Turns out we didn’t need to buy metro passes because interestingly
enough, some of you guys might or might not be aware, but the metro ended up
being free all weekend due to the pollution here! Kind of crazy but awesome for
us! And I want to take a second to acknowledge how much I love the metro. It’s
the best system ever and I wish American would figure out how to do it well. It’s
so simple and just nice and I love it.
So! Friday we had breakfast at the hotel. Back at home I
wouldn’t typically be excited about the little breakfast buffet that was there,
however, since my breakfast nowadays is 3 pieces of bread with jam, hot
chocolate, and maybe some fruit (which I love by the way), the buffet with pain
au chocolat, nutella, eggs, bacon, cereal