My Favorite Running Routes in Paris

Chasing the Parade

Today I decide to go running on a different route - from my apartment to the eiffel tower. It's a nice run, because it takes me through the Parc Monceau, past the Champs Elysees, along the Seine and finally to the Champs de Mars in front of the Tour. I plan to end my run at the Grand Palais and ride the metro home from the stop there. As I'm approaching the Invalides and Pont Alexandre III, I notice a crowd of people and a bunch of barriers. I also see gendarmes, or really intense policemen with body armor and lots of scary looking guns. I stop in front of the Invalides, trying to figure out what the commotion is all about. As I look, I see horses, and i don't just mean a few - I mean maybe a hundred or so of these animals - lined up in perfect formation. Riding them are men dressed in uniform. As they approach, I hear that they are playing some kind of song. I notice some unfamiliar looking flags next to french flags around them as well. What is going on? I am too shy with my french to ask anyone around me. But everyone has their camera out and is snapping photos, so it must be important. Suddenly three helicopters fly overhead and a series of important looking black cars roll past. One of the cars has the window down, and an older man is staring out at me and crowd. I at least figure out that some kind of political figure has just arrived, and this is his parade. But what country? I've never seen that flag before. I forget about the rest of my run (I was nearly done anyway) and decide to follow the parade. I hope I will get to see Sarcozy. I power walk behind the massive group of horses but due to street-crossing difficulties, I soon fall behind. I must look quite ridiculous, I think, speeding through Paris in my running clothes. I make it to the Place de Concorde and see the horses going towards the Asemblee Nationale. Or maybe it was another building. I'm not sure. But anyway, if you've ever been to the place de concorde, you'd know that with all the traffic it takes at least an hour to cross it. Unwillfully, I give in and jog back to the Grand Palais. But I'm going crazy for the rest of the day - what country was this? After an unnecessary amount of research, and by unnecessary I mean looking at every country's flag in this world, I find the answer. The flag I saw belongs to Iraq. Wow. I soon discover that the Iraqi president arrived in Paris today for a four day meeting with Sarcozy. I wonder if that old man that I saw was the president. I feel like I've just witnessed something important. Makes me feel kind of insignificant, too, though, for some reason, to see something like that happen in front of me. This is world politics that I'm talking about!

But honestly, all those horses! And so well trained, too! The funniest part about the parade were the little green cars that drove behind the horses so they could clean up the shit. And believe me, there was a lot of it.

Fontainebleau

Foret de Fontainebleau is an enormous mass of woods about 40 minutes by train from Paris. Wanting a break from the hustle and bustle of Paris, my friend Lindsay and I are eager to hike here, so we decide to venture out to the tiny town of Fontainebleau. Due to minor metro complications and other delays, we don't make it until 2 PM. The train dumps us into a random part of the town and we have no idea where we are. The maps are confusing so we stand like idiots in our ridiculously "I am American" get-up - spandex leggings, sweatshirts, running shoes and backpacks. Nothing is more dorky-tourist than the backpack. It's sunny out but a few ominous clouds are rolling in. I ask someone "Ou est le bois?" (Where are the woods?) She points and says, "c'est la, c'est partout." (it's there, it's everywhere). Not helpful. Eventually we decide to visit the tourism office, which we have to take a bus to. We ask the woman at the tourism office where the closest bouldering area is (bouldering is essentially rock climbing without a harness on little rocks). She says 6 km, which is a bit far. I'm nervous we wont' make it there and back before dark, so I ask her, "is it dangerous to hike in the dark?" She responds, "No, not at all! The trails are well-marked. It's fine." 

We finally begin our hike through the Fontainebleau. The sky is still overcast, and the temperature has dropped significantly. The forest is beautiful - the fall leaves scattered across the ground make for quite the picturesque scene. We walk along at a good pace, chatting about life and whatever else comes to mind. We make it about 2 miles maybe, when it starts to rain. We think this is a good time to turn back. 

There is a fork in the trail. I choose the path on the left because it seems right. But actually I have no idea. So we go that way, walking quickly because of the rain. Suddenly we emerge from the forest onto a major highway. I panic. I have no idea where this is. We don't remember coming this way. Where are we??

