I ate my way across Paris

Two posts in quick succession. Though you wouldn’t be getting this one nearly as quickly if I was at work right now – where I should be. I’m not there because I’m feeling pretty sickly. Just in time for Thanksgiving again this year. I fear its turning into a tradition. Its Thanksgiving, Sarah must be sick again. Any how, here is the second half of my Paris trip.

Sunday morning around 5am Elyse woke me to say good-bye because her flight was early that day. I sat up and mumbled a hardly coherent farewell and gave her a quick hug, and then she was gone. A couple hours later it was my job to be the camp director, and I got myself and Angelica up and out of the hostel by around 10. Not quite as efficient as Elyse, but not bad nonetheless. Our plan for the day was to see Notre Dame, and then meet up with Laura around noon for lunch, but our plans quickly changed when we stumbled upon a market down the street from us. We couldn’t resist checking it out, and spent the next two hours browsing and strolling. We found a candied fruit seller that was impossible to say no to and he let us try loads of stuff. We tried strawberries, kiwi, apple (it was surprisingly good), cranberries, and walnut and fig, and I’m sure more. Angelica bought some kiwi, and I got some strawberries. They were so good, and absolutely wonderful to munch on throughout the day. I also bought another pashmina for 2 Euros. This one is cream colored and goes really well with just about everything. Though I am disappointed to say that the quality is nowhere near as good as the ones I got at the Rastro in Madrid for the same price. All the same, it was 2 Euro, so I won’t complain too, too much.

By the time we finished with the street market it was nearly time to meet with Laura so we called her, but found that the museum she was supposed to be visiting wasn’t yet open and she was still waiting in line. So we decided to go meet up with her there, and check out the museum. It was Musée de l’Orangerie at the Tuileries. I didn’t know how to spell either, so I googled them and stumbled upon a fantastic blog about someone’s experience at the museum. The museum houses Monet’s Water Lilies works and its some of his most famous art. Its impressionism, so I have trouble appreciating it like I appreciated the Louvre, but there was some other art downstairs by other impressionist artists that I thought was really fascinating. Unfortunately, by this time my camera batteries had died, and I didn’t have extras with me so I don’t have pictures from this museum (they allow pictures so long as you don’t use flash). This is partly why I have added in so many links – they have pictures of what I saw. That and I think these sites are far more eloquent than anything my rough Midwest vocabulary can accomplish.

After the museum Laura and Molly headed for another museum while Angelica and I headed down the Champs-Élysées. Quite funnily though, we belatedly realized that we were not in fact on the famous boulevard, but were instead on the one next to it. New York Ave. It wasn’t a problem because it was right on the Seine and absolutely gorgeous and we took some fantastic pictures (yay new batteries). We also stumbled upon a replica of the Statue of Liberty flame that the French gave to the U.S back in 1886. The perfect replica stands above one of the entrances to the tunnel that is now famous for the car crash that Princess Diana died in. The flame has been sort of converted into a memorial site to Diana with flowers and pictures commemorating the terrible spot. I did a bit of research and learned that there are lots of Statues of Liberty around Paris, and it’s quite interesting. After we spent a bit of time on the wrong street we checked a map and headed up George V Ave to get back to the Champs-Élysées. We didn’t know it when we started walking down it, but George V is home to the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris. As we approached the building we saw a rather large crowd and we couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Once we realized what hotel it was and saw some people holding pens and even saw a few paparazzi around it dawned on us that someone famous must be staying there. We decided we could stand around and wait for a few minutes, because hey, it’d be cool to see a celebrity. As we stood there it dawned on me that it would probably be a French celebrity because, duh, we’re in Paris. But until then I was assuming it would be an American or Brit, because those are really the world famous celebs you think of. Turns out I was right with both actually. Because not 10 minutes after we walked up, none other than Celine Dion walked out of the hotel. I said, “Holy shit, its Celine Dion.” I guess I didn’t actually expect to see anyone I recognized. I kept my wits about me though, and managed to snap a really good photo of her. To her immense credit, I would have to say that she is incredibly classy. She exited the hotel, said hello to the crowd and waved, stood there for a minute or two so people could take photos, and then stepped into her car and was driven away. I think this shows some really good character because I think I would hate to be followed to my hotel and be bombarded by people seeking autographs and pictures constantly. I would want my privacy and peace and quiet. But Celine accepts the reality of her fame with grace and poise, and I was very impressed. I would sneak out the back door as often as possible I think. My curiosity got the best of me, and I visited the Four Seasons website, and wow. That place is incredibly nice. I highly recommend the photo gallery for a quick look at the place if nothing else. I also decided to see how much it costs a night. I had some trouble finding availability, but I finally found an open room for Jan.15^th for $1,122.94 for two people and one night. For that price I hope it’s all inclusive. Spa visits and the like for free. Though maybe not, because if you’re wealthy enough to stay there you’re wealthy enough to pay for whatever else strikes your fancy while you’re there.

