Day 9--Paris, France

April 27th, 2012

Wow, big day today. Got up early and headed out with our newly purchased Metro cards to the Notre Dame. First we found a totally local, all French menu for some brekkie. Had  my first croissant in France! So delicious. It was like it was melted in butter *drool*. It felt amazing to just sit in a Parisian café and eat breakfast. Check.

The Notre Dame was a short walk away with amazing scenery. These buildings are incredible. The Notre Dame was no joke. Wow. I cannot believe how beautiful it was. The gargoyles have been spotted! Quasimodo is that you?! Insdie was gorg. Another candle lit for the fam. Of course, the angels were my favorite part. There was one at the back that I loved. It was just so neat to bein the place that inspired The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

We did some street shopping and I found a Tour de France hat for my Dad! Yay! He’s gonna love, love, love it! The Lourve was next and after narrowly missing getting robbed by a 10 year old with a cigarette in her mouth we made it to the courtyard of the Louvre. Sidenote: these children pretended to be deaf and mute and as you sign their petition to “help” them, they try and rob you. Ew. Paris, I’m not impressed right now. Dirty. Anyway. SO. Holy hell, this courtyard is no joke. Neither is this former palace. This used to be the home of Louis XIV before he built Versailles. I had no idea how big it was! It is massive! And that glass pyramid that is famously in the middle of the courtyard felt so out of place to me. I did not like it at all. It was this huge, modern monstrosity in the middle of all this old architectural glory.

The fake Arc de Triumph was right in front so we decided just to walk straight down to the Champps Elysses to the real Arc. Um, the Champps Elysses is ridiculously legit. First, it’s beautiful. Its like this shiny, bright spot with marble and gold and beautiful clothing everywhere. The Louis Vuitton store was unreal. I want everything. The Zara store had so many cute things I want to hoard it all. The damage I could do with unlimited funds would be ridiculous. I would like Victoria Beckham fabulous every frickin’ day. I did personally splurge and buy a clutch that’s cream with gold studs—it’s bloody beautiful. And I bought a really nice scarf for Mom which I can’t WAIT to give her. She can tell all the wonderers she got it from her daughter when she went to Paris. Yeah, I’m excited about that.

We got yelled at—twice—in H & M because the line for the dressing room was entirely too long. So we guerilla changed into the dresses we wanted to try on over our clothes in the corner. Yeah, that didn’t go over well.

We finished the shopping Mecca and found the Arc de Triumph to take some pictures. Then we went in search of food. All we wanted were some baguette sandwiches and macaroons. It wasn’t too much to ask for in Paris. It took forever and our blood sugars were probably about 36 and we were cranky as hell. We finally found some macaroons and then a little café to eat at. Seriously though, how hard is it to find a damn café in France. What the F.

On the way home we stopped at the liquor store where we spend a whopping 5.37 Euro on wine and 1.33 Euro on champagne…no joke. So of course, we bought another bottle. We drank, got ready, jammed to Disney music, and headed out for a night out in Paris. A frickin’ hour Metro ride later as well as a confusing walk in front of the Eiffel Tower later—as well as a pitstop in a bar—we finally found our tour group…we were only 50 minutes late…oops. Becs saved us food, thank goodness. We skulled (Australian for chugged) our bottle of wine—classy—and headed to the cabaret show.

Sidenote: So we made time in our day to make sure to go back to the hotel to change and look nice. Everyone else must have come straight from whatever they chose to do that day because they were all staring at us like wild animals. I don’t understand. Um, hi, yes we dressed up, that’s what Becs said to do. Sorry you all didn’t time manage properly and look like scrubs. I don’t know if you know this but we are in Paris—fashion capitol of the world, the hell if I’m not busting out my hot girl disguise and smokin’ fabulous dress. This is what I brought it for. Stop staring. I know that sounds terrible but it was so weird.

The cabaret show was really cute. Topless girls, shirtless guy dancing on a rope and trapeze. Pretty entertaining. Not the best thing I’ve ever seen but I’m glad I’ve seen a cabaret show. Check.

So yeah, after the show everybody, I mean everybody but us, bitched out and went home. What the flying hell?? We are in Paris! Why aren’t you partying!? If I’M telling people to party, there is a serious problem here. Idiots.

We almost got scammed by our first taxi driver who drove around in circles trying to get to the Notre Dame. Jara was finally like um, no. Threw 5 euro at him and yelled for us to get the fuck out of the cab. Good girl. We walked around skulling wine out of Jara’s jacket. Pure class. Oh yeah, I kind of stole that bottle of wine from the cabaret show…sorry not sorry.

After Rachel asking a police officer where we can party, we found a trip of Latin bars aka the Latin Quarter. It was okay. Nobody really knew what was a good bar to go to, everyone we asked was clueless. Do you people not live in this city? I knew the French were arrogant but I didn’t think they were this stupid. Random French guy we were talking to tried to all of the sudden kiss me on the mouth. What the fuck? Then he told me he wanted to take me back to his house to make sex…and this is when we walked away. How does one make sex? Strange wording. Creep.

However, all was not lost. This adorable English-speaking French boy came up to us and asked if we would accompany them to an Irish bar because they can’t get in without girls. Sure. Why not? He was skinny and I told him I could take him down if I needed to. His name is Romeo. Is this real life? And he’s half Italian. I think I’m in love. HAHA.

We get to the Irish bar and the boys still couldn’t get in. Oops. Sorry not sorry. This place had excellent music and we danced and had a fabulous time. Ok, Paris, you have redeemed yourself.

So, another hidden talent I found I have is busting out random French. Sweet. Trying to flag down a cab I refused to get into one that didn’t have an English-speaking driver. So the first four cabs I saw, when I opened the door I asked, ‘parle-vouz ingle?’ Yeah…it’s a common phrase but I don’t know where that came from. 5^th cab was the charm and we made it back safe and sound. Tomorrow we say au revoir to Paris but stay tuned for some thing I learned while there.