Am I the only person still recovering from the horrible tease that is Spring Break? I think there is something wrong with a week of pure fun followed by six more weeks of class with assignments due and reading to be completed. Not that I should be complaining, as several people I know went home for Spring Break to get their wisdom teeth out. Many of you lucky others traveled to tropical locales. And not to brag or anything, but I'd have to say my Spring Break trumps them all -- minus the fact that, unlike the Mexico and Florida partygoers, I am not insanely tan.
Instead, my friend and I decided to stay in Paris for 10 days.
I think half of the fun of going somewhere legitimate for Spring Break is telling people where you're going once they ask, especially if they're going home. Believe me, I know. This is the first cool Spring Break trip I've been on.
I would describe myself as addicted to travel, especially across the Atlantic, where life seems so sophisticated and cultured. When I'm home I watch nerdy PBS travel shows with my mom and whine about how boring my suburban American life is. There's just something about exploring old cities with completely different cultures and meeting people with different backgrounds who speak multiple languages that I think is amazing.
My friend and I decided upon a trip motto as we crossed the Atlantic Ocean: Paris: no parents, obviously playing on the standard "College: No Parents" cheer, which generally accompanies fist pumping and chugging Natty Light, or in our case, bottles of wine. We followed this mantra faithfully -- let me tell you, though, at times this hindered the logic in our decision making.
Having been to Europe twice with my high school English class and then studying abroad, plus going on the standard beach vacations with my family, my travels have always been structured for me, which is fine because you can go with the flow and let others make decisions for you. But you rarely get to make the small decisions, like choosing where to eat for dinner. So you can imagine my excitement at the prospect of choosing where to eat every night in a city where the food is as reputable as the three-Euro bottles of wine -- I mean the art.
Before I left, I watched the last episode of "Sex and the City," in which Carrie moves to Paris and stays in an amazing hotel suite and shops at Dior, and I fantasized that my own experience would be as romantic as hers. Our experience, though awesome in its own charmingly sketchy way, was not as classy.
We booked the cheapest hostel we could find before reading ominous online reviews that mentioned the possibility of bed bugs, shower bugs, minimal security (read: everyone had access to our room key) and even the potential for friendly visitors off of the street. We became more apprehensive when we perused my friend's guidebook on the plane and read that Lonely Planet no longer recommended our hostel, making a point to state its rejection.
My sense of foreboding was magnified when my friend and I were scolded by an elderly French woman for talking too loudly. Luckily, jet lag made the situation bearable, as giddiness from lack of sleep tends to make everything hilarious.
We learned the hard way that the Metro in Paris has no escalators, and my luggage, which was marked "heavy" by the airline, got stuck in every space I was forced to squeeze through.
Unfortunately, our accommodations lived up to their reputation. The Metro ran every 15 minutes or more and made a low rumbling sound under the floor. The window of our hostel looked out onto a charming Parisian street, where there was a church with an imposing bell tower that rang on the hour, starting at 8 a.m. Incessant chiming does not mix well with a wine hangover, especially Sunday, when the bells rang every 16 minutes, seemingly in my head.
In the midst of scary accommodations it is always exciting to find a bit of U.Va. in a foreign country. At the end of a bridge over the Seine River, there is a large statue of Thomas Jefferson, over which we rejoiced and took many pictures with his towering presence over the river.
Another sad thing about Spring Break is that it has to end, and it's even worse when you experience the worst jet lag of your life. We returned on the first Sunday of daylight-saving time, so my concept of time was even more disrupted. Evidence: I cried in Harris Teeter, but to be fair, I hadn't slept in 20 hours. And there were way too many frozen food options to choose from. Though I miss Paris, I'm glad to be back despite the insane amount of work that has magically built up.
Mary's column runs biweekly on Wednesdays. She can be reached at mbaroch@cavalierdaily.com.
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