Attraversiamo

In Italian, this word means “Let’s cross over.” I know this because I’m watching “Eat, Pray, Love” while I’m flying over the Atlantic, on my way home after my first semester of grad school, and Liz Gilbert is sitting across the table from an Italian man, learning his beautiful language. It’s amazing what you can learn from movies these days. Sadly, though, it’s not so easy to learn the rest of the Italian language. That would require a bit more effort on my part. Maybe some day I’ll learn more than just English and a dead language.

Flying is really quite an experience. I’ve done it several times during the last month – Amsterdam, Paris, and now home. Every time, as we accelerate for take off and the pressure urges me to grip the armrests, I think, “The next few hours could change my life.” And every time, I’m right. During these hours, I’m transported over plains and across oceans, to towns of old and cities of love. What a life I’m so fortunate to have.

Just a moment ago, I glanced out my window and looked down toward our grand planet in all of her glory. I couldn’t see much, though – just a sheet of white spread over the ground, the clouds like sweet meringue spread over the earth. At first glance it’s difficult to tell whether I’m looking at clouds hiding the ground or a glacier sleeping on it. Amazing, right?

So, the last time I posted a piece of my life up here, I think I’d just gotten back from Amsterdam. Not a bad city, but compared to Paris, there’s no contest. So let’s talk about Paris.

Our flight to Paris was to leave at 8:30, so Deborah and I got to the airport by 7:00. This required us awaking at 5:30 and walking a mile to Waverly Bridge to catch the bus to the airport. The good new is that we got to airport in plenty of time. The bad news is that since we decided to fly Ryanair, we didn’t leave until 9:15, after having taken a 45 minute nap on the plane. C’est la vie, right? So we get to Paris – Beauvais (because Ryanair doesn’t actually fly into Charles de Gualle) and then have to catch a shuttle to Paris. Finally, by 2:00, we’ve arrived in the city of love, ready to embark upon a journey of understanding how it became labeled as such. It didn’t take long, as we walked down the Avenue du Champs Elysee to see the beauty the city hold – beauty greater than Louis Vouton and Chanel.

That first day, it was our stroll down Champs Elysee, our stop by Arche du Triomph, and our final destination of the Louvre that told us that we were in a really cool place. I mean, wow. I had absolutely no idea that the Louvre was so huge! It would take a week to get through it. And we only had a couple of hours. Don’t worry, though – we saw her – you know, Mona Lisa. Great job, Da Vinci.

That evening for dinner, we went to Tom’s. Quite possibly, you’ve not heard of Tom Haynes. I hadn’t until a friend of mine from Uni told me about his Sunday night dinners, and everyone is invited. He’s a native American who studied at the University of Edinburgh, started a couple of local theatres there and has been living in Paris for the last 35 years writing, publishing, and so many other things everyone wants to say they’ve done. For the last 30 years, though, he’s been hosting these dinners every Sunday night at his house in Paris, except of course the month of August when he’s in Edinburgh at the festival. It was such fun, going and meeting people from all over the world who, by word of mouth, a story on NPR, or however else, heard about Tom’s dinners. The free spirits of the world united in Paris.

The next day, we got a baguette, cheese, and dark chocolate from the local grocery store and had a delectable breakfast. And off we went on a day of exploration. We went down and saw Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie. And then crossed the block to none other than Notre Dame, which was pretty breathe-taking. It was magnificent in size, and the stained glass was…oh there are just no words. Its grandeur. Wow. There’s a reason why this place is famous. After we wandered about for a bit, and they started Mass, we left Notre Dame and we to one of the most beautiful book stores, Shakespeare and Co. Antiquarian Books. The walls were covered, the desks were covered, there were piles on the floor. Nearly ever inch of that place was covered in books.

By this time, we’d gotten pretty hungry, so we stopped by a cute café and had a sandwich and then studies over a cup of coffee. I don’t think I’d mentioned this yet, but we both had major assignments due later in the week (4000 word essays, and I had the take-home exam from hell), so we took the opportunity to study some while we were there. After studying for a bit, we walked up to Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. It was a monument on a hill – so pretty lit up in the evening light – and it looked over the city below, shepherding the flocks over people below.

Now, it was time to meet our host for the next 2 nights. We decided it would be fun to couch surf! So we got on the Metro (something I must do at least once in every city I visit), and took the train down to Pierre’s place. He was super nice, and we went our to a Canadian Bar (yes, apparently there’s a Canadian Bar in Paris) and got wings and hung out ‘til pretty late, and I was beat. So we got back to his place and had a sleep, ready for the Eiffel Tower on Tuesday.

Due to the late night, we slept in a little bit, which was nice. But we were up by late morning and had 2 very important events on our list of things to do that day. No. 1 came first: crepes. We found this guy – we named him Jacque – who made crepes out of the corner of a restaurant. Oh my goodness, they were delicious. The next time I’m in Paris, I will go back there and have his crepes again. So good. Even better, while we were getting our crepes, it started snowing! It was so pretty! But the snow didn’t make the rest of our journey fun because, yes, we went to the Eiffel Tower! Unfortunately, because of the snow, the clouds were low, and we didn’t have a good view of the tower. And there was no point in going up because we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. So, after we’d seen the tower taken a couple of pictures, we went in search of a Starbucks, yes a Starbucks, so we could study, which we did all afternoon until we went to the Christmas market that evening. Overall, a decent day.

Wednesday, though, was dreadful. We got up at half 6 to leave by 7. We needed to be in Beauvais at 9:30, so we caught the 8:00 shuttle bus that took us from Paris to Beauvais. All of this early morning stuff was pointless, though. We got to Beauvais and couldn’t check in for nearly an hour. Once we did, though, and got through security (which was sooo unorganized), we sat in the gate area for ages to find out that our flight which was supposed to leave at 11:30 had been delayed until 1:30. Then 1:30 rolled around, and they told us it had been delayed until 5:30. Deborah and I were not too excited about this because we had assignments to finish, and we couldn’t work on them at the airport. I was tired of writing my essay by hand. Long, miserable story of a day short, we got on the plane by around 6:30 and departed for Edinburgh. Apparently, Ryanair didn’t have enough de-icing fluid for the plane coming over, so they had to wait until that was sorted. Good job, Ryanair, on being prepaired…

So there it is! My trip to Paris, and I would totally love to go back and see it again. Someday.

And now, here I am. I've crossed over (attraversiamo) the Atlantic, home again for the holidays. I’m super excited to be back and a little sad it’s only for a few weeks. But I am looking forward to getting back to all those things I enjoy across the pond. It’s a good think I like Edinburgh!