So as you all know I spent the last weekend in Paris with my good friend Kym. We left early early Friday morning.. we actually didn’t end up going to sleep until 12-1am on Thursday night and we had to get up and leave at 3am, what a terrible idea. We had to walk to the Termini train station then take a twenty minute bus ride to the Ciampino airport, then waited until 630am to board the plane (we took RyanAir, a discount airline) because their were no assigned seats it was pretty much madness.. people basically ran onto the plane to get seats eventhough it was only a two and a half hour flight. Madness. Anyways, we arrive at Paris Beauvauis airport at 930am and take another bus from that aiport to Mont Pilliet which takes around 45 minutes. The place we stayed was actually only a 5 minute walk from there so it was perfect.

We actually went out on a limb for this trip and stayed with a French couple who were probably in their late twenties. The girl was originally from Colombia but JD (the guy) was born and raised Parisian. We stayed on their fold-out king size bed and it was AWESOME. Wow.. our beds in Rome are awful.. I need to call my Mom to make a chiropractor appointment because I have never had a worse bed in my life.. I think the university should do something about it- my bed sinks down three to four inches in the middle, I even flipped it over and around and it is still just as bad. Anyways so we dropped off our stuff and took the Metro to meet one of Kym’s friends from high school, Amanda. We walked around and she showed us Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs d’Elysee, we ate at a little cafe where the menu and all the people spoke French (which I might add is nothing like Italian or Spanish, I couldn’t even pick out one word or even try to pronounce words on the menu..) I ended up getting a salad with chicken, grapes, almonds, celery, tomatoes, and honey. Outside our restaurant all these college-age kids were protesting, apparently a lot is going on with the school system in France.. college tuition for them is around 400 euro a semester so Amanda, who has been there for two years now, has no intentions of leaving. She also took us to this fancy little restaurant on Champs d’Elysee called Laduree.. who is known world-wide for their macaroons (they were even in the movie Marie Antoinette).. so these little cookies are about 2 euro each and come in different flavors like chocolate, coffee, raspberry, gingerbread, licorice, pistacio etc etc and it probably is one of the best things I have EVER eaten. It’s so hard to describe.. anyways I’m sending some home to my parents in a few days so hopefully they can experience the glory that is French macaroons with me After that she dropped us off at the Louvre which is free on Friday nights (genius) and we attempted to wander around looking for things we’ve studied in art history… keep in mind this museum is larger than anything I’ve seen.. it’s like 5 Metropolitan Museums of Art in NYC (or at least it felt like that). We even saw the Mona Lisa.. which is behind two sheets of glass and is roped off so you can’t even get close enough to see the brush strokes.. bummer, definately hyped up more than it should be. That night we headed back to the apartment and hung out with JD’s friends, who were mostly born and raised from Paris, but also one from China and one guy our age who was traveling from Poland. They were going to ride bicycles to this boat that plays reggae music around midnight (the metro closes at 1am so they could ride the bicycles back.. you can rent them for 3 euro) I was totally psyched about this idea but after only having two hours of sleep and walking around all day I was content with drinking my Desperado (a beer mixed with tequila.. it tastes a lot like a Michellada (sp) and it’s extremely popular in France although I’ve never seen it in Italy or the US) and going to bed.

The Louvre:

The Mona Lisa:

Next day we got up around 830am and went straight to Versailles.. you have to take a couple train to get there so it took around an hour eventhough it is a lot closer than that. Versailles……. is huge. King Louis the XIV was ridiculous. We spent the 15 euro to check out the Palace which was all gilded with really heavy decorative silver furniture. Theres this room that leads up to his throne that is lined with floor to celing mirrors (three-hundred and some of them!). It was interesting to say the least. We headed out back to the gardens (which were free.. too bad we didn’t know that) and from the Palace to the end was probably around 2-3 miles. It was infinite. Fountains everywhere (they were turned off though.. way too cold), green green lawns, orchards, etc. We walked down the mall (which Washington DC’s mall is based on) and headed toward Marie Antoinette’s little gettaway.. Kym was telling me that the King didn’t really like Marie so he probably built her this whole area so she could be busy with something. It’s basically her dream doll-house but huge. There are creeks, gardens, a lake, a mill, a barn, little cottages (which I want to live in!). We even happened upon a goat which followed us around for awhile. We got lost and then drudged back up to the palace.. loooots of walking. We got back to the center of Paris around 5 or 530.. our friend Chris from interior design had gone to Paris the weekend before and went on this free night tour of Montmartre so we decided to check it out.