After our exciting detour we found the Champs-Élysées and about 5 blocks in front of us was the Arc de Triomphe. It was pretty incredible. We then headed for Notre Dame to meet up with Laura once more. Once at Notre Dame we sat in the cathedral for a while and relaxed because our feet hurt so much and we’d done so much walking the past few days. There was an organist playing Bach (I think) and it was very relaxing. We eventually got up and headed for an (extremely, by European standards) early dinner. On our way we stopped for some more crepes though (#3 of the weekend). For dinner we went to a place Laura had been before, a small restaurant with pretty great French cuisine. The place was completely empty except for the three of us and another American couple (though they were in their 50’s I would say – they mentioned their grown kids). There was one woman working as the entire staff of the place because it was so early (another person came in to work as we were leaving a few hours later). I ordered a steak and potatoes and green beans with a glass of the house red, and Angelica got a steak with pepper sauce and potatoes and Laura got roast beef that was to die for. We all tried each other’s meals and it was all so good. I would have to say that the roast beef may have been even better than my grandmother’s. And everyone in my family will tell you that I have to have Grandma’s roast beef every time I see her, or I feel jipped. There was of course the requisite French bread present that was totally delicious and I ate it with some of Angelica’s pepper gravy and was in heaven. Because the place was empty the cook (and owner I assume) let her two cats out, and one, named Flash, joined us for dinner. We think he was originally just interested in our pashminas, but eventually he cuddled down between us and took a nap while we ate. He was the most gorgeous cat and Angelica said he was a Snowshoe.

After dinner Angelica and I headed home and then decided to go see a movie in French. We saw Le Premier Cri (I gave the link to the movie website, but its kind of a waste of time unless you can read French), a documentary about childbirth. I didn’t understand one word of the film (because I took Spanish, not French in high school) but it was still interesting. After the movie we headed back to the hostel, and hung out with Justin for the rest of the evening and had crepe #4.

Monday morning we slept in until about 9:45 and it was great. We decided we could sleep in because we had already seen everything we came to Paris to see (mostly) and the few things that we thought would be cool to check out still were closed. We learned that they close all sorts of museums and things on Mondays because the government wanted to anger the church way back when, so they closed everything a day later than the church wanted. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I find it an amusing concept.

We headed out to the city around 11, and stopped off first at an internet café to check email and print out bus tickets for getting home, and we were back on the Champs-Élysées by noon and we decided to go shopping! Justin came with me and Angelica, and he proceeded to be my personal shopper in Zara. I have fallen in love with this store and found that I do in fact like shopping….so long as I have a personal shopper on hand. We had a bit of a fashion show, and Justin was a total instigator and enabler in my quest for a montage-type experience. It was a lot of fun, and I fell in love with loads of their things. Alas, I left the store empty-handed. We then met Laura for lunch after her class. I had roasted chicken again (sooo good) except since we were in a café and not a nice restaurant it came with fries instead of some fancy side dish. But the fries were incredible, and I gobbled them up. Or what was left of them because everyone else decided they would help themselves to them as well. I can’t quite decide if I’m actually annoyed by that or not and its weeks and weeks later. Haha. Laura had to leave for class again, but other three of us stayed and chatted for hours, and spent most of the afternoon just watching the world go by. It was a very Parisian experience. Eventually we had to head back to the hostel and grab our things but on our way we stopped at a street vendor and had crepe #5. We then said good-bye to Justin and set off. We realized we had loads of time to kill though, and there happened to be a shopping area right by the metro, so in we went, and found a Zara, and this time around I did end up buying something. It was just a light blue button down shirt and very simple, but it’s practical, and looks nice. I’ve already worn it twice. So after our shopping tour it was finally time to head for London, and we did so as a pair of very happy, and slightly exhausted holiday-makers.

I think this is the longest blog yet, so I’m very glad I broke Paris into two parts. Ha.

Cheers!

J'adore Paris

Here it is folks, the long awaited Paris blog. Again, I apologize for the delay between posts.

