Last day in Paris, June 8, 2013

It's a lot of pressure knowing that you have one more day to do all you want to do before you have to leave. It's impossible to do everything you want to do, so taking into consideration how much I have seen and experienced in one week, I would say I am pretty satisfied. I spent my last day at Versailles and the Latin Quarter. Versailles was so extravagant and impossible to see in one day. It was interesting to see how lushly the royal families used to live. So interesting that half of our group got separated from the other half for about an hour or so. Versailles is so huge that we kind of panicked and regretted not having some sort of plan B if we got separated. After a while of searching and waiting, we decided to go to Starbucks outside the RER station in hopes that we'd run into them. It was an exhausting walk back, but we finally made it. As soon as we walked in, we saw our group waiting for us inside. That would be the last time we would try and rely on fate. Next time, we are going to have a plan and a back-up plan just in case. Afterwards we ate dinner in the Latin Quarter and went home to pack up for our trip to Brussels.

Paris has been fun and exhausting, but I think I'm ready for Brussels. I've enjoyed my stay at Paris and I think I'll remember it forever. I can't wait for what the rest of our trip has in store for us!

Day 5: June 5, 2013: Musee de la contrefacon & Paris Street Walk

I was having no plans for the day than the group schedule visits for the day and hoping to go for Paris saint German stadium tour later in the evening. After breakfast I accompany Kay to Champs Ellyees where sports apparel stores are located. We were able to visit three stores. We are time conscious because our group is to meet at the Hostel by 1.30pm to go for the visit to counterfeits museum (Musee de la contrefacon).  We explore Champs Ellyees for a while after Kay finished his third interview for the day.

 Then headed to the counterfeits museum with the group. As we were going I kept on think what kind of collection the museum is going to be parading. It was amazing to see a counterfeit cigarette. Within less than an hour, we had seen all the collection of items in the museum because the museum was small and we didn’t have museum official to give some explanation on most of this items.

After that Dr. V took us for lunch at Las du Fallafel located at the Jewish district at St. Paul. The food was very delicious and I ate till I couldn’t even finish the food. Everyone had a good time at lunch and we proceeded to the desert shop nearby to top the food. Thereafter, we started a walk through Paris from there and explore different parks as we walked across. We are able to see the beautiful of Paris and its wonderful architecture and gardens. After walking more than 2 miles, Dr. V and some group headed back to the Hostel and the rest of us left for Champs Ellyees back.

As we continue to having fun and explore the city of Paris, we learn the about the culture and kept interacting with different people. While waiting at L’atelier Renault restaurant Bar for some members of the group to return back, I used the opportunity to conduct my interview with a native of Paris named Yaya. It was quite interesting that Yaya didn’t go to college because of the love of money. I was quite tired and had a wonderful day but too bad didn’t see PSG stadium.

Museum Day, June 7, 2013

I've been waiting for this day since I got here.

Luckily for me, we went to the two museums I wanted to go to the most: The Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay. The Louvre was my absolute favorite. It's a huge museum and we only got to explore one wing, but I loved every second of it. Our group's main goal was to take a look at the Mona Lisa, but I was determined not to get too distracted by it. In my opinion, there are so many other works of art on the way to the Mona Lisa that are much better. I'm glad I took my time and enjoyed the other paintings and sculptures that I saw.

I actually came across one painting that struck a chord with me. I'm going to try not to sound pretentious here, but talking about art inevitably sounds that way, so here we are.

It's hard not to feel pain when looking at this painting. I can relate to what is expressed here, and when I saw it, I was taken aback by it. Not to mention the art itself is beautiful. This one single painting was worth the trip to me, for sure.

The Mona Lisa had tons of people crowded around it, and I had to force myself through the crowd to get a decent look. It was my least favorite experience of the whole museum tour. I would suggest to anyone who plans on going to the Louvre to take their time and enjoy the museum as a whole, not just this one painting.

The Musee d'Orsay was less impressive, but I'm still glad I got to go in and take a look around.

I still have another full day in Paris, so hopefully I will be able to visit at least one more museum before we head to Brussels. I have no particular museum in mind, and I think I'd love to go to just about any museum. 

Paris is Fancy- Who knew?, June 6, 2013

Our mission today was to find and compare shops in Paris to ones we were more familiar with back at home. We went into plenty of shops and the differences seemed to be mildly noticable, but one place stood out the most to me. McDonald's.

