(no subject)
As you may know, I got back from February break about a week ago. I went to Paris with my housemate Carolyn and our friends Chanel and Brittney. it was amazing! pictures are up on both facebook and webshots, so you can live vicariously through me. the first day, Monday, we went to the Eiffel tower, which is bigger in person and brown. I went all the way to the top with Brittney, while Carolyn and Chanel walked to the second level. from the top you can see all of Paris and all of the suburbs. looking down made me so dizzy! afterwards, we went to the famous Notre-Dame cathedral. it was smaller than I had thought. I saw plenty of gargoyles, but no hunchback. for dinner, we went to this Israeli neighborhood and had falafel. sooo good. the next day, we went to Montmartre, which is the only hill in Paris. much of Amelie was filmed there, and the neighborhood is pretty and full of artists. we walked all the way up the hill to the Sacre-Coeur church, dedicated to the sacred heart of Jesus Christ. inside was beautiful, as in all churches in France. afterward, we parted from Brittney and went all the way across town in search of a youth hostel. alas, it was full (in february?), so we went to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery, the largest cemetery in Paris. we wandered for a while and saw the monuments of Jim Morrison, Sarah Bernhardt, and Oscar Wilde, to name a few. finally, we went to the Champs-Elysees, the ritzyest shopping street in Paris to see l'Arc du Triomphe. we also found a boutique called Marni and I took a picture in front of it looking confused. for dinner, we searched out this restaurant that the Lonely Planet guide book had said was "California-style Mexican cuisine". burritos at last! it still had a definite French influence (goat cheese in the burritos), but it was probably the best I'll find in France. Wednesday, we went to Versailles for the whole day. we wandered around the gardens for most of the time (which happened to be free...unlike the palace), and found a pond and lots of pretty trees in Marie Antoinette's domain. in the large lake, there were a bunch of ducks and two swans! I fed one of them, but once we ran out of bread, they were gone. after that exhausting day, we went to a "world cuisine" restaurant with a few French friends who happened to be in Paris when we were. I got the vegetarian plate and it was the best food I ate in Paris! eggplant, salad, tomatoes, broccoli cheese balls...mmm. we didn't get to the restaurant until 10pm and we probably left around 12, which is the latest I've ever had dinner. afterward, Chanel and I took a walk over to the Moulin Rouge, which happened to be near our hostel. it happened to be in the skeeziest part of town, so we powerwalked the whole way. Thursday we went to the Louvre. best museum ever! there's something like 30,000 works of art there, so we only saw a fraction. we mostly stuck to paintings and Greek and Roman sculpture, which are my favorite things anyway. I saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Madonna of the Rocks, to name a few. my favorites had to be da Vinci's work and this one painting by Paul Delaroche, called "La Jeune Martyre" (the young martyr).
http://www.pierdelune.com/delaroche.jpg
it's probably the most stunning painting I've ever seen. anyway, after the museum, Chanel and I tried to visit the catacombs, but they had just closed. we went back to our hostel, made some friends, and then made dinner with them. there were two guys from Brazil, one from Petaluma, and one from Maryland. they were all nice and pretty cool (except the one from Maryland...he was an arrogant douche), and we made the most delicious spaghetti with salad and bread. we had to make it an early night though, because our train left Friday morning. after leaving Paris, we went to Tours, which is this smallish town a little over an hour south of Paris. it was the best decision we made all trip. the town had a really cozy, relaxed feeling, and all the shopkeepers were really nice and made conversation with us. Tours is a medieval town, which meant lots of ruins and also a neighborhood called "old Tours", with lots of Tudor-style buildings. that night, we found an indie band from Belgium playing for free, and then went to another bar, where we made two new French friends. I was a little bummed that we didn't stay more than one night, but Tours isn't that far away. vacation was so amazing.
