Look! Poisson! that means fish...

just a starting note, I always seem to be trying to catch up with myself and my days in these posts.  I'm gonna try to do a better job keeping everything up to date, aka a day or two after it happens, not a week or a few....but thanks for understanding so far... :D 

Anyways... (for everyone who thinks I'm not actually learning anything over here...)

Mission get to Paris and not get lost: success.  I was quite proud of myself for getting to the airport, getting on the right plane, the right bus and the right metro to make it to the Eiffel Tower to finally reunite with one of my best friends (who gets to say that?) I mean, she had only been waiting in the same spot with all of her luggage as an easy target for the annoying tourist attacking salesmen for about 2 and a half hours, but once I made it to the actual site, I spotted her bright red locks in no time!  After we took a few photos, we headed back up the direction I had come from, and sat on some benches in front of a building (probably some important building who's name I should remember), just eating lunch and chatting, with the Eiffel Tower in the distance. no big deal...after our snack, we ventured back under the tower, and wandered through the city for a while snapping pictures along the way, until we were allowed to check in at the hostel (my first hostel ever!).  We squished ourselves and our luggage into the tiny elevator and took it up to the 4th floor, room 45.  We stopped by the room long enough to drop our stuff off, notice that we would have two roommates, and plan a new route for more exploring that night.  We walked for a few minutes, stopped to check out a little vintage store and a cupcake shop, and kept on our way.  we walked around until we noticed a big cathedral-looking building in the near distance.  We walked up some stairs, and then down some stairs, only to find more stairs (we could have taken the "elevator" from the ground to the top of the mountain, but we decided it was healthier to walk...or we just didn't want to pay for it).  So we climbed the stairs, only about 150, to the top and in front of us sat a beautiful cathedral with a breath-taking view of the city.  We later came to find out that this was the Basilica of Sacré-Coeur and that it was at the same elevation as the top of the Eiffel Tower.  After stumbling upon such a cool site, and climbing the hundreds of stairs to get to it, we were feeling a bit tired, and a bit hungry, so dinner became our next stop.  We ate at a little restaurant close to our hostel called A Zebra in Montmartre (the neighborhood of Paris where we were staying.  It's known as the artist's district and home to attractions such as Picasso's apartment, Van Gogh's studio and The Moulin Rouge.)  After dinner, I was feeling quite tired from the day of traveling and exploring so we headed back to the hostel to get a good night's sleep.  I'm not ashamed to say that I was in bed, fast asleep by 8 o'clock that night.  

The next day was our day for touring.  We had picked up some brochures from the hostel that advertised a free walking tour of the city and decided that would be a great way to see a lot of the main attractions in Paris.  Even though it was raining, we didn't let the weather dampen our excitement to see the city.  We stopped in the metro to purchase a two day pass (best investment of the weekend) and headed off to meet the tour group at Place St. Miquel (home to a giant fountain with sculptures depicting the angel Michael throwing Satan out of Heaven).  We arrived a wee bit early (about 30 min.) so we spent some time browsing through the little tourist shops, each buying an umbrella just in case the rain became more of a problem (tied for second best investment of the weekend).  Promptly at 11, a line formed for the tours.  We were split into groups, english and spanish speakers (I figured I would be nice and take the english route for Jes' sake... ;) ) and headed off with our Australian guide, Jacq(eline).  First stop was on a bridge that crosses the Seine.  We got a teasing view of Notre Dame, took a few pictures, and headed down below to a street that ran alongside the river.  We went under a bridge, Pont Neuf, covered in the drunken (plastered) faces of King Henry the something, saw the burial grounds of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knight's Templar, the Samaritaine building where Jason Bourne (aka Matt Damon) is hiding behind the 'M' of the lettering in one of the Bourne movies, and kept walking.  From there we walked across Pont des Artes, a bridge covered in padlocks.  Some of them were little, some were big; some had names or dates scribbled in sharpie while others were engraved, but they all represented everlasting love....at least that's how it supposed to be.  I even witnessed the troll who lives under the bridge decide when the "everlasting love" was to be over...aka some guy off the streets picked a few locks and stole them right off the bridge.  Not so nice.  From there we made our way to the Louvre, one of the most famous art museums in the world, boasting treasures such as da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the statue Winged Victory, neither of which I saw because we didn't actually enter the museum.  BUT, we did take some pretty pictures outside by the failure of invisible pyramids; which, in my opinion, are still cool even if they're not reeeeally invisible like they were supposed to be. After that we saw the Palais Royal (today home to France's Conseil d'Etat), stopped for a quick break (most people went to Starbucks but that wasn't 'French' enough for Jes and I so we stopped for a bowl of veggie soup at a corner cafe), and made our way through through some very pretty gardens that lead to a ginormous ferris wheel and Champ Elysee, the main shopping street in Paris.  The tour ended at Le Gran Palais and Le Petit Palais, which are right across from each other.  Although it was a rainy start to the day, and walking for 3 hours in the cold and wet wasn't the best, the tour was well worth it!

