Parigi e Londra

Ciao amici! This week was our first week of classes after a lovely and much needed fall break. I spent mine in Paris for the first four days, which was a dream come true because I studied French for six years and was so excited to finally use what I learned. Then I spent four days in London. Here’s a recount of my travels:

On Saturday October 12^th, I left the villa early in the morning with Amanda, Karli, and Joseph to grab some pastries and cappuccinos before catching our train to the Pisa airport. We had a (surprisingly) not awful flight with RyanAir to the Paris Beauvais airport, which is about an hour outside the city, so I had arranged a shuttle to pick us up and bring us to the building where we had rented an apartment to share. We arrived to the building and got inside with no trouble, but finding the apartment itself was quite the project because, as it turned out, there were no numbers on any of the doors. We wandered around and tried a few wrong doors for about twenty minutes. At one point a French man yelled, “Ce n’est pas ma porte!” and slammed his porte in my face. Welcome to Paris. We finally resorted to calling Sandrine, the woman whose apartment we were trying to find, on the phone…except she didn’t really speak any English. So I stammeringly conveyed that we had arrived but that we had no idea where to find her, and she came downstairs to our rescue, leading us up to her tiny, adorable, funky French apartment. There was only one bed, which might have been a problem if we weren’t physical theatre students and therefore conditioned to be comfortable with (nay, dependent upon) copious amounts of human contact. After we had dropped off our things and settled in, we ventured out to find some dinner. We were staying in a part of the city called Bastille, which is to the north of La Seine (the river that runs through the city) and a bit to the east of central Paris, but easily accessible from the metro. We ate Croque Madames, a traditional French meal that’s basically an open-faced grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top, at a restaurant down the street called Le Rey, and I tried my hand at ordering everything in French. Of my travel companions, I was the only one who had even remotely studied the language, so I tried to also give a little crash course in the basics (Hello, goodbye, thank you, excuse me, I would like, my name is, and numbers one through ten) to my friends. Over those four days, the three of them performed admirably and were even ordering without any help from me by the end! Our first French dinner was lovely, as was the company.

Croque Madames at Le Rey 

 On Sunday, we left the apartment and began our journey to Versailles! We stopped at a bakery for some pastries on the way to the metro. I had un petit pain au chocolat et un pain aux raisins, which is a fancy French way of saying a chocolate croissant and a pastry with raisins. I can’t even try to explain how delicious they were, along with all the pastries we ate over the course of the trip. And the bread…ugh. The bread. It ruined me for all other bread in the world. What I wouldn’t give to send all the French bakers to Tuscany. But anyway…we took the metro to Montparnasse and caught a train from there to Versailles. The palace was breathtaking. We saw the Hall of Mirrors, and we had so much fun roaming through the gardens and visiting Marie Antoinette’s estate, Le Petit Trianon. We did headstands all over the place, because ADA has a headstand photo chain on facebook, and also just because it was hilarious. It was a bit of a process to get home, because there were very long lines at the train station and then a very abrupt French lady didn’t let us try to come up with enough change for the ticket machine when it wouldn’t take our cards, so we had to wait in another line to speak to a human that would sell us tickets. We were tired and hungry, but we played a few games to keep our spirits up, and we made it to the train in no time. We ate dinner in Le Quartier Latin at a restaurant called La Gueuze, which had been recommended by my high school French teacher. It was a really cool little pub-type place. After dinner, we went and got some crepes and chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). I had salted caramel sauce on mine, and it was to die for. On our way to the metro station, we walked by Notre Dame, which looked so beautiful in the moonlight.

The Palace Gates 

Headstand in front of the Chateau 

The Hall of Mirrors 

Imitating a statue in the gardens

 Monday morning, we headed to Montmartre, which is a neighborhood in the north of Paris, to see Sacre Coeur, the gigantic church that sits at the top of the hill. Interestingly enough, we had had a lecture right before leaving for break on the history of the cabaret, and we learned about the Paris Commune, which was when the citizens of Paris ran the city as a collective for about three months during the French revolution because they were tired of bourgeois oppression. However, at the end of those three months, the military blasted through their barricades and slaughtered thousands of the working class, and then built the enormous and ornate Sacre Coeur as a reminder that the bourgeoisie will always win. So…knowing this history made the visit a bit depressing, because it’s a beautiful church, and you wouldn’t think it could ever have been created for such malicious purposes. Still, it was quite impressive and lovely to see. We then ate lunch at a café, and took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and Avenue Champs Elysee. I had seen many pictures of this arch, but I had never imagined it to be so staggeringly large. It was truly amazing to see. Then we walked over to the Eiffel Tower, which of course is a must. We did some headstands, relaxed on the lawn for a bit, and then decided to head back to the Champs Elysee for a bit of shopping and dinner. Afterwards, we kept walking down the street because it eventually leads to the Louvre. We saw the glass pyramid all lit up, and then we stopped at one of those crappy souvenir stores to buy a deck of cards, and headed home to our apartment to play card games and have a little feast of wine, cheese, and various other goodies. We played Egyptian Rat Screw and Mow, both of which incited much laughter and merriment.

