Versaille!!

By far my favorite day in Paris! We got any early start today. Waking up at 6:45am to get on the train to Versaille by 9 am. The train took us about an hour and when we got there we went straight to the visitors center where there was no line and got our ticket. We went to the palace first, and oh my goodness it is just as grand as you have imagined.

The rooms are decorated so fancifully with gold, and marble everywhere and beautiful textiles covering the walls, and chairs. Each room a different color, each inch of each room decorated to the nines. It was just stunning.

I took so many pictures I don’t know how I will narrow it down to put them on this blog post. We saw the king’s bedchambers, the queens bedchambers, the kids section, the dining room, the hall of mirrors.

All of it amazing. I loved all the moldings on the doors and walls. After the palace we walked through the gardens. We stopped for lunch in the gardens and ate with a view of the palace and the Grand Canal.

We continued along the gardens to the Grand Canal and from there to Grand Trianon, another palace for retreats for the royal family. At the Grand Trianon, there was a wonderful surprise! A fashion exhibit! Showcasing designer pieces that were based off of historic French costume, there were garments from Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Comme de Garcon, Dior, all set against the backdrop of another lavishly decorated palace. It was so beautiful; I could have stayed in that exhibit all day.

It was also exciting because after history of fashion I was able to recognize what about the garments were a historical reference. From there we went to Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s palace given to her by her husband.

It was surprising how sparse it was in decoration compared to the other palaces. The gardens of Petit Trianon included Marie Antoinette’s estate and the queen’s Hamlet which were a sight to see.

With the little country houses, a whole little village, with a farm and animals, we just wandered for a while. Such a nice contrast to the palace but still the country homes were done in a way that they looked nice and cozy compared to everything else. We walked around the gardens more and sat near the Grand Canal then decided to head back to the hotel. Right as we got on the train it started to rain. Across from us on the train were 2 Americans men, who started talking to us about Paris and what they had seen. They said they were going to the Museum d’Orssay after they got back into town and we mentioned that we were art students and were thinking about going but weren’t sure if we wanted to spend the money. Next thing you know he gets out his wallet and hands us 20 Euros and says use this to go to the museum. There was one catch though we made a deal that when we are older ladies (they said like late 50’s) that we should return the favor to some young travelers. We promised and thanked them for the generousness. We didn’t go to the museum then, we decided to go tomorrow. We went back to our hotel and booked a shuttle to the airport, downloaded the rest of Marie Antoinette, charged my camera, which had died while at Versaille. At around 7pm we went to Chartiers for dinner, they had traditional French food that wasn’t too expensive, I got duck and for dessert a pear and ice-cream dish.

We sat next to 2 French ladies who helped us to read the menu and we talked for a while, they were very nice and so helpful. When we got home, we finished our movie, while drinking the wine that Maggie had bought earlier in the trip and wrote postcards. Time for bed. Last day in Paris tomorrow. L

No better way to start the day then looking at a bunch of bones…

In the morning Maggie and I went to the Catacombs, the line was soo long when we got there. It took us 2 hours to get to the front of the line, since they are only able to let 300 people in at one time. It was so incredible, very interesting, a little depressing.

The amount of bones in there was just beyond comprehension; they were like 8 feet deep and like 8 feet high. When you think about how many bodies are in there it is really crazy. Its almost a mile under ground that you walk through full of skeletons arranged in neat rows and sometimes patterns. After walking through the Catacombs, we wanted to go to Notre Dame, by this time it was almost 1pm.

We took the subway to Notre Dame and waited in line to get inside, but the line moved quick this time. The inside was impressive, but I liked the outside more.

We walked along the side afterwards and saw the gargoyles, and we randomly stumbled on a bridge with locks all over it.

The locks are meant to represent love, and supposedly you are supposed to throw the key into the water, the whole entire bridge was covered with them. It was beautiful! After reading a few of the locks and taking lots of pictures we took a walk recommended to us by Guillome to the Centre Pompidou. On the way we saw this 3d grass sculpture, which looked different from every angle, and from a platform looking like a globe of grass.

The Centre Pompidou is a modern art museum with a very modern exterior, which looks like pipes.

Right across from the entrance is the Stravinsky Fountain created by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. I loved that fountain!

We didn’t go into the museum because we didn’t have enough time before it closed. Instead we got a crepe at a small café and then walked around this very trendy area that Guillome also recommended.

Rue de Francs Bourgeois and Rue St. Antoine were the streets that we walked down, there were tons of great bakeries, clothing shops, vintage shops, jewelry shops. It was a great walk, nice to get out of the tourist area. We headed to the Bastille afterwards where the French Revolution started.

Then we went back to the hotel to download Marie Antoinette, we felt it was appropriate since we are going to Versaille tomorrow. For dinner we went to a near by shop to get a Doner Kebab. It was pretty good, as we ate it while watching our movie. Unfortunately the movie would only let us watch 1 hour, which was sad but good because we needed to get to bed. For our long day at Versaille tomorrow.

I spy the Mona Lisa.

