My Two Weeks In Torino/Paris

Ciao and Bonjour!

So it has definitely been awhile since I have had a post on my blog. This is mostly due to the fact that I have spent two consecutive weeks in Torino and just got back from Paris this previous weekend! I didn't have much planned for the two weekends of this three weekend span so I pretty much laid low during these first two weekends and stayed in Torino, relaxing and enjoying my time living here. I think it is very important to spend some time in the actual city that you are studying. It is also very important to just live a regular life in the city and not have to worry about traveling everywhere all the time. It was a really relaxing couple of weeks and I had an absolutely awesome time staying in Torino.

The chocolate Italy!

The highlight of my first weekend in this span staying in Torino was definitely the chocolate festival. We went as a group over to the festival downtown and it was really cool. Definitely the most chocolate I have ever seen. They had a huge map of Italy made of chocolate! With miniature famous sites to see around Italy in their corresponding geographical city, completely made of chocolate! We checked out a few of the chocolate booths set up, selling a bunch of different types of chocolate and then I was off to relax back at the apartment. I spent this weekend as well as the next experiencing a lot of the nightlife that Torino has to offer and I gotta say it was extremely fun. We went to a number of clubs and bars in the city and I had an awesome time. I had so much fun at the clubs, blasting electronic music, dancing on stages, and partying until about 6am haha. It was really cool and I was able to sleep in for as long as I needed to which was nice. The following weekend I stayed in Torino and once again, had an amazing time. The highlight of this weekend would have to be visiting the automobile museum as well as having a barbecue at one of the parks in town (or so we thought). So in between the more clubbing we did during this weekend we first checked out the newly renovated automobile museum in Torino, which was probably one of my favorite museums so far. It was really nice and they had a very impressive collection of cars here. They had a lot of older cars, as they went over the general history of the automobile, with influences in European countries.

An old FIAT. Straight outta Torino.

They had a lot of cool racing cars (Ferraris, etc.) and then they had a pretty cool collection of more modern cars and some concept cars (probably my favorite part of the museum). There was another section going over the designers of the cars which was really cool. It was a very impressive museum with very unique and creative exhibits that really demonstrated the reason why Torino is the automobile capital of Italy. The next day, a large group of us that were still in town had a barbecue in a park. It was really cool, although it took us about 2 and a half to 3 hours to get there! We had no idea it was going to be that far, and we had to hop on a bus for about 45 min. then walk pretty much forever until we reached a spot. It was funny though and we all joked about it when we got there. It was really fun though, we hung out with some Italian friends as well as friends within the program, and we cooked some pretty good food from our makeshift fire that we made from a tree stump haha. We had a really fun time there and it was worth the walk. This was another successful weekend in Torino and I was really glad that I stayed and relaxed in the city with some friends. The next weekend (this past weekend) I had the opportunity to visit Paris, France and it was incredible. I went with a few people from the program and one of them, Miles, had a friend who was studying abroad in nearby Beauvais, France. This worked out perfectly because the airport we flew into from Torino was actually in Beauvais and I got the flight for really cheap. It was awesome because as soon as we got there, Miles' friend Josh (the one studying there) had us picked up by some of his French friends who have cars, and we got a free ride straight to the school. We arrived in the evening, and Josh was organizing a big party at the school that night, so as soon as we got to the school we immediately started partying haha. The school was really neat and it was basically exactly the same as a traditional American college campus. This is not common in Europe, but I thought it was really cool and it reminded me a little bit of back home.

