Bonjour à tous et toutes!
I hope that you're all doing well, and having a wonderful Easter!
So I had a pretty wonderful couple of days this weekend -- for those of you who haven't seen on Facebook, I got to go to Disneyland Paris with one of my friends from Susquehanna!
My friend, Emily, is studying abroad in Florence, Italy this semester, but she was on spring break for the past few weeks, so she came up to France! She suggested the trip to Disney to me a few weeks ago, and I quickly decided that I had to go. I had a wonderful time going to Disney World with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and sister, the winter break of my freshman year at SU, which was my first time going to Disney (except for a day when I was 5 which I can't remember)! It was a phenomenal experience, and definitely got me hooked on the Magic of Disney. So, it wasn't hard to motivate myself to buy tickets to and from Paris, and to plan out with Emily exactly where we'd meet up for a wonderful 2-day weekend.
Unfortunately, our Friday meet-up didn't go as planned, and it wound up taking us about 3 hours to finally find each other, due to delays, temporary metro shut-downs, and spotty wifi as our only means of communication. Needless to say, when we finally found each other at the Metro stop right outside of Disney, we were very happy, and ready to move on to the fun part of the day.
I quickly learned that Disney World and Land are very important to Emily and her family, so she knew all the sights that we needed to see, despite the fact that this was her first time at this Disney. We explored Sleeping Beauty's castle, hopped on a few rides (It's a Small World, and Teacups being two essential ones), and managed to catch the Forest of Enchantment show, in which we saw six different Disney characters perform (Merida, Tarzan, Rapunzel [and Flynn Rider], Baloo, King Louis, and Pocahontas [and John Smith]). It was wonderful, especially since all of the songs were in English, so we could sing along.
After that, we hit up a few more rides before finding that the whole park was shutting down, despite the fact that the big show (which was at 8) wasn't going to start for another 40 minutes or so. So we rushed through the park in a desperate attempt to find dinner, because we knew we had at least an hour of transport before we would get back to Emily's hotel, and it wasn't that likely that we would find food along the way. Luckily, we managed to get into the Star Wars café before it closed, where we picked up a decent dinner, which we took with us to the castle, where there was going to be a big light show.
The show was absolutely phenomenal. I wasn't able to take any pictures or video because my phone was next to dead, but I'll try to help you visualize its awesomeness. They lit up the front of the castle to move through a story which started off with Peter Pan visiting Wendy (Peter talking in English, Wendy in French), and his shadow getting loose. Peter chased his shadow around the front of the castle, until the shadow hit the star on top and "let all the magic out". The shadow then passed through a series of story lines, including scenes from Brave (English), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (French), The Lion King (English), Tangled (English), Beauty and the Beast (French [Be Our Guest = C'est la fête]), Aladdin (English, made me miss Robin Williams :( ), Ratatouille (French), and The Princess and the Frog (English). It was about twenty minutes long, ending with Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook to reclaim his shadow. There were not only lights on the castle, but also fireworks, water art and more. Here's a link to a random video I found that'l help you visualize it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OoBgsxmr9Y
This recording is the same story that I saw, although they have tweaked some of the lights/water/fireworks.
It was definitely interesting to see the mix of English and French throughout the day. I wasn't really sure what language(s) to expect going in, but most of the performances we saw were mostly, if not wholly, English. As someone who speaks both languages, it was a wonderful (and unique) experience. It was interesting to talk with Emily about parts of it, since she doesn't speak English, and therefore didn't understand what Wendy was saying, for example. I think they've done a good job of bringing the American and anglophone world of Disney together with Paris and France.
So that was one of the, if not the, best Friday of my trip thusfar. And it's gonna be hard to top!