After we left the group, we decided to head down Champ Elysee to see the Arc d'Triomphe up close and personal, and then take the metro back to Angelina's, a little cafe known for its amazing hot chocolate.  And after we drank our cup of deliciousness (literally a warm, melted chocolate bar), we headed over to Notre Dame, to get a closer look.  The inside of the church is just as impressive as the outside, and we were sure to take tons of photos (although the quality isn't great because the light is dim and they don't allow flash photography).  From there, we decided to grab the metro home.  Of course, still with a few blocks to walk, the rainy day suddenly turned into a hurricane and we were immediately drenched from head to toes, umbrellas bending inside out, and puddles in our shoes.  Not the most fun walk of my life, I'm not gonna lie.  But finally, we made it back to the metro. On our walk home, we decided to grab some dinner.  We stopped at a little cheese store and asked for something really french, and got that.  Then, we went into two different bakeries, buying one baguette at each.  The guys at the second store gave Jes a hard time about having a bag from another store, and as she tried to explain to them what had happened, I stood there with a dumb smile on my face (this was a bread store, not a fish store, so i had no idea what they were talking about). But by the time we left, they were all laughing too, so I joined in.  Once we were outside, Jes started to explain what they had been talking about, and then she stopped suddenly..."they asked if we were sisters, and I was trying to tell them no, we're friends but I think I accidentally told them you're my girlfriend..." we laughed as we headed back to our "french" dinner of bread, cheese and nutella (french dinner of poor traveling college students), and headed out to see the coolest thing in Paris, the Eiffel Tower lit up at night.  We got there a little before the hour so the anticipation of the sparkling would just about kill us, and then it happened.  We all "oohed" and "ahhed" (some more than others) took some photos and videos, and called it a night.  It really was a cool thing to see, and probably Jes' favorite.

Sunday we headed out to see more sights that the tour had missed.  On the agenda were the Opera, some Parisian flea markets, the catacombs and a stop for some souvenirs.  The opera was another cool thing to see, and definitely worth visiting, the flea markets....not so much. But, we did get our crepes with nutella, so it wasn't a total disappointment.  The catacombs were definitely the coolest part of the day.  Who knew that underneath such a modern, fashionable city like Paris, there are buried almost 6 million people.  Bones upon bones decorate this underground rock quarry-turned-graveyard not just in piles, but in carefully planned and quite artistic ways.  Yes, this is a bit creepy, and I did kind of get scared when I saw some doors that looked like jail cells with no night lights to speak of, just waiting for some old, decrepit hand to reach out and grab me, but i guess I was just overreacting, thanks to my years of watching CSI...(but how cool of a story would THAT have made!?)  After out date with the deceased(s?), we headed back in the direction of the hostel, exploring a bit more, and finally sitting down to eat dinner for Jes' birthday.  While standing outside trying to decide what the menu said, a guy (clearly eavesdropping) assured us that they spoke english inside, so we sat down at a table and looked at the menu.  The cheery old man came over to take our order and we politely asked what he recommended...lets just say, the eavesdropper was wrong. Apparently he thought i had ordered something, and scribbled it down on the paper.  I didnt know how to correct him, nor had the heart to tell him that i had no idea what he was saying (plus i'm not that picky) so i had no idea what my dinner actually would be, how exciting.... :) after our first course of french onion soup, our dinners arrived.  Jes had duck and mine was something i actually recognized and liked, scallops with pasta in a creamy sauce.  Both were simply delish and, after eating every last bite, we ventured home...but not before stopping for, of course, another birthday crepe with nutella.  What's a birthday without dessert, right? :) now thoroughly stuffed, as if we weren't before, we waddled back to the hostel to pack our things before we left early the next morning.  

At 6 am we headed out so I could catch my bus.  My sweet little Jessica, of course, accompanied me to the bus stop, even though her train didn't leave until 10.  It was sad to leave Paris after finally getting my bearings a bit, and still feeling like there was more to see, but it was definitely harder to leave my friend.  We had such a great weekend together and hopefully she'll decide to come visit me in Barcelona...actually I threatened to come kidnap her out of the Netherlands if Barcelona wasn't in her agenda...just kidding. Anyways, it was definitely so awesome to be able to be in Paris for a few days with one of my best friends, not a lot of people get to say that, and I definitely feel blessed to have these opportunities while I'm here for the semester! 

Upcoming: news from Madrid and a dreary day in Tarragona.

love and miss you all! ~Keri