No School Tomorrow!!

That's right, my vigorous 3-day school week is over and it's officially the weekend. Today has been spent mostly getting ahead on studying though in preparation for my trip to England tomorrow! Who knew you had to study in a study abroad program? Turns out taxation isn't a walk in the Tuileries Garden. But it's still pretty interesting and way less complex than a 10-week course at UCLA would have been.

Yesterday was the first of our organized walking tours with the program. We took the Metro as a 40-person group and all I have to say is I felt so bad for the poor French people trying to get on with their daily lives that ran into our giant glom at the station. I sort of felt like I was on a kindergarten field trip following the leader, sticking to the buddy system, and repeating the colors and numbers of the metro lines over and over again. As an already seasoned Metro-rider, I found this quite nettlesome.

My buddy system and I in the Metro tunnels.

Our first stop--l'Hotel des Invalides. It is home to the French Army Museum and, more famously, Napoleon's tomb. It was odd going through the World War II section of the army museum because I'm so used to seeing everything from the American perspective rather than the French perspective. I did my best to read all of the information (it was all in French), but shortly I got a headache from scrutinizing every single word in order to translate. One thing I did learn is that the French like tassles on their army headwear. One helmet was decorated with long platinum blonde strands erupting from the top. It reminded me of a Barbie. 

Des Invalides. The French sure do have cool buildings.

Napoleon's tomb. Talk about a complex.

The picture of Napoleon's tomb was taken from the second story of the crypt looking down. It was kind of creepy looking at the coffin on the pedestal. I kept picturing a shriveled midget inside. Not really the most pleasant of images. I wonder what he is wearing in there.

Then we head over to the Rodin Museum around the corner. If you have no idea who that is, don't feel bad because I didn't either. But he was the dude who trademarked "the Thinker" pose in sculpture.

When I look at this the only visual that comes to mind is Winnie the Pooh saying "Think, think, think..."

Am I right?

Rodin also apparently had a legit house that-surprise!-they turned into a museum. The sculptures inside were pretty angsty and all naked, so I think I would have rather seen all his furniture and stuff instead. But the views of the gardens (where the Thinker statue is) from the upper balcony were magnificent. 

Caught by the paparazzi. 

After we finished walking through the museum we were free to go, so some friends and I decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower which wasn't too far away. It's probably one of my favorite things here, I could visit it a million times and never get bored of the sight. Yesterday was especially sunny, lighting up all the greenery of the parkway leading up to the Tower. French people and tourists alike were lounging on the grass all over. It was a pretty sweet sight.

My calf muscles will be bulging by the end of this trip with the amount of walking I do daily.

At the end of the night we took a relaxing stroll to the Seine to hang out along the banks like the other young French folk. I felt like less of a tourist when the river cruise boats sailed by and the passengers were taking our picture as if we were the locals. 

Don't let the amount of light deceive you, it was probably around 9:30pm. It never gets dark here for some reason.

So that's the really fast, lazy version of what the last two days have been like. I'm feeling an evening nap creeping over me, and I think I'm about to let myself succumb to it. Bonne nuit errybody.

Tribute to Bob

I would like to dedicate this post to Robert Schaller, the Founder of the Feast. Without him I would not be on this amazing trip, so I am thankful. The following are photo highlights from our time in France together:

The père et sa fille. Adorbs.

The tallest man in Europe atop la Tour Eiffel.

We conquered the Metro together.

He said, "I want to go to the top."

"You want to do what?"

I give him props for climbing up 287 stairs.

Celebratory gelato. Because we always have gelato. Even in France.

Notre Dame, our favorite site we visited.

Can't wait till the next father-daughter excursion! (Sorry Mom and Beth.)

Back to School!

While I am quite sad that my dad's trip has come to a close, I must confess that I cannot even contain my excitement for the second and main portion of my study abroad.

I checked into the Citadines apartment/hotel yesterday (shoutout to Bob for rolling my 50 pound suitcase through 3 transfers and up and down 5-10 flights of stairs on the Metro from our hotel near the Eiffel Tower to my "apart-hotel" a few blocks down from the Bastille). The setup is pretty sweet. Similar to a (small) apartment I've got a little kitchenette area to prepare my own food, but the rest is like a hotel room with a cleaning staff that comes in once a week. It is actually quite lovely.

