piles of snow remaining outside served as reminders that Venice was unusually cold even for the winter season.

Dodging inside a café at one point to avoid the cold, we decided to indulge in our first Italian hot chocolates to discover that what an Italian knows as hot chocolate is what the Anglophone world might call chocolate pudding. Thick while it was still steaming, it became so thick that it had to be eaten with a spoon as it cooled. However, there is little to complain about a warm cup of chocolate pudding, even one masquerading as a cup of hot chocolate.

As the sun set we left the island of Murano for the island of Burano, famous for its lace-making traditions. We did manage to find a couple of stores selling interesting laces, but more memorable were the homes we passed along the way, painted in every color of the rainbow. I couldn’t get past the hot pink one. How crazy would that be to get to live in a hot pink house? And better yet, to not even have your neighbors hating you for it?

Back on the mainland of Venice that evening, we took a boat down the Canale Grande, passing under the Ponte Rialto, the Rialto Bridge, and stopping near the Ponte Accademia to go hunting for some food and drink. Nearly frozen solid, we settled in for a warm meal at the Taverna San Trovaso where I sampled a local specialty, tagliolini alle seppie nere: flat, stringy pasta with cuttle fish and black squid ink sauce. My plate of jet black pasta was, in fact, delicious! We also split a bottle of vino della casa, sparkling house wine, to try to help us defrost. As the clock began indicating that we really might want to consider turning in for the night, we asked for the check and found several waiters more than happy to assist us. In fact, even after leaving the restaurant, one of the waiters popped out of the restaurant’s side door as we passed to bid us farewell once more and wish us a buona notte. Oh, those Italians…

On our boat ride back to Lido we passed by the Piazza San Marco and admired from within the relatively warm confines of the vehicle, considering that sufficient to check off another famous monument. We were both awfully cold and the next morning was not the best for either of us as we braved a nearly hour-long boat ride back to the train station without the luxury of covered seating to shield us from the below freezing air whipping across our faces. After one last stop at a café, we actually caught our train this time and were off to Milan.

Bologna, Stuffed Pastas, and the World's Largest Zodiac Sundial

My sore arms had taught me to do away with my materialism to the extent that I actually left one of my pieces of luggage, now completely emptied, at the disposal of the hostel in Florence this morning. I can only imagine what the other girls thought of the crazy American who showed up late one evening with an absurd quantity of luggage for a single evening and slipped out early the next morning leaving behind one of her suitcases, yet without a trace of any of the presumed contents. My day of absurdities had only just begun, and before Christie and I could board a train we first had to be rescued from an elevator in which we became infuriatingly trapped, missing our train and having to then travel across Florence to another station from which the next train would be leaving for Bologna in some several hours.

From my perch atop my luggage in a train headed to Bologna without any free seats, I caught my first glimpse of snow this winter season. It was quite exciting, looking much like how I’d envisioned Switzerland in the Christmas season. Stopping in the Po Valley, our train at last brought us to the city of Bologna, home of stuffed pastas and Europe’s oldest university, founded in 1088. Here, I dragged the past seven months of my life around the city all day. Fortunately, I was only almost killed by a bus once. In between dodging tourists and vehicles of public transportation, I admired the apparent wealth of the city. The city sidewalks were very wide and covered by ornate arched stone overhangs extending from the fancy storefronts.

Utterly exhausted and fairly chilled, Christie and I were quite pleased to find ourselves a quaint, non-touristy restaurant, the Ristorante-Pizzeria Victoria on Via Augusto Righi, 9/c, where I ate tortellini alla bolognese (meat-filled tortellini with tomato-based meat sauce) and learned that if you want pasta filled with cheese, you should order tortelloni. That “o” makes all the difference. I love meat, but Christie was somewhat less fortunate. Luckily the waiter bought our story that she happens to be a vegetarian so crisis was averted. We enjoyed a half liter of Pignoletto, an Italian sparkling white wine, and a dessert of mascarpone and tiramisu.

After eating, we accepted the fate of lugging these suitcases across the city and continued our trek, slightly warmer and with very happy stomachs. We reached the Piazza del Nettuno, a piazza centered around Giambologna’s 16th century fountain of Neptune and Attendants. This piazza melds into the Piazza Maggiore, home to the Basilica di San Petronio, designed in 1390 and home to the largest zodiac sundial in the world. It hosted the Council of Trent and, in 1530, a ceremony in which Pope Clement VII gave Italy to German Kaiser Karl V. Christie and I took turns guarding the luggage while the other toured inside the church. As I sat atop the luggage in the Piazza Maggiore in the center of Bologna, I finally finished reading Catch 22. The text finds a way to wrap up darkly, seriously, and yet comically and with a profound sense of hope emerging eternal from the darkest depths of desperation. It’s quite a theme in the midst of the political events we see unfolding, from the financial crisis to the desperate and futile wars in the Middle East. I’d been planning to read this classic for ages, but finally forced myself through the novel while traveling through many of the cities in which it takes place. Though unplanned, it seemed somehow very symbolically satisfying to complete the book in this manner.

At long last, the Uffizi (and a bit of Florence too)

On my final chilly night in Pisa, I wrapped up all my belongings. The next morning we left my keys on the dining room table, wheeled my bags out, and shut my door for the last time. We “enjoyed” a final mad dash across my hometown to catch the next train to Florence. Braving several forms of public transportation with the past seven months of my life in a few suitcases, I soon realized that perhaps not all of my belongings were really that essential.

