Last week was the first of two vacations we get. Originally I had no plans outside of Switzerland. I thought maybe I'd just get on a train and go somewhere in France for a day or two maybe, but otherwise just stay here and chill. Then the Thursday before break Courtney asked if I'd like to go to London with her. Uh, yes! She was spending Saturday-Tuesday morning in Paris with a friend and leaving for London from there, so the easiest thing for me to do was go to Paris Monday and leave with Courtney on Tuesday.
SO. Thankfully no issues traveling this time. Got to Paris around 1:30, got to my hostel around 2:30 and dumped my stuff. Headed straight to Montmartre to feed the obsession I have with the movie "Moulin Rouge."
Word up. So there's the Moulin Rouge. I promptly got back on the metro (but not before getting a McFlurry at McDonald's!) and headed to Notre Dame. Pigalle is... interesting. Highly interesting. Not so much seedy and dangerous (during the day, anyway) as cheesy and just... weird. And cheesy. Very cheesy. I wish I'd stuck around in Montmartre a little longer, but there's not too much to do except see Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coeur, which I'd already seen. So off to Notre Dame it was.
And it was made of fail. I really wanted to go up in the towers, but I missed the last tour by like two minutes. If I hadn't gotten confused when changing trains I would have had more than enough time, but there are two train systems in Paris, and I had to go from one to the other, and it was not fun. So I missed the tours. *pout* But I did go through the Cathedral again and take pictures of all the things I took pictures of in high school. And then deleted those pictures again because hey, it's not like the rose windows changed. I went into the treasury this time though, where they kept all sorts of cool things. They had reliquaries and really really old things, and robes from this or that king or pope, and lots of old chalices and things used in Mass. History is cool.
After that I called a friend I hadn't talked to since high school; she's studying in Paris right now and we met up for dinner. I wound up waiting an hour for her since she got hung up by a repairman at her apartment, but the weather was nice so I just chilled in the big plaza thing outside Notre Dame.
Oh hay!And I took lots of pictures. This is one of the better ones. It's really hard to get the entire stupid cathedral in one shot when you're holding the camera at arm's length. Ugh. And then there was the star thingy, which is the center point of Paris. They say if you step on it, you'll go back again some day.
Hey, it worked once, right?
Those were the two biggest things I wanted to get back to Paris to see. I've already been to the Eiffel Tower and stuff. If I go back again, I'd like to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, finally get up the tower of Notre Dame, and go back to the Louvre. In high school they only gave us two hours there, and it took us about that long to find the Mona Lisa. So I'd like to go and really get to see everything.
After I met up with Haley we went into the Latin Quarter for dinner. I got...
FROG LEGS!
And spines, by the looks of it. It was.. interesting. And they tasted like chicken. Which apparently they're supposed to, because my friend looked it up on Wikipedia. I wouldn't have thought about it except aforementioned friend is also one of my Brothers and had asked if I'd eaten Siggy (the frog, our Chapter's mascot) yet. So this is all Phil's fault. And I've been telling people that from the beginning. They were pretty good, but there's not a lot of meat on them, so I think next time I'll get a better appetizer. I also got duck. Which was interesting. Didn't taste very different. Wasn't bad, but wasn't all that impressive either. Neither was the cheap red wine the waiter suggested to go with it. Buuut whatever. That waiter was interesting as well. Apparently he liked Haley, which meant things got silly and awkward very quickly, and it took us forever to get our check and leave. When we left the restaurant though, we wound up on the same street we'd had dinner on in high school! We actually passed the restaurant we went to and the guy there tried to get us to go in. (Which is what they do, and it's kind of unnerving. They just stand there and say "Hey come in here! Why not? Come on! Rawr!") I wanted to go back and take a picture, but not with the guy standing there arguing with the restaurant guy across the street. We also found the same souvenir shop we went to four years ago, but there was nothing of interest there.
So. Went back to the hostel. And again, like a good tourist, I promptly went to bed. Everyone talks about how hostels are great places to hang out and meet people, but clearly I fail at this. I can't help it if I get tired, haha.
Next day I went to the bus station where I was supposed to meet Courtney. I didn't have her phone number, and even though she had mine half the time it doesn't like people here, so we didn't meet up until we were actually on the bus. I'd been super early and got on the bus once it started loading to save her a seat. She had come later and waited downstairs to try to find me. But it worked out okay, and we sat together for the epic long bus ride.
Slideshow is here!
Hey, it worked once, right?Those were the two biggest things I wanted to get back to Paris to see. I've already been to the Eiffel Tower and stuff. If I go back again, I'd like to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, finally get up the tower of Notre Dame, and go back to the Louvre. In high school they only gave us two hours there, and it took us about that long to find the Mona Lisa. So I'd like to go and really get to see everything.
After I met up with Haley we went into the Latin Quarter for dinner. I got...
FROG LEGS!And spines, by the looks of it. It was.. interesting. And they tasted like chicken. Which apparently they're supposed to, because my friend looked it up on Wikipedia. I wouldn't have thought about it except aforementioned friend is also one of my Brothers and had asked if I'd eaten Siggy (the frog, our Chapter's mascot) yet. So this is all Phil's fault. And I've been telling people that from the beginning. They were pretty good, but there's not a lot of meat on them, so I think next time I'll get a better appetizer. I also got duck. Which was interesting. Didn't taste very different. Wasn't bad, but wasn't all that impressive either. Neither was the cheap red wine the waiter suggested to go with it. Buuut whatever. That waiter was interesting as well. Apparently he liked Haley, which meant things got silly and awkward very quickly, and it took us forever to get our check and leave. When we left the restaurant though, we wound up on the same street we'd had dinner on in high school! We actually passed the restaurant we went to and the guy there tried to get us to go in. (Which is what they do, and it's kind of unnerving. They just stand there and say "Hey come in here! Why not? Come on! Rawr!") I wanted to go back and take a picture, but not with the guy standing there arguing with the restaurant guy across the street. We also found the same souvenir shop we went to four years ago, but there was nothing of interest there.
So. Went back to the hostel. And again, like a good tourist, I promptly went to bed. Everyone talks about how hostels are great places to hang out and meet people, but clearly I fail at this. I can't help it if I get tired, haha.
Next day I went to the bus station where I was supposed to meet Courtney. I didn't have her phone number, and even though she had mine half the time it doesn't like people here, so we didn't meet up until we were actually on the bus. I'd been super early and got on the bus once it started loading to save her a seat. She had come later and waited downstairs to try to find me. But it worked out okay, and we sat together for the epic long bus ride.
Slideshow is here!
No comments:
Post a Comment