Ooh la la! Paris!

I just got back from Paris a few hours ago and I'm quite exhausted. I meant to hit the bed as soon as I got home but I was drawn into starting my blog entry right away in case I forget some details during my long, deep sleep. There is so much to share (hundreds of pics!) but I will do my best to tell you just the interesting parts, though this will undoubtedly be my longest entry yet.



**Sunday**

My adventures started in Groningen, on my way out. Wicax was kind enough to drive me to the bus station on the back of his bike without one complaint about the extra weight of my luggage in addition to my fat ass. We got to the station so early that we sat down for a drink, but it turned out that we lost track of time and I almost missed my bus altogether! I was 2 minutes late and, by coincidence, the bus was running about 3 minutes behind schedule. I still got a good scolding from the driver in Dutch about being late and he punished me by not letting me bring my backpack to the seating area (don't worry, mom, I had my carry-on).

Our bus was driven by a Frenchman that pretended to be Dutch, or vice versa. He actually had a giant orange Wuppie on the dashboard to claim his Dutchness. Fascinatingly, the toilet on the bus is a box that is hidden behind the side door. It took me hours to realise that people were peeing there and not getting off the bus and disappearing mysteriously. The other strange thing is that seatbelts were obligatory. "Pas de ceinture, pas de télé!" (plus a 90 Euro fine).

I got as far as Amsterdam where I was surprised to learn that I actually had to change buses to get to Paris. There was no mention of this on my ticket reservation. So, with 2 hours to kill and an itch to do something fun, I hopped on the metro to go to Amsterdam central and hung out in a jazz bar that had the best music I've heard in a bar in a very long time, if not ever.



**Monday**

I arrived in Paris 12 hours later, at 6:00 in the morning and found my way the the Auberge Internationale des Jeunes (youth hostel). There, I was greeted by a smooth-talking frenchman that tried to kiss me despite my stink and bad looks from the travel. Good thing he liked me though because he broke the rules for me and allowed me to sneak up into my room before check in hours (3 pm). Lucky for me because we had met other travelers that were forced to leave the hostel upon their arrival and come back at 3pm, despite the fact that they were exhausted and were carrying their heavy packs with them.

After dumping my stuff, I woke Maria up (my lovely German companion - in the pic), who arrived the night before. The first thing that we did, upon my request, was sit in front of a French café and have cappucinos and baguettes while we waited for Janelle (my American girlfriend) to arrive a few hours later.

We later figured out that Janelle had actually missed her night train and wouldn't arrive until the evening. So Maria and I got to know eachother by wandering around through the streets of Paris. We decided to head to the main attractions area by sauntering along the Seine river, gawking at the gorgeous architecture and the many impressively carved bridges. The locals treat the Seine like it were a beachfront, sunbathing on its borders and having beach festivals along the water (they actually imported sand and lounge chairs to create the beach effect!).

Maria and I still had the urge to do something very French-like so after taking in the atmosphere for an hour or so, we stopped for lunch at a pretty restaurant where we ate on the terrace and watch tourists go by with impressive architecture posing in the background. That is the moment that we learned that Paris really is the most expensive city to visit.

We wandered through the Latin quarter that was full of delicious food and souvenir shops. After shopping for a bit, we were lured into a festive salsa bar during happy hour from another sweet-talking Frenchman (Egyptian, actually). We had fancy cocktails and pretended we were at a fiesta before moving on.

"Sex on the beach for you, and just sex for you" - the suave French bar host

Our next destination was the Notre-Dame cathedral. This ended up being a strange and shocking experience for the both of us because the public treated the cathedral more like a carnival attraction more than a sacred place. A service was taking place inside while obnoxious tourists walked the insided perimeter using flashes with their cameras (not allowed) and having loud chit-chats. Some actually climbed on some of the beautiful carvings on the outside wall to snap photos. When we came out we were quite disgusted with the whole scenario and tried to make up for it by making an effort to read about the history of the church and showing the site some respect that it deserved. On the other hand, I am a bit of a hypocrite because I did take pictures myself (without flash), including this one (on the left) I snapped through some gates of the back of the cathedral where you are not allowed to walk through.