My bed (right). Already messy. And made for the only time all month I'm sure.

The kitchen. Eco-friendly bag full of groceries and a plate of chocolate croissants I stole from the hotel this morning.

View outside my window in case I ever forget I am in Paris.

After a rather large café au lait (necessary to stay awake for the 3 hour lecture), I headed into my first study abroad class in the Citadines conference room: International Business Law aka Management 109. If you promise not to tell my professor, I'll admit I hadn't done the reading for class today (Rome was too fun). As a result, I had a few jitters walking into the "classroom." Or perhaps it was the caffeine from the café. Either way, to my relief I discovered that no one else had read either. I have never been more excited to be surrounded by underachievers. 

Today's class was mostly an overview of the program. My heart was pounding in excitement (or again from the caffeine jolt) as our professor, who is the associate dean of UCLA's Anderson School of Management, described to us all the walking excursions and field trips we will be taking around France during the month abroad. Then we eventually delved into the law material, discussing how to do case briefs. Luckily for me I have an overenthusiastic nerdy lawyer for a father, so I am way ahead of the game. (I got a lecture on how to brief cases over lunchtime lasagna in the Piazza Navona in Rome.) 

After class a bunch of us decided to head out immediately to grab our first Parisian lunch together and later buy groceries at the supermarché. As true Los Angelenos, my fellow UCLA students and my first déjeuner in France was at Planet Sushi. Secretly against my will I might add, as I am partial to du pain et du fromage. To be fair, this was the most legit sushi place ever (way to be outdone, Japan).  It was designed like those cute little hotdog joints where the food comes around to you on a mini train. Then you pay for every plate you pick up. 

Ultra modern. Lots of pink. And check out the sushi conveyer belt against the wall.

It gets better. They sell dessert sushi rolls. And in true European fashion, they contain Nutella and are wrapped in a crepe instead of seaweed. France, even your sushi is epic. I am in awe. 

If you're wondering if Nutella and strawberries taste weird with rice--they don't. Rice has no flavor; it's just chewy. 

We ventured off to the supermarket for groceries afterwards, where I purchased all the essentials: yogurt, Orangina, and frozen lasagna (among a few other things). The reason why I shopped so light? I have two giant packs of protein bars thanks to Ranger Bob. That's more protein than a whole brood of chickens. Plus I'm sure I'll be eating out even more than I want to since we're often away from the hotel. 

I returned to my room mostly to refrigerate my perishables, but since I was there and without solid plans, I decided that I should probably do my homework for International Taxation, the other course I am enrolled in here. BUT--you'll be proud of me--I already did the reading for tax! Though I barely removed the cellophane on the business law textbook, I powered through the tax book earlier in the summer when I was bored. Phew. More time to catch up on the reading I didn't do and eat the chocolate croissants on the counter. 

Later on the majority of the kids in my group are meeting up to hang out along the Seine for the night. Ooh là là! Quite the Parisian I have become. 

Zut Alors

Bonsoir! Ah Paris, je t'aime. This city is incredible. I can't believe I'm finally here, after eight long years of oral exams, the dreaded subjunctive, and a dependence on freetranslation.com, French class has finally paid off. I've wanted to come here ever since that fateful day in Madame Beyer's sixth grade class when I conjugated my very first verb.

I bet you're all dying to know how I've been faring in the City of Light, but unfortunately I learned the hard way never to trust a Radio Shack employee and have a dead and currently unchargable laptop. The voltage adapter recommended to me for European outlets does not support the wattage of my MacBook charger, and what with all the extreme blogging I have been engaging in the battery well has run quite dry.

One of my first memories in Paris has been asking the guy behind the counter at the local Office Depot (makes sense they have those here, "depot" sounds so French) who spoke zero English if they had laptop voltage adapters. Now that was an experience. Madame Beyer taught me how to conjugate the verb chercher so I could communicate that I was looking for something, but "voltage adapter" never came up in our vocabulary lessons. Nevertheless I struggled through and was actually directed to some kind of adapter, but not exactly what I needed. So for the time being, let your imaginations run wild with visions of the shenanigans I have gotten involved in thus far, and I will debrief everyone on my happenings once I figure out the charging situation.

