Paris - my most favorite city so far

Paris...why do I love it so much? Oh gawd I don't know... there's just something about it. Of all the places I've been... Vienna, Bratislava, Berlin, London, Krakow... I fell in love with Paris the first time I went 4 years ago, and fell in love all over again this weekend.

It's such a nice city, there's sooo much to do, but it's not like it's just a tourist type place. It just feels like somewhere you could live... You know when you go somewhere and you feel like...ok i'm home now, this feels like home. That's what the city is like. The scenery is beautiful, the buildings are beautiful, the language is beautiful, the food is FANTASTIC (i ate escargo this weekend for the first time...soooo good! The bread, the cheese, the pastry...oh my..), the people are helpful... there's a river running through the centre with a dozen different bridges spanning it, gorgeous gardens everywhere where I could see myself spending entire afternoons reading or writing or just people watching. It's so cultured, but at the same time so down to earth. I just loved the atmosphere, I loved everything. I'll go back again and again, whenever I can for the rest of my life. I actually seriously want to live there someday.. I'd have to learn french first more fluently, and i'm not too sure exactly what i'd do... I really want to take my mom there too, I know she'd love it.

It was a fun trip though, very relaxing, but i hardly got annyy sleep. I shared a room with jimmy and petar and jimmy snores soooo loud!! I had to wake him up like at least 4 times each night. Although apparently the 2nd night i was snoring too... he'd go to wake me up and I'd stop. Then he'd be just about to go back to sleep again and i'd start... We took turns waking each other up I guess.

The city by night is my absolute favorite. It really is romantic and magical... It doesn't matter that I wasn't there with a lover, that I was always either by myself or with a group of 7 other people....no, I'm not just being a corny cheeseball, the city actually has a lil somthing extra special to it. I went to see everything i'd seen in the day again at night over the trip, it's amazing. We were actually fortunate enough to be outside the Eiffel Tower exactly at midnight.. It's all lit up, but then all of a sudden it started sparking like mad, it reminded me of tinkerbell and her fairy dust... We took some pictures with us in the background, and it looks so fake! It looks like we photoshopped ourselves into a postcard... reeediculously amazing. I think I might overuse the word 'amazing'. Mission for anybody willing to accept it: Provide me with a list of alternative words for amazing.

The weather was a little schizophrenic, as you'll be able to tell from my pics. Some of them look like they were taken on 2 totally different days, but in reality they were probably within 5 minutes or so of each other. It rained a little, it was really sunny, it was windy and cold, it was really hot... I took my coat off and 30 seconds later I was freezing...put it back on again and, well you get the idea. The worst thing about that is you can't tell you're burning until the sun goes down and you start to feel your face try to spontaneously combust. Mine came really close... I came back to Stuttgart and some guy was all "oh look, fresh lobster imported straight from Paris". I exagerate.

Let me take a minute and rave about the food. The first thing I did when I arrived in Paris was to look for a patisserie. This, is a pastry shop. I've gotta hand it to the French on their pastries....absolutely to DIE for! Ohh we had a fantastic dinner the one night in a restaurant with an chandelier. As I said, even casual dining is classy in Paris. One appetizer, one entree, a glass of wine and a dessert for 17 euros, not bad. It was all so fancy and delish...

Ok, so what did I do in Paris, besides eat? First stop was the Sacre Coeur, a big beautiful church on a hill overlooking the city. It's as big a part of the Paris skyline as the Eiffel Tower, and we were staying at the Perfect Hostel right at the bottom of the hill. There's a really chill little square in behind it too, a ton of artists display their stuff and will paint or draw your portrait if you want. Apparently that's where some famous people like da Vinci used to hang out before they were famous. There are a ton of little cafes and shops...it was nice.

If you ever go to Paris though, be CAREFUL! If you look even a little bit like a tourist, you're as good as displaying a gigantic flashing neon sign that says 'RIP ME OFF, I'M EASY'. You can bargain with anybody though, they'll take what you give them but you've gotta be tough. Not really my specialty, but I'm learning.

Is there a story behind this warning? You bet.

