C'est Paris!

Part 1: Brrr!

It snowed a lot* in Dublin on Thursday night when I left. I had to leave Galway early just in case the closed the roads and consequently arrived at the airport (which kept closing and reopening) 10 hours early. They don't let you through bag check/security until 3 hours before your flight so I crammed myself onto the cold uncomfortable waiting area chairs along with 100 other people whose flights had been delayed until morning.
*not a lot at all.

It was a long, cold, sleep-deprived night. I zonked on the plane, and woke just as we were landing. My first sight of France was snow-blanketed countryside!

Tres exciting



On the way back it was snowing harder* but by then Dublin had gotten over its panic attack and there were no delays in landing. I did, however, have to spend yet another cold uncomfortable semi-sleepless night in the airport since I didn't want a repeat of what happened last time in Galway. The morning bus to Galway came at 6:30 and at about 4:30 I was done and ready to move on from sitting in the terminal, but it was cold out so I watched the news for a bit (am now very up-to-date with current events!) and then gave up and had to amuse myself by making snowballs and silly tracks in the snow at the bus stop.
*actually snowing this time

Got to Galway 30 mins before the bus to Ballyvaughan, which was not enough time to get milk and cheese and oogle the Christmas market like I hoped (I really wanted one of those Bailey's pancakes)!


Part 2: "Are you there still?? ME TOO!"

When we landed I had to nab myself another American in hopes that she spoke French (not much, but better than mine! Because sometimes "parler vous anglaise?" gets you "No! Vous ne parlez pas français à Paris!?" in return) so that I could figure out where the bus to Paris is (1.5 hour ride). Amanda was busy doing silly things like homework and group essays, so I was left to discover the metro by myself.

I do not like the metro by myself.

The ticket machine wouldn't change to english. then it wouldn't take my coins. then it wouldn't take a card.

I also couldn't find a train person to ask for help, so at that point I figured my only other option was to walk. That probably would have taken an hour or two, so good thing on my way I discovered a different, more user-friendly entrance to the same station that had non-retarded ticket machines.

But if that wasn't enough, France decided I needed an even more complicated first metro experience. A crazy Frenchwoman sat next to me, talking her bloody head off in French. I think she was trying to talk TO me, because she kept looking at me, but luckily I could not understand her! and thus was a master at ignoring whatever she said. Which may have been good because I'm pretty sure at one point she was talking about stabbing someone with a knife.
Anyway, eventually she gave up and bothered the person on her other side.

The hostel said I couldn't go up to my room until 3:30, so for 2 hours I wandered around, completely unawares of where I was, where I was going, or where things I might want to to go were. (I lacked a map, because my hostel was dumb and didn't have any.) I wandered along the river to Notre Dame (followed the signs, rather),


looked at what I thought was the front but was really the back,

didn't see a way in, got cold and tired, and wandered back to go to bed at 4:30.

**If you are wondering, the title quote for this part is directly translated from what a different crazy frenchwoman was shouting to no one in particular as she got on the train. That one was at least funny.

***If you were wanting a fun fact, French train people can't be bothered to give two cigarettes about enforcing the turnstiles. I saw people hopping over them. People following other people through. At one station the doors were stuck open so I just walked through without even using my ticket. And at another station, when I had to turn around to go the other direction (which requires going out and then back in) for some reason the new machine wouldn't accept my ticket, so I waited until someone left and slipped in through the out door. It was kind of awesome.


Part 3: Best food of my life.

No, really. Best food ever. And cheap! I gave up on free vending machine croissants from the hostel because they were so disgusting and I could get a fresh, nummy one at the bakery down the street for 55c. My favorite: almond chocolate.

The French also have this really cool meal thing where you get a starter, main course, and dessert for the price of just a main course in the States or Ireland. They're usually simple, like onion soup, beef in red wine sauce, chocolate mousse, or ham and cheese crepe, grilled chicken with herbs, slice of apple tart (that was night one and night two's dinners :P) but that was the best grilled chicken with herbs I've had, and the portions were just right so I didn't get too full.

here's the sort of things the bakery had:



my first "real" French meal! (baguette, chocolate croissant, nutella hot chocolate):


Champagne in Paris!


(Cat in restaurant. wut.)


And then there was Angelina.
Best. Hot chocolate. In the world.
It was so rich and creamy, I swear all they did was melt a chocolate bar and put it in a cup. That was lunch. It was filling enough. <3 <3 <3





Part 4: Paris a la Snow.

It snowed a lot on Saturday. We hiked up a big hill to go to this church:

where we discovered 2 things. One, Amanda had the completely opposite footwear on that she should have (see below for hilarious detail), and two, mass en francais is kinda hard to follow.

Also, got gyped by snow on view of paris (there's an eiffel tower in there somewhere)


Anyway, back to Amanda's feet. She had on more of a summery tennis shoe and no socks, so her poor toes were very cold, and she kept slipping everywhere! At one point she fell flat, which wasn't very cool, but before that she pulled a convincing "cat on slippery surface" impression. There were limbs sliding out in all directions. I was a very good friend and stood there and laughed.

Then I gave her my arm and we backtracked to her apartment (which is tres mignon!) for socks and new shoes.

But snow, while festive, is cold! So we went to the Musee d'Orsay, which had some cool impressionists and funny lions, and we got in free with our student cards. Uncool that they don't allow photos.

After which we went back to Notre Dame to go to the top and see the city all lit up, but alas! we arrived 30 minutes too late, and could only see inside. Oh, and here's the actually front of the building:





Part 5: I keep stabbing myself on the corners of my Eiffel Tower.



If you think New York peddlers are bad, they've got nothing on the people at the Eiffel Tower.
We did get to see them all sprinting away from two policemen on bikes, which was highly amusing. And, though probably illegal, they are cheap and Amanda bought a ridiculous amount of keychains for peoples. (If you're one of those peoples, just pretend you didn't know she got something for you.)

Top was closed due to the crapload of people there, but 2nd floor had some good views too




And at night:




Part 6: Louvre

This museum is freakishly huge.





We found some pretty silly paintings




(No, I did not go see the Mona Lisa. She's dumb and overrated. And the size of a postage stamp. Ppbbbth.)


Part 7: Paris's museums close one day a week, usually Tuesday, except that one you want to see on Monday, that one will be closed on Mondays.

(clarification: I didn't get to see the Monet museum.)

In fact, I didn't do much. Amanda went back to class at a bakery. I wandered around doing essentially nothing. Kind of sort of looked at things.







lowlight of the day: tired, cold, and lonely

highlight of the day: successfully stumbled my way through a complicated order at the bakery of a butter croissant, pain de chocolate, baguette, and macaroons (which were very pretty until they, sadly, got smashed) to enjoy on the way back to potato-land

weirdlight of the day: a french soldier with a very big gun on duty in the tunnel that runs under the street to the Arc de Triomphe (so pedestrians don't get smashed) stopped me to tell me I was "so beautiful." (I might have been more flattered if he didn't have that really big gun. Or at least if he wasn't standing with 7 other guys with really big guns. I mean, c'mon, Europe, are they really that necessary? They make tourist uncomfortable.)