In the Land of the Irish

Ireland was everything I didn't expect but always imagined. I saw both its faces: the land of myth and mystery, and the land of friendly smiles, green hills, and cheerful accents.

Despite several travel issues (I spent the night in the London airport, but let's not dwell on that), I finally arrived in Ireland on Thursday morning and was met by my friend Kayla, who is studying in Dublin. She fed me pancakes, let me take a shower and a nap, and then we headed out to explore.

She and Pat took me hiking near the city, at Bray. It was cloudy when we set out, but a rainbow indicated our good luck. The sky cleared as soon as we had climbed the first hill, and after that, it was all glory.

The next day, Kayla and I went to Howth. We hiked for at least five hours, and near the halfway mark, we decided to climb down a very tall, very steep cliff to check out the beach.

This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. And unfortunately we shared the same attitude - "Well, if I'm this far down, I might as well go all the way!" Right. Except you have to climb back up the cliff to escape.

To put it mildly, we nearly died several times, but in the words of Kayla, "You only live once." Our jeans weren't so lucky:

That evening, the rest of my PLS friends arrived from their various locations across Europe. I have been missing these people so much; we really are like a family. To be reunited in Ireland was perfect, and I kept reminding myself how lucky I was to be in Europe with these people, discussing politics, books, philosophy, and religion - you know, the usual.

We made dinner together, talked, laughed, and went out for some Guinness (which I like, surprisingly).

The next day was Dublin city.

We watched a rugby match in a pub while chatting with some guys from Galway, Kayla and I went on a Church crawl, I saw the Book of Kells, we wandered around Temple Bar, I saw the Liffy (which was exciting because I recognized the word from an Irish song my mom used to play, but I never knew it was the name of specific river until now), and I ate a lot of good food.

First, fish and chips.

These were supposedly from the best place in Ireland, and I'm not arguing. They fulfilled every literary description I had stored up. They were even wrapped in greasy, brown paper. We ate this while sitting in front of Christchurch.

Then a ginormous cream-filled pastry that Kayla and I split while basking in the park by Saint Patrick's.

Then dinner at O'Neil's. We had Guinness stew, with every kind of potato and vegetable imaginable. Here's a shot of all our plates:

I spent the last day in London, which was fun but hurried. Impressions of London include lots of Digestives, beautiful buildings and parks, Big Ben, and hanging out and cooking in my friend's "penthouse" flat.

Monday morning I took the Eurostar back home to Angers, since I had class in the afternoon. For the uninformed, that means I took a train under the English Channel. How exciting! Actually I slept through the whole experience, but that in itself should tell you something about the quality of the trains here.

Overall, a highly successful first trip!

The Two Essentials: Boulangerie and Patisserie

My favorite boulangerie in Angers is across the bridge, on a corner looking out over the docks and river. I like to come eat lunch on the steps leading down to the water; I watch the boats and the fishermen and soak in the sun.

Afterwards, I head back towards the bakery - the Boulangerie des Carmes. Their bread is baked fresh every day in the shop, and you can watch them cooking inside. Everything they sell is very simple and hearty - the baguettes are whole grain, and the cookies and cakes are heavy and plain.

For lighter, fancier pastries, I like Le Cocagne, a busy patisserie in the centre-ville. Their cakes are to die for - so beautiful, and so delicious. 

Here is just a sampling:

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Yum!

Food is definitely one of the best parts of living in France, and I am taking full advantage of the situation!

Paris holds the key to your heart.

I went to Paris this weekend without any expectations. I had visited twice before, when I was sixteen, and I hadn't like it. I know, I know... everyone is supposed to love Paris. But I don't like big cities in general - I always feel on edge, like I have to hold myself more tightly - and it had been a crowded and cold trip in July.

Whether it was the weather, the tourists, or just that I was too young, suffice to say that my opinion of Paris has changed. Our trip was magical, beautiful, charmed. We didn't have any plans, and everything fell into place before our eyes.

We stayed in the Young and Happy youth hostel in the Latin Quarter, right on Rue Mouffetard.

This in itself was an amazing experience. It was my first time in a hostel, and all the cliches came true. We stayed in rooms with eight other roommates, we chatted and drank wine late into the night with some boys from Germany and Montana, we met a Swedish professor who informed us that the Swedish princess studied in Angers.

Our location was perfect. Walking out the door, we were surrounded by restaurants, cafes, patisseries, fromageries, boulangeries, fresh fruit stands, all crammed into the narrow alleyways and winding streets of the Cinquieme Quartier. The smells were powerful and fascinating - roasting meat, strong cheese, baking bread.

We wandered for hours just in our little neighborhood, discovering the Luxembourg Gardens, the Pantheon, Saint Sulplice, the Closerie de Lilas (where Hemingway wrote many of his stories - very emotional for me), the Sorbonne in the early morning:

It was supposed to snow on Saturday, but instead we had bright blue skies for the entire trip. It was bitter cold in Paris, and very windy, but we were so happy to have the sun shining.

One of my favorite discoveries was the Eglise de St-Etienne-du-Mont.

By fate, luck, or serendipity, my friend and I walked straight into St-Etienne on Saturday morning. I can safely say, without a doubt, that this is the most beautiful church I have been in so far. The intricately carved white stone, the holy water fount crafted out of a giant seashell, and of course, the stained glass:

Drinking in the beauty, I was unprepared to find Blaise Pascal's tomb in the back of the church. I was extremely moved; surely God had led me straight to this quiet corner of the city. Reading Pascal last year in my PLS Seminar was a revelation for me. I hadn't known it was possible to express the ideas that had been in the back of my own mind for so long.