My friends in front of Sacre Coeur 

A view of the church from up close 

L'Arc de Triomphe 

La Tour Eiffel

Tuesday we returned to Notre Dame, this time entering the cathedral and marveling at the beautiful stained glass and stunning gothic architecture. We crossed the Seine on one of the many bridges that were absolutely covered in padlocks. They say that if you engrave your name and the name of your love on the lock, hang it on the bridge and then throw the key into the river, your love will last forever. I’m pretty sure it’s only so they can convince tourists to pay for locks and lock engraving, but I think it gives the bridge such character and romantic charm. After a quick lunch, we visited the Museé d’Orsay, an old train station that was converted into an art museum. Luckily for us, they currently were running an exhibition called Masculin, which was all about male nudity in art from ancient times to the present. In the words of Karli, “I’ve never seen so many naked men in one day.” We wandered through the museum and found the hall of impressionism, where many works of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others reside. I love that style of painting, and we spent a good hour marveling at these incredible works of art. It’s so weird to see something in person that you’ve seen pictures of since you were a little kid. Like…there I was, standing in front of Monet’s water lilies. No big deal. Just an ordinary day. Since it was our last night in Paris, we decided to have a fancy dinner that featured escargot, French onion soup, salmon with beurre blanc, and chocolate mousse. It was fantastic. We then enjoyed the view of the Eiffel tower all lit up at night, and decided to go see if we could get tickets to go to the top of the tower, since when I had checked online, they’d been sold out. Lo and behold, there were tickets available, and we got to enjoy a glass of champagne and a view of the whole city by moonlight. We even saw a man propose to his girlfriend at the top of the tower. It was adorable and magical, and the perfect ending to our time in the city of love.

Notre Dame

On Wednesday morning, we trekked to Gare du Nord where we caught our train to London! We went through the Chunnel, which was pretty cool. We stepped out of the St. Pancras train station into a true London welcome: pouring rain. My map got soaked as we navigated through the tube to the theatre district to drop Karli off at the Matilda theatre, where she was meeting up with our friend Jess to see the matinee. We then found our way to the other side of the River Thames where our rented apartment was on Elephant Lane. We met Thea, the very kind young woman who was lending her home to us for our stay. The apartment was gorgeous, and extremely spacious compared to our little shoebox in Paris. It was the four of us from Paris plus Jess and our friend Holt who were sharing the space. The building had a sign on it that said, “Prince’s House.” We were on the top floor, and from the huge triangular window in the living room, we could see the river. After settling in, drying off, and meeting up with Holt’s friend Kristen (I liked her right away…can you guess why?) who was visiting from Scotland, we headed back over to where Matilda was playing to grab some dinner and see the evening show! We had fish and chips at a pub right across the street from the theatre, and we made it just in time for the curtain to rise. The show, based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name, was truly beautiful. The set and choreography were breathtaking, and all of the child actors were so adorable and incredibly talented. There was a song in the second act called “When I Grow Up” that really hit me hard, because this whole abroad experience is starting to make me feel a bit like a grown up, and that’s terrifying. But the show was amazing, and if you loved that book as much as I did growing up, I highly recommend getting yourself a ticket to see it in London or New York. We wandered through the streets of London that night on our way to the Green Park tube station, stopping at Starbucks to grab a pumpkin spice latte, something that tragically does not exist in Italy. It tasted like autumn and it tasted like home.

