J'Adore Paris

Bonjour!

This past weekend I spent in one of the most beautiful cities in the world! Ahhhh Paris. I travelled with three girls from my program and one girl I met from Italy came along as well. I was able to stay with a friend from Paris so we skipped out on the hostel fees which was awesome!

Day 1:
Montemartre: Here we went and climbed the the highest point in Paris and at the top of the hill sits the Saceur Cour Chruch. The Church is much different from most and has a very "pretty" and "elegant" feel to it. The domes almost look like they are made of flower petals. All white and sitting at the top of the grassy hill and a carosel at the bottom...it was a beautiful way to see Paris from above.

Moulin Rouge: We then walked down Montemartre and visited the Moulin Rouge. I didn't realize that this was in the Red Light District and now looking back that was pretty stupid of me! Moulin Rouge was cool to see but it was not as big as I thought!

Night Life:
We were able to meet up with my friend from back home, Rita, who took us out in the town. Nightlife is incredible in Paris but much like Barcelona where the clubs don't really get good until like 2am and they stay out until like 7am!!! Of course we were unable to do that since we had sites to see so we just went bar hoping and there was dancing there. I really like the nightlife in Paris because they play music I am used to unlike England where its all techno and you feel like your at a rave. Alcohol is very very expensive in Paris in terms of liquor and beer...BUT champagne and wine is dirt cheap! Also their really cheap champagne (2-3 euro) taste like our really really nice champagne! So that was quite nice...

The Boys:
Of course you cannot go to a country in Europe and expect not to have some interesting or inappropriate story to tell afterwards. The boys in Paris are much more preferred then those in Spain or Italy... they are forward but in a flirty way and not a vulgar way. They would say things like you are so beautiful, I love you and your country, then ten minutes later they say they want to take you to Italy with them for a week... wow uhhhh nooooo. One of the bars we went to you had to check your coat. Each of the girls (including the locals) would have to give a peck to the cheek of the coat guy. I always felt kind of uncomfortable with this but people in England do it too. So seeing that all the other girls were fine I handed my coat to the coat checker and placed a peck on his check and he swung his head around and tried to kiss me!!!! Luckily he got maybe one cm of the corner of my lip but I was like WHAT?!!! The whole night he kept coming up to me pointing to his cheek... I was like heck no!

Food:
That day we had the most amazing bagette for like 3 euro that had fresh crab in it! Also I tried the chocolate crossiant which I decided Italy's is by far the best. But my favorite food in Paris is the crepes. Je vodre un crepe avec nutella. merci. That is me ordering one crepe with nutella. This is like heaven in your mouth... doughy, warm crepe filled with goey melting nutellla... words cannot describe how amazing they are. I had four the first two days.... yes four. But then I stopped because I swear my butt started the jiggle as I walked...or maybe thats me imagining things IDK.

Day 2:
Notre Dame: We walked through Notre Dame which was very beautiful but not as awesome as St Peters. Then we climbed to the top of the bell towers and got to see the gargoyles at the top. This was really cool because the sky was greyish-navy and you could take pictures of the gargoyles over looking the Paris city with this very gothic feel.

Le Louvre: My friend that I was staying with has studied a lot of art history and had a year free pass to the Louvre. So she offered to give us a tour! That night there was a promotion that was if you were under 26 you got into free...nice little savings. Julia was very knowledgable about a lot of the art and was able to give us history about it. It is amazing how you can look at art and be like 'oh thats cool... thats pretty' but not realllllly understand it or think about it unless you have some background with it. The Mona Lisa was fun as usual and they had moved it to a bigger room so I wasn't shoved against a wall this time. There are rumors that it is a painting of Divinci drag, a painting done at two different times since the sides look different to her face...and much more all in all the painting is just very odd. My favorite part of the Louvre was the sculpture called "The Kiss" this was of Eros and Physche and I just thought it was so beautiful...not really sure why I was so drawn to it but I bought a poster of it and am going to frame it when I get home.

Food:
Julia took us to a hole in the wall creperie place that was so delicious. I tried to order in French but the lady thought that I was going to slow I guess and cut me off saying 'HAM AND CHEESE OK?' Ooops...this was definitely our first exposure to the French snootiness which I didn't experience as much as I thought I would... but it is present for sure.