It's pouring rain, the map is soaked through nor does it really make any sense, so we decide to ask someone in their car where the hell we are. Lindsay speaks in French to one guy. A minute later she looks at me and says, "He wants us to get inside his car, he says he's a cop and can take us back to the train station." Absolutely not. I shake my head and we walk away. I'm quite scared at this point. I think maybe we will die. I try to think of ways to spend the night in the woods. I panic because it's raining and I don't think it's possible to make a fire in the rain. Lindsay is so calm and I don't know how she stays so calm. We backtrack and make it back to the fork in the paths. We take the one we didn't go down before. Soon we realize that this trail is marked with the correct trail markings. If we had just checked the other trail, we wouldn't have gotten so lost. I feel stupid for misleading her. 

We power-walk at an insane speed, trying to get out of the damn forest. Finally, as our asses are on fire, we make it out right as night falls. We're cold, wet and shivering. It's still pouring, too. I can no longer feel my fingers or feet. After grabbing a coffee to warm us up, we make it back to the train station and jump on the next train back to Paris. On the train, Lindsay and I reflect on our experience and try to decide if we're lucky or not.

Chatelet

Today I'm taking the metro to my Gothic cathedrals class. I have to transfer to a different line at Chatelet, a giant, touristy station known for pickpockets and scam artists...so I'm on my guard, clutching my bag to my chest tightly, as I walk briskly across the station to the 4 line. Suddenly I hear music, loud, brilliant music at the other end of the cavernous walkway. No, this isn't just one violin, or one random kareoke singer, this is an entire group of musicians, complete with singers, guartarists, drummers, trumpeteers, and more, all lined up against the wall. They're playing what I think is Spanish mariachi music and it is absolutely unbelievable - I'm  so taken aback by the depth to their music, and the way it fills the station with life and energy.  Heads turn left and right to catch a glimpse of this impressive troupe - People zip past them, and some even stop to watch for a second. My mood, dampened by the dreary rain outside, is instantly lifted by the ludicrousy of the situation - a 7 man spanish mariachi band playing in a dingy Parisian metro station! I love it! I drop a 1 Euro coin into the cup next to them on the ground and hear a "Merci!" - the first time I've ever given out money like that to anyone in Paris.

Marche des Enfants Rouges

It's Sunday morning and I need food. Good food. I've been hearing about markets around Paris and decide it's time to explore. I find one in the Marais that sounds incredible - Marche des Enfants Rouges. It's a covered market, complete with vendors selling fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, breads, pastries, you name it. Instantly, I'm enthralled by the extensive selection of exotic mushrooms - I've never seen so many different kinds. I grab a plastic bag and take one of every kind. Then I spot sweet potatoes - they're huge! I grab a couple of those too. I see bananas from Martinique, too. That sounds exotic and cool, I think! I don't even know where Martinique is. I tell myself I better pay for my produce before I buy the entire market.

On the way out I pass a Fromagerie and can't help but go inside. The cheeses are divided by what kind of milk they use, whether it's goat, cow or something else. I have no idea what anything means, so I pick up two random ones. I ask the fromageuse, "est-ce que ce fromage est bon avec le vin rouge?" She looks confused, obviously I have butchered the French language. I try again, asking, "Quel fromage est son favori?" She points to the one in my right hand, so I go with that. Good enough. 

My food venture ends at a boulangerie, where I buy a cookie with three different kinds of chocolate chips. I've noticed that chocolate chip cookies over here have more of a biscuit-y, buttery taste than ones back home do. But no matter, a chocolate chip cookie will always be one of the greatest gastronomic indulgences ever. 

Le Sommeil au Cinema

Tonight I have my first experience at a French movie theater. My roommate and I saw the movie "The Informant" with Matt Damon. 

It's in English with French subtitles. I notice that many of the things p

eople say in the movie don't translate so well into French. It's funny how so many things can be lost in translation. Unfortunately, I have trouble staying awake during the movie, in fact I have no idea what happened. I don't even know if it was a good movie or not. I think Matt Damon played his part well, but if you asked me what it was about, I'm not sure I could answer. Apparently he gained 30 pounds for the role...

 

Movies in Paris tend to have later showing times anyway, so it's nearly 12:30 AM by the time it's over. So I'm really freaking tired. But I also blame it on the movie theater itself - the seats were super comfy and reclined a bit when you sat in them. And since air conditioning is essentially non-existent in France, the stuffy, semi-warm air in the theater put me right to sleep. Not ideal for someone as sleep deprived as I am right now...next time I'll drink espresso before I go!

Hip-Hop Failure

This is not really Parisian, but it was hilarious.

