That's right; I'm kind of jealous of myself right now.To backtrack a little, before I left Paris, Dan insisted that I partake in the "Metro challenge" with him at least once, so on Saturday night I took him up on his offer and we played the night away in Paris, staying out until 6am, long after the Metro has shut down and after it has started running again. The night began simply enough, at an upscale bar called 93 in the urbane deuxieme where we met up with Julia, a Pomona College junior from D.C., Johanna, Dan's sexy Swedish roommate, her friend Eva, originally from the Canary Islands but now a Swedish citizen, and Fabian, a German from Stuttgart studying French at the Sorbonne. Soon enough we were out in search of a good place to dance with inexpensive drinks, which ultimately meant a trip to Cab, a famous French nightclub frequented mostly by American students and Eurotrash, and renowned for its terrible, terrible music, and strong, strong drinks. There was dancing, of course, some vodka, and a whole lot of French sketchiness to get us through the night (lines like, "I'll have a Sex on the Beach too... that way we can have Sex on the Beach together!" Yeah, really original.) But only shortly after we arrived, someone in our group heard the rumor that John Legend, who had performed a concert in Paris that night, was partying it up at a club right around the corner from us. The Swedes were dying to see him, and insisted that we all go and wait in line, which we did, in the rain, in front of the super-creatively named nightclub, The VIP Room. We waited... and waited... and waited. It was impossible to get in, naturally, and the "friend" of Johanna's that was supposed to come help us get in never showed up. So we waited... and waited... and decided we were wasting our night and it was time to go somewhere else. Just as we turned to head back towards the Louvre, and much to everyone's shock, out from the club came Kanye West, who apparently was touring with John Legend and was now going home for the night (or out to another club, more likely). I don't even know Kanye West, so I certainly didn't recognize him coming out of the club, and didn't realize what was happening until Johanna and Eva started screaming like idiots along with a hundred other girls on the sidewalk. They later lamented endlessly that nobody had a camera out, and that they didn't sidestep the bodyguards to get a kiss or a handshake or something from Kanye. I thought it was all pretty silly and ridiculous, and though I wish I'd gotten a picture or something, I really would have been more excited if it was, I don't know, Robert Goulet or something. Nevertheless, I saw Kanye West in Paris, so that's pretty cool.
On our way back to Cab, we heard what sounded like Depeche Mode coming from the basement of a building we passed, and the consensus was soon reached that we couldn't pass up an opportunity to dance in Paris to Depeche Mode (there was maybe not a lot of reason in this decision, mostly a lot of rum). We paid the steep cover at a club whose name I can't even remember, and managed to party away a couple of hours in what had to be an old converted warehouse with a newly renovated and all-80s theme. Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, OMD, New Kids on the Block... it was actually pretty great, and everyone there seemed much cooler and more laid back than anywhere else we'd been that night. Alors, the 80s music completely bored the Hot Swedes, so they dragged us to Cab once more where we repaid the ridiculously high cover and resumed dancing, bleary eyed and exhausted, to horrible European techno. Most of this night, quite honestly, is a blur, so I'm glad at least there are some pictures from a few of the places we went.
Julia and me, loving the 80s music
Dan apparently thinks he's a really great dancer - I'll let you be the judge. I think we can all agree, though, that Swedish girls are depressingly good looking.
I guess Eva and I are dancing here...? I think this picture was taken at about 4:30am.I got home around 6:30 in the morning, mostly sober but totally fatigued, and only managed to sleep about three hours before the slamming of doors in the hallway woke me up. I spent most of the day packing and cleaning up my apartment -- it might not come as a surprise that, even though I was only there for a month, the one room apartment had turned into something of a Bosnian refugee camp, and took the better part of the day to set right. By Sunday night I was more tired than ever, had packed up all my bags, and was ready to say goodbye to Paris and head straight for Gare d'Austerlitz where I was catching the night train to Chamonix.
