July 20-26, 2020. The first half of last week was spent contemplating on and preparing last minute necessities for my impending departure from Manila. I made last minute trips to the mall, saw some friends, and finally got myself to pack the relatively few things I would be taking with me–considering that I would be staying abroad for a year. They all fit in just one suitcase and a duffel bag, actually. I flew out of Manila on July 22 and arrived in Paris the day after, spending a brief layover in Doha, Qatar. I wrote a separate blog entry narrating the experience of the entire transit.
August 31 – September 1, 2019. Typical of traditional Catholic Filipinos who find themselves visiting France, a trip to the town of Lourdes is a must. It was a necessary pilgrimage for my mom who was a devout Catholic.
We took the TGV (‘train à grande vitesse’ / high speed train) from Paris directly to Lourdes, far south of France, near the Spanish border. The distance was more than 600 kilometers but it took us a little less then five hours to get to the town.
August 29-30, 2019. We started off our third day (August 29) in Paris with a morning stroll at the Place de Trocadero to have our photos taken with the Eiffel Tower. It still is very surreal for me finally seeing such an iconic monument I’ve only seen in photos, movies and TV shows all my life till then.
From Trocadero we walked to Champ de Mars and had more photos of us taken. We continued walking all the way to Pont Alexandre III until we reached the banks of the Seine near Musée d’Orsay. From there, we boarded a river cruise which also served lunch. A very tourist thing to do, but that was exactly what we were. I still couldn’t get over how I am finally here in this city.
August 27 – 28, 2019. I’ve never been to Paris, let alone Europe. It was my first time in the old continent! I was so happy to have spent it with my parents, to whom I owe this grand privilege I wouldn’t have otherwise had. I’d like to believe it was also a very proud moment for them to ‘send’ their son to study in Paris, and they were only too happy to see me off from the city themselves.
My first reaction upon landing at the Charles de Gaule airport was that–wow, I never realized how hot it could be! As someone who had only always imagined Europe through countless movies and stories, I had always expected it to be a cold place. Not right now!
As we drove off from the airport to our hotel in Paris, I couldn’t contain my enchantment. It’s like my dream and a lifetime’s worth of imagining Paris, coming to life right before my very eyes. It’s an outstanding feeling.
Our first full day (August 28) was spent visiting Musée d’Orsay, Saint-Germain-des-Près, the Panthéon, Jardin de Luxembourg, and then ending the day on top of Tour de Montparnasse. Tiring day! Happy that my parents survived the itinerary I made. I realized it must have taken them a lot of effort to walk everywhere.
August 21-26, 2019. My parents wanted to send me off for my grad studies and joined the trip to Paris. Only that they also took that as an opportunity, more like a nice excuse, to fly through the U.S. and spend time together us three, and to also see some relatives and some of their friends. People of their generation really have an amazing penchant for America that a trip to Europe could become an excuse to have a side trip over there, even if it meant passing by the other way around the world. Of course, I did not mind. I would be gone for a year and I loved to have spent time with them before saying goodbye.
We landed at the Los Angeles airport on Wednesday (August 21) after a long-haul flight from Manila (with a layover at the Taipei airport in Taiwan). We were picked up by Tita Gigi from the airport in L.A. and we drove straight off to St. George, Utah where we spent the night before making a day trip the next day (August 22) to Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona.
My parents are not big fans of walking and the heat of the desert but they enjoyed the amazing views below the ‘canyon’ with amazing ‘out-of-this-world’ red rock formations. It was desktop-screensaver beautiful! We made a brief stop-over at the Glen Canyon dam traversing the Colorado River.
We drove that same afternoon all the way back to Las Vegas, passing through Zion National Park, taking a few photo stops along the way. In Las Vegas, we stayed with the family of one of my mom’s hometown childhood friends who have since immigrated and settled in Nevada.