On Thursday morning, Holt, Amanda, Joseph, Karli and I left bright and early to make our way to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio tour! The studio is in Watford, which is about an hour north of central London. We took a train to Watford Junction, and then a shuttle from there to the tour. To say that it was a wonderful experience would be the understatement of the century. We got to see the real sets, the real costumes, the real props, the real designs, and understand the staggering amount of labor and love that was expended to create the magic of those eight movies that embodied our childhood. We walked into the Great Hall, strolled through Diagon Alley, saw Hagrid’s hut, the Gryffindor common room, the Potion’s classroom, Dumbledore’s office, the Weasley’s burrow, the Ministry of Magic, Number 4 Privet Drive, and countless other places from the story. We drank butterbeer while sitting next to the blue Ford Anglia that Ron flew into the Whomping Willow. I did a headstand in front of the Chamber of Secrets, after which time an adorable English boy who worked at the studio approached me to tell me that he has never seen that happen before and that it was “quite impressive.” He then talked to Amanda and me for at least half an hour about how he was an extra in four of the movies and got to meet Dan Radcliffe, Julie Walters and Maggie Smith, and how he led Prince William and Kate Middleton on a tour of the studio and then met JK Rowling that same day. Whatever. No big deal. The best part of the whole tour, though, was the very last room. It took my breath away. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I won’t say what’s in there, because if anybody reading this ever goes to the studio, I want you to have that same experience of wonder and awe. We left the studio feeling all warm and fuzzy and full of feelings after seeing that magical world come alive in front of us. We had a relaxing dinner in a different pub (that strangely had the exact same menu as the pub from the first night), and then we stopped at Whole Foods to pick up some breakfast foods, wine, and ingredients for baking brownies, because we were planning to use our exciting kitchen access to celebrate Kristen’s birthday when she and Holt returned from seeing The Book of Mormon. When they arrived, we were all prepared to start the baking process…until we realized that our lovely kitchen was not equipped with a baking pan of any kind. Hmm. Quite the predicament. Our solution: frying pan! Our initial approach was to make individual brownie pancakes. We each tried our own method of getting them to flip well, and none were very pretty, but they all tasted pretty good. We finally gave up and poured all the batter into the pan at once and put a lid on it, praying that they would bake in that little makeshift Dutch oven. And it worked! Our frying pan brownies weren’t too shabby, and they were way more fun and ridiculous than boring old oven brownies.

Amanda and me with Dan, our famous friend from the Harry Potter studio 

Number 4 Privet Drive 

Friday morning, Amanda and I set out to visit Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre! We met Kristen there, and oddly enough, we also bumped into Erica, one of the MFA students from the Accademia. We toured the theatre, which is an approximate replica of the one that existed during Shakespeare’s time, which was burned down in the 1600s. No drawings exist of the original, so a lot of the designs for the current one were based on rendering of other theatres, and some were just guesswork. We listened to a talk about the history of the theatre, and comparisons of audiences in Shakespeare’s time to audiences now, we saw a dressing demonstration in which a young French man was dressed in a traditional Ophelia costume, and we walked through the museum on site to learn more about how the theatre was built and the way they currently operate. Something I never knew was that they built this replica using only the technology that would have been available in Shakespeare’s day. Similarly, they build their costumes to be authentic to the time period, and therefore none of them have any zippers or snaps or modern conveniences, and often take actors as long as 90 minutes to get into and out of. After our visit to the Globe, we headed over to Buckingham Palace to meet Amanda’s friend Allison who is currently studying in England. The four of us sat down together for tea and crumpets. (Admit it: You read “tea and crumpets” with a British accent.) It was lovely. Afterwards, Amanda and I headed to the Covent Garden area where we had tickets to see “Let It Be,” a show about the Beatles. Our tickets included a meal deal with a pizza place called Fire and Stone, to which the man in the box office gave us directions, but we still had trouble finding it. We asked not one, not two, but three different locals where this pizza place was, and nobody knew. It was the weirdest thing. We felt like we were searching for Atlantis. Finally, we went into an Internet café and looked up the address on our phones. It ended up being like three buildings away from us, which made the fact that nobody could tell us where it was even funnier. The pizza was delicious, and the show was a blast. We danced and sang along the whole time. It felt like we were at a real Beatles concert. In London. On our walk back to the apartment, we saw the buildings all lit up against the night sky. At one point, we were at the perfect angle to see Big Ben with the London Eye circling around it.

A view of the Globe stage from the second tier of the audience 

 Kristen and Amanda outside the Globe

Buckingham Palace  

         

On Saturday, I went with Joseph, Karli, and Amanda to Harrods. We got lost in the giant maze that is London’s most famous department store. We then headed up to King’s Cross station to take our picture by platform 9 and ¾ where some brilliant person glued half a luggage cart into the wall with an owl cage and suitcases on it. You can take your picture holding onto the cart wearing a scarf from one of the four houses and jumping in the air as if you’re going through the wall to the Hogwarts express. We then headed back to the theatre district to see the matinee performance of “One Man Two Guvnors,” which is the English adaptation of Goldoni’s “Servant of Two Masters,” one of the most famous Commedia plays ever written. It was hilarious, and perfect for us to see because it was so relevant to what we’re learning at the Accademia. After the show, we headed back to the apartment to change and start packing. We went out to dinner at the Angel Pub, which was right on the river near where we were staying. Then Amanda and I headed over to the Piccadilly Comedy Club where we had reserved seats to a comedy show. They had placed us right in the front row center. Four different comedians performed back to back, and they were all hilarious. The last two picked on Amanda and me for being American, which was to be expected, and made it that much more fun.  

Sunday was a long and trying day of travel, but we finally made it back to the villa. We were exhausted, but so happy to be home, and so grateful for a wonderful week of traveling through two beautiful cities. A presto!