Then, on Saturday, Joanna (another SU student studying in Florence, with whom Emily travelled for Spring break), Emily, and I, went to do the Catacombs. As it was a Saturday, we, unfortunately, had to wait in the longest line I've ever been in. It took about 3 and a half hours before we could get in to the catacombs, but that gave us a great chance to chat about SU, our semesters so far, and a lot of other stuff. For those of you who don't know, the Catacombs are where the remains of about 6 million bodies were moved during the 1780s (ish) when the underground tunnels from the ancient Mines of Paris began to collapse, creating cave-ins. These tunnels were reinforced, and bodies were moved from cemeteries that had run out of space, in order to protect the public from diseases caused by corpses that could not be properly buried. So remains (skeletons) were moved into the catacombs, which became ossuaries, open to the public in the late 19th century.
I knew none of this going in.
I had read about a semi-secret society of people who spend a lot of time in the catacombs, but it was not the part of the catacombs that is now an ossuary, rather parts that are not known to the public. I also don't know how true that is. So that was my working knowledge base, and I was just trusting Emily and Joanna that what we were going to see would be worth the wait. And it was.
It was definitely freaky at first, being surround by skeletons -- my first time seeing a real skeleton, and I see thousands in one go. It was also interesting to see how the skeletons were stacked, because they were mainly stacked in big rows (see pictures below), but occasionally skulls and certain bones were used to create shapes in the stacks, like a cross or a heart. Sometimes there were also bones loosely (and kind os haphazardly) strewn on top of the organized stacks. It makes you wonder what the people creating the stacks were thinking, and if any stories remain about the people who were moved to these catacombs.
I'll let the pictures below speak for the experience, because I think that they really help to get it across.
After the catacombs, we went and found lunch (we wound up accidentally finding a restaurant with Mexican and American food, which had a surprising number of Vegetarian options, and was therefore nice for me.
Then it was time to part ways, as they were staying in Paris for a day or so longer, and I had to catch my bus back to Rennes. Luckily there were no problems with my bus, so I had a smooth (although loooooong) bus ride back.
And today (Sunday), in just a few hours, I am going to my host dad's family get together. I have no idea what to expect, although I know that I'll be doing a lot of bises (cheek kisses), and that it'll be good practice for my Oral Comprehension test this week! I think I might do a mini-update tomorrow, just to let you know how it goes.
Well, after that novel, I should probably go get ready!
A la prochaine fois!
Evelyn
I hope that you're all doing well, and having a wonderful Easter!
So I had a pretty wonderful couple of days this weekend -- for those of you who haven't seen on Facebook, I got to go to Disneyland Paris with one of my friends from Susquehanna!
My friend, Emily, is studying abroad in Florence, Italy this semester, but she was on spring break for the past few weeks, so she came up to France! She suggested the trip to Disney to me a few weeks ago, and I quickly decided that I had to go. I had a wonderful time going to Disney World with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and sister, the winter break of my freshman year at SU, which was my first time going to Disney (except for a day when I was 5 which I can't remember)! It was a phenomenal experience, and definitely got me hooked on the Magic of Disney. So, it wasn't hard to motivate myself to buy tickets to and from Paris, and to plan out with Emily exactly where we'd meet up for a wonderful 2-day weekend.
Unfortunately, our Friday meet-up didn't go as planned, and it wound up taking us about 3 hours to finally find each other, due to delays, temporary metro shut-downs, and spotty wifi as our only means of communication. Needless to say, when we finally found each other at the Metro stop right outside of Disney, we were very happy, and ready to move on to the fun part of the day.
I quickly learned that Disney World and Land are very important to Emily and her family, so she knew all the sights that we needed to see, despite the fact that this was her first time at this Disney. We explored Sleeping Beauty's castle, hopped on a few rides (It's a Small World, and Teacups being two essential ones), and managed to catch the Forest of Enchantment show, in which we saw six different Disney characters perform (Merida, Tarzan, Rapunzel [and Flynn Rider], Baloo, King Louis, and Pocahontas [and John Smith]). It was wonderful, especially since all of the songs were in English, so we could sing along.
After that, we hit up a few more rides before finding that the whole park was shutting down, despite the fact that the big show (which was at 8) wasn't going to start for another 40 minutes or so. So we rushed through the park in a desperate attempt to find dinner, because we knew we had at least an hour of transport before we would get back to Emily's hotel, and it wasn't that likely that we would find food along the way. Luckily, we managed to get into the Star Wars café before it closed, where we picked up a decent dinner, which we took with us to the castle, where there was going to be a big light show.