Angelica and I arrived in Paris late Friday night and made our way to our hostel from the airport without too, too much trouble, considering neither of us have ever been to Paris, and Angelica only speaks a little French, whereas I speak none. We arrived around 11pm and checked into the hostel, called Oops. I thought it was a rather interesting name, but whatever. I’ve heard all sorts of horror stories about how dirty and horrible hostels can be, but this one was pretty nice (though the fact that it just opened in September could have something to do with it) and the only thing really wrong with it was that the elevator was broken…though it only broke after we had checked in and taken our bags up in it, which was nice. As we were checking in Elyse also turned up, so we were all together pretty much immediately, and our plan had worked nicely. The only part of the hostel any of us were wary about was our actual room, because we had booked a 6 occupant ‘mixed’ room. Which meant we could end up with a bunch of boys. We got to our room to find we’d been given a 4 occupant room, and there was one occupant. And he was male, and sleeping. We tried to be as quiet as possible, but inevitably, woke him up. We learned his name is Justin and as I picked up immediately, he’s Australian. He thought it was really nice of us to try to be quiet, and unlike other Americans he’d met previously, and from whom had developed the opinion that the stereotype of loud, boisterous, and obnoxious Americans was right on. He also decided that we were some of the coolest American females ever, because he’d also met some really girly, really annoying American girls. I’m really glad we changed his perception of Americans and showed him that not all of us fit the general, negative stereotype.

After talking to Justin for a bit, we decided we were hungry, and set off in search of some late night munchies. We found a place right next to us that was still open-ish and they let us come in and we sat down to our first crepes of the weekend. I say first, because in the time that I was there (late Friday until early evening Monday I had 5 crepes). And they were absolutely fantastic. I had the fairly standard chocolate crepe, but Angelica got a crepe with chocolate, pears, and vanilla ice cream and sparkler on top! It was crazy! And absolutely delicious. After our scrumptious, late-night snack we headed back to our hostel and got ready for bed. We then proceeded to talk to Justin late into the night, though Elyse and I fell asleep considerably sooner than Angelica and Justin.

Saturday morning Elyse put on her camp director uniform and made sure we were up, dressed, eaten, and ready to go and out the door by 9:07. Our goal was to be out the door at 9, so we could be at the Louvre when it opened at 10 so we wouldn’t have to wait in line for hours on end (I guess its notorious for that). Not bad if I say so myself. If there is one thing Elyse is good for (but clearly she’s good for lots of other things too), that’s totally it, and I’m incredibly glad she was there to do that. Though, I think I did a decent job of getting us up to go on Sunday morning (more on that later though, obvi.).

Our first stop of the jam-packed day was the Louvre. As you all know, I am not what you would call a big fan of art. I assume you all read my post on the Tate Modern, and my scathing sarcasm that went along with it (lots of sarcasm on the photo captions as well). Well, I seem to have found what kind of art I like, because I absolutely LOVED the Louvre. We only spent 2 ½ hours in there, but I think any longer and I would have been overwhelmed. I saw the things I thought were most important and some others on top of that. Because we were there so early we were among the first in, and it took no more than 10 minutes, total to get through security and get our tickets and into the first gallery. Our first stop was obviously the Mona Lisa. I hate to say it, but after hearing about Mona for so long and knowing its so famous, I was really disappointed in it. I have three reasons for this. First of all, it was much smaller than I thought it was going to be. Secondly, there were swarms of people around already, because it was everyone’s idea to see the Mona Lisa first. And thirdly, they had it roped off so you couldn’t actually get close to it. These three things combined to make it pretty impossible to get even a half-way decent photo. While I’m glad I saw it and can now say, “I saw the Mona Lisa,” it left much to be desired and I think I saw much better art that day. Sorry da Vinci. I would love to sit here and tell you about all the paintings I saw that day, but it would make this post about 3 hours long, and I don’t want to write it, and you don’t want to read it (though, maybe some of you without lives do..haha just teasing). But don’t worry, all the pictures I took are up on facebook, and as usual, I’ve posted the link at the bottom. As of now, I haven’t captioned any of them, as its going to take a bit of research for some, but I will get on it, and if you check back I’m sure that they will have some info. And I’ll probably let you know (I like to pretend you guys care that much).

Once outside the Louvre once more the three of us met up with our fourth, Laura! It was quite the AEPhi reunion. From there we walked to Montmarte, which is the tallest hill in Paris, and is topped by the Catholic basilica, Sacré Cœur. The area is known for its artist community, and famous artists such as Dali, Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh all had studios around this community at one point or another. I wikipediaed Montemarte to learn more about the area, and the next few sentences are things I learned. ‘Montmartre means 'mountain of the martyr'; it owes its name to the martyrdom of Saint Denis, who was decapitated on the hill around 250 AD. Saint Denis was the Bishop of Paris and is the patron saint of France. The hill's religious symbolism is thought to be even older, as it has been suggested as a likely druidic holy place because it is the highest point in the area.’ That is just a little teaser, and the whole Wikipedia article is actually fascinating, and I highly recommend visiting it. Though only after you finish reading my fabulous post! To try to achieve this end, I’ve put the link at the end of the post. Muahaha.

