Paris

Ok, so I know everyone's like c'mon, just pick your favorite city already, and I honestly think this time Paris might be it. Lake Como is def the most beautiful place I've been, but Paris was absolutely amazing!! This trip was Sarah, Olenka, Lindsay, and I. As according to our no sleeping custom we left at 5am- yeah! And whoa, someone forgot to remind me that, oh yeah, Paris is frickin freezing right now! We got there and it was like low forties, and it was snowing by the time we left! I was a little bit frozen, and now, I'm a little bit sick, oh well. By the time we took our flight and rode a bus into the city, it was about mid day, and we ventured to our hostel: Perfect Hostel, which did a pretty good job to living up to its name. For a hostel it was pretty perfect, it had everything we needed, even a vending machine with beer, and fresh baguettes and cafe oles in the morning. FYI, best bread in Europe: France. Sorry Italy, they've got great pasta, pizza, and gelato, but France wins hands down when it comes to bread. Anyways, as I'm on the topic of food, of course that was our first mission of the day. We stopped at a reccomended cafe and I had real French Onion Soup!-- only it was just called onion soup, but it was super good! It resembled what we have in the states, but tasted a million times better!

After lunch we did a little wandering, we ventured up the hill from our hostel to the renowned Sacre Cour (church of the sacred heart). It is a huge church on the highest point in Paris. Interestingly, during WWII, a line of bombs fell right near the church, but landed all in a row, not killing anyone of damaging anything. It was built I believe during WWI to ask God to save Paris, and since it's creation there has been someone praying inside for Paris 24 hours a day every day. It had a beautiful view of the city, and there was a harpist serenading us with, oh yes, celine dion's my heart will go on. After this we continued to wander the city, it was so exciting just to wander around. There were crepe stands and pastry shops everywhere, and tons of really expensive shopping. We also found the Opera House, which just happens to be the one that the chandelier fell in, and inspired The Phantom of the Opera, it is an amazing building, but we couldn't go in because of a rehearsal.

Lucky us, this was Friday night, and the Louvre just happens to be free to students on Friday nights! I couldn't beleve that I was actually there. It contains pretty much every major piece of artwork I've ever studied. Plus, we were all going through the Da Vinci code in our minds :-). The museum was absolutely enormous, and I can now say that I've seen the Mona Lisa, which not gonna lie, not terribly impressive. One conclusion I did come to was that of all the palaces I've been in, I deffinitely like the Louvre best! I would live there in a heart beat, I even know where I would put my pool...

That night, we grabbed a light dinner, and Sarah and I tried our first Kir Royals: that is champange with berry flavoured liquour. Sooooooo amazing, it is an apertif, or pre-dinner drink, or in our limited financial state, a whole evening drink. Another fyi, the only true champange comes from France, everything else is just sparkling wine.

Saturday we split up, Olenka and Lindsay went to Versailles, and Sarah and I stayed to explore more of the city. Our first stop was the Musée d'Orsay, otherwise known as the impressionist museum. I actually liked this one much better than the Louvre. It holds artists such as Cassat, Renoir, Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh. We spent just as much time at this museum even though t was much smaller. Unfortunately however, the painting we most wanted to see, Stary Night Over the Rhone, was out on loan. Oh well, I guess I will just have to go back! After that, we walked to Notre Dame, which is actually on and Island. It was very cool, very gothic in design, and kind of had a creepy gargoyle feel. More interesting was that it was were Napolean was crowned and wher Joan of Arc was tried. Crazy to imagine we were walking in the very same place. When we crossed back from the Island in the center of the square there was a merry-go-round. So of course, we had to ride it. C'mon a merry-go-round in the middle of Paris! How do Sarah and I get ourselves into these romantic situations? Anyways, we felt pretty cool with all the little kids and moms. Good times. After, we headed back to the Opera House to take a tour inside. It was crazy elaborate with chandeliers, and a staircase out of Titanic. We thought we weren't going to be able to see the actual stage part though because of rehearsal, but just as we were about to leave we saw a group of people crowding into one of the boxes, I don't know if we did it illegally or not, but we rushed in to catch a glimpse- very cool! Of course we had to browse the shopping a little too, but Paris is definitely a city for the rich. We went to this "mall", and it was probably the largest mall I have ever seen, with the most expensive clothes ever!! In the women's dept we picked up a cotton sun dress and it was 675E! That's like $800! When I get rich I will vacation there from my Villa in Lake Como.

That evening we met back at the hostel and headed to the eiffel tower!! We took a million and a half pictures, and I got to cross another goal off my list, getting kissed under the effiel tower! Thanks girls! After, we had a true European meal- really really long, and we all tried escargot!! It really does taste good, but I don't think I could ever learn to eat it on a regular basis. Also, not sure if I broke any vegetarian rules there, but you know, you're only in France once right? Following our nice meal we headed to the Red Light District, not too far from our hotel, which was riduclous. Much crazier than new orleans as far as what they had to offer, but not near as many people. While we did not cater to any of the sex shows, we did stop to take some hot pictures in front of the Moulin Rouge.

Sunday, Sarah and I went to Mass in the Sacre Cour, which was pretty intense. We can understand mass in Spanish or Italian, at least get the major points, but French not soo much. We had no clue what was going on, but it was really beautiful, and there were a ton of school children in uniform dressed like Madeline, and a bunch of nuns all dressed in habits that were the choir. Interesting- all the nuns had white habits with black veils. We also hit up the Arc di Triumph, the effiel tower once more, and of course a final crepe. Oh I forgot to mention the crepes- to die for, especially the nutella ones!! I was very sad to leave, but it was an awesome awesome trip. Buon sua!