I absolutely adore Paris. I cry every time I leave the city. It is hard because I have family there. Actually all of my mother’s side is French. I think this time I cried the hardest.
We arrived in Paris by train from Koln. I actually cried shortly TWICE on the ride by just thinking about Paris. It has been 9 years since I was there last. The first time I cried was when the landscape suddenly changed and I knew we were close. The second time was when I started to think about my family. What a baby I am. I should officially rename this post to Bridge the Crybaby.
When we arrived in the Gare du Nord train station we bought metro tickets that were good for three days. As long as we used the metro more than three times per day they were totally worth it. This is easily accomplished when you actually want to see anything. We also only had to buy a single ticket to get us to the train station on the last day. After buying the ticket we looked at the map and started our journey to the location of my aunt’s house. Free lodging! I love the Paris metro for how easy it is to use. I hate how it smells like urine though.
(ONE OF THE REASONS THE METRO SMELLS LIKE URINE IS BECAUSE MY HUSBAND USED A GARBAGE CAN IN THE METRO AS A TOILET NINE YEARS AGO. THIS PICTURE IS A REINACTMENT OF THAT ACT. How could I not re-enact after Bridge told that story? I beg you to do differently next time you’re in Paris…)
After arriving at my aunt’s house and getting the key from her friend we went to the grocery store and bought some bread, cheese, veggies, pudding and wine. Then we ate dinner. French bread is soooooo divine in France. There is no comparison. I could eat a French baguette every day of my life and never care how much I weighed again. After dinner we went to see the Eiffel Tower. I don’t know why Bridge is leaving out how CHEAP (2.5 euros) and TASTY (we almost downed 2 bottles w/dinner) the wine is.
Ahhh… the Eiffel Tower. The smiles both on Al’s and Rachel’s faces when they saw this Parisian landmark were worth the journey to Paris by itself. They were so giddy to be there. It just made me smile. I learned two things about my friends that night. Al is claustrophobic in elevators, and Rachel is afraid of heights. Lucky for them they both got to face their fears by going to the top. I don’t get claustrophobic in ALL elevators. Just ones that have WAY to many people in them. But, for the record, the one @ the Eiffel Tower was AWESOME because the walls were all glass.
(GIRLS AT THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOUR)
On the way back to the apartment we went on a walk across the street to Trocadero to get some really great pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. I am mentioning this for the funny story about a guy who flirted with me. The guy’s name is Hany. I know because he gave me his business card. IDIOT. At first he was just asking me some questions and then I couldn’t step away. Stupid guy talked so fast. Anyways, Al was taking pictures and he said, “Take one of us.” Al complied. Then he asked for her to take another. This is when he looked at me and told me to kiss him. I jumped away sooooo fast. Meanwhile Al is clicking away crazily. The part that made me mad is that I then told him I was married and he said it was fine because he was married too. /grrrrr If you happen to be going to Paris soon let me give you his number so you can give him a thrashing… You know what’s even funnier? He said his wife’s name was Bridget. I can’t make this shit up, people.
(GUY WHO HIT ON BRIDGE)
The second day we were in Paris we went to the Louvre. I’ve been there before, but I still love going. It was both Al and Rachel’s first time. Rachel and I kept smiling while Al kept looking at the walls figuring out what rock they were made of (marble, in case you were wondering). To me the Louvre itself is absolutely breathtaking. I love looking at the paintings on the ceilings and the beautiful floors. I enjoyed going through the Grand Gallery even more after seeing The Divinci Code. My cousin Sebastian and his friend Guillaume met us at the Louvre. I was so happy.
I was happy to see the Mona Lisa (much smaller than I imagined. Good thing I had been warned of just this phenomenon). I also got to see an original Da Vinci and the Venus di Milo’s ass. KEWL!
(THE LOUVRE)
(THE CEILING AT THE LOUVRE)
(BRIDGE’S COUSIN SEBASTIAN)
After the Louvre we tried to go to Notre Dame. Our luck was NOT with us that day as the Pope was going to be speaking from Notre Dame. Can you believe the Pope kept us from going to church? Shame on him! Al even put this in the postcard she sent her dad. Instead of Notre Dame we went to the Sacre Coure, the Moulin Rouge and Red Light District, and then to the Arc de Triumph. Hear that Pope? Instead of going to Notre Dame we went to the Red Light District! Take that Pope!