We picked up some groceries (bread, cheese and wine of course) and headed back to the hostel to wait for Janelle. There, we found Talia. She is an American sweetheart from LA who was traveling Paris all alone because her best friend cancelled at the last minute. After 5 minutes, we knew that we would get along so we recruited her into our group and that's when our foursome was made. Janelle walked in a few hours later with a million pounds on her back, exhausted from her unexpectedly long voyage from Spain. We tried to get her to go out with us that evening but she decided to sleep early and would not allow us to stay back at the hostel with her.

So, Maria, Talia and I hit the Paris nightlife! We decided to try a bar that is actually a houseboat (barboat?) that is floating on the Seine river. When we got off the closest metro, we got our first eyeful of the Eiffel tower, lit up all pretty in the distance with the almost fullmoon shining above (in the pic the Eiffel tower is the small gold one).

When we found the blue-glowing barboat at the quai, we had to climb over the barriers in our skirts to get to it. While doing this, we encountered to other girls our age who were also climbing over the barriers. Turns out that they were super-friendly Parisiens (Émilie and Éliane) that both recently graduated from the tourisme program so they were interested in meeting us and could speak English quite well. We decided to go in together, the five of us, and with a few cute smiles we got in without having to pay the 5 Euro cover charge.

We sat on outside on the top deck of the boat, chatting in English (Talia does not speak French) when we were overheard by people on the next table. Coincidentally, they were two New Yorkers (Jason and Rob) visiting their French friend (Arianne). They decided to join us so, all of a sudden, we were a big group of kids ready to have some fun in Paris!

It turned out that we ditched the barboat after one (expensive) drink and decided to take the night bus towards a better club. After getting lost in the middle of nowhere, Paris, Émilie and Éliane went home and the rest of us continued our search for this club despite that only one of us was French and she was not even Parisien. However, we finally found the right area and ended up strutting down the infamous Avenue des Champs-Elysée that was lined with impressive window displays and superchic clubs. We passed the supposedly largest dance club in town, Le Queen, which is also famous for being a gay club. We wanted to go in but they are selective about only letting in the "beautful and chic" and it would have cost 20 Euros at the door.

We walked the entire length of the street, looking like a scene from Friends like we knew eachother all of our lives, and made it all the way to the Arc de Triomphe where we took a bunch of pictures. By the time we made it there we were so exhausted from our navigational efforts (we never did find the club we were looking for and didn't want to pay cover) that we ended up taxi-ing back to Bastille (right near our hostel) and having a small drink and dessert crêpes in a pub at 5 in the morning before heading to bed.



**Tuesday**

A few hours later we woke up to have breakfast at the hostel by 9:30am, which consists of a small baguette with butter and cheap jam, along with a few squirts from the hot drink machine.

The four of us (Janelle, Maria, Talia and I) headed out to do errands shortly afterwards. Janelle had lost her bank card in Spain and had to deal with the Dutch on French payphones, which was quite a struggle. We also hit the internet cafe where they had Germany World Cup 2006 desktop images on the monitors, which was surprising considering that France lost the finals.

Soon we were hungry again and, having learned that Paris is expensive, we found a cute little deli that sold cheap combos consisting of a gourmet sandwich, extravagent dessert and a drink for the low low price of 6 Euros. We took our lunches down the street and ate in front of the famous Bastille roundabout while facing the Colonne de Juillet. Surreal.

After lunch we separated in pairs. Maria and Talia went shopping while I escorted Janelle to the train station to purchase her train tickets to Berlin. Along the way Janelle posed for a pic with a troup of French firemen we found lazing at the local station, just like in a calendar. The station itself (Gare de Lyon) was very impressive and gorgeous so there we took more pics.

After playing a game of scavenger hunting by text messaging for about 2 hours, we finally found Maria and Talia again at the Forum des Halles, a main shopping area in Paris. We shopped some more and slowly headed our way towards our destination of the evening - the Eiffel Tower - stopping along the way to see various pretty sites and pick up supper at the Monoprix, the gourmet version of Wal-Mart.