The show was absolutely phenomenal. I wasn't able to take any pictures or video because my phone was next to dead, but I'll try to help you visualize its awesomeness. They lit up the front of the castle to move through a story which started off with Peter Pan visiting Wendy (Peter talking in English, Wendy in French), and his shadow getting loose. Peter chased his shadow around the front of the castle, until the shadow hit the star on top and "let all the magic out". The shadow then passed through a series of story lines, including scenes from Brave (English), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (French), The Lion King (English), Tangled (English), Beauty and the Beast (French [Be Our Guest = C'est la fête]), Aladdin (English, made me miss Robin Williams :( ), Ratatouille (French), and The Princess and the Frog (English). It was about twenty minutes long, ending with Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook to reclaim his shadow. There were not only lights on the castle, but also fireworks, water art and more. Here's a link to a random video I found that'l help you visualize it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OoBgsxmr9Y
This recording is the same story that I saw, although they have tweaked some of the lights/water/fireworks.
It was definitely interesting to see the mix of English and French throughout the day. I wasn't really sure what language(s) to expect going in, but most of the performances we saw were mostly, if not wholly, English. As someone who speaks both languages, it was a wonderful (and unique) experience. It was interesting to talk with Emily about parts of it, since she doesn't speak English, and therefore didn't understand what Wendy was saying, for example. I think they've done a good job of bringing the American and anglophone world of Disney together with Paris and France.
So that was one of the, if not the, best Friday of my trip thusfar. And it's gonna be hard to top!
Then, on Saturday, Joanna (another SU student studying in Florence, with whom Emily travelled for Spring break), Emily, and I, went to do the Catacombs. As it was a Saturday, we, unfortunately, had to wait in the longest line I've ever been in. It took about 3 and a half hours before we could get in to the catacombs, but that gave us a great chance to chat about SU, our semesters so far, and a lot of other stuff. For those of you who don't know, the Catacombs are where the remains of about 6 million bodies were moved during the 1780s (ish) when the underground tunnels from the ancient Mines of Paris began to collapse, creating cave-ins. These tunnels were reinforced, and bodies were moved from cemeteries that had run out of space, in order to protect the public from diseases caused by corpses that could not be properly buried. So remains (skeletons) were moved into the catacombs, which became ossuaries, open to the public in the late 19th century.
I knew none of this going in.
I had read about a semi-secret society of people who spend a lot of time in the catacombs, but it was not the part of the catacombs that is now an ossuary, rather parts that are not known to the public. I also don't know how true that is. So that was my working knowledge base, and I was just trusting Emily and Joanna that what we were going to see would be worth the wait. And it was.
It was definitely freaky at first, being surround by skeletons -- my first time seeing a real skeleton, and I see thousands in one go. It was also interesting to see how the skeletons were stacked, because they were mainly stacked in big rows (see pictures below), but occasionally skulls and certain bones were used to create shapes in the stacks, like a cross or a heart. Sometimes there were also bones loosely (and kind os haphazardly) strewn on top of the organized stacks. It makes you wonder what the people creating the stacks were thinking, and if any stories remain about the people who were moved to these catacombs.
I'll let the pictures below speak for the experience, because I think that they really help to get it across.
After the catacombs, we went and found lunch (we wound up accidentally finding a restaurant with Mexican and American food, which had a surprising number of Vegetarian options, and was therefore nice for me.
Then it was time to part ways, as they were staying in Paris for a day or so longer, and I had to catch my bus back to Rennes. Luckily there were no problems with my bus, so I had a smooth (although loooooong) bus ride back.
And today (Sunday), in just a few hours, I am going to my host dad's family get together. I have no idea what to expect, although I know that I'll be doing a lot of bises (cheek kisses), and that it'll be good practice for my Oral Comprehension test this week! I think I might do a mini-update tomorrow, just to let you know how it goes.
Well, after that novel, I should probably go get ready!
A la prochaine fois!
Evelyn