Once we started partying over there, we went to the main area in the school where the party was, which was an area with two big rooms, with a dance floor, bar, etc. They also had some live music playing and even a little catwalk set up for a fun fashion show that we all did haha. It was super fun and I met so many nice French students there. I could not have asked for more and French people really are some of the nicest people I have ever met. The student life here was awesome, and I wish my school in Torino was similar to this. We all had a blast the first night, dancing with French girls and partying late in the night haha. The next day, we took a train to Paris, which was about an hour to an hour and a half train ride. When we got there, we took a metro into the main part of the city and began our tour. We had a French guy with us for any translation we needed and the first thing we did was head into a creperie, which is basically a restaurant dedicated to a bunch of different crepes. I had a crepe covered in homemade chocolate and it was INCREDIBLE. It was a great way to start off our time in the city of Paris. From there we made our way over to the Notre Dame which was quite a site to see. That was really cool and from there, we walked over to the Louvre, which was quite huge. We didn't have time to go inside of it, however, because the Louvre is basically a day trip just for the museum! From the Louvre, we walked all the way to the Arc de Triumphe, stopping for some Starbucks on the way, of course. This thing was massive and another really neat site to see in the city. As we saw the sites around the city, we could always see the Eiffel Tower looming in the sky, so after seeing the Arc we walked over to the one and only Eiffel Tower.

Me chillin at the base of the tower rockin a blazer.

When we got there and stood at the base of it, I could not believe how massive the tower really was. It was truly incredible to see and I never thought I would be standing at the base of it. It was definitely one of the coolest sites I have seen, and we got plenty of pictures of it. At this point, our group separated a bit, as some people needed to head back to Beauvais for the night, giving us the option of heading back with them, or staying in the city for the night and staying at one of Josh's French friends' apartment in a suburb of Paris. After seeing the tower, my decision was easy to make, and I decided to stay in the city. Night time approached and we were able to see the tower light up under the night sky, which was an amazing site to say the least. Then, for about ten minutes on the hour, every hour from about 9pm to 1am, the entire tower would literally sparkle. There were thousands of little flashing lights installed on the tower and for ten minutes they would flash and it was unbelievable. It was so neat and I knew that we had to make our way to the top. So a group of us took the stairs to the second floor, then an elevator to the very top, and we made it up for about 9 euros total. It was a breathtaking site of the city, especially at night, seeing all of the lights of the city. On the inside of the top of the tower, it was really cool because they would have flags of large cities around the world, with the distance of how far that city was from where we were, in the corresponding direction. I thought that was pretty interesting and it was neat to see. After seeing the tower, we took a metro outside of the city and got a ride to the apartment of one of our French friends to stay there for the night. We basically spent the rest of the night talking with them about French life and the differences and similarities between their way of life and our way of life. It was so neat to talk to these guys about life in France and I found it to be very interesting. We talked for hours and at about 6am I ended up going to sleep haha. Like I said, the French people are extremely nice and I was very grateful to have a free place to stay in Paris (saving thousands of euros haha). I learned a lot about the culture there and I talked to them a lot about American culture which was cool. The next day was probably one of the most exhausting traveling days I've had so far.

The sparkling tower.

We woke up at around 10:30am and traveled the entire day, finally getting back around 8:30pm. To make a long story short, from the apartment we stayed at, we had to take a suburban train to one of the main train stations in Paris, then we had to run to the metro, then we had to take the metro to a second train station, missed the first train, the second train was later than expected making it more stressful to catch the flight, then we finally took the next train to Beauvais, got a ride from French friends to the airport, flew to Torino, took the shuttle from the airport to the city, then hopped on the second metro to my part of the city, and I finally arrived at my apartment. 8 total modes of transportation with about 6 different modes of transportation in a row. It was crazy but we somehow made it back on about 4 hours of sleep so that was interesting haha. In the end, I still think it was all worth it. I definitely wished I could have stayed in Paris longer because we seriously were only there for like half a day. We did a lot with the time we had but it definitely would have been nice to see more. I can't complain though because we did have a free place to stay and the flights were cheap. All in all I loved the Eiffel Tower, but it's hard to say which was better between that and just interacting with the French people. Having fun with the French students on Friday night and Saturday was awesome, and I think most of the time it's the people you meet that really make your trip worth it, no matter how many sites you see or all of the places you go. The connection you get by meeting people all over the world and learning about their culture often makes trips even more memorable, and I think I learned that a lot from this trip. Josh is a really cool guy, and his French friends are what made this trip really great for me. That's about it for this trip. Don't forget to check out Facebook for more pictures!

Au Revoir!