After relieving ourselves of our burden at the hostel, we traversed Florence, checking out the Duomo and the Battistero, across the piazza from the Duomo and adorned with several sets of bronze doors including the famous Gates of Paradise designed in 1425 by Ghiberti. After more than six months in Tuscany, I at last made it in my final day to the Uffizi Gallery, the most famous Florentine art museum I had been meaning to see for ages. This building originally housed the uffizi, or offices, of the de Medici, the Florentine ruling family. The artwork in the architecture and decor of the building alone is amazing. Displayed inside are sculptures and paintings by famous artists including Michaelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Leonardo. Wandering through the halls, I think Christie and I were both particularly struck by the number of androgenous sculptures. Afterward, we returned to a small, classic Italian restaurant where I’d eaten with Jack and Ivan. Here we enjoyed some pasta and calzones before trekking across the very cold city in a pure show of dedication to our nightly Italian delicacy, gelato. After a brief detour to admire the Ponte Vecchio, we arrived at the Gelateria dei Neri where I enjoyed some gelato alla ricotta e fichi, ricotta and fig flavored gelato. Ready to turn in for an early evening, we were greeted at the hostel by a group of very friendly Australians and a Canadian with whom we shared a memorable evening together. Sleep is lovely, but there are times when the deprivation is worth every minute.

New Year's in Rome

Wandering through the streets of Rome, Christie and I stumbled across the Colosseum unintentionally on our first night in the Eternal City. We shared a nice sit-down meal of penne con salmone and a liter of house wine to celebrate the start of our adventures together. We wrapped the evening up with some gelato—I had two of my favorites, Malaga (rum raisin) and coco (coconut)—on our way home, and we turned in for an earlier and much warmer evening compared to the previous night in Pisa.

On New Year’s Eve, we began our morning with cappuccinos in a classy café on our way to Vatican City. We toured Saint Peter’s Basilica, admiring Michelangelo’s Pietà and many beautiful sculptures of brightly colored marble. Rising over the papal altar is Bernini’s baldacchino (canopy), completed in 1633 under Pope Urban VIII of the Barberini family. Pope Urban VIII’s family symbol, bees decorate the ornate structure. Outside, Scottish guards in traditional attire still guard the basilica.

After lunch, Christie and I did a bit of shopping along Via del Corso, saw the Trevi Fountain, and refueled on coffees at the bar of the famous Tazza d’Oro (literally translated, "Cup of Gold") coffee shop. Then we visited the Pantheon, which has stood nearly unchanged since its construction was completed in 125AD under Hadrian. After leaving the area, we stumbled into Chiesa di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, an entirely unimpressive exterior which hides Rome’s only gothic-church, brilliantly painted and home to several masterpieces including Michelangelo’s Christ Bearing the Cross statue which stands unguarded and in easy reach to the left side of the altar. I was impressed by this remarkable hidden gem.

In the afternoon, we checked out the Forum and the Colosseum before dinner and gelato. We made our way to the Piazza del Popolo with time to spare and scouted out a prime spot to watch the fireworks. We were surrounded by people speaking all Western (and even some Eastern) European languages. As the time approached, Christie and I shared a noisy countdown and began shouting and cheering as my watch turned since this was our closest estimate of precisely when the clock changed. As luck would have it, the crowd erupted into cheers all at more or less the same time, so we seemed to have it about right. Champagne corks flew, fireworks shot up, and eventually bottles took to the air as we celebrated the turn of the New Year and Christie’s birthday.

I still can’t believe the year on my brass rat finally matches the one on the calendar. You can only imagine how I am anticipating June 5, 2009. On that first morning of what promises to be a most exciting year, we allowed ourselves a slow start. We found our way to the Jewish Ghetto by lunch time. We wandered through Piazza Mattei, home to Taddeo Landini’s Fontana della Tartarughe, in the heart of the neighborhood to which Pope Paul IV confined Rome’s Jewish population in 1555. There, we sought shelter from the rain in a small restaurant. Later that afternoon, we made it out to the Circus Maximus, once Rome’s largest stadium, to discover that all that is left of it is just a grassy field. That evening we celebrated Christie’s birthday with a nice meal and some strawberry wine. Afterwards, we found an excellent gelateria, Della Palma, near the Pantheon, where I had a particularly wonderful flavor, sesamo e mielo (sesame and honey).

Our trip to Rome would not have been complete without a day in the Vatican museums, so after a stop for cappuccinos and chocolate-filled croissants we took our place in the quickly growing line. Touring the museums, we saw famous works by Raphael, Romanesque and Egyptian statues, and even many modern works. One of my favorites was the Crocifissione by Dono Tancredi Loreti, shown on the left. Christie happened to sit down in the Sistene Chapel next to a young American touring Rome with his parents. He had been living in Rome for some months studying to enter the priesthood. These Americans were quite friendly, and it was interesting to think of the different significance the room must hold for each of us. I was particularly excited to get to see Rodin’s The Thinker statue though I’d never realized that is really is quite small. To exit the Vatican museums, one must walk down Donato Bramante’s famous spiral staircase, designed in the early 1500s.

We wrapped up our trip with a final victory: on our way back towards the station, we stopped in at a small boutique and found Christie the Italian leather jacket she’d been aching to find. We then chatted over a couple of cappuccinos to kill the final hour before making our way to the train station and heading back to Pisa.