Tonight, I go to a hip-hop dance class with a few friends at a dance studio near my apartment. The class is absolutely ridiculous. Everyone is wearing baggy pants, huge white t-shirts, and then there's me with my leggings and tank top...as soon as we walk in, the instructor shouts, "Oh hello! Where do you live in the United States?"  New York City, or London have become my standard response to strangers who ask me where I'm from now. I saw New York, appropriately some of the members in the class are wearing New York apparel, including one of those "I Heart NYC" shirts. The instructor is this crazy looking guy who makes fun of me the entire class, mostly for my awkwardly loud girly laugh. He turns on some music, and everyone seems to know what they're doing except us. The instructor shouts random things out, sometimes in french sometimes in english, I don't know what he says but he just starts moving wildly, waving his arms in every different direction, zig-zagging back and forth, sliding left and right, up and down, God knows how we're going to be able to do all of this. And I can't do it, it's just too much coordination for me. So I spend the entire class jumping up and down whenever I feel like it, trying to appear like I might know what I'm doing when in fact I really really don't. I know I'm never going to get it, so I might as well have fun with it. I run into some of the other people with my sporadic motions, they don't look too happy. I don't really care...the dance is too confusing, the "un, deux, trois, quartre, cinq" routine is getting to me, the instructor won't stop yelling, everyone is so good at this somehow...my friends rave over the class, they love it, they're going to sign up for the 10 class package deal or whatever. That's great and all but I, on the other hand, will just stick with running.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JPChandlerHipHopClas#p/a/u/1/GaTuUuQR_L0

Sacre Coeur

Two views from my room, one from the afternoon and another one from the morning. The majestic-looking basilica is Sacre Coeur, a famous Parisian landmark. Waking up to this in the morning is incredible.

Finalement

It's about time this happened -  I'm running in Parc Monceau as usual, and I run smack into a tiny child. I slam into him hard and kn

ock him to the ground. I can't hear him because of the music from my iPod. I stop for a split second to check and see if he's alive. He's sitting on the ground but stands up quickly. He stares at me, with a kind of look that says "how could you do this to me?" but in French, obviously. I feel bad so I say "Sorry!" which of course he doesn't understand, I should have said "Desolee!" The poor boy brushes himself off and I high-tail it out of there like it's some kind of hit-and-run. 

Also, finally finally finally! I indulge in steak-frites which is exactly what it says it is - steak and fries. The restaurant, l'Entrecote, is apparently famous in Paris. The sauce that comes on the steak is a bit pesto-y and out of this world good. And even better, the waitress comes back and serves us more steak, and MORE fries after we've finished our first plate. No meal is complete without seconds. The fries are thinly sliced - hot and crisp - just how they should be. If I have a downfall, it's french fries.

Le Baguette, Le Brasserie

Today I see a crushed baguette in the metro train tracks. I am sad. I think, the baguette has been wasted, who could have the audacity to simply toss such a wonderful gastronomical creation into the dirty tracks? Injustice.

Tonight I feast on french food - i dont think anything could make me happier. I have two glasses of house red wine, delicious, and crusty french bread, also delicious. Then my entree, or as the french call it, le plat (ironically, l'entree is the appetizer), arrives - du saumon cuit et mashed potatoes with olive oil - good lord, i'm in heaven. Salmon and potatoes is one of my favorite combinations of flavors so this plate strikes gold. it's incredible, what can i say, i'm sitting in a french brasserie in Paris, oh shit yes i am. And it only gets better - dessert arrives, ice cream with maybe 5 gallons of hot chocolate fudge sauce. There is just so much chocolate, and I don't have a problem with that at all. And what I love most is that my friends and I are at the restaurant for 2 hours, not 30 minutes. We sit and enjoy our wine, enjoy our food...that's how eating should be, a savored, otherworldly experience! 

Un Crepe Nutella, La Tour Eiffel, ce sont bons

-Nutella is already amazing on its own, and when spread inside a warm crepe, it's unbelievable

-One of my roommates is terrified of birds, especially pigeons. The pigeons here in Paris are like the ones in NYC, they aren't afraid of anything and don't move out of your way.

-The weather in Paris is bipolar. One minute it will look like the storm of the century, and another minute the sun will be shini

ng and the sky clear. As a result, I'm never wearing the right clothes.

-I'm wondering if I'm going to get tired of eating jambon et fromage sur un baguette everyday, I don't think i will

-If you go to a boulangerie and ask for "un cafe" you won't get coffee, you'll get espresso. You can get what the french call "cafe americain" at Starbucks

-Apparently you can take the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, where there's a fantastic view of Paris. I think I may like it better than the view from the Tour Eiffel.

-I love grocery shopping in Paris, especially in the extensive wine section...