As art students our first mission in Paris was to get to the Louvre. We woke up bright and early to get to the Louvre early since we heard it gets crazy and it would take all day to walk around. We got there at 8:30am and 30 minutes before it opened and the line was already quite long, almost halfway through the courtyard.

Maggie got in line while I went to go get us some breakfast.

At the Louvre with croissants

Once inside the Louvre we headed straight to the Mona Lisa, apparently everyone else did because we had to work our way to the front, where an art teacher offered to take our picture with the famous painting.

The Mona Lisa!!!

It was really exciting to see but hard to enjoy with so many people. After the Mona Lisa we walked around for hours and hours through gallery after gallery, each amazing in its own right. Some with beautiful ceilings and moldings, others with plain walls but stunning art work. Although I will say despite how much I loved the Lourve, it is quite hard to navagate, you cant really walk in a circle, there is a lot of doubling back and going up then down, then up again.

But we managed and got to see all the amazing art the museum offered including the Code of Hamarabi, Venus de Milo, Napolean’s Apartments, Winged Victory of Samothrace, The Coronation of Napoleon, and much much more. We walked around till our feet hurt and we had seen all that we needed to see, but you could spend days in there with all the art. It’s a little overwhelming. Afterwards we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries, and down the Champ Elysees. We got lunch on the Champ Elysees, we walked up and ordered and went to take it out to the patio on the street that was part of the restaurant. Halfway through eating, a waitress came up to us and said because we had a bag for our food we weren’t allowed to eat there, which didn’t make any sense to us, but we had to leave and sit on a bench a few blocks down to finish our lunch. After eating we shopped along the street on the way to the Arc de Triomphe.

We got to the Arc de Triomphe and looked down the Champ Elysees, the line was really long to go up to the top and we decided it wasn’t worth going up. Instead we went to the Galleries Lafayette, a large department store with a beautiful interior, with a large stained glass dome at the top.

After shopping some more we went back to the hotel for a rest. Maggie took a shower and we went to the Isle de St.Louis to get some famous Bertillion Icecream.

It felt nice to be somewhere even named the same as home. Ha ha. The island was quite small but very quaint. We explored it a little, and then made our way across the bridge toward Notre Dame, where there were 2 hip hop dancers performing. We watched for a bit but had to meet a friend of a friend of Maggie’s at 9 pm. We got to the meeting spot and he wasn’t there, we waited for an hour and still no sign of him, we figured he had emailed us but we had no way of checking, I got a crepe (nutella and banana) while we waited.

And then I remembered Nick saying that when I was in Europe they always went to McDonalds to get free wifi and I had seen one on our walk there. We made our way to the McDonalds, we had gotten 2 emails, the last saying to meet him at a St.Germain Bar and order a scorpian. We headed there and got a seat, ordered a scorpian and waited.

Guillome met us there, and told us all about what we should see, we talked and sat for about an hour and then Guillome said he had a surprise for us. We were a little bit nervous but he promised we would love Paris after the surprise. We got in his car, and we went to his friends house, where we met lots of his French friends, we stayed there for a bit then went to one of those friends apartments. Before we went in the apartment he had us close our eyes and put our hand on his shoulder, as he led us through the apartment. There was a step down and I could feel the breeze, opening our eyes there was a spectacular skyline view of Paris with the Eiffle Tower right there in the middle. We had our own private view of Paris!

It was the most amazing experience!! We are so lucky! Then Guillome took us down to the Eiffle Tower park to see it sparkle for the last time of the night before it turns off.

I looked back after we left the park to see it gone, in the dark. He dropped us off at our hotel and we went to bed! But what a great night!

The Journey to Paris begins!!!

I don’t leave for Paris until 2pm, so I had the morning to get ready for my trip. I finished packing, made myself an omelets for breakfast, painted my nails, and gathered all the information on my flights, hotel, directions to hotel, list of things to do and see in Paris and left around 12 noon to go to the airport. Right as I was about to leave I got a message from Camilla about sending her a file and of course the file would not send, it was taking forever. I was getting very stressed because I still had to get to the airport in enough time. I left around 12:30 pm file still not sent but on a flash drive to send later. I ran to the subway and took it to T-Centralen where I catch the Arlanda Express, when I got off the train a man started speaking Swedish to me and I told him I didn’t speak Swedish so he kept asking questions about where I am from, why I am here, all that, and he helped me to find where the Arlanda Express leaves from, which was very nice, but also frustrating because he kept talking to me and I needed to get on the train to the airport. So I told him to just give me his phone number, so that he would let me go. I have no intention of calling him, but he was very helpful and I got on the train just minutes before it left. I got to the airport with an hour to spare before my flight left. Luckily I didn’t have a bag to check, so I just checked in and got straight in the security line. I ended up getting to my flight just as boarding began. Everything went smoothly with the flight and I got in to Paris around 5pm. Once I got there, I had to figure out how to get to downtown, so I hopped on the RER to Paris, and got off at Gare du Nord station, where I was supposed to take another train but my ticket wouldn’t work and on the map it looked close so I decided to walk. Turns out its not very close, I walked for about an hour, not 100 percent sure where our hotel was, since my directions just said to get off at Blanche station. There was a more detailed map of the area on the side of the toilet so that helped me to find the hotel.