From what I am familiar with, I know that McDonald's is really sub-par. On a scale from 1 to 10 rating their quality, they are a solid -23. This Paris McDonald's however, was much different. The menu was altered, and there was a mini bakery right when you walked in.You could even enter your order on a computer they provided in the lobby area. The atmosphere was almost pretentious. Like wearing a tuxedo to go to a Wal-Mart interview.

We took notes about other shops as well, but this comparison is by far my favorite. It truly highlights how different our cultures are, right down to the small things.

The Journey of a thousand steps, June 5(Day Five)

Woke up this particular morning feeling flyer than any other day, finally i got a complete six hour sleep, went through the regular routine of breakfast (which had lost most of its appeal because I have had the same thing four days in a row), shower and get ready to hit the streets of Paris. I checked in with my good friend GOOGLE on some of the addresses I intended to interview from and felt quite confident I was going to get some interviews done. By this time the Metro subways of Paris was at my finger tips, planned my route and rolled out in style wearing a T-shirt that had the flag of France on its hand. Navigated the subways excellently and got out at Champs Ellyees, a beautiful paradise for shoppers with stores that carried the Big names, like the Louis Vuitton, Nike, Adidas, and a host of others my first stop was the Adidas store since my project was on sports retail store, met a pleasant young lad called Juliano, who I conducted my first interview with, the second and third (yes third) interview went pretty much as good as the first. We explored a little of Champs Ellyees wondering in an out of stores. We had to hurry back in time to meet up with the group cause we had a group visit to the counterfeit museum, I must say some of the counterfeit felt better than the originals and most definitely would have cost a lot less. We went through the counterfeit museum rather quickly partly because it was an unguided tour. After we left the museum our professors took us to Saint Paul to eat Fallafel at the Jewish district, the food there was finger licking, tongue biting delicious and was enough to ask for a take away pack (To go box). We finished eating got desserts and started the long walk through Paris, walking through beautiful packs with fountains and people laying down and relaxing and a few making out (of course you would expect a lot of PDA’s in Paris), we walked through a lot of ancient and magnificent buildings and massive churches. We saw the first gas station or gas pump in this situation conveniently located on a street like a street light. I saw some comrades playing Capoeira on the street and joined them for a quick game. We kept walking and got to an over head walk pass called promenade plantee that had flowers on every side and spanned more than 3 km. The walk was a good walkout but was bad for the food I just ate. Well we eventually got to the end of the walk way and said goodbye to Dr V who had to go take care of some things. We went back to Champs Ellyees with Dr Diane, hung out a bit and i could feel my feet hurt from all the moving around so i knew it was time to throw in the towel for the day. I must say if you think the only reason you are in Paris is to see the Eiffel I must warn you, you are in for an adventure of a life time. Paris is a beautiful place to learn, love and explore.

The Counterfeit Museum and Everything Else, June 5, 2013

The marketing and accounting class got to go on a trip to the counterfeit museum since it was closely related to our coursework. It was interesting to see how many products have been counterfeited- some of the products were believable, but others were absolutely ridiculous. For example, there was a counterfeit Teletubby. I'm not joking.

You thought I was joking.

Seriously, someone put this thing out of its misery. Whoever bought this thing deserves the same punishment the counterfeit criminal got.

Aside from learning about counterfeiting and ruining little children's lives, the day turned out to be really fun. My main group actually got to hang out in a little restaurant right down the road from the Arc de Triumph. We were outside a ton of botiques and shops, and it felt like we were in the scene of a movie. To make matters even more unbelievable, we spotted Naomi Campbell. A supermodel. Alex got a picture with her and got to talk to her. That was seriously something that I will never forget. We were all very excited for her because it was as if we met Naomi by proxy or something.

I personally was hoping that being a millionaire was a disease and that maybe I would catch it through Alex. So far, no dice.

After we were done at the restaurant, we headed toward the Eiffel Tower and watched the light show. It was a beautiful sight, and I really hate to be the person that says, "It looked bigger than I expected!" But..

It looked bigger than I expected.

Paris has been a blast up to this point, and I only expect it to get better from here on out. I can't wait to go to the museums, and hopefully eventually forget about the conterfeit demon Teletubby.