To find Blaise himself was destiny at work. The heart has its reasons of which reason knows naught.


We came back for Mass that night, and I know I will return every time I am in the city.


One disappointment was Notre Dame. I shouldn't say disappointment, as I honestly wasn't expecting much from this tourist trap. But I came out not just unmoved, but frustrated and sad.

The architecture and stained glass were impressive, though not my favorite, but the utter disrespect shown by the crowds and crowds pushing through the church horrified me. Mass was going on, but only about twenty people were actually participating. Tourists were taking pictures of the priest and congregation, talking loudly, eating, and observing our faith as if it were some bizarre exhibition. Sacre-Coeur has the same number of tourists but is much better-run. 

We got out of Notre Dame pretty fast, and some of our other adventures included:

• Walking from the Ile de la Cite all the way down through the Louvre gardens to the Arc de Triomphe. The arch was horrifying, inspiring, a tribute to all the soldiers killed during France's long and bloody history. 
• Sitting a cafe, drinking chocolat chaud and people-watching. I was surprised how crowded the cafes were, and with Parisians, not tourists. They spill onto every street-corner, just like in the Paris of my dreams.
• Eating dinner as the Tour Eiffel sparkled through the window.
• Climbing Montmartre and wandering through the artist's neighborhood. I've always loved this part of the city, and the trip was great for my ego, as the artists told me over and over that I was "trop jolie" and definitely needed my portrait painted. Maybe someday.
• Walking by the river, looking at the booksellers and the bridges and and the tree-lined, cobble-stoned paths and the sun on the waves.

• Wandering through a street-market and sampling foie-gras. Mmmmm.
• Visiting Shakespeare and Company, a famous bookstore and another Hemingway site. I could easily live there:

We finished with the Musee d'Orsay. So many of my favorite artists are represented here - Moreau, Watts, Burne-Jones, Chavannes, Monet - and I discovered many new ones. We didn't have much time, so unfortunately I didn't get to sit down and sketch, but I was walking on air the entire time. I probably looked insane, scribbling in my notebook with an idiotic grin on my face, twirling in circles to get the full impact of each room.

Beauty!

Reflecting on the train ride home, I know that this was only the first of many trips to Paris; I will be back soon enough. I have fallen in love with the city, the real city, with its crazy streets, flowered balconies, and Parisian-crowded cafes. I finally feel like it is my city, as if I was the first to discover and explore its intricacies and unexpected depths.


Au revoir, I thought to the swiftly passing streets. I'll see you again.

Mont Saint-Michel and Saint-Malo

Oh joyous day! I have been waiting to see Mont Saint-Michel for eight years, ever since I started studying French and learned about the fairy-tale island abbey. Now, I can finally say that I have seen it with my own eyes.

Ok, but to be honest, Mont Saint-Michel was not quite as life-changing as I expected. It wasn't a disappointment - it was beautiful and strange and hung over the sea like an enchanted castle - but it was very simple. The architecture, especially indoors, was plain, and once we had walked through the official tour, there wasn't anything left to see.

It was crowded, of course, and the town was a complete tourist trap, but it was a good tourist trap, if you know what I mean. The shops were expensive, yes, but they were interesting. And they had quite good ice cream.

But the highlight of the trip was Saint-Malo. We started out the day in this small seaside port, and we all loved it. The town is completed surrounded by giant ramparts, and we walked all the way around the town, looking out over the sea at small castles based on rocky islands floating above the waves. It looked like a landscape from Myst - surreal and crisp and lovely. As Stephen would say, everything looked like it was in high-definition.

While in Saint-Malo, I made it a point to dine on all the specialties of the region. We found a darling little cafe in the middle of the old town, and I started my meal off with cidre (spiked Normandy apple juice):

It was too strong for me, so a friend had to finish it! Here is my galette of deliciousness, something I have been craving ever since my last trip to France:

So gooooooood! The egg was nice and runny, and the galette was thick and tasty! Mmmmmm.

I finished with a slice of far, a traditional dessert that had been highly recommended by Monsieur Melin, my translation professor. It was basically a flan with prunes, and it was basically not very good. I loved flans until I ate this, and now I can't even look at them anymore. Tragic.

However! I did not let the prunes stop me, and after lunch, we explored the local cathedral, which had a candy store attached to it. Only the Catholics, right? But it also had some nice stained glass, and with the sun shining, it created some beautiful patterns on the stone arches:

And then, the best part of the entire trip. With half an hour until the bus left for Mont Saint-Michel, my friend Hilary and I raced down to the beach and scrambled about the rocks and paths at the foot of the ramparts. It was GLORIOUS.

I love scrambling. It's not rock climbing (too intense for such as a cautious creature as I), and it's not hiking (too boring for this intrepid adventurer, this explorer of uninhabited and savage regions). Indeed, scrambling is the perfect mixture between the two. It is uphill, directed towards finding a view, and it is satisfying like nothing else. After scrambling, you must, of necessity, have wind-tangled hair, scraped knees, and ruined shoes. The best ones result in sunburn and involve eating wild fruit and swimming at the end. This is my all-time favorite activity, and all perfect days should partake in it.