A Weekend in Paris

I started writing this blog while I was sitting at Famous Three Kings (local pub that we frequent too much) because I was absolutely elated while watching the Rangers beat the Rays with Sarah McCausland.  There's something about baseball, boys taking baseball (Nick, anyone?), and the atmosphere that makes me miss and feel at home all at once.  I want to say I grew up around baseball.  I watched my dad and brother yelling at the TV and calling plays that were about to happen.. and then I got to college and watched it happen all over again with the guys. There's something that made me appreciate the irony that Andy taught me how to appropriately use Gamecast, and the fact that I was reading articles on ESPN made me chuckle. Who knew I'd miss hearing stats that much?  Watching baseball also really made me miss playing softball. It almost saddens me that I know I'm not going to get close to it again, although Sarah practically forced me to promise her that I'd walk on the team next year... 

Digressing, London is a huge place. I love it here. We had this beautiful "Indian Summer" week of weather where it was around 80 degrees. I was on my Paris trip for that weekend, so it was amazing to be in one of the most beautiful cities with beautiful weather. Sarah and I had this "GO BIG OR GO HOME" mentality for the trip. Naturally, we made it awesome.

 

Be jealous, I attempted to nom on it.

We did so much in Paris! Sarah and I took the chunnel in Thursday night, got to the hostel around midnight, passed out in our tiny ass room and had a Frat-daddy wake up call around 7am. Some guys decided to BLAST Rihanna dub-step out their window and shout at each other ... I was about to cut someone. It was not okay. The morning progressed and we went downstairs, met our group (there was 6 of us, total) and our tour guides.  Our tour guide was this guy named Andy, and he's an American who's probably about 24, a recent college graduate and now has his own tour guide business around Europe. Pretty awesome. Kevi, our tour guide in training, was a local Parisian, and all around a blast.  We began the day by walking through Notre Dame, we climbed up the Eiffel Tower (700 steps?! Thank God for the stairmaster..), then we had a bit of free time and I casually sun bathed next to the Eiffel Tower (yeah, NBD). We also toured the Latin Quarter, had an evening bike ride through Paris and finished the night off with a boat ride down the river. I also had a wonderful dinner dish of duck and tried Escargot...it is surprisingly garlic-flavored and salty.

Escargot

 

Lets talk about this bike riding business. First of all, if you know anything about me... I didn't learn to ride a bike until my freshman year of college, thank you Marlys and Emi, and I learned on a Pirate Bike and have really only practiced on them since. So, in typical fashion, we were in a group of about 25-30 people. Our bike tour guide was from none other than Austin, so you know this is going to be a crazy story. Matt, our bike tour guide, gave us a little pep-talk before take off. He told us our philosophy for the night was "total domination" -- that means we don't bow down to cars, buses, or taxis.  We are not to be intimidated by people honking or shouting, all we had to do was stay in a tight formation and dominate the right lane, cars would go around us. He also gave us this lovely speech about how we were going to be gazelles. What happens to the gazelle that gets left behind from the herd? That's right, they get hit by a bus. By this time, I'm figuring out that I'm about to bike ride on my shakey skills through Paris and its traffic ... guess who's freaking out? This girl! Needless to say I had lots of wonderful thoughts about getting hit by cars and what the damage would be. Luckily, after 3 hours of bike riding through every landmark in Paris, I survived without any major damage (I lost my shoe at one point, but that's about it). We ended the bike ride with our boat tour and unlimited wine. :) No better way to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle on the hour.

Game face. My bike was named "Lady Bug"

Day two of this lovely adventure. Saturday. It was definitely a less action packed day as we spent a few hours at the Louvre, where I got to see the Mona Lisa up close, along with "Winged Victory" and every other type of art imaginable.  There's some statistic that says if you spend 30 seconds in front of each work of art in the Louvre, you'd be there for 2 months before getting through the whole place. It is massive.  Afterwards, we went down the high end fashion/shopping street in Paris, and by the middle of the afternoon opted for nap time before our adventures for the night.  We had good timing with our Paris trip, that Saturday Night there was a festival that translated to "Sleepless Night", and museums would stay open all night, admission would be free, and there would be parties everywhere. We had a very nice night in which we had a picnic in a park, which entailed jumping over a pretty high fence. All I have to say is each time I jumped that fence it got klassier. :) We had baguettes and wine for dinner (totally Paris) and after stuffing ourselves, we wandered about for a while.

Winged Victory. KDX. I like the symbolism :)

My super gorgeous profile picture is from that night because technically, the park was locked, but everyone still hopped the fence and went in ... after dinner, we went on an excursion to find a bathroom. Picture this, 5 girls, wandering around Paris ... it was ridiculous. We eventually found one after about 30 minutes. Congratulations, you now know why I am so ridiculously happy in my profile picture. Although it definitely was not the night out in Paris that I expected it was still a lot of fun and will definitely be a great memory. I wouldn't mind going back and finding the real night life, though ..

Picnic!

My current profile pic...in case the mental image wasn't enough.

Fast forward through the chunnel ride home Sunday afternoon. Back to London! London has become my home. My flat is too familiar. It's nearly midnight and I'm waiting for my laundry because it takes around 2 hours here (whyyyy?!). I figured now would be as great of a time as any to blog. The weather is cooling back down again, and although I loved feeling the sun on my skin again, I don't mind this either. It's the perfect weather to take a nice stroll through the park. I'm going to Iceland this Friday. Excited? Yeah. Not for their weather though. It'll be between the 40s-30s. YAY! Freeze to death time.  More on that to come...

Nessie!

Scottish Antics..

Edinburgh Castle

In case you're one of the 100 people who has asked me about where I've gone/am planning to go here it is:

We've gone to Brighton beach, Scotland (the Highlands and Edinburgh), Paris, Stonehenge and Bath. I'm planning on going to Spain, we have a trip to Oxford planned, possibly Amsterdam, and I'm thinking maybe Italy. There's a little something called money that might be an issue, but, hopefully it will work out. I'm so excited to be traveling, three weekends in a row I've packed my bags and left Flat 6. It's exhilarating. Everyone needs to do this. 



I intern bright and early tomorrow and all day, so if you're lucky enough and I'm bored, I might just keep up this blog.  ... and, you know, update it with things about London ... Haha, oops.




Con Mucho Amor,

Lizette