Population = 3.5 million ish?
Coolest place EVER! Also my future home come Fevrier.
Since we are in crunchdown mode here in Aix, with a mere 7 days left, I am going to go through this trip in little tidbits. It was very fun but I did not do that much sightseeing because I knew that I would be back soon so I preferred to just hang out with friends and go with the flow.
Recap: Thursday we leave, take our fave TGV train to Paris Gare de Lyon (not, contrary to popular belief, the train station of Lyon as the name would suggest). Get to our fancy hostel in the 4th arrondissement (Le Marais), walk around a tad, we're right on the Seine it's a great location and Le Marais is awesome, it's where the Jewish quarter is so there's all these jewish boutiques and this one street where everyone wears kepas and they have falafel windows and bakeries with bagels (unheard of in France!) and in Le Marais there's also lots of good shopping in general, and it's near the Bastille which is a great going out area with bars and such. So we stop off at a Chinese place to eat lunch, then head to Pont Neuf for a bateau-mouche ride around Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis, then head off the La Perla margarita bar for strawberry and peach margaritas and the famous made in Paris Vanilla Margarita. meet up with the group for our "Thanksgiving Dinner" at a french restaurant- 3 course meal including chocolate mousse = delicious but very un-thanksgiving like. Off to Eiffel Tower which is unfortunately closed, snap some pics, head back to hotel. Up in the morning for complementary breakfast of baguette and croissant (oh how the french love their carbs) Walk around Le Marais and see The Place des Vosges, La Bastille tour, walk along the seine and Ile St Louis then over to the Louvre for our three hour tour (we got in free because we're "art students" my specialty is apparently art renovation and conservation but others were music and archaelogy and random things. After the Louvre we went apartment hunting for next semester and saw the 15th arrondissement a little bit, tried to go to the Catacombs but of course they were closed too, back to La MIJE and then out to dinner at this creole place where Snoop Dogg has eaten which had zebra print wallpaper everywhere and lots of funny knicknacks, then out to La Bastille to an Irish pub and eventually a Scottish pub and crepes at 2 am with nutella from this vendor outside in the freezing, very freezing cold (yum). Day 3: breakfast, meet up with George and Katie from high school at Les Deux Magots a famous cafe that Sartre and De Beauvoir frequented in the 6th arrondissement (St Germain des Pres). Got cafe creme talked about Sciences po where they both go now, living in Paris, etc etc, it was SOOOO much fun to catch up with them!! Before that I'd walked around the area a little, seen a lot of haute couture shops, St Sulpice church although it's being renovated, and Les Jardins du Luxembourg where a ton of people were doing yoga and tai chi type moves in the freezing cold on a Saturday morning and some kids were having tennis lessons and there were lots of joggers. Then passed the Assemblee Nationale (which looks across the river to the Madeleine church and their facades are mirror images) and on to Musee d'Orsay for another guided tour, they had a special exhibit on Manet and Picasso (Le Petit Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe) which was cool, not to mention all the Impressionists who are housed there permanently that are some of my faves, and the Degas dancers and Caillebotte's Raboteurs de Parquet which I had forgotten was there but used to be my absolute favorite Impressionist painting. Afterwards I followed the group of boys who were obsessed with the idea of getting Pizza Hut that they'd seen the day before, so we went to Les Halles for pizza hut (a fancy one, sit down ooh la la) and had a "boy chat" which I listened to with great interest. Then we went shoe shopping for hours, literally, Carrément , who knew boys liked shopping so much? And all the boys got PSG soccer scarves and new Adidas jackets and shorts and an illegal version of Ludacris' newest CD and no one actually bought shoes, but eventually we all ended up at the auberge. After a short pitstop at Starbucks (there are a TON of them in paris, yum but expensive and they have this new drink for the holidays Cerise Griotte which is like dark cherry chocolate and its amazing. Also danny tried a white m ocha and fell in love (thats why you try new things my friend ) so we have a new proud starbucks convert. Back at the auberge, rest up a little, steal some bread and flan from the caf, get ready to go out and head off to the Eiffel Tower, but since I didn't have adeuate time to look at the Paris map before we hopped on the metro we took a realy roundabout way and we almsot didn't make it up, but no worries we did, and it was super cool at night lit up blue and the white lights sparkle and go off on the hour and it look slike its shimmering. Since France is president of the EU now the tower has a ring of twelve golden stars on either side for six months. At the top we took lots of pictures, saw the city lit up, and Danny proposed to me (and i said yes!) it was an excellent joke and people even believed us, and more importantly its a great story. We then raced down the tower on the stairs and saw it lighting up right at 11, from there we walked to the Champs Elysees whcih was also lit up the trees had lots of string lights and teardrop lights that blinked on and off and the Arc de Triomphe was standing tall with a giant French flag and giant flag of the EU in the middle. We ate at this Italian place on the Chanmps Elysees second floor looking out and it started snowing and it was awesome, then rentréed back to MIJE for some sleep. Last day up, walk around but its Sunday so everything's closed, saw St Eustache jsut from the outside, met up at Sainte Chappelle for a guided tour and then walked over to Notre Dame and we got to climb the towers!!! That might have been my favorite part of the trip because I've never climbed the towers but I felt like quasimodo we saw the big bell ( Le Boudron, it weighs 16 tons!) and it was the greatest view of Paris ever, right at the heart. And it was also super super super cold we were essentially outside for three hours and I was not a happy camper, but afterwards we went in Notre dame at high mass and saw them finishing up and heard chants which was a very , mm, magical almost experience, magical not being the right word. They had a creche set up inside that was like a multimedia production with lights lighting up certain parts and telling the Christmas story. Then we walked back to Le Marais for falafels and challah (we got some challah converts too and some challah virgins who found love at first bite- I'm so proud) and then we took the train back. I tried to continue the Bueno bar tradition on the train but everyone was tired so it wasn't as good as on the other trip, but I still have faith in Bueno. Back in Aix, first thing we did = Pizza Capri. Delish. Then sat down for some major homework time and haven't looked up since. PARIS JE T'AIME!!
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