BTW… Al totally trumped me on the guy hitting on us story. On the metro she had a guy lean over and say, “I love you, you love me?” He spoke in some strange accent. I am not sure where he was from. So although I had a guy try and kiss me, Al had a guy admit he loved her. How he knew he loved her after sitting by her in a subway car for 5 minutes I’ll never know.
(SACRE COURE)
(MOULIN ROUGE)
(ARC DE TRIUMPH)
For dinner we met up again with my cousin Sebastian and my cousin Richard and their friends at a Corsican Bar. Sebastian’s best friends name is Guillaume. Once I realized that his name meant “William” in the English language I continually called him Prince William after that. Now… this is when things get really blurry to us. We arrived and were promptly served a round of beers. Yummy Corsican beer in fact! (The best beer this beer-lover had the whole trip!) This was something that happened a lot that evening. It seems that every single friend of my cousins HAD to buy us a round. Even when we told them we were already drunk… they would say something like, “But I just arrived and haven’t bought you a drink!” I should point out they said this in English with their lovely French accents. We were in trouble. Then they took us to a Corsican restaurant.
(CORSICAN BEER)
(BRIDGE AND HER COUSIN RICHARD)
The restaurant almost deserves a post itself. I was honestly drunk. Al was so drunk that she drunk dialed her mom on her cell phone. My cousin Sebastian laughed so hard that he had ME drunk dial my mom from his cell phone. My mom chewed my ass off for calling internationally from a cell phone and for being drunk. You have to love moms. I had my cousin order food for us because he knew what was good. Explaining that Rachel didn’t eat pig and Al didn’t eat meat was interesting. They ordered a pasta dish for Rachel, BUT they ordered a LAMB dish for Al. It was DEVINE. When my cousin wanted to order me a hamburger I gave him one of my glares. It is a family joke that when I was 14 years old I would only eat hamburgers in France. The reasoning is that I ate horse, frog and snails before I finally put my foot down. Anyways, my cousin did order me a hamburger, and it was made with something a little more like ham than our American hamburgers… It was a boar burger. Yes… BOAR. It was delicious is what it really was. Sometime after dinner our designated driver drove our drunk asses home.
(PRINCE WILLIAM AND MAX)
(AL EATING MEAT!!! When in Paris… Also, even though Bridge really wants this photo to portray me savoring the lamb. I was not, although those cute little bastards are tasty, I was D-R-U-N-K!)
(AL DRUNK DIALING!!!)
The third day was almost wasted. That is the day we spent 3 hours in line at the train station trying to get tickets to go to Dover the following day. There had been a fire in the Chunnel and so it was closed to passengers. That day they had finally opened it, and it was total chaos. We almost took a photo of the Euro Star line but thought it would be a jinx so we did not. Think, we abstained. How nice are we? The Euro Star was how we had planned on traveling to the UK, but instead we bought tickets to Calais. From Calais we were going to take the ferry to Dover. Mwaaaa. Now I can admit that this was all part of my evil plan to ensure that we took the ferry into Dover so I could see those infamous cliffs from the Straight. It all worked! Bow before me, mere mortals!
(NOTRE DAME WITH AL AND RACHEL)
We finally got to go to Notre Dame, and I was pissed that we couldn’t go up to the tower since the line was so long. Once again I am MAD that the Pope was there. That night we went back to the bar to hang out with my cousins. I knew I was going to cry, I didn’t realize though how bad. About 10 minutes before we were going to leave I lost it. Then I had to hug everyone a million times and cry even more. Poor Al and Rachel. They had to drag me through the Paris Metro bawling hysterically. I am sure other passengers thought someone had died. It pretty much felt that way. I think Rachel and I were trying not to laugh. Don’t get me wrong. Bridge was SOOOO sad. But the entirety of the situation was kinda funny.
(BRIDGE CRYING)
I plan on going back to Paris to see my family within a year. I will make it happen.
The final morning we ate breakfast, bought wine and Abinste ,and left for the train stations. Off to Calais we went!