Versailles Gardens:

One of the cottages in Marie Antoinette’s area:

Montmartre is the area where the Moulin Rouge is.. the artists hung out here, the red-light district, etc. It is SO COOL. Ahh, I don’t even think describing it would do it justice. This area is awesome and I’d learn French and pay serious money to live here. Anyways, we went on this tour with quite a few other people but it was pretty sweet. Montmartre is built on a hill and this huge church is on the top and the “sin” of the red-light district is at the bottom.. well the metro stop we got off at is called Blanche which means white and was named so because the artists would paint a white plaster on top of their canvases before they painted them and the white would run down the hill and pile at the bottom making that area white… we walked around and up the hill, making stops at Van Gogh’s apartment (which people live in now!), Picasso’s studio, the cafe where Van Gogh’s famous painting is of, a bar where Talouse Lautrec and Picasso ate and hung out, etc etc. They drank a lot of absynthe so as they got more intoxicated they would “trickle down the hill” into the area where are the can-can dancers were. This tour was sweet because it basically talked about all the artists, what they did, where they went, etc. Also because it was at night there were Christmas lights everywhere and really neat shops and bakeries which we promised we’d go back to the next day. After the tour we headed back to the apartment again and unfortunately couldn’t get in.. this was a sad moment, we had no phone and our credit cards wouldn’t work with the pay-phones so we were pretty stranded… luckily the stigma against French people saying that they are rude and arrogant is totally NOT TRUE (at least what we saw.. French people are SO MUCH nicer than Italians) I convinced Kym to ask these two random boys on a vespa if we could use their cell phone which they reluctantly handed over to us (they couldn’t speak English) and we eventually got back in and went to sleep.

The Moulin Rouge:

Metro sign:

Day three… we got up early again and went straight to the Musee d’Orsay which JD’s girlfriend said was really good museum for Impressionist art. We got there and were hungry so we went to this bakery and got these “things” I don’t even know what to call them… it was a ham sandwiched between two pieces of toasted bread with a fried egg on top with a tomato.. yum. French food is pretty much amazing. We got back in line for the museum and once we finally got in we found out it was free on Sundays, so we were successful again! The museum interior looked a lot like grand central station. We walked around for awhile and looked at paintings and sculpture and when we about to leave we realized there was a “third floor” on the 5th floor so we went up there.. BANK. It was a bunch of different rooms organized by artist.. Monet had his own room with haystacks, the bridge painting, etc. There were famous Van Gogh’s, Degas, Talouse, Seurat and a bunch of others. It’s the most/best collection of Impressionist art I’ve seen.

Monet:

After the museum we went back to Montmartre to shop and it was POURING. It was so unforutunate.. the wind was blowing our umbrellas inside out (which was amazing, our umbrellas survived the weekend and they probably flipped out ten times) We went into a few shops but a lot of them were closed and JD told us that on Sundays most things close at 2pm. We walked up and down the main street and attempted to go to a movie but decided that watching it in French would be more frustrating then entertaining. We hopped on the Metro again and went to the Eiffel Tower.. we had plans to go up it (it costs 11euro) but it was still pouring and cloudy so we opted out this time.. we took videos of us dancing around it in the rain and stood under it for awhile which I think creates some sort of weird air stream… we were about to be knocked over by the wind, and once again our umbrellas were flipped inside out and whipping around like kites… we probably looked pretty ridiculous.

The Eiffel Tower:

…hopped the metro back to Champs d’Elysee hoping that more stores were open down there.. it’s basically a Times Square but a LOT bigger.. the sidewalks are like the width of a house which is great.. and there was everything from really expensive car stores to Cartier, to Adidas and Nike or Roxy. Of course we couldn’t find anything that we could afford (even Nike shirts).. I’m still struggling finding Ian’s Christmas present It was still raining so we dipped into a coffee shop and walked around a Borders-esque store where we listened to some French rap (it’s not as bad as it sounds…) We went back to Laduree around 7pm for dessert and cappucinos.. we weren’t really sure what time the French eat dinner since Italy is so whack so we just ordered two desserts and split them and sat around and talked for an hour and a half. We got one dessert that was like one giant apple macaroon with apples and a caramel filling, then we got some sort of chocolate, nut, something.. wow I’m terrible I can’t even remember what was in it.. but I have pictures It was a pretty enjoyable time. The restaurant has their own shop inside so people who are buying hundreds of dollars worth of macaroons for Christmas could stop in there.. we each bought macaroons for our families and then some for our host (JD).. the lady behind the counter was crazy. We keep trying to describe to our roomates but it never works.. She had this little apron and I want to say a nurse hat on.. and she would ask what box you want to put your cookies in, then what flavors and she had these little white gloves on and she’d pick up the cookie and set it nicely in the box.. then smile. At the end she holds up the box with the cookies in it, with a questioning look as if she wants to make sure you approve of how she organized it before she wraps it up. She was almost cartoon character and I was just waiting for her teeth to sparkle when she smiled.

The Champs d’Elysee and Arc de Triomphe:

Macaroons:

We went back that night around eleven and they had friends over again, this time for a friends birthday party.. they had made different platters of food and a cake. It’s really entertaining to watch French people interact and try to figure out what they are talking about.. the French language is so much sweeter to the ear then Italian, it was nice to have a break. Around eleven we watched Man of Fire (which I’ve never seen.. good movie) JD hates dubbed movies so he always watches the English versions. We crashed at 3am and were up again at 5am to head to the airport.. then after arriving in Rome I went to painting class for 5 hours on two hours of sleep.. to say the least I’m tired today.

..sorry my writing is ALL OVER the place.

Also here’s my painting to date.. I have maybe two weeks left to work on it because I have to let it dry to bring it home.. I have a bad feeling I wont finish it :-\