Exploring the Little Cities Outside of Paris

Paris has zones that make the symbol of a targer, and with my metro pass, I am allowed to to through zones 1, 2, 3, and 4. Those are the centermost zones. There are also zones 5 and 6 on the outside, maybe more, but nothing cool is that far out. Zones 4 and 5 are the zones with all the cool stuff like castles and medieval cities! I can travel to all the zones for free on the weekends though, so I am going to take advantage of that! On Saturday, I went to the cute city of Pontoise! It's not too far from where I live, but it's in the northwest region outside of Paris and is very old. I went by myself because sometimes, I just like to explore by myself. I'm totally fine with that, and I always know where I'm going. I knew Pontoise was a small town so I just got out of the train station and walked everywhere. The weather was amazing for a day of walking and exploring!

I went to two small museum. Le Musee Tavet showed modern art and Musée Camille Pissarro has painting from Camille Pissarro with most of them being paintings of the city of Pontoise. One painting actually gave me and idea of where to go next. It was a painting of people in a garden called "Jardin de la Ville". I decided to find it and I did. I went to two parks that day. Jardin de la Ville and Parc du Chateau.

 

 


I found two adoreable shops to look around at! The first one was L'Arbre Blanc with cute homemade things. It was also a cafe where you can eat some of their original homemade things. I bought a bottle of L'huile D'Olive a la Vanille! Vanilla olive oil! I can't wait to try it! The second store was called Exotiqua with so many cute tea sets, baskets, and soaps! Everything was very much my style.

 

One of my favorite parts of walking around in the city instead of taking busses is that you get to find cooler things and go off the main roads. I found these cute places from walking around and going down the smaller streets. France is a very old country with a lot of history, but in the big cities, a lot of the history has been destroyed over the centuries or redone. In a city like this with not a lot of people, all of the walls, buildings, and roads will still look like they did in the 15th century.

I Never Expected Any Of This Super Awesome Stuff!

I became a fan of Ellie Goulding a while back but never imagined that I would be able to see her live the way I did last week! Last week was spring break and France gets 2 weeks off. The first week, I was free, but the second week, I had to work and stay home with the kids. Usually I stay home with them the whole week, but because of holidays and random days off work, the parents got to stay home on Wednesday and Thursday meaning I didn't have to work those days. Thursday was the day of the concert! I WAS SO LUCKY. I bought my concert ticket back in December not really thinking I would have to work till 8pm, and by the grace of God, I didn't have to work at all that day! It was unbelievable because, trust me, I was freakin' out for a few days before thinking I would miss the concert or be really far in the back. I never expressed my stress to my host family because my job comes before a concert and their jobs. But anywhosie! I got to the venue in Paris 3.5 hours early(because im crazy but very smart) and sat on the sidewalk in a line till the doors opened. Because of that, I got there before 85% of the concert goers and got up to the stage super close! There were soo many people behind me in line! I was shocked!

She sang all of my favorite songs. Well I have a lot of favorites, but she sang ALL 19 OF MY VERY FAVORITE SONG :D including my super favorites like...

Halcoyn

Figure 8 

Salt Skin 

Hanging On

 Explosions

I Know You Care 

Your Song

 My Blood 

Only You 

Animal

Starry Eyed 

I Need Your Love

 and finally Lights and then a crazy dubstep ending to Lights that was possibly the best thing ever.

And I still made it home before midnight! success!

When I got home, I noticed a note on my desk from my host dad. He was panning a top secret surprise for the mom for her birthday. Once the mom left for work in the morning, I was to wake the kids up, get them dressed in nice clothes, and take them to La Tour Montparnasse in Paris. It's like an hour away by train and metro, and it was the first time to take the kids into Paris by myself. Normally they are kind of worried to take their kids into the big city, especially with just one adult like me who looks like a teenager. But that's what I did. We got to the tower on time and safe with no problems!

 

When we got there, we met up the the dad and the 5 of us went all the way to the top of the tower to go to the "Ciel de Paris" meaning the Sky of Paris. It's the highest restaurant in europe and has an amazing view of the city! I never thought I would be able to eat there! It's just a tad expensive. I understand why the dad chose to go for lunch. I had the best meal though. Of course I ate Duck. Of course. And the dessert I got was a little Lemon-lime tart that was soooo good. I never eat slowly, but I ate that thing like a little ol' grandma. I wanted it to last forever! But the mom was very surprised when she saw us all there. The dad sent the mom text messages and clues on where to go but was never specific on what what happening. She was very happy to see all of us there in Paris waiting for her!