Dreaming in French: Why I Want to Revisit Paris

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Why I want to "Go With Oh" to Paris

The deadline for the “Go With Oh” spring blogger competition just ended (but make sure you check out their Web site for continued competitions and awesome prizes!!!), but my entry lives on in blog format: the story of a trip that was and the dream of a trip to be…


Je veux aller á Paris parce que j’adore française.

Last summer, I met the renowned City of Light for the first time; however, she must have been asleep.

On a quick five-city-stop trip with my mom, a short vacation between two years of teaching English at a German grammar school, Paris was by far my most anticipated destination, but it also disappointed me the most.

We spent the majority of our measly five hours in the French capital being bussed around, listening to our tour guide Michelle’s adorable accented English highlighting the attractions as we whizzed by:

“See, l’Arc de Triomphe…”

“See, le Muéee d’Orsay…”

“See, la Tour Eiffel…”

Grey on Grey: Tourists crowd in front of the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris on a dreary June day.  

Unfortunately, by the time we were deposited in front of the venerable Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, its courtyard crowded by a bevy of international tourists vying to feed the flocking pigeons or marvel at the grey gothic-inspired arches and flying buttresses, the sky had taken on a matching shade of colorlessness, foreshadowing the rain that would darken our remaining hour’s stay in a city known for luminescence.

Slowly shuffling through the expansive cathedral, I paused to photograph spiral candle stands glowing under the magnificent rose-shaped stained glass windows, the muted shafts and flickering tea lights the brightest sparks we would see that day.

The two large rose-shaped stained glass windows opposite each other inside the cathedral tell the complete  story of the Bible: one window represents the Old Testament, the other the New Testament.

Not having enough time to discover the true brilliance of Paris and being stuck centrally in the most heavily tourist-populated locales made for a mediocre encounter with the city Hemingway raved over in A Moveable Feast. At the Eifel Tower, my mom and I made a mad dash down the green, umbrellas extended, to capture a few shots with the world-famous icon before our bus departed.

Despite the dreary day, the undoubtedly majestic details of the buildings we did see left me speechless, but my muteness notwithstanding, an important element – even more important than the lack of light – was missing from my mini-trip to France: French.

Since I was a little girl, I dreamed of learning French, fascinated by its lilting liaisons and curvaceous script. Nonetheless, when I reached high school and signed up for my first foreign language, French was sadly not on the proffered elective list. So I settled for German – a decision that would lead me, down the road, to my living situation of the last two years, a tiny town nestled in Germany’s hilly Harz region.

Childhood dreams die hard, though, and I embraced the chance this year to learn with the same students I teach. Graciously, the French teacher at my school agreed to let me attend biweekly classes with the eighth grade (If only we were as enthusiastic about starting language study earlier in the US), practicing my Merci’s and building the foundations of language use.

Therefore, I would love to revisit Paris, immersing myself fully in the grand City of Light awake and at her best, living locally in an apartment, not only to explore undiscovered corners of the city – sidewalk cafés, sprawling gardens, endless fashion and art – but to personally encounter the magic of French, a language that’s captivated me from the beginning but has thus far eluded my grasp.

My 5-point wish list for Paris

1. Breakfast in a different bakery every day to sample Pain au Chocolat. I would describe the results of each day’s delectable buttery chocolate treat, picking my favorite at the end of the trip. (Without a doubt, I’d check out Au Levain d’Antan and Le Grenier à pain, winners of the 2011 and 2010 best baguette award, respectively).
2. After finishing my delectable breakfast, I’d buy a baguette to go and spiral through the Parisian arrondissements, stopping at the open-air food markets, perhaps the Marché Bastille in the 11^th Arrondissement on Thursday or Sunday or the Marché d’Aligre on Tuesday through Saturday morning, to test my French with the vendors and purchase fresh cheese and meats for an afternoon picnic.
3. A visit to Paris wouldn’t be complete without taking in some art. Since the impressionist painters always interested me the most, the Musée d’Orsay is at the top of my list, with its collection including works by Monet, Renoir, and Degas. Tickets for 18-25 year olds cost a very reasonable €6.50, or if I time my visit right, I could visit for free on the first Sunday of the month.
4. During my stay, I plan to sample the famous Parisian dish Duck Confit, perhaps at Bouillon Chartier, a historical and tastefully decorated French brasserie with reasonable prices and typical everyday French cuisine.
5. However kitschy my last item may sound, what better way to experience Paris’s luminescence then by ascending the Eiffel Tower at night to gaze over the expanse of twinkling lights. The Skip the Line Sunset Eiffel Tower Tour is rather pricey at €50, but experiencing the top in a small group not exceeding 20 people and avoiding the hours-long wait at the bottom may be worth the money.