Everyone has been warning me for a while about night trains, saying they're dangerous, dodgy and uncomfortable. And actually, I do remember one miserable night in a reclining seat on the way from Vienna to Venice three years ago, with a really smelly Hungarian man named Gunther in the same compartment... but the train to Chamonix couldn't be more different. It was like a party! Everyone getting on it was going for the same reason - to spend a week skiing - so clearly there was some segmentation of the demographic into young, 20 and 30 somethings, with enough money to blow on a ski vacation in the middle of a recession and the laid back laissez faire attitude that so becomes skiers. I was in a six bed all-girls compartment, which was occupied by only three other women, all around my age and, significantly, all very quiet and considerate throughout the trip. The train left at 11pm, and I fell asleep promptly upon departure, to wake up almost ten hours later as the train rolled into St. Gervais station at 9 oclock in the morning. It might have been the best night of sleep I've had this whole trip! And I love night trains - having your hotel and your transportation covered in one fell swoop is both convenient and extremely cost effective. So far, I'm a big fan.
Everyone has been warning me for a while about night trains, saying they're dangerous, dodgy and uncomfortable. And actually, I do remember one miserable night in a reclining seat on the way from Vienna to Venice three years ago, with a really smelly Hungarian man named Gunther in the same compartment... but the train to Chamonix couldn't be more different. It was like a party! Everyone getting on it was going for the same reason - to spend a week skiing - so clearly there was some segmentation of the demographic into young, 20 and 30 somethings, with enough money to blow on a ski vacation in the middle of a recession and the laid back laissez faire attitude that so becomes skiers. I was in a six bed all-girls compartment, which was occupied by only three other women, all around my age and, significantly, all very quiet and considerate throughout the trip. The train left at 11pm, and I fell asleep promptly upon departure, to wake up almost ten hours later as the train rolled into St. Gervais station at 9 oclock in the morning. It might have been the best night of sleep I've had this whole trip! And I love night trains - having your hotel and your transportation covered in one fell swoop is both convenient and extremely cost effective. So far, I'm a big fan.
And then, there was Chamonix.
Ooh la la! A more beautiful and amazing place I think I have never seen. From the moment I arrived to the sad moment I left, I was in total awe. The scenery, stunning at every turn, is exactly what you have always imagined of the Alps. Adorable little mountain chalets dotting the hillsides beneath snowy rock cliffs, sleepy alpine villages visible from the window of a slow, creaking train that huffs and puffs as it climbs through the passes, and the glamorous nightlife of the young jet-setting ski crowd that descends on Chamonix for the ultimate party town ambiance.
It was amazing. I took the Mont Blanc express from the main station at St. Gervais to the town where I was staying, called Les Houches. (I love saying the name of this town: Les Houches! (lay - ZOOSH!) Or, even better, when the conductor asks me my destination, I have to say Aux Houches! (oh - ZOOSH!)) It is a perfect, picturesque, fairy tale town; like standing in line for the Matterhorn, complete with Liederhosen music and all. From the train station my instructions said that my chalet was only a 400 meter walk, so I turned in that direction and started off. What they did not mention, however, was that it was a 400 meter walk directly up. A mountain. And though a quarter of a mile ought to be well within my walking range, it was definitely not something I was prepared for as a mountain hike, weighed down with my full backpack and my duffel, packed with things I brought and bought in Paris but neglected to have shipped back in time. I made it, eventually, and what I found was well worth the trip. The perfect Alpine chalet.
