Life is a Game we Play.

Paris holds the key...to my HEART

Paris was a raging success. It was my last big trip, and I wouldn’t have had it go any differently. Sarah, Liz, and I flew in Wednesday night and met up with Nate (a friend of Sarah’s from high school who is studying abroad in Sweden). Nate is 6’6”...Europe is not built for people his size.

Wednesday and Thursday night we stayed in a 1* hotel called Gran Hotel Magenta. With the red wine stains on the beds and toilet that didn’t flush, I would hardly call it “gran.” But with a deck of cards, the Initial Game, and some French wine, we made it work.

Thursday, we were determined to eat crepes. We stopped at the first creperie we saw and ended up paying $15 each for a crepe and a cappuccino... both sub-par at best. We walked through the Latin Quarter to the Luxembourg Gardens, and Liz met up with her mom’s aunt (who happens to be a French Countess who let us stay in her apartment Friday and Saturday night!!).

Nate, Sarah, and I headed over to Notre Dame and climbed the 400 spiral staircase steps to the top. France has a thing with spiral staircases; Sarah has a thing with falling down them... Nate barely fit through the passages. They are decorating everything for Christmas, so everything is lit up, and there was a beautiful tree in front of the Cathedral.

Happy Thanksgiving...we ate dinner in the Chinatown of Paris. A Chinese menu in French is a challenge and a half. We were those kids...pointing and nodding at our neighbor’s food to our waitress. Worth it. DELICIOUS. Most non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever had, but it was great, and I’ve already thrown in a request for a real Thanksgiving meal when I come back to the US.

Our friend Kim flew in and met us Thursday night, so we just hung out in the hotel again.

Friday, we woke up pretty early and headed to the Eiffel Tower. We were a little disappointed because it was raining, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Although all of our pictures are a little ominous, the line to climb to the top of the tower was really short, and it stopped raining before we started. For lunch, we stopped in this little hole in the wall Jewish-run sandwich shop that had to rearrange everything to accommodate us. The man making our paninis was the jolliest guy I’ve ever met, and our sandwiches were so good. We also stopped for some hot chocolate because turns out, it’s really cold at the top of the Eiffel Tower, and I felt like I didn’t have feet anymore.

We walked over to the Champs-Elysees, the famous shopping street, which was all decked out in Christmas lights. We admired some 16,000 euro bags in the 5 story Louis Vuitton store. We made friends with “Paul’s Bakery.” I think we kept them in business this weekend.

All we wanted to do was find the Longchamp store, because we all wanted a bag for our souvenirs. We asked everywhere and got sent in so many different directions, so we eventually gave up and decided to head towards to the Louvre and introduce ourselves to Mona Lisa. About five minutes into our journey, we actually found the Longchamp store. Success! We didn’t meet Kanye West while taking pictures of the Mona Lisa, but it was still pretty cool. The new entrance to the museum was pretty sweet as well. We headed back to the apartment, which was conveniently located between the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. We ended our long day with a homemade pasta dinner with some fresh mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. Listened to the French techno remix to Timbaland’s “The Way I Are”...

Saturday, we took a daytrip to see the chateau of Versailles. We were cool and took an audio tour of the palace. Because of the public transport strike, the metro had been kind of sketchy...sometimes you had to pay, and sometimes the gates were just open. Well, we were able to just walk onto the train to get back to Paris, but then we needed a ticket to get onto the metro which we would have needed to buy in Versailles. We were stuck, so we had to jump over the gates. Spent the 1.50 we saved on a McDonald’s McFlurry and cooked up another pasta dinner. We headed back to the Eiffel Tower to take pictures of the lightshow at night. Asian tourists...

Tried to find a cheap pub Saturday night but gave up after walking in 2 bars with 20 euro drinks and then getting chased down the street by a homeless man bleeding from the face.

Sunday, we gave crepes another try. Glad we did, much better. When I reached my hand out to take the crepe, the man who made it took my hand, kissed it, made a growling noise and asked me if I loved him. We hopped on the Metro and checked out Moulin Rouge and the Opera, took one final lap down the Champs-Elysees, turned down an opportunity to meet Kylie Minogue at the Virgin Megastore, and went back to the apartment to pack up our stuff for the airport.

It was strange to get to the terminal and feel relieved to be able to understand what people were saying again...and not in English. We were kind of worthless all weekend because not only do we not speak French, we don’t even know how to pronounce it when reading something. Made getting directions and food a challenge/surprise. Three more weeks of Spanish. Can’t believe I’m almost done.

posted by Erin @ 5:37 AM