Day 3:
Grand Palais- When we went we saw this huge beautiful gold building and naturally thought it was the Grand Palais... it turned out to be the Hotel for the Disabled... ya figured that one out. Nevertheless it was pretty!

Trocadero- Basically just a really pretty place to take photos of the Eiffel Tower while getting bombared with people trying to sell you ugly Eiffel Tower stuff.

The Louvre- Went to see the pyramids and the gardens a bit. The Louvre used to be the Palace and then they moved it to Versailles so the gardens are beautiful.

Angelina's- The best hot chocolate you will have in your life. It is called African Hot Chocolate and its in this beautiful, small cafe near the louvre. They charge like 7 euro for the drink but if you get it to go its 3 euro so we did that... all the pastries looked so so pretty!

What we thought was the Opera House- Again messed up the buildings the Opera House was right behind the pretty building we though it was.

Eiffel Tower- Went up the Eiffel Tower right at sunset. We first stopped at the 2nd floor and I was like oh my gosh I don't want to go any higher!!! I was shaking sooo hard because it was freezing and windy. I kept trying to take pictures for my friends and they turned out so blurry because I couldn't hold my hands still. It was so worth it though absolutely gorgeous. I was really scared going to the top of the Tower like it takes so long and it feels like it never ends. But once you get up there its so beautiful. It was cool because they showed where you could look out to see Washington, NY, Miami etc and how many miles it is. So I took a photo outside of Seattle. Just a side note the weather was like 3 degrees C with windchills of who knows what... I have never EVER been more cold in my life.

Dinner- We had made reservations for this famous fondue place in Montmartre where for 17 euro you get fondue, salad, desert and wine in baby bottles... and then if you want to refill your baby bottle its 1 euro each time. Unfortuneatly, only the group that didn't make the reservation got in because we went up the eiffel tower and it took longer than we thought :( But we went to a different fondue place just down the hill and it was delicious.

NightLife- Went to a club near the Champs Elysee which is pretty chic. It was odd to me because there was like some grandpas and like older men there. I later asked my friend why that was and she said that clubbing in Paris is not like in the States where its all younger people. If the old men are rich or well known they will let them in because they know they will buy tables or buy a lot of drinks for girls... I find that a little creepy but ok. We just had so much fun that night there were three rooms a techno room, an american music room and like an oldies room. We stayed in the oldies room and sang to songs like "I Love you Baby" "Girls Just want to have fun" and loads of Michael Jackson... it was a good time.

Day 4:
Versailles- Made the trek out to Versailles which was gorgeous. The rooms were very ornate and had a lot of history. It was so odd though because it was an exhibition of this guys art in Versailles...his name was Jeff Koon. He did modern art and I just find modern art absolutely hilarious like I don't get it at all! Here we are in Versailles see beautiful, priceless artwork and people are taking photos of a blow up floating lobster hanging from a ceiling... ok? Unfortueatly, that day it decided to snow really really hard so we didn't walk to Marie Antoinette's Estates since it was a thirty minute walk and we didn't get to see the gardens which is like huge at Versailles. Like I took my camera and ran as fast as I could out to the garden took a photo of some trees and ran back in.... that was the extent of us viewing the gardens.

Deathcab for Cutie: That night Brianne and I had tickets to a concert. Deathcab originated from Seattle, WA so it was way cool to see them in Paris. We wrote on a pillow case "Seattle Girls Love DeathCab" and had a big spaceneedle on it... one of the guitarists noticed it but not the lead singer... the french were not happy with us raising our sign and so we didn't have a whole lot of opportunities :(

Overall the trip was incredible Rome is still number one, but Paris is close behind it. I absolutely have to go back sometime in the spring when the weather doesn't literally hurt my body and we are not sleeping on hardwood floors. Maybe when I am a millionaire I can stay at the tres chic hotels and go to the tres chic clubs and live the fabulous life in Paris. HA

This weekend will be my first in Manchester... I plan on doing a lot of sleeping, working on research papers, and maybe hit up some free art museums. The original Light of the World painting which hangs in my parents living room is in Manchester so that could be cool to see...

Natalie