Quatre villes charmantes

It is now officially April (and, in fact has been for some time – I’ve been a bit behind on my blogging) and Paris is full of signs of spring: brilliantly green leaves have popped up as if overnight on the trees lining the city’s Haussmannian boulevards, Parisians are flocking to green spaces to pass lazy afternoons on the grass (I should know; I spend a lovely afternoon among the groups of young people lounging about the Place des Vosges) and night doesn’t fall until well after 8 p.m. This lovely transition from the chill and dampness of winter makes it even more difficult to concentrate on the massive amount of work that keeps piling up. It’s equally hard to image ever leaving this beautifully blossoming city, although I will be doing so all too soon (My flight delivers me back to the other side of the Atlantic on May 30).

I believe this all explains why I haven’t recorded my thoughts here in a while, but I decided to use a quick minute, just days before I leave for spring break in the south of France, to catch up on my amazing experiences. In the last few weeks, I’ve visited four enchanting cities beyond Paris:

Amiens Less than an hour and a half from Paris by train, Amiens, I’ve decided, would be an excellent place to live. One could experience the charm and tranquility of quaint small-town life yet remain a mere train-ride from the excitement of Paris. Amiens certainly had a lot to offer in the realm of charm. The plentiful canals of the Saint-Leu district earn the town’s nickname as the “Little Venice of the North.” The Victorian houses (including Jules Verne’s) of the Henriville area create a cozy, old-world feel. And like every other French city, the centre-ville is a shopper-friendly pedestrian area with all the stores one would expect. Amien’s centerpiece, an enormous 13th-century cathedral twice the size of Notre-Dame de Paris, caps the town’s charm with a detailed and awe-inspiring beauty; it may be the most beautiful cathedral I’ve ever seen. I can’t forget to mention the excellent galettes my mom and I ate at a crêperie along the river: my mom’s contained ratatouille and chicken and mine, goat’s cheese, tomato and honey.

Boulogne-sur-mer A rainy and cold first day in a deserted Boulogne-sur-mer left me disappointed with my travel decision, but a sunny and pleasant second day more than made up for the unfavorable conditions of the first. The old fortified, hilltop town of Boulogne-sur-mer provides a haven of history and tranquility amongst the activity of this modern port. Throughout our visit, we walked the circumference of the historic town’s walls, which gave excellent views onto the city and English Channel beyond. We also visited the city’s musée des beaux arts, housed in a former castle, and the more modern basilica. Our walk to the beach was a bit miserable the first day due to the gale-force winds and occasional moments of drizzle. When we returned to the beach the second day, however, the wind was gone and with the sun shining, it was a perfect afternoon for walking the beach and collecting shells. A number of the town’s inhabitants had the same idea and the pier and harbor were busy with families out for a Sunday afternoon stroll. We joined the families to order hamburgers and fries from stands along the channel and enjoyed a lunch in the sun before boarding our train back to Paris.

Bruxelles Just last weekend, my friend Rebecca and I caught the train to Belgium for a weekend of unabashed tourism. We started out in Brussels, which is a mere hour and a half from Paris by the lightning-fast Thalys train. With the help of an irreverently hip free map from our hostel and the advice of our friend who spent a semester in Belgium, we wandered the city, hitting the major sites of the centre-ville like Manneken Pis (an adorably tiny statue of a little boy peeing), the Grand Place and the Royal Palace. We also took the time to enjoy the Musée des beaux arts where we admired the fantastical images of Bosch and the overwhelming tableaus of Rubens. We even indulged our love for Tintin at the Comic Museum. Of course, we also ate waffles and chocolate and enjoyed a beer before dinner. I very much enjoyed the intricate and whimsical architecture of the city which made it so very different from Paris. The numerous open plazas also promoted a sociability and openness that made such a huge European capital seem friendly and welcoming.

Bruges The real Venice of the north, Bruges is an enclosed, canal filled town that feels more like a Disney attraction than an actual municipality. Each street, each storefront, each corner is as picturesque as the next, and even on the chilly, cloud-filled day of our visit, its charm shined through. Rebecca and I followed our guidebook’s walking tour which led us past a number of delightful canals, adorable facades and historic buildings to its end at the serene Béguinage, a daffodil-filled courtyard surrounded by cute Bruges houses. Along the way, we snacked on a cornet of fries and sampled some more chocolate. The highlight of the visit (besides the sheer beauty of it all) was emerging from dinner to join the crowd on the Markt plaza for a free outdoor Belgian rock concert.