Wet but determined, my mom and I used our 15-minute stop at the Eiffel Tower to run
far enough  down this path to capture a full view of the well-known landmark. We
may have been a few minutes late back to the bus, but at least we got our pictures!

Read other great entries for the “Go With Oh” spring blog competition by checking out their Pinterest page. Happy Traveling!

Beating the German Viruses for the Umpteenth Time

A week ago, I was huddled up in a coat and two scarves at Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Stadium, cheering on the home team to a rather mediocre 1-0 victory. While I was excited about my first live German soccer/football experience, the swirling cigarette smoke and currywurst fumes made me woozy rather than wound-up, and I was a little worried about the cold I’d felt coming on for the last day and a half.

By the time the game ended, and we were running along the pathway to the parking lot, determined to beat the rush of fans that had kept my friends trapped in hour-long gridlock the last time they’d visited the stadium, I knew I was in trouble. Jogging a couple hundred meters left me out of breath, and the coughing started not long after we’d gotten in the car.

Monday morning, I spent a miserable 3 hours in trains headed back to Wernigerode, and not long after I’d arrived, I was texting teachers and students, canceling all of my responsibilities for the day. On Tuesday, I wasn’t any better (healthier), and before you know it, my sick “day” had turned into a week: 7 long days of battling the German viruses.

In other words, besides sleep, my week looked like a whole lot of this:

The contents of my self-assembled survival kit:
Burt's Bees (from home), Kamill hand lotion, Heiße Zitrone Vitamin C packets, Grippostad C
cold medicine, Soft & Sicher tissues and Ricola sugar free sage throat lozenges. Ready, fight!

To be perfectly honest, I’d never considered myself prone to illness, before I moved to Germany, that is. Sure there’d be the almost inevitable cold at the end of the term, post finals, but nothing major. Last year, it seemed like every other weekend had me holed up in bed with a cold. I’ve had more problems with unexplained stomach aches this year, but apparently all the viruses were just waiting to team up on me.

Due to my less-than-desirable but considerable experience with colds last year, I felt, at least, semi-prepared to take on the bug this time around and had assembled a survival kit of sorts.

·      Grippostad C: In the states, I loathe cold medicine because the shaky, dizzying side effects are almost worse than the illness itself; however, this cold medicine pretty much fights against everything, effectively, sans nausea.

·      Heiße Zitrone: To me, the cold version of this drink is the only thing in Germany that tastes remotely like the lemonade from home and, to the Germans, it’s a veritable magic potion of disease fighting powers, packed with Vitamin C. Empty a few packets into a glass for a new spin on the “If life gives you lemons….” saying!

The rest of my survival kit consists of items you’d find in the U.S., too, but apart from the Burt’s Bees chap stick (one of the few things I’ve consistently imported), the German equivalents are somewhat superior in my mind.

·      Soft & Sicher tissues: Perhaps it’s the super thick paper itself or the multiple layers, but the German equivalent of Kleenex are super soft and heavy duty. When I blew my nose, I could be certain it’d stay in the tissue and not blast through into my hands.

·      Kamill hand lotion: Nonetheless, since I’d wash my hands every time I blew my nose (frequently), my poor skin was drying out like raisins, necessitating repair care. The orange “express” version leaves your hands instantly soft, but the green tube with chamomile extract is another favorite.