June 4th, The Navigation of Paris Metro

Earlier excursions into the city included being led through metro by someone a little more savvy than I am with maps and directions. This person happened to be Mark. Yet, today, he had homework to do and so me and my two other classmates were left to travel to Saint Michel and then the U.S. Embassy on our own. This was definitely a task. We went on a tour starting at Saint Michel. It was easy to get there, but the challenge was that we had to leave the tour early in order to meet up with the rest of our class on time. In doing so, we ran across quite a few obstacles. We walked probably longer than we had to in order to find a metro, and then couldn't get into it because my metro card was acting up. Finally, we spoke broken French to the lady at the info counter, and in broken English, she responded that I could go through because she opened the gate for me. From there, it was a bit of a hassle to figure out how to get to the exact station that our class would be at. After making what felt to be like a million mistakes, we found the right place that we were supposed to meet. We looked at the time and we were 10 minutes late. Not bad, considering how utterly confused we were. Eventually, we gave up and climbed up the stairs to go back where we came from, and voila- our class happened to be right there.

We definitely meant to do that.

Afterwards, we went to the U.S. Embassy and listened to two guest speakers. The rest of my day following this consisted of sleeping, because I was totally worn out. I may or may not have had a few nightmares about the Paris metro.

Below is an accurate depiction of what a Paris metro map looks like:

Amazing St-Pierre de Montmarte and The Superlative Eiffel tower: June 4

Start day full of energy and enthusiasm to execute my schedule for the day, unfortunately got Nicolas wine store at 9 am for my first interview and the store is not yet open. I was a little disappointed about the man not keeping up to the appointment. At 10am I set out for my second interview for the day at Bo Zinc Café at avenue Mozart. Though a little bit behind schedule to arrive at the avenue because I didn’t expect the train will take longer than 30 minutes to the last stop. It took me several minutes before I could locate the place because there was no obvious sign for the café. Quite disappointed, the person waiting for me left like 5 minutes before I identified the place.

However, I returned back to the coffee café and spoke to the attendance if I could public phone around. I was perplexed by the kind gesture of the guy. He offered me to use his phone to call and I was able to get in touch with the owner of Dominus Wine. I returned back to the hostel with hope to reschedule my meeting with her later before we left Paris. On my way back, I found Nicolas Wine store open and I quickly utilized the opportunity to get back on my first interview. The man was very nice but doesn’t really understand English so much that it really hard for him answering most of my question, though he did his best and I was really pleased with his altitude.

In the afternoon, the whole group proceeds for the visit to the US Embassy, Paris. We had to go through thorough security screen as usually before allowing us access to the Embassy. We had two section presentations at Embassy. The first presenters spoke on the Eurozone economic crisis while the second speaker the head of the FBI in the embassy talked about the roles they play in liaison with the French on issues such as combating terrorism, money laundry and cyber-crime e.t.c. It was a very educative and informative section, though that was not what I was expecting at the Embassy. My thought was a presentation of the activities and function of US embassy and a tour.

Immediately after we finished at the embassy, proceed to the St-Pierre de Montmarte and on getting there I was amazed seeing the great architectural work of all time built long time ago. Also, standing in front of the church you get to see the beauty of Paris. Seeing the whole city for the top of the hill and people came all over the world to this place, that was very interesting.

Finally, I took a trip with friends to the superlative Eiffel tower. I found myself not see a picture of the tower or having a glance from afar but in reality at the tower. It was an awesome was to end my day.

Sacred hearts and Eiffel lightings, June 4(Day Four)

The day started on a lazy note, I tried to get of my bed at my usual 7:00 am but only succeeded when I knew an extra 15 mins of sleep would mean I miss breakfast, and I wasn’t planning on missing breakfast so I dragged my lazy behind up. After breakfast, I took a quick cold shower(the water was like cold spears through my skin) and it was time to go out for the day. Myself and Leke set out to Le Mozart Avenue to meet someone Leke was suppose to interview, on the way there I caught the first full view of the Eiffel Tower and I swear it was the most magnificent thing I have ever seen, it stood tall and daring in the city and was a beautiful sight to behold. We came back to the hostel just in time to meet the US Embassy visit , we all left the hostel to the subway Got on M12 and road through the vast tunnels of Paris. We got to the Embassy had to go through efficient but not hectic security procedure the Embassy was a three story grand Parisian building that had very big doors and small elevators, we were escorted to a large conference room with books everywhere, where we had two presenters talk to us. The first, presenters were from the Economic office of the US embassy and had served in many missions ranging from West Africa, to India, China, Afghanistan, Greece before finding them self in Paris. They talked about the Eurozone and the problems faced by Greece, Italy and France in the zone, how Germany rose from being the sick baby in the zone to being the strongest. The other presenter was the head of the FBI in the embassy and spoke on the role he plays in liaison with the French military to ensure they have the same priorities in terms of Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, money laundry and cyber crime. We finished the visit and I was ready to go back to the hostel and hit the bed, but well……it didn’t happen that way, common am in Paris!!!!! Myself, Leke and Trey decided to go to the Sacred Heart, it sat grand on a mountain at the highest point in Paris, I could see the whole Paris in its beauty and grandeur from there, and the arts and the painting in and around the sacred heart was mind blowing, needless to talk about the landscape, we planned to be there for just 1 hour but ended up spending 4 hours, whew!!! I eat a hot dog on my way back to the hostel and taught I was finally coming to re-enact my romance with my bed, but again I had another Paris I’m in Paris moment and was ready to set out again, this time to see the LIGHTEN OF THE EIFFEL, it was beyond my imagination to stand beneath the Eiffel and take pictures, it was mind blowing. I didn’t climb the Eifel this time cause I was told I couldn’t get to top, but well I promised myself I would be back to step on its head. I eventually called it a night at 1:00 am .

