Last post for Paris: Why do I love Paris?

I thought 10 weeks in Paris will be a long time, but in fact it was not that long for me. I feel like I just got to know the city. I just started to know what the city is like, what the people are like, what the language sounds like and where to go when one has free time. I experienced this feeling for the first time yesterday after my last final exam here in Paris, but it was also the last day that I can experience it. 

But time never stopped running, and now another chapter of my life is slowly coming to an end while the next chapter is coming soon.

When I got here, I don't think I will ever say this, but I do want to say it now. "I love Paris." There are more than just touristy places that everyone seems to post online to share when they come to Paris. Here are things I like about this city and the time that I am here.

Public transportation
It seems like everyone love this fact about how efficient public transportation is in Paris, how little time they have to wait at the metro station to catch a train home, how fast it is to get from one place to the other and how easy it is to find metro stations since there are everywhere. If you walked in the city and started to feel that you got lost, the next metro station will be right in front of you and you can just catch the next train home without much thinking to do. And I really like public transportation here for these same reasons as well and it just makes it is much easier to get to know the city like I could not have done anywhere else.

Musée des Arts et Métiers Metro stop

Also, there are many little details in the metro station that are worth looking at. And perhaps because of this, that I never hesitate to get the next train and go to different places that I have never been before. 

Disneyland Paris: Time Machine and Consumerism

This is my first time visiting any Disneyland. At first, I thought I will be too old for this type of amusement park when you get excited by seeing Mickey Mouse walking around the park, but my friends kept saying that no one is too old for such a thing. So, I decided to give a Disneyland a try.

Disneyland Paris: the entrance

Henri Cartier-Bresson Exhibition in Centre Pompidou

Henri Cartier-Bresson Exhibition at Centre Pompidou 12 February - 9 June 2014

One day, I had a chance to visit the exhibition about Henri Cartier-Bresson at Centre Pompidou in Paris. I have to admit that I do not know or even heard his name before coming to the exhibition that day. Our tour guide told us how important he was as a 'father of photojournalism. Wikipedia also states in his article that

'he was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the street photography or life reportage style that was coined The Decisive Moment that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.'

Art around Paris: Everything is Everywhere

A guy painting Notre Dame Cathedral n Pont Saint-Michel on a sunny Sunday

 I started this post because I saw quite a number of people around different cities, especially Paris with their paints or their sketchbooks. So, I would like to gather them together and show how an artistic atmosphere are around Paris and Europe in general. And this becomes the first in my series of "Everything is Everywhere."

One Afternoon in Paris: Musée d'OrsayMusée d'Orsay

Right after class one day, I realized that the weather that afternoon was super nice. So, I went to had lunch near the river instead of at the student lounge like I normally do. However, once I got to the river, I saw Musée d'Orsay so I decided to visit for the first time after finishing my lunch. without much preparation of this place. This is one of the things that I like about Paris. Because there are many museums and touristy places for you to visit during the study abroad program, you do not really have to plan to do certain things since you will stumble across something interesting anyway. 

Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

Catacombs of Paris

Catacomb in general

During the course of my life (as of 2014) that I have been traveling to many places around–mostly in few countries, I have seen many strange things that I could not believe they could be attractions for tourism such as a wreckage from a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima (not that I found this site boring, rather it left me a powerful image of how devastating nuclear bombs could be) or empty desert in Iran. But I would say the Catacombs of Paris is the weirdest places that I have ever visited so far. And I'm not sure whether I mean it in the positive sense or the negative one.

First Story in Paris: Eiffel Tower

Eiffel Tower–one of the most iconic structures in the world

I want to start my story about Paris with one of the most iconic structures in the world, the Eiffel Tower. Once I have some free time after settling down, I decided to walk to the Eiffel tower to be able to see the tower from different views. Some people might think that it is just a tower that happened to be famous but, personally, I always think that I want to see the Eiffel Tower from different angles and took great photos of it. Even though I still have no little knowledge about the tower itself, it still made me excited every time I came to see it. One of the reasons for this might be from a story when I was in middle school.