Cora and I were walking alone up to the Sacre Coeur when we were approached by two men, who I believe were from Jamaica... The one guy swore he was born in France, but you don't have an accent like that if you're born in France... I soon learned he was an incredible liar. First thing the one guy said to us as he approached was 'i'm not a bad boy, don't worry..'. *cough* bolony! So they approached us with some colourful string tied at one end into a little loop and asked for my finger. He slipped the loop over it and started making a bracelet. I'm thinking uh oh... Ok so I ask him how much are the bracelets. "It's no problem for you" he says. Does that sound like it means free to you? My ears aren't very good, but I heard free.... Ok, so he finishes mine and ties it around my wrist, and his buddy is doing the same thing to Cora beside me. Then all of a sudden there are about 7 of them surrounding us, and their telling us normally people pay 20 or 30 euros for these, but for us it's half price, only 10 euros each. Okkkk I'm sorry but I'm not going to pay 10 euros for a bit of string and I told him so... I told him I'd give him 5 euros for both of the bracelets, and basically that's what we did, but they wanted more and they were sooo agressive... it got pretty scary pretty fast so we just jetted out of there. The swore at us and called us Americans lol. I'll take it... On the way back down from the church we were with the rest of the group, but these guys are NUTS. One of them tried to put the loop over my finger but I made a fist, so he grabbed my arm and was trying to convince me to open my finger, but he wouldn't let go and I was pulling... it was scary. Half a second more and he would have been the recipient of a swift kick in a strategic place but he let go... Not the best first experience in Paris... I don't know where the police were cause these guys were scarrryy and they were everywhere!

We all visited the Eiffel Tower a few times, strolled along La Siene (that river I mentioned),
jumped triumphantly outside the Arc De Triomphe, strolled down the most famous street leading away from it, des Champs Elysée, which has a lot of high class shopping, walked down the Rue de Rivoli, chilled in the Touleries Gardens...so much!

I went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. The Louvre is seriously e-freakin-normous. You could spend an entire week in there and you'd still need more time to appreciate everything fully. I may have spent more time looking at the ceilings in there than the art, they were exquisite works of art in themselves.

We also went to see Les Invalides and Napoleans Tomb. He's buried in 6 different tombs inside. Well at least most of him is. Somebody chopped off his penis and made off with it. I kid you not! And you know what, I've seen that too. It's buried at Westminster Abbey in London, England. How about that...

This weekend I also found the Holy Grail. Ok so not really...but pretending I did is more fun. I saw all kinds of things from that Oh So Famous novel The Da Vinci code. Yesss I knoooww it's fiction. Indulge me. I saw the upright and inverted pyramids (the blade and chalice...anybody?!?!) where the holy grail is hidden, and I went to St. Sulpice and saw the rose line (where Silas goes after killing the 4 people where he thinks the keystone is...this is exciting stuff people!!). There's actually a little disclaimer there by the church saying that the book is full of balony. Apparently they didn't want to play along... Poor sports.

OH! And the WEIRDEST thing about Paris... everywhere you go the line for the guys bathroom is HUGE and there isn't one at all for the girls! It was CRAZY and i liked it! Nice change... But i reaalllyy don't understand... it was like...something out of the twilight zone.

Getting back home...now that was an adventure. I thought saying 'home' before I came to Germany was confusing... school was 'home', and Arnstein was 'home home'....what a mess. The city went on strike tuesday, which was the day i came back and it screwed up evverrything! The public transit wasn't running (needed to take it to get to the airport), the shuttle service was all booked, so one of the guys working at the hostel drove us for 40 euros. Theenn our flight was delayed because of the strike, when we got to Stuttgart the air was congested so we had to go into a holding pattern, and when we finally DID land the minibuses that were supposed to take us back to the terminal were missing....yikes. Sooo i was late for work, late for a meeting i'd organized....yeehaw.

All in all, it was AMAZING! I love that city. Go there, if you ever have the opportunity. Or just go ahead and make the opportunity. Hmm I'm thinking I might be making the same recommendation for every single city I visit... but SERIOUSLY, do PARIS.

What's next? I HOPE i'm going to Prague this weekend. There's crazy flooding all over the Czech Republic right now though, lots of evacuations, a couple of deaths... Although no flooding yet in Prague... I dunno. I'm worried i'll end up stranded there due to a plane not being able to leave, or that I'll spend the weekend sitting on the rooftop of an inn... I'll figure it out.. The others are all 'lets just go anyways'.... crazycrazycrazy!!

Blogspot is being stupid and not letting me upload any more pictures. You're stupid blogspot. The rest of my paris pictures are here, check em out, they're good ones!