US Embassy & Eiffel Tower - June 4

We spent the afternoon visiting the US Embassy here in Paris.  I expected a fluff tour of the embassy with some highlights of Benjamin Franklin, but ended up with a hour-long presentation of substance.  

Walking inside the entrance was quite grand.  It was a classic Parisian building and had a noble feel to it.  When you walk in, there are large photos of President Obama and Vice President Biden.  On the walls are engraved names of all the ambassadors the US has had.  The impressive list of names include Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams.  You can feel the history just in the lobby alone.  

We were then escorted to a large conference room filled with historic books from the ceiling to the floor.  There were two separate presentations that included topics about the EuroZone and counter-terrorism.  It was interesting to learn about the tax system in France as well as how the FBI works with French intelligence to work on collaborative efforts.  

Later in the evening, some friends and I went to the magnificent Eiffel Tower.  It was larger than I imagined but beautiful nonetheless.  We climbed the first 669 stairs, saw the amazing views, and took plenty of pictures.

A Flash of Paris: June 3

Struggling to get back, suddenly the fire alarm triggered on but was a false alarm. I got back to bed at about 3am. The breakfast at the hostel was good but I still found the French bread unique and amazing. We had the Orientation at 10 am where all the dos and don’ts of the program were re-emphasized. Also, we were briefed about the interesting tours that have been planned for the week and after which everyone received his/her one week Paris pass to get on metro to anywhere in Paris.

Shortly after our class met with Dr. V; he gave us the first task of the day which is on retail comparison. We had to navigate by ourselves to Christian Louboutin store using the Metro and observe the store.  Thereafter, go to Latin Quarter to get some reasonable food to eat for lunch.  The Metro trip was fun and quite easy to get through to our destination than expected. Returned back to the hostel after a very success first day walk around Paris, I believe what I saw today was just the tips of the iceberg.

Back to my room, took a nap and after an hour start to type me report. My laptop nearly ran out power, now l realized that I have to buy another Europe to US adapter for me to get my work done. On my way back from the electronics store I quickly branched at the wine store called Caviste Nicolas very close by the Hostel and scheduled an interview for tomorrow with the owner. This made it two interviews for me tomorrow. Finally, chilling at the hostel organizing myself for the tasks ahead knowing it going to be a super busy day.

Arrived at PARIS!!! June 2

On the plane trying to sleep, after the plane stabilized on air I slept for a while but never missed the breakfast. I watched like two movies on the plane without know the title. The flight only took us 8 hours 30 minutes to Paris making it is the shortest flight I had ever been on. Everything went as I expected; we arrived Paris at 1:30pm local time (plane touching the ground).

Dr. V welcomed us at the Airport in Paris with a wonderful but concise keynote address; after which he led the group on the first Paris Trains/Subway experience. It was very interesting especially pushing your luggage on the Stairways and switching from one train to other. Though stressful moving with luggage(s) especially when you didn't pack light , getting off and on from one train to the other. After five stops; we finally made it to the Hostel.

However, you might never want to miss your stop so you must always pay attention to the stops while on the train. Trust me; you never want the train take you pass your stop. Even with Dr. V. on the train with us, the train stopped where we are expected to alight but nobody was paying attention so we had to stop at the next stop, go through the stairways to the other side and take another train back.

Again, immediately I dropped my luggage in the room, I jumped out to the ATM to get some few euros and accompanied some friends for the dinner at Les Artisans restaurant not too far from the Hostel. Also, had a drink and ate the wonderful French bread (so amazing!!!). Finally closed the day at about 9.30pm after a long day.