and I've been having more french adventures! the other night I went out with Carolyn and Chanel. first we went to a pirate bar, and then we wandered and ended up at Au Chat qui Peche (at the cat who fishes), a "bar associatif". there, we ran into Jean-Baptiste, a friend of Carolyn's from her choir, and his friend Jean. they're in a band together which we happened to see a couple weeks ago, almost by accident. so we sat and talked with them until the bar closed (about 4am), and then went to Jean-Baptiste's apartment to hang out. J-B lives in a kind of sketchy part of town, and he calls his street "the knife street". so he warned us about that, and also told us that his apartment was covered in "sous-vetements morts", which translates to dead underwear. he said they weren't dirty underwear, they were dead. I think something may have been lost in translation. after a little while, Jean-Baptiste brought out his Winnie the Pooh keyboard and started playing as Jean beatboxed over it. it was the most ridiculous feeling: here I am in France, late at night hanging out with French people as they beatbox and play a Winnie the Pooh keyboard. life is amazing sometimes. then they taught us the french word for someone who has a fear of being constipated. I immediately forgot it because it is quite possibly the longest word in the french language. anyway, we finally left around 6am. on the walk home, we passed our bakery and smelled the bread baking and heard the birds singing their morning songs. it was the most fun night I've ever spent in France.
then! today is Carnaval in Bordeaux, so I went to the parade downtown with Carolyn and Chanel. the sun finally came out today! it was hot! I wore a skirt and tank top! I'm excited that spring is finally on its way. the parade was really cool and bizarre. I'm glad I did that instead of my homework all day. but that means that I have to finish it all up now.
miss you!
write back with your California adventures!
http://www.pierdelune.com/delaroche.jpg
it's probably the most stunning painting I've ever seen. anyway, after the museum, Chanel and I tried to visit the catacombs, but they had just closed. we went back to our hostel, made some friends, and then made dinner with them. there were two guys from Brazil, one from Petaluma, and one from Maryland. they were all nice and pretty cool (except the one from Maryland...he was an arrogant douche), and we made the most delicious spaghetti with salad and bread. we had to make it an early night though, because our train left Friday morning. after leaving Paris, we went to Tours, which is this smallish town a little over an hour south of Paris. it was the best decision we made all trip. the town had a really cozy, relaxed feeling, and all the shopkeepers were really nice and made conversation with us. Tours is a medieval town, which meant lots of ruins and also a neighborhood called "old Tours", with lots of Tudor-style buildings. that night, we found an indie band from Belgium playing for free, and then went to another bar, where we made two new French friends. I was a little bummed that we didn't stay more than one night, but Tours isn't that far away. vacation was so amazing.
and I've been having more french adventures! the other night I went out with Carolyn and Chanel. first we went to a pirate bar, and then we wandered and ended up at Au Chat qui Peche (at the cat who fishes), a "bar associatif". there, we ran into Jean-Baptiste, a friend of Carolyn's from her choir, and his friend Jean. they're in a band together which we happened to see a couple weeks ago, almost by accident. so we sat and talked with them until the bar closed (about 4am), and then went to Jean-Baptiste's apartment to hang out. J-B lives in a kind of sketchy part of town, and he calls his street "the knife street". so he warned us about that, and also told us that his apartment was covered in "sous-vetements morts", which translates to dead underwear. he said they weren't dirty underwear, they were dead. I think something may have been lost in translation. after a little while, Jean-Baptiste brought out his Winnie the Pooh keyboard and started playing as Jean beatboxed over it. it was the most ridiculous feeling: here I am in France, late at night hanging out with French people as they beatbox and play a Winnie the Pooh keyboard. life is amazing sometimes. then they taught us the french word for someone who has a fear of being constipated. I immediately forgot it because it is quite possibly the longest word in the french language. anyway, we finally left around 6am. on the walk home, we passed our bakery and smelled the bread baking and heard the birds singing their morning songs. it was the most fun night I've ever spent in France.
then! today is Carnaval in Bordeaux, so I went to the parade downtown with Carolyn and Chanel. the sun finally came out today! it was hot! I wore a skirt and tank top! I'm excited that spring is finally on its way. the parade was really cool and bizarre. I'm glad I did that instead of my homework all day. but that means that I have to finish it all up now.
miss you!
write back with your California adventures!