All I'll say for now is Vive la France. Vivent les Nutella crepes. And vivent--for lack of a better term--les voltage adapters.

Ciao Roma!

This post is bittersweet. While visions of Nutella crepes are dancing in my head aboard my flight to Paris, I can’t help but think that the last four days went by too fast. We saw practically everything on the map, but I could see those monuments a thousand times over and still never cease to be amazed. But I tossed that coin into Trevi Fountain, so with or without Neptune’s blessing, I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts on Rome:

1) Gelato just trumped froyo in my book. Sorry Red Mango, you’re going to have to do better than that. There’s nothing more perfect in the ice cream genre. It’s creamier, lighter, it doesn’t melt as easily, the spoons are neon… need I say more?

          

      2) What’s up with the cat obsession? Every street vendor and souvenir shop carries a large 12-month calendar of cats posed on various Roman architectural structures. 

I don't understand.

I've been to the Colosseum so I can safely say this vantage point is not real.

    I mean, I have two cats, but that doesn’t equate to wanting to see Whiskers lounging at the Colosseum for the entire month of November or Oswald playing in St. Peter’s Square all of July. Out of curiosity though I put together my own calendar using the CatPaint app, just to see how it feels.

Fat cat on the Spanish Steps.

Black cat at the Roman Forum.

Laser cats at the Trevi.

       It feels creepy.

    3) Lack of drinking water. Water fountains don’t exist, except for the occasional janky pipe coming out of the ground in some of the piazzas. They should put all those bathtubs on display in the Vatican Museum to better use. Water isn’t free at restaurants either. So there is no advantage frugally to order water at a restaurant. Oh except for the fact that a Coke costs almost $9 US. Which leads me to my next point,

    

     4) Everyone in Europe is skinny. Or rather, no one in Europe is overweight. At first we were shocked, but now I kind of understand. Soda consumption is severely curbed by its uneconomic cost, for one. We saw one Burger King and one McDonald’s the entire trip (and none in the airport), suggesting that fast food is not a celebrated concept over here. Convenience stores don’t have endless aisles of chips and candy, though interestingly enough they are big on Pringles. Still, candy is packaged in what we would consider “fun size,” and cookies are more like biscuits than giant sugar bombs. They are also masters of portion control. A novel concept I realize. But how is it that I could consume an entire three-course meal in one sitting in Rome when at home I can’t even finish an appetizer as my entrée? Calorie count aside, I’ll take the three courses.

      5) Everything here is smaller. Not just the people. Cars, streets, buildings, shopping carts, etc. Yet everything functions just as well, if not better. America’s obsession with largeness is becoming increasingly evident to me as I spend more time in Europe. We’ll see if Paris is the same. One thing I know for sure is that my first automobile will be a Smart Car.  I don’t care if it’s barely bigger than the Fisher Price my dad used to push me down the street in. It’s so small that it’s length is about the same width as a regular car. I’ll never have to learn to parallel park. I can just pull in perpendicular to the space. Win win.

   Well I'm in Paris now so it is time to move on. Ciao Roma, it's been real. Bienvenue à Paris!

Why Do All Good Things Come to an End?

Good question, Nelly Furtado. Today unfortunately marked the end of 1) my time in Rome and 2) the beautiful weather we've been having all week. Thankfully the rain held off just long enough for us to make our final stop in the Eternal City: the Colosseum.

Whoa.

Holy cow. This might just be the coolest darn thing I have ever seen. The Romans were extremely advanced for their time, building this enormous arena over 2000 years ago. Funny enough, despite how ancient it is, it doesn't look much different from modern day stadiums like Soldier Field. The whole thing used to be covered in marble too. Fancy.

A primeval Rose Bowl. 

Apparently it had nearly 80 entrances, so after the matches they could have everyone cleared out in about 15 minutes. Certainly not the case anymore. Though I don't think they had to deal with as much parking lot traffic. Inside the stadium man would fight man, man would fight animal, or animal would fight animal. Animal fights were to the death, and they fought so often that species almost became extinct. Guess PETA didn't exist back then. Michael Vick would have fit right in. 