·      Ricola’s sugar-free sage drops: I didn’t need to suck on too many throat lozenges last week – thankfully, a sore throat was one of the precious few symptoms I didn’t have – but I was prepared, just in case. In the past, my apartment has been littered with the little purple and white wrappers after many bouts with bugs.

Finally, a week later, I’m feeling ready to return to society, though I’ll still have my tissues close at hand. And, of course, it can’t hurt to keep drinking lemonade…er heiße Zitrone, right?

What experiences have you had fighting bugs in foreign lands? And what country-specific remedies have you found to help get you healthy again?

Ode to Oregon, Introduction

I’ve grown up telling people about the place I call home. Month-long childhood summertime visits to the grandparents in muggy, flat Wisconsin were an introduction to the glowing wonder of fireflies but also an opportunity to correct relatives’ incorrect pronunciation (“It’s not called Ore-Uh-Gone!”) and extol our mountainous, green tree-filled world where warm summer days were merely hot, not humid.

The view of Oregon's Mt. Hood rising large above the landscape
has always taken my breath away and symbolized "home."

When I first travelled to Puebla, Mexico, in 2004 (my sophomore year of high school), I’d tucked picture postcards into my carry-on – visual aids to pass out to new friends, to show the children where I lived. Over the 8-day trip, dusty vistas and graffiti-covered walls changed to tropical vegetation and sharp drop-offs, muddy foot paths where we carried bags of sand and stone bricks half a mile down a mountain…and then back up the other side. I encountered bugs bordering on Tolkien-size proportions and ate virtually none of the native food as I counted down the days to the packaged – sterile – products awaiting me “in the States.”

As a kid, though, I took the wonder of my home state for granted. Of course, we’d go snowmobiling in the winter: loud, gas-smelling machines shooting along pristine white mountain paths to one of many frozen lakes, solid glasslike surfaces sparkling in the cold, cold sunshine. And weekend trips to the beach were, naturally, par for the course: chewy salt-water taffy sticking to our teeth while the real salt water shimmered underfoot, toes turning blue in the cold, cold surf.

One of my favorite spots to spend a summer day is Pacific City, Oregon.
Climb the infamous dune for this outstanding view of the ocean's expanse.

Sometimes we’d drive over the mountain to Eastern Oregon, a wide dessert expanse, brown and dusty in summer and snow-packed with delight in winter. Kah-nee-tah was always a favorite destination, the warm hot springs-fed pools a treat even my mom enjoyed. Other times, we’d head north to the Columbia River Gorge, its majestic waterfall-lined walls laced with hiking trails and jaw-dropping vistas over the river below.

Growing older, I caught the travel bug, loving years where I’d fly multiple times to other states for college volleyball tournaments, journalism conferences or family reunions – and eventually, I’d move abroad for a couple years, relishing the time where riding trains rushing across country borders was nothing extraordinary. All around the world, cities and countryside have stirred my heart. I’ve visited important historical landmarks, reflected on buildings broken and left as testaments to the carnage of war, and stood incredulously before intricate castles and ornate cathedrals that existed centuries before Lewis and Clark even discovered the Pacific Ocean.

Nowadays in my small-town Germany English classes, I like to tell the students that Oregon pretty much has everything: ocean, deserts, waterfalls, mountains, lakes, rivers. And whenever I flip through calendar brochures or travel guides, I always exclaim, a little longingly, “It really does look like that!” Splendid sunsets, glowing mountain peaks, cascading waterfalls – all within reach, all part of the package. I’ll even take the dreary rain, inherent to the West Coast, wet but nonetheless endearing.

Even on grey days, the Columbia River Gorge is beautiful, and breathtaking
vistas make the winding drive along the old Scenic Highway worth the trip.

Sometimes, I’ve asked myself why I ever want to leave, though honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever stop being amazed by the beauty of the world – the lure of adventure and exploration is a hard urge to silence – but even though my heart has been enraptured by global stimuli, its permanent earthly residence is unmistakably secure: Oregon – the end of the trail, a place for dreamers, home.