I absolutely adore this hotel. For only €60 a night (completely unheard of in the Chamonix area) I had a suite with room for four to sleep, overlooking the mountains, a free breakfast buffet each morning and, most important of all, free wireless! The hotel was the perfect size: just enough rooms that you feel you have privacy, but just few enough that the hotel staff all know you and everything is completely personal. The woman who met me at reception that first morning was, over the course of my stay, also my housekeeper, my waitress, and my bartender. It's possible she was even the dinner chef, I have no idea. I can't say enough wonderful things about this place, I totally loved it. It was so nice to be in a hotel for a change, and it was so beautifully quiet, well-kept, and traditional, I just couldn't get enough of it. I really was sad to leave today.And I also couldn't get enough of the food. Though five weeks in Paris was enough to introduce me to a lot of mainline French specialties, nothing, nothing compares to the total divinity of Savoyard cuisine. Absolutely everything is made with a combination of potatoes, cheese and bacon. And when I say everything, I mean everything: soups, salads, entrees, and yes, desserts. It's totally incredible. My first night there I had the traditional tartiflette, which is composed of the above foods, served like potatoes au gratin but with bacon and some onions in a hot porcelain dish. For dessert I passed on the cheese plate with potato garnish, and instead had profiteroles - au mon dieu! In the past I've only ever had profiteroles that were filled with a custard cream, but these! These were filled with toffee flavored ice cream! I was so full after my heavy potato dishes, but still managed to eat every last crumb of my dessert and considered ordering more, though my budget was already stretched thin by everything Chamonix had to offer. Today I had a traditional Savoyard fondue, invented in this region so they say, which was equally delicious! It turns out that cheese fondue is really just Welsh Rarebit in a different form. Who knew? I guess there's only so many things you can do with the ingredients available in this world. What is it my mom says? "There's nothing new under the sun - it's all in the execution." And the execution is what makes fondue so great. I love being served anything that's still being cooked as it comes to you, and who doesn't love eating with that delectably long fork, twisting the melted cheese all around the croutons until it's perfectly coated in deliciousness?
I'm also newly and heavily into vin chaud, which is served everywhere in Haute Savoie, and makes the crisp cool weather much more bearable, especially on some of the windier ski slopes. The skiing was some of the best I've ever done, mostly because it snowed the whole time I was here so the powder was always fresh. But that also meant that visibility was atrocious and often times the chair lift was unbearable with wind and snowflakes biting at your cheeks. I never really understood the need for snow goggles until now.
Though my hotel was outside of Chamonix proper, the valley is basically a straight line with ski towns every couple of miles, Chamonix being both dead center and the largest, with access to six resorts right from the village. Each town has it's own little ski resort (Les Houches included) but most people just take the train in the morning to Chamonix. It was only two euro each way and about a twenty minute ride on the Mont Blanc express, which was the perfect way to start and end the day of skiing. Sigh... I miss it already. Chamonix stole my heart in just three short days.
I met some really fun and interesting people while on the lifts, including a Scottish couple who couldn't stop raving about how much better the apres ski is in A
ustria, and a British photographer named Richard who was visiting with a group and invited me out with them my first night there. And the nightlife was as fun and glitzy as it's played up to be, with seriously overpriced cocktails and beautiful internationals and an atmosphere of fun and frivolity that I can't even compare. I was SO happy in Chamonix. I could honestly see myself living in Savoy, it reminded me so much of home, just with a very old, traditional feel.At the end of my second day there, with a flight scheduled to depart from Geneva at 11am, I was trying to find someway that I could extend my stay, I just loved it too much. I decided that it was going to be too expensive to try to call the airline and have my flight moved, so I gave up the idea, and resigned to waking up early and saying goodbye to my beautiful hotel and beautiful Savoy. But luck is with me today! I had a call last night from Expedia telling me that, unfortunately, Alitalia had cancelled my flight in the morning (most likely, I think, they hadn't sold enough seats) and that I was now rebooked on a flight leaving at (gasp!) 6:15pm. It was so perfect! I got exactly the extra time in the Alps that I so wanted. I got to sleep in at the hotel, lounge around in my pajamas until checkout, head to Chamonix to do some shopping and have a leisurely, long lunch, and then take the bus out to Geneva. The bus ride alone was a beautiful additional to my trip. In a lot of ways it reminded me of the Glenn Highway between Sutton and Tok, with steep mountain roads overlooking sheer cliff drops into crystal clear creeks below, and breathtaking views of the snow capped Alps around every corner. It was even better, I thought, because I kept imagining Hannibal trudging through this pass two thousand years ago (on elephants!) and Napoleon with his legions, climbing up, up, up the mountains and back down again to victory at Rivoli. Ahh, the Alps. I can't wait to go back.
I set a personal record today by being in three different countries over the course of the day - France, Switzerland and Italy. I arrived in Rome late tonight and just got into my hostel in Trastavere, about which I will have to write more later because it is very late and I'm exhausted by travel. I'll go to bed tonight dreaming of my little Alpine chalet and my return to trip to Chamonix someday. But tomorrow, Rome awaits!