Look whats right near our hotel

When I got there Maggie was in the room, and we were hungry. I just dropped off my stuff and we left for the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to walk since we had been traveling all day but boy we had no idea how far it was, it was like the great sand dunes (if you have ever been), we kept seeing it and thinking we were close but we really weren’t we just had to keep walking and walking.

The plan was to get some food and eat it next to the Eiffel Tower, but we were way to hungry to wait. We got sandwiches when we thought we were close, but as we kept walking and walking, we ended up getting too hungry to wait. Maggie finished her sandwich right away but mine lasted till we got the Tower. When it finally was in front of us it was really cool, to just be at the Eiffel Tower!!

Its one of those places you hear about all the time and when you are there you feel it. Although there were a lot more people than in the movies, ha ha. We took a seat on the grass and I finished my sandwich and we just enjoyed the view. There were tons of people walking around trying to sell you wine, or beer, and mini Eiffel Tower key rings (5 for 1 euro which we didn’t get- but later decided we wanted and we had to buy 5 for 3 euro- little lesson, when something is that cheap the first time buy it!). As the sun went down it got super windy and a little rainy, Maggie got something blown into her eye and so we started to head back to the hotel, but it was supposed to sparkle on the hour, and it was 15 minutes to the hour. So we stayed to watch it sparkle and it was very exciting.

Then we headed back to the hotel as it started to rain. The long way back seemed even longer in the rain.

When we got back to our hotel we were very tired. And ready for bed. We planned out what it was we wanted to see while we were there and got to bed to get our sleep for the Louvre tomorrow!

Happy 4th of July

So for the 4^th of July, I was in Sweden and unfortunately I didn’t get to celebrate with fireworks or hot dogs or any Americans. But I did go to work for the last time before my trip to Paris! So we worked all day and got a lot done, then Izabelle and Diana and I decided to dye my hair again to make it blonder! I didn’t think it was blonde enough before, I figured go big or go home. Ha ha. Diana also decided that she wanted to put highlights in her hair. So we came back to my place and colored our hair.

From this...

to this...

We decided to make dinner while we were at it, Izabelle really did most of the cooking. The only thing I did was make the pasta. She made chicken with onion, curry, some cream sause and pasta. It was really yummy, we watched Project Runway as we ate. I spent the whole night freaking out about how blonde my hair is. I kept looking in the mirror thinking is that really my hair. David one of the other interns also came over and ate with us. Diana decided since she had to go in to work early tomorrow morning that she would just stay over for the night, since my place is so close to Camilla’s studio. She helped me pack my outfits for Paris. I will look pretty fashionable if I do say so myself! I go to Paris tomorrow!!!! So excited!!!

Stephanie gets a new look!

(Start my morning out with some tea, eggs and some fashion)

Alright so I will just do a summary of what’s been happening over the past few days since the days that I work are mostly the same, sewing, eating lunch, sewing more. That’s basically how Thursday went; Friday was a little different since we had a meeting. I should also point out that I’ve been taking it easier, and not getting too stressed about getting everything done or staying too late after I had my talk with Camilla and its been a lot more enjoyable. On Friday morning we had a meeting and talked about the time line for the rest of the summer, which includes finishing the samples for the fall collection, a photo shoot, starting and finishing samples for the spring collection, a photo shoot, fashion show fittings, choreography, set up, initiations, show, planning for NYC fashion week. (Which we are trying to all go to!). Anyway we talked about what each of our jobs would be and how we are doing on the work we already have done. After our meeting, we went back to work sewing. That night we were all going to go out with Camilla to a club opening but it was too full. I had to work on Saturday since Camilla gave me Tuesday – Sunday off to go to Paris with Maggie. I almost finished 2 coats on Saturday! Woo! 3 down, and 4 to go, but they only need finishing touches. I think we are in a good place. Saturday after work Diana and Izabelle came over and we made dinner, homemade pizza, drank sangria, ate Swiss Meringue (I think that’s what its called, it’s a dessert with ice-cream, bananas, chocolate, and meringue).

We also died my hair!!!!!

I’m a blonde now! Although it turned out yellower than I want it to, so I may try to lighten it, but they say not to do it for a few weeks. Today I woke up and went to City Hall, where the Nobel Prize is given out.

(The hall where the Nobel Prize banquet is)

And also where the City Council meets.

(Look how pretty that ceiling is)

(All gold! Look to the very left! Its the US, statue of liberty and the American flag!)

It was a really cool building and after my tour I went up in the Tower, which was a ton of steps to the top, but the view from the top was worth it.

After this I was hungry, and feeling like I needed to eat something American, so I got myself some Burger King. Then I went shopping for a little on the main shopping street downtown. At around 4:30pm I got a call from Gunnar, he is my new roommate and he said he was going to be to the apartment in 30 minutes. So I rushed home to let him in. He is a nice guy, he is from Sweden but has only been here for 2 months because he was in Thailand for 5 months and is planning on going back in August. Tonight I am meeting Elin and Sofia at Sofia’s house and we are going to bake and maybe watch a movie, a great way to end the weekend. J