Next door to Il Colosseo is the Roman Forum, a plaza filled with ruins from ancient Rome. Now about two years ago, I visited the historical site of Jamestown in Virginia only to find, much to my disappointment, that all that was left was a few one-brick high foundations. At the Forum, there were giant arches, halves of temples, and other well-intact government buildings of downtown ancient Rome. These guys were amazing. 

McDonald's can't compete with those arches.

Or these.

I'm just a bill yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitoline Hill.

They must've used rubber cement instead of Elmer's on this side of  Julius Caesar's Temple.

Imperial Rome was not a bad way to end my trip here. Our tour guide also looked like a cross between Hugh Laurie and Steve McQueen which made for an entertaining time, despite the fact that my walkie talkie thing died halfway through and I had no idea what he was telling us. I can see why the people of Rome were p.o.'ed at Victor Emanuele for knocking some of this down to build a giant white marble monument for himself. The true beauty of Rome is how advanced these people's thinking was at the time and how it shows up in architecture all over the city. No need for skyscrapers here.

My last supper consisted of traditional Italian fare: bruschetta, insalate, fettucine, and pizze. The food here is amazing because it's restaurant fare tastes like a home-cooked meal made with love rather than something heated up from a freezer. I shed a tear as I spooned my last gelato in Rome into my mouth. But least my food baby will last me another 24 hours.

Mama mia!

I'll wrap up Rome tomorrow on my way to France. Buona notte!

Vatican City, Vatican City

On our third day we decided to drop by the Vatican and see what all the fuss was about. This time we took a tour because it would be a lot easier to get in, the only catch was we were going to be picked up at 6:45am. That is not optimal Schaller time. I think the only reason we had a chance is because breakfast opens at 6:30 and I was not about to miss my daily morning Nutella croissant. So we made it.

Ta da!

Super cool headsets so we could hear our tour guide inside. 

Not gonna lie, the Vatican museum was kind of a bust.  Literally. About half the artwork was just stone heads. Or bodies. I seriously wonder if they just cut off the heads of every statue to double the collection in size. 

They call this one "the torso." Creative.

They put his foot over here.

Still, it was cool to know we were inside one of the most famous places in the world. Then we hit up the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty legit. It was very dimly lit and cool inside, I assume to preserve the paintings. The ceiling was a lot bigger than I had imagined because in all the history books they only show one scene of Michelangelo's paintings, when really it is a whole series plus a giant wall mural. Apparently he completed the ceiling when he was about 30 years old. I hope I am that successful ten years from now. You're not allowed to take pictures in there, but of course that didn't stop me, so I snapped a few on the reverse camera while pretending to text on my iPhone. Clever eh? Hopefully the ceiling doesn't start peeling as a result of my illicit photography.

Contraband photo.. Don't say I never did anything for you guys.

St. Peter's Basilica. Now that schniz is ornate. There's a million different facades, shining lights, towering mosaics, embalmed bodies of popes (a little creepy...), statues of giant babies, and lots and lots of gold. Looked more like a palace than a place of worship. Nonetheless, I must give them credit it was magnificent. Also, if you're wondering why it was built, the Basilica rests over the grave site of St. Peter, the first pope, in his memory. Hence the name.

Some might call it a little over the top. But it was pretty amazing to look at.

In front of the altar. It was so bright you almost needed sunglasses.

Then we peaced out on that joint to look out on St. Peter's Square with all of our newfound Vatican knowledge. You can see the Basilica on the left, the building that Pope famously leans out of on the right, and in the center is the obelisk that signifies where Peter was supposedly killed. What a cool visual.

It was only 11am and the place was already packed. And we overachievers had already seen the whole thing.

Our tour ended in the Vatican gift shop, naturally, so from that point on we were on our own. We had passed a huge castle on the way in, and Bob being the war enthusiast that he is, insisted that we check out all its turrets and artillery. Castel Sant'Angelo was actually a fortress for the Pope during wartime before it was eventually made into a museum, as everything eventually is it seems. The cannons and giant moats were really cool, but the absolute best part was the breathtaking views of the entire city from the upper terrace.

A picture's worth a thousand words.

I'm ginormous!

I can forever say that I've been to the Vatican now. And even though I'm not Catholic it is still incredible. Yesterday the Vatican, today Il Colosseo. The most quintessential site in Rome: the Colosseum. And not that dumb replica USC built.