Monday night, we did not go out.. I'm pretty sure Ashley and I booked our hostels for Spring Break then. Tuesday we played Kings before going out with Margo, Meghan, and Melissa to the 1 euro shot bar, where I had two shots. We then went to Lion's for a bit, and then Red Garter and Twice. It was another typical night out with the group. Wednesday, we didn't go out again, and I forced myself to make my World Religion study guide. Thursday, in order to prepare for my Wine Appreciation paper, I went to Enoteca Alessi and bought myself a Tuscan wine. We were supposed to research and analyze our "favorite wine" but since I don't know what my favorite wine is, I just decided to try a new one. I ended up getting a couple euro off since I mentioned I had been to the Enoteca a couple weeks ago with my class. The wine I ended up buying for 19 euro is called "Le Berne Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2008." It is similar to Chianti, since it is made from Sangiovese grapes as well.
Friday, Ashley and I headed off to Paris. At the last minute Katie didn't end up going; she hurt her foot and was advised not to walk too much. We took the Terravision bus to Pisa and flew Ryanair. It is so stressful flying with Ryanair because they are so strict and really try to make you think you're back is not going to fit. However, we got on the flight just fine, and got to Paris around 5. Ariela told us that we had to get a bus to take us from the Beauvais airport to the center of Paris. After another two hours, we finally made it and Ariela showed us how to get to our hostel, which was in Montmartre. Ariela had warned us that Montmartre (where the Moulin Rouge stands) is a little sketchy, and there are prostitutes, and that it can be unsafe if we are walking alone. However, since Ashley and I booked the hostel last minute, we really had no other good options. The Regent hostel was really close to the Metro stop, and we dropped our stuff off and changed for dinner. Since Katie couldn't come anymore, we were stuck in a room with two random people.. which both happened to be men. The first guy was from Russia I believe, and we just said hi because we were on our way out. We went to this restaurant called "Les Saisons" where we got this really great glass of red wine to go along with the pork we got. It was amazing and I really missed meat. We also kept getting unlimited tap water and bread... with BUTTER! I missed it so much, since all we really use in Italy is olive oil. After dinner, we bought wine and went to this local French club that was pretty cool It had a downstairs room where there were popular French DJ's performing. It was a lot of fun. When we finally got back to our hostel, we realized we hadn't made our beds, so we tried to be quiet since we had two random people in our room. When we opened the door, another guy who was in the top of my bunk bed sat up and was like "hello!" We both said hi, and got ready for bed.
Saturday, we woke up early and had to wait a while for our roommate to
get out of the shower. We were sooo antisocial.. none of us really
talked to each other. We got breakfast in the hostel and then met Ariela
at her apartment. We went to one of the biggest open-air markets in
Paris, and bought bread, meat, cheese, and fruit. I'm glad Ariela was
there because she just made
it go a lot faster since she's fluent. We went to the Louvre after and
saw the Mona Lisa and a few other things before going outside to the
gardens where we sat and ate our lunch.
After lunch, Ariela walked us down the Champ de Elysees, where some of the most expensive stores are. We went inside the Louis Vuitton store which was soo big and walked around admiring their bags and clothes. Afterwards, she took us to her favorite macaroon place, Laduree. They were sooo good, and we each chose two. I had chocolate and vanilla, Ariela had pistachio and chocolate, and Ashley had strawberry and pistachio. Afterwards, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and took pictures, and then finally went to the Tour Eiffel... French for the Eiffel Tower. We didn't have enough time for us to climb the tower because Ariela had plans for us to go to this party in the suburbs later on.
Since we did have about a half hour before we had to head back, we started wandering around, and I just so happened to stumble upon the Vel d'Hiv! This was the spot where French Jews were rounded up and taken to the concentration camps during the Holocaust. I had just finished reading Sarah's Key on the airplane and knew that the French aren't so proud to admit that it was the French police who did this, not the Germans.. and that the only thing to remember this day is a memorial... which just so happened to be near the metro we were going to take from the Eiffel Tower!
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| Vel d'Hiv memorial |
Anyway, we go inside and we start meeting people, but it's hard to really communicate so Ashley and I are pretty much kissing people and then just standing there awkwardly, so we decide to stop saying hello to people and just stand there. We put our stuff down, and get drinks, and start to mingle since there were a few people who could speak English. It was an interesting experience being at that party, and though I did feel out of place, it was still a bit fun. The birthday boys ended up serving so much food, and cooked frozen pizza and other dishes the whole time, which was different. We ended up staying over, which I knew we would, and had to literally rush back to our hostel the next morning before 11 which is when we had to check out. We made it in the nick of time, and then had to go back to Ariela's to change into our regular clothes, and then we left our stuff in the lockers in the lobby of the hostel before exploring for the few hours we had left in Paris. We were going to try to climb the Eiffel Tower but again did not have time, so we got lunch at an Italian restaurant (there were so many, hard to resist), and then walked up the the Sacre Coeur which was right near our hostel. It got nice out so we just hung out a little bit and went inside the Church before our next stop, which was to the Moulin Rouge. Now, when Ariela told us that prostitutes hang out on the steps of the Sacre Coeur, and are all over our area of Paris, I didn't really see any of that so I was skeptical. However, as we started walking toward the Moulin Rouge, we began to see sex stores all over, and sex shows.. it was crazy! I thought we were already in Amsterdam! We took pictures of the Moulin Rouge, and then went back to our hostel to get our stuff, took the metro to the shuttle that would take us back to the airport, flew to Pisa, took a bus back to Florence, and finally walked home from the train station back home. It was such a long commute, but we did it! We were pretty tired, and I had gotten a cold over the weekend... just in time for midterms! But although I did feel like we rushed our trip to Paris a bit, I still had fun. It was pretty gray, and not as nice as it was when we went to Rome, but I'm glad we got to spend time with Ariela.
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| Sacre Coeur |
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| view from top of Sacre Coeur |
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| Moulin Rouge |
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