The Eiffel Tower, the famous landmark of the world, the identity of France. We got there by sunset and walked by the École Militaire to get to the actual tower. By the time we reached it, night had settled in and the tower was glowing majestically against a cloudy, purple sky.

None of us had any idea what to expect when we got there and all of us where stunned. It was crammed with people, and it was literally a carnival, with lights and stands and carousels. There were military soldiers wandering around with big guns (I've never seen one close up! How scary!) and kids smoking pot and banging on tam tams, families and teenagers, a gazillion cameras.

The lineup to go up the tower was huge, like you see in Disneyworld, so we ditched the idea of going up. Instead, we sat down on the grass (along with many other hipsters) a few hundred meters away from the tower and ate bread and cheese and drank cheap wine while taking in the scene.

Every 5 minutes, men came by pushing wine and flowers until they started to feel like flies buzzing by regularly. Every hour, the tower suddenly sparkles and the crowd goes "oooohh..." giving the feeling of a dramatic fireworks show. We were approached by the suave Frenchmen several times and we gently turned them down. When we were leaving, we bought souvenirs at a bargain from a teenager wanting to get rid of his stock before going home.

Our evening picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower was the most extraordinary feeling I experienced while in Paris.



**Wednesday**

We got up too late in the morning and missed breakfast, so we took our leftover bread and cheese to the nearest park and ate in the sunshine. Talia left us for the day to meet her friend while the rest of us did some more shopping. Later, Maria went to do a rush tour of the Louvre while Janelle and I, wanting to rebel from the feeling of obligation to see the Mona Lisa, decided explored a big underground mall instead. It was mostly a day of leisure and relaxation, preparing for the evening.

That evening, the four of us plus Talia's friend Stephanie dressed up in pretty dresses and went to the Moulin Rouge cabaret show! I got to wear my new Paris dress with stars on it! So chic! There were no cameras allowed inside but I snuck in a few pictures after the show. It is difficult to describe the show, but we all agreed that bizarre was a good word. It started out like and Abba show with sparkly dancers then it switched to a French version of the story of Aladdin crossed with Indiana Jones and Grease, before switching again to a circus show with sexy clowns. They had live animals, including miniature ponies the size of dogs being led by half-naked jockeys, and a see-through water pool in which the sacrificed blonde virgin danced with real living snakes. They did the classic can-can and moulin rouge scenes as well, giving it a vegas feel at times. There were variety shows between the scenes by mimes and ping-pong ball jugglers to break up the sexy feel every so often. Bizarre.

We took a taxi cab ride home from the Moulin Rouge, where I made friends with the driver until he ended up only charging us about 25% of what he should have. That is one thing that us girls have learned about Paris. A little bit of flirting gets you a long, long way with bargaining and getting special treatment.



**Thursday**

We packed up our bags in the morning and stored them in the dungeon (in the pic) and ate breakfast in the park again. Then we headed back to the Latin quarters to buy souvenirs and gifts for our loved ones, taking everything at a very slow pace. Maria left earlier than the rest of us. Janelle, Talia and I ended up having coffee at this place with an antique-style Turkish bathroom where we had to squat on the floor - an unexpected experience in France (Talia, don't hate me for putting up this pic of you peeing on the internet!).

We ate more good French food, did more French shopping, and had more fancy cocktails (with sparklers!), this time at the Latin Corner Cafe where the motto is "Sexy Bar for Crazy Night" and the cocktail menu lists drinks like "sperme du serveur" and bras are hanging from the chandeliers and the waiters do the sexy dance for you on your table (I did one with the host on the table for passing tourists). It's too bad that we were there during happy hour and not the evening because apparently it really does get crazy there at night, with waiters in G-strings and body shots.

Later, Talia and I dropped Janelle off at the train station to send her off to Berlin where she will meet up with Maria again. We tried to encourage her to get in the bunk car with 6 cute guys but we don't know yet how it turned out.

Finally, Talia escorted me to the bus station and the poor girl is alone there (in Paris!) for one more night. I know she will meet some new friends, though, and have a blast.

Le Paris - the greatest city on Earth!