After we walked around the area for a while we decided it was time for lunch, and picked an outdoor café to eat some French food. I had a croque-monsieur, which is a ham and cheese sandwich, and a dark hot chocolate. They were both pretty delicious, particularly the dark chocolate – I’ve found I’ve really developed a taste for it.

After lunch we did a bit of poking around in a shopping mall which was fun. I bought Q-Tips….very exciting, I know. And after shopping for a while we found a cute café and sat down for crepe #2 of the weekend. I also had hot chocolate with mine and it was really, really delish! By the time we finished with this it was growing dark and around 5-5:30 in the afternoon. Laura left us to return to her homestay, and the three of us headed for the big event for the day, the Eiffel Tower.

Seeing the Eiffel Tower was everything I had hoped for and so much more. I guess I didn’t really think about seeing it very much, I just always knew it was an icon. But when I walked around the corner and saw it for the first time, it blew me away. I think it helped that my first glimpse of it was around 6pm and the lights were not only on because it was evening, but also it was sparkling because it was the hour. Every hour, on the hour the tower starts sparkling, and its just glorious. I was enraptured. As we approached I took picture after picture and as a result, I have about 30 pictures of it. We spent 3 hours there, much of which was spent in line, and we left just after 9, so we were able to see the tower sparkle 4 times in the 3 hours, and it was a nice kind of symmetry, to walk up and walk away while it sparkled in the distance. While there we decided to make the trip to the top, and got into line. We stood and talked and passed the time pretty easily (though Angelica and Elyse claim the girl behind us was completely horrible – I didn’t notice though). About an hour into our wait in line we realized that the reason our line was shortest was because it was the line that did not have an elevator to the first and second platforms. Which meant it was stair climbing time. I did not want to get into another line and start all over, so I convinced the girls that it would be ok, and we could make the climb. It was surprisingly easy, even though we climbed just over 700 stairs (they were numbered). Now if you think about it there are generally 12 (sometimes 13) stairs in each flight of stairs which translates to climbing a 58 story building (53 if it’s a 13 step flight). Go us! Once at the second platform there is an elevator only route (thank goodness) to the top, and we proceeded onward. As we reached the top 8pm struck, and the lights were flashing around us. It was incredibly cool and slightly surreal. I also think the comment about having a seizure was made…haha. There was also a random group of American kids around and we over heard a comment one of them made that made us hysterical with laughter. He said something to the effect of, “And to think I was afraid of how high the Ferris wheel was.”

After our love affair with the Eiffel Tower we met up with Laura once again, and this time she brought her friend Molly along. Then the five of us went to dinner at a nice restaurant and I had an incredibly delicious and incredibly French meal. It was roasted chicken on a bed of rice (I think, I don’t remember anymore) and mushrooms (I picked out the few mushrooms) and some incredible French bread and a glass of the house white wine. It was incredibly filling, and incredibly tasty. At this point you may begin to realize that I was eating my way across Paris. Once we had filled our bellies again we realized how completely exhausted we were and scratched our original plan of going out to party, and just went to back to our hostel and headed to bed.

I think I’m going to end the post here, and finish my trip to Paris another time because this is already incredibly long. Stay tuned!!

Cheers!

Go here for Love the Louvre pictures

Here is the really great article on Montmarte

Workin' for a Living

As you all know I did indeed make it back to London safe and sound after all of my adventures abroad. Since my return I have been a major slacker and I apologize profusely. I thought it would be even easier to update after break as I no longer have classes, and basically I have 4 days a week free, but it turns out I have fall less free time than I thought and my internship is pretty intense. I find myself struggling to even get myself to the grocery store so I can cook for myself. Something I’m afraid I have to do yet again.

I’ve started my internship. For those of you who don’t know, I work for London First, in the safer business section. London First brings companies together and lobbies for them in Parliament, and works with the police to make business safer and things like that. I do actual work, which is a bit of a surprise because a lot of internships are just kids making copies and doing data entry, you know the menial things. Well, from the beginning my boss, Denica, has been saying that I’ll be doing lots of real things, and has made a work plan for me that outlines all the skills I should be developing over the 8 weeks I’m with them. Its fairly terrifying because this is my first internship and first real office experience and I don’t have any clue what I’m doing. I’m doing things like data entry (boring, but part of the job), calling our members to get some information on their business continuity plans (as in what is their plan for getting their business running again after a flood or something), going to meetings and taking notes, and there is talk of me doing my very own project. The project is building a website for the metropolitan police…a fairly big deal. Freeeeeak out. More on this in later blogs.