Ce que je veux faire avant de rentrer

As promised, here's my semi-translated first draft of my list of things that I want to do before leaving Paris. It's random and it's so much, but I think I can do it!

• See at least one play
• Finish my "City Walks of Paris"
• Find all the landmarks from the film Charade
• Watch at least one more French movie at a theater
• Read along one of the quais of Ile Saint-Louis
• Drink with friends on the quais of the Seine/Pont des arts/along Canal St.-Martin
• Watch at least one film from the Nouvelle Vague at the film library
• Actually send people postcards !
• Watch a French film at Reid Hall
• See the French production of The Lion King
• Go to the Comédie Française
• Eat a macaroon
• Go to the flea markets

• See the following expositions before their respective end dates:
  « Notorious » (le 22 février)
  « Rapa Nui, L'Ile de Pâques » (le 1er mars)
  « Instants d'architecture » à la Maison du Danemark (le 8 mars)
  « Gainsbourg 2008 » à la Cité de la Musique (le 15 mars)
  « Le petit dessein » au Louvre (le 13 avril)
  « 80 + 80, photo_graphisme » (le 25 avril)
  « Le Petit Nicolas» (le 7 mai)
  

• Visit the following:
  Musée de Picasso
  Maison de Victor Hugo
  Musée Rodin
  L'Orangerie
  Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris (again)
  Musée de Cluny
  Musée de la vie romantique
  Espace Krajcberg
  

• Outside of Paris:
  Giverny
  A weekend trip with my mom
  The South of France
  Bois de Boulogne
  Bois de Vincennes
  Take a day trip to one other French city outside of Paris
  Brussels
  

• Look at the gare Saint-Lazare
• Look at the gare de l'Est
• Go in Notre-Dame
• Find Guy de Maupassant's tomb at the Cemetery Montparnasse
• Return to see the auditorium of the Opera

• Explore:
  Parc Montsouris
  Cemetery Montmartre
  

This list is a "work in progress," and I'll be returning to add things or cross things out as I do them!

Un week-end de vampires

No, my weekend was neither spooky, nor a horror film, nor anything to do with Twilight (please, pop culture, can we find some other books to be obsessed with???).

As you may have guessed, I went to see these guys.

They were adorable, endearing and as East-Coast as you’d expect them to be, except they actually seemed like guys you would want to hang out with. Also, they rocked the intimate and antique La Cigale pretty hard. La Cigale reminded me a lot of Chapin Auditorium at Mount Holyoke where I saw M.I.A. last year. I’ve decided from now on, I will only see rock music in such decidedly anachronistic settings.

Vampire Weekend may be young, but they know how to put on a show. Everything was perfectly timed from opening with “Mansford Roof” to the energetic “A-Punk” which kicked off the second half of the show – this, after bass-related technical difficulties tried to derail things, although Ezra Koenig and co. dealt with it pretty well. They encored with “Ça plane pour moi,” a song in French that seemed to be a crowd-pleaser (through the magique of YouTube you can watch it here...except we were way closer than this) and everyone’s favorite: “Walcott” (I mean…). Koenig endearingly thanked the crowd after each song with an incredibly twee “Merci,” and he and the keyboardist had either memorized a few key French phrases or dug up their French knowledge from their days at Columbia to banter in French as much as in English between songs.

It was all too cute. Plus, the opening French band was incroyablement mignon [incredibly cute]. Their combined age couldn’t have been much over 50, but their jangly guitars and moody tunes showed a surprising skill and knowledge of the 80s post-punk era (or, more likely the post-punk revival movement of the early 2000s, particularly à l’Interpol, selon moi [in my opinion]).

<------ Twelve-year-olds

I also saw Quantum of Solace this weekend, which is not even out in the states yet – take that! It must be said that Daniel Craig kicks ass. And, French people don’t seem to understand the humour of Bond.