Pâques à Paris

Bonjour tout le monde! It has been a while since my last entry so I will get you up to speed on my vie parisienne.

This year was the first year I was unable to spend Easter with my family. While this was unfortunate, I was very blessed to spend it with friends in Paris! Here is a recap:

On Saturday my friends and I took the RER to Disneyland Paris, aka EURODISNEY. In France, by the end of March, spring is supposed to have arrived but on this particular day it was freezing out and we even saw snowflakes. Even though we didn’t have ideal Disney weather, we had a great time. The park was much smaller than the Disneys in the USA but it still had rides like the Teacups, Space Mountain, Peter Pan, and Pirates of the Caribbean and of course still had the iconic Disney castle in the center of the park. We rode almost every ride in the park! Literally, we stayed in the park for nearly ten hours. One of the coolest things about the parks was that even though it had a very American feel, everything was in French. So for example, when we rode the Pirates of the Caribbean or Peter Pan rides, the characters were all talking to each other in French! Inside the castle we even read the story of Sleeping Beauty in a French story book. By the time we got home we were completely exhausted.

EURODISNEY

On Easter Sunday, my friends and I decided to wake up early and go to 8:30am mass at the Notre Dame de Paris. We chose to go so early because we knew the later masses would be totally packed. It was definitely smarter for us to go early because there were plenty of seats when we arrived but by the end of our service, the cathedral was completely full. The service was beautiful and in all French. I even understood all of it because the priest spoke so slowly and clearly! 🙂 After Easter mass, we were lucky enough to find an open boulangerie (nothing is open in Paris on Sundays, especially on a holiday), bought some croissants and muffins and went back home to make an Easter family brunch. My friend Christina made us some hot coffee and delicious eggs, potatoes, and peppers. Later on that day we went back to the Notre Dame and even went to the Sacre Coeur because the weather was so nice. We walked around Montmartre (the neighborhood in the 18th arrondissement near the basilica) until we were thoroughly exhausted and went back home.

We had Easter Monday off from school and the weather was nice so my friends and I went to the zoo. I had no idea there was even a zoo in Paris, but one of our friends accidentally stumbled upon it one day while walking through the Jardin des Plantes. The zoo is called the Menagerie and most of the animals there are descendants of animals that were once kept at the Palace of Versailles. Aside from that interesting fact, the zoo was not unlike any American zoo I have been to except that they had an American raccoon. I never thought a raccoon to be zoo-worthy but I guess they don’t really exist in Europe! Here is a photo of me at the zoo:

So there is a recap of my Pâques à Paris! More to come in the near future and thank you for reading!

Shannon