My first weekend back from the weekend, I did a bunch of stuff, even though I didn’t have my oyster. I did get my replacement credit card on Thursday so I didn’t have to starve anymore. Friday night the Victoria and Albert Museum was open late for a Halloween deal, and Justin and I went. It was really cool. We listened to a real life ghost-buster type, and if nothing else it’s a cool story to listen to. We also waited in line for about an hour and a half to get our faces painted like we were dead, and then get a picture taken. It was so cool. We then went to the surprise show at midnight. And boy was it a surprise. It was a freaking burlesque show. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. Seriously, I was shocked they had that at a museum.

Saturday afternoon I decided to head for the Natural History museum, but when I got there I found it completely packed and overrun with small kids and their parents, and it just wasn’t fun. Needless to say, I didn’t spend a lot of time there, but I intend to head back, on a weekday so there are many less people around. Hopefully… After my failed trip to the museum I had basketball practice in the evening, and went to that. It was good, but not hard, like I’m used to.

I have no idea what I did on Sunday. Not a clue. I guess that means I did nothing. Ha. The one thing I did do was take a walk in the evening, and it was a really long one, and very relaxing. I got some groceries, and returned home.

Monday I had BLC, and we took a field trip to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. It was really neat. I have some fantastic pictures, and after the short tour we went inside a different building and had a workshop-type deal. I learned so much about how Shakespeare wrote and how plays were performed and it all makes so much more sense now. And so many of the things are very subtle and I never would have known any of it just from going to a play or something.

Tuesday I went to my internship for a half day because I only intended to go for half a day on Friday because of my trip to Paris. I then spent the afternoon with Rachel Rath, who was in London for a while. She’s in Florence for the semester, and came to visit good old London. We first went to Westminster Abbey and spent a long time touring the Abbey. We went on the day they were testing out a new audio tour, so we got to use it for free, and it was brilliant. We learned so much! We then went to the Victoria and Albert museum and I actually toured it this time around. My favorite room was the giant sculpture room that is full of casts of some of the most famous sculptures in the world. It was really cool, and I’m not even a sculpture person. After a quickish tour of the V&A (it was closing) we walked through Kensington Gardens to see Kensington Palace. Now, the V&A is open until 5:30, and it took us about 20 minutes to get to the Palace from the museum. And its fall, so it was totally full dark by the time we got there. But I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, because a thing called electricity was invented way back when. Apparently they have yet to learn of this fabulous invention in Kensington Palace, because there was not one light on in the whole building. It was quite hilarious, so we of course, took pictures. Haha. We then headed back to the flat so Rachel could see where I live and also say hello to Kristian, because they’re good friends as well. We then went to a pub to have fish and chips, because somehow, Rachel has never had them, though she’s been to England once or twice before.

Wednesday was Halloween, and after our internships much of the flat got dressed up, and went out to celebrate. We went to a place called the Roadhouse in Covent Garden, and we were there around 9pm. Because we got there so early there was no cover. And once we got inside, we found out that if we waited half an hour it would be happy hour, and all cocktails were half off. 3 pound cocktails. It was really sweet. I decided that this was a prime chance to try all the things I’ve always wanted but thought were too expensive. I had a Mi Tai which was really good, a Sex on the Beach (also good), a Long Island Iced Tea (which I’d had before and really liked, though this one was crap), and my favorite of the evening was a Mojito. I’ve also had a Mojito before, but this one was incredible. It was really sweet, and I loved it. It was also really strong, and the bartender (who was dressed like Luke Skywalker) really knew his stuff, and did a few bar tricks. I forgot to mention what I dressed up as. I was the sun. It was sweet. Basically, it was a last minute costume that was totally pimped out. Pipe cleaners and sunglasses = badass. Haha. Or maybe we just played a game called, “Make Sarah look as stupid as possible.” Which worked out well because I looked so toolish it was cool. Ha. There was also a live band that played from 11:30-12:30, and we left soon after they were done with their set because we all had to go to our internships bright and early the next morning.

Thursday and Friday were both pretty regular days at the office, except Friday was only a half day because I was headed for PARIS!! But that’s the next blog.

I was busy putting up pictures from break as well, so here are all the links for that. All my albums from fall break are here, so you may have seen some of them because I sent an email about some of them a while ago.

More pictures and blogs to come soon!

I wanna go to the beach, can't you skip class?

How to be Unlost in Rome

When in Rome, Party like the Romans

This is what life should be like all the time

Authentic Bullfight in Madrid


Cheers!