-There's a plaza near the Trocadero that offers the best view of the Tour Eif

fel I've found in Paris. The Tour is so majestic and impressive, truly an icon of Parisian culture. It's a nice area, except for the illegal salesmen who are walking around trying to sell you illegal overpriced souvenirs, like the rip-off "I LOVE PARIS" t-shirts - that's "I LOVE NY" and nothing else.

-A baguette, cheese and a glass of red wine is now my favorite snack...uh oh...

Vin et Fromage, c'est la vie

It's 18:00 H and I'm sitting at the table in my apartment, staring out the window at Place de Clichy. I'm drinking a glass of Bordeaux Cabernet Savignon and eating the rest of my baguette I bought earlier. I also have my Camembert, altering bites with sips of wine. Why don't we do this in the U.S. as often, if ever? It's so relaxing, just to enjoy the flavors and how they combine with each other -  kind of reminds me of an artist's palette - splashed with colors, each one running into the next one, creating new hues and shades you never imagined...but of course! Eating is an art, is it not (hence the metaphor)?

I'll be honest, before I came to Paris, I didn't really care for wine. I didn't hate it, it just wasn't my drink of choice (Smirnoff Ice, anyone?). But that has all changed...the wine here is nothing like what I have experienced before - it's so cheap, maybe 4 or 5 euro, and is almost always decent. And the combination of wine and cheese, don't even get me started...as of now, I'm loving President Camembert, which is a soft, creamy cheese similar to Brie. It's not as rich as Brie, which can be a bit heavy. 

Musee d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay is clearly my favorite art museum in Paris, and probably the entire world. And after taking a class last semester on French impressionism, I am in love with artists such as Manet, Courbet, Pissarro, Monet, Van Gogh...and to see the paintings that I studied in person is an experience unmatched by anything else. 

I'm a giddy child - with this wild ecstatic look in my eye as I wander through the galleries of the d'Orsay. I weave in and out of the crowds, darting across each room, feeling more awake than ever. First I see Seurat's Cirque. I bring my face 3 inches in front of the painting and marvel at the seemingly effortless brush strokes. I run past the crowd in front of Van Gogh's famous self portrait and Monet's Rouen Cathedral series and I almost miss it - my favorite Manet painting, The Asparagus. The painting is small and obscure, most would probably not give it the attention it deserves. Though the painting appears to be just a small white asparagus, it's so much more! I look as closely as I can and see the colors of blue, green, purple, pink all together -

 who'd have thought an

asparagus could be all of those colors? I'm practically dizzy from excitement. It's a strange sight I am sure, a girl staring intently at a tiny painting of an asparagus. 

And after I see Manet's other masterpieces - Olympia, Deujeuner sur l'Herbe, and Courbet's ridiculously massive works - Burial at Ornans and the Artist's Studio, I have to take a break. My senses are overwhelmed and I'm on some kind of ecstatic drug trip, my head feels like it's exploding -  a definitively holy experience. 

Running in Paris

Before I go to Paris I have this notion that running outside is some kind of "faux-pas." Of course I am devastated, as running is one of my favorite ways to explore new areas. And moreover, my track coach back at Hopkins is depending on me to be in somewhat decent shape when i return...but nevertheless, I decide to go for a run this morning anyway. I'm not sure what to wear, as I don't want to draw too much attention to myself, so I decide on the classic parisian all-black look. I also make sure to carry my cell phone, my apartment keys and of course pepper spray. Better safe than sorry...

My first step is finding a park. From my apartment in Montmartre (8th arr.) I discover that the closest park is Parc Monceau, near the Champs Elysees. I realize that Parc Monceau is the name of the Monet painting that hung in my room all year at Hopkins...it's a picturesque little park, covered in trees and pathways lined with wooden green benches. Immediately I see an ocean of people running, everywhere, all different speeds, young and old. I jump in and speed along, dodging left and right trying not to hit anyone. I'm exhilarated as I think I'm running, in Paris, in a park. In Paris! For some reason everything sounds better with the words "in Paris" tacked on the end (i fell in love...in Paris, I drank some wine...in Paris...see?)....after about 30 minutes I catch a glmpse of the Arc de Triomphe down the street, doesn't look too far so I leave the park and head towards it. Obviously the Arc is huge, so it's much farther than I thought. I end my run when i finally get to it and stare in awe. 

So running in Paris, nothing like what I thought...which is comforting because with all of the nutella and bread i'm eating, and all the red wine i'm drinking, running will be a must.