Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Days 7-9

Amazing detail work in Sainte-Chappelle

Mmmm ya my jaw dropped when I walked into this room.
Josh et moi a Sacre Coeur in Montmartre!
Perfect Parisian photo? I think so.

Josh and me at the Tuileries right outside the Louvre

Josh, Cristina and me at the Tuileries. It was a perfect afternoon!

Ciao perfect apartment with beautiful, huge, mirrored doors!

Man, I apologize for how this entry has taken me. I've been SO busy with school...but more about that later. For the last weekend of my trip I will just give a brief overview:

So I finally got my flight out with about 4 hours of half-awake sleep in me by the time I got to Paris. It was a bit difficult transition back to the French, but I realized I had really missed it while I was gone. Anyways I made my way from one terminal to another one in search of my friend Cristina to meet her up at her gate since she was getting in from Dublin, but instead a really really rude lady stopped me from going to the next terminal, talking bad about me in French to her friend probably not knowing I understood her...me, with not much sleep or patience was not to friendly to her in French back. But because I couldn't meet up with Cristina I made my way into Paris by train/metro to meet Josh, who was flying in from Barcelona, at the metro stop near the apartment we were staying at. Miraculously we found each other, because I was an hour later than I said I'd be. That mission accomplished, we then had to figure out how to meet up with Cristina whose phone had died and whose minutes had run out. So we found a cafe in our neighborhood and ate lunch, and lemme tell you, this neighborhood was great! Not very touristy, even though it was RIGHT next to the Seine (2 minute walk), and they had all these really nice, really French little cafes and patisseries and shops, and it was just perfect. Miriculously enough again, as soon as we walked up to find the apartment, Cristina walked up with her brother and all was well until they left to get a sandwich while we waited for the caretaker to come and let us in. Bad news. She was this older Portuguese women named Lidia, and she came in and I had to have a 15 minutes long explanation/argument-discussion in French with her about me and Josh being there--evidently she had misunderstood that there would be 4 people and not 2, and she pointed to me and Josh and said in French "YOU staying in hotel. NOT HERE!" Perhaps it was the look of utter shock/disbelief on my face of how much we would've had to pay to find a hotel that day for a weekend in Paris, or perhaps it was that tiny, tiny bit of kindness that existed inside Lidia's heart, but whatever it was she left and came back with a key to the apartment saying "ok, you can stay here, because I'm NICE..." After complementing my French and telling Josh that he spoke bad Spanish (which isn't true---she just would mix her Portuguese and Spanish together!) she insisted that the garcons (boys) sleep on the couches and the two girls in the bed together and NOTHING ELSE...I half expected her to come in and check on us while we were sleeping....

Anyways, we showered up and rested for a couple hours as Josh and I had both sleep at airports the night before, Cristina had flown in with 3 hours of sleep from having to get up so early for her flight, and Jamie her brother had just flown in from Georgia. We walked to the Eiffel Tower and then went to the supermarche to but groceries for the weekend, strolled home along the Seine, and made some delicious, delicious pasta with great wine, cheese and bread. Cristina and I wanted to make it as French as possible (besides the pasta part!).

Anyways, to summarize, we saw A LOT that weekend, but it was one of the best/ relaxing weekends I've ever had at the same time because we just took our time and tried to really enjoy and experience Paris without exhausting ourselves. Finally went to the Louvre for the first time in my life, saw Sainte-Chapelle, Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Sacre Coeur, Tuileries, and I'm sure there's more, but I just can't remember. I felt a lot better by the end of the weekend because I rehydrated myself and slept a lot more. All-in-all it was an incredible trip, and now all I have to do is start planning my 2 week long April trip! woohoo! Enjoy the pics and I'll attempt to keep this more updated...Bisous!

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