Oui Oui Oui Welcome to Pari(s)

This past weekend the gang ventured over to Paris for our second long weekend. I was excited for Paris, it has some classic must-sees: Louvre, Eifel Tower, Notre Dame etc, but I wasn't like Maggie who had dreams about going to Paris since she was 5 and started crying when she saw the Eiffel Tower. Other than the big sights I didn't think that Paris would wow me that much. I was the asshole who thought Paris was overrated, mainly due to some preconceived notions about the city...


Three Major Stereotypes I Had About Paris
1. Parisians are rude, hate Americans, wear berets and have those little pencil mustaches (ok I realize that's like four but it only counts as one).
2. French dudes are ugly.
3. The food is gross aka escargot (snails) and foie gras (goose liver)


Like any Disney movie moral to the story, what I previously thought was changed by my encounter with the city and its people and I learned the valuable lesson of not judging a book by its cover, blah blah blah, etc. So...

What I learned After Paris...
1. FALSE- The French were actually some of the nicest people I've met abroad. Everyone went out of their way to help us and make sure we got where we were going whether it was the people at Holiday Inn who printed us out a map, the metro dude who wrote directions on our ticket, or the nice man who whipped out his iPhone to help me and Cory find the metro home. I also saw no berets, lots of other cute hats, but no berets. Although one man near the Eiffel had the largest mustache I've ever seen. Like off his face and then curled in handle bar style. Kinda like this man. But curlier.

2. Also FALSE- French men are actually beautiful (besides mustache man), definitely better than the Italians I've met in Rome. I saw one of the most attractive men I've ever seen (in person) on the train in Paris. Maybe I picked the wrong country to study abroad in...

3. EXTREMELY FALSE- Apologies for the large letters but since I lack vocal expression via blogging I have to rely on capitalizations and bold lettering to convey emphasis. Anyway why was I so wrong about the food? Three words: Banana. Nutella. Crepe. 

I mean I've been pretty obsessed with Nutella since I became all Euro and bananas have always been a solid fruit on the food pyramid, but something about combining the two in a thin warm pancakey thing is just magic, simply magical. I ate six over the course of the weekend. Excessive? Maybe.

one of many crepes consumed this weekend

The few other things I ate other than crepes were also nom-alcious. Baguette sandwiches, creme brulee, fondue, french fries, french onion soup, and duck with honey sauce, also rounded out my fatty weekend in Paris.

For those of you wondering, yes I did participate in other activities in Paris other than eating. But I wanted to do a top five favorite things about Paris list and if I didn't get the food out of the way that might have made up a majority of my list.

So here we go...Top Five Favorite Paris Moments, countdown style


#5-Notre Dame

Arguably the most famous Catholic Church in the world, Notre Dame was a must-see on my list and I'm so  glad I did. It was breath-taking, so beautiful and haunting. The gothic architecture was also a nice change from what I'm used to seeing in Rome. There was an international mass going on as we were walking through, which made the experience even more authentic. My only disappointment was that I didn't get to see this guy.

He was probs too busy ringing da bellzz

#4-Louvre
Being the #artsy girl that I am/DaVinci Code nerd, I was super pumped for the Louvre, especially because it was free for studentesse like me! It was great. I got to see some of the world's most famous paintings and sculptures. Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks, Venus de Milo, Victory of Samothrace, and Code of Hammurabi just to name a few. Plus I got to pretend I was Tom Hanks and run around the Louvre looking for clues to unlock the DaVinci code.

What's under the pyramid?!?

You can only seriously appreciate art in the Lourve for so many hours though before you start to get loopy from how much stuff is actually there. So when we got lost in a hall of statues after several hours we decided to have a little fun with them.

maturity at its finest

soo intellectual

#3-Dinner at Fondue Restaurant

I know I promised I was done with food, but this isn't really even about the food, more the restaurant and the atmosphere. It was a tiny one roomed restaurant in the heart of the eclectic Monmartre neighborhood.  Eleven of us went out and had one of the funniest dinners. The owners were hysterical, we were served wine in baby bottles and the cheese in the fondue was spiked with some sort of alcohol that kept our wine buzz going strong despite the copious amount of bread shoved in our mouths accompanying the fondue. 

#2-Versailles

No wonder the French had a revolution. Seriously, if I was a starving peasant and saw that palace I would totez grab my torch and pitchfork and demand some answers (or just execute the king, whatevs).  Beautiful would not fittingly describe it though neither would gaudy, it's a mix of several feelings to see that place. Another great perk of the trip we got in there fo free and got free audioguides!!! Double win, I love France. I stole many pictures from the palace and the grounds so check them out on the Facebook, but here are a few. 

Da gurs in front of the palace

Mirror pic in the Hall of Mirror...doesn't get more myspace than that

Surprise! It's me and mags

#1-Seeing Some of My Chi-O Loves

Small world stories go. So a week before we left I found out Cory was going to Paris the same weekend and then two days before we realized we booked the SAME hotel!! Out of all the hotels and hostels in Paris what are the odds? She ended up being next door to one of the rooms in our group too! Then to make things even weirder, our hotel was a 5 second walk to Christine's apartment. Literally across the street. Spooooky. 

It was so wonderful seeing the both of them. Cory and I had an adventure club night together on Saturday and Christine spent the whole day with me and Mags Sunday. She showed us the city, took us to ice cream, climbed the Eiffel with us, and went out to dinner. 

Overall it was an AMAZING weekend. To cap it off on Sunday night me, Mags, Kelsey, Melissa, John and Thomas went to the Eiffel Tower at night to watch the lights that sparkle for 5 minutes at the top of every hour. I timed it perfectly and bought my final crepe 5 minutes before the light show. So as I sat with my friends on the ledge overlooking the river, eating the most delicious thing ever created, admiring the sparkling lights of one of the most famous structures in the world, I soaked in the moment and thought about how lucky I was to be able to be there. Study abroad has been by far the most spectacular experience of my life and I am so thankful I get to be able to do this.

***sidenote: sorry to kill the mood from that ending sentence but just a heads up. the f key on my keyboard has been janky lately (pretty sure I got nutella in it) so if you read a word that doesn't make sense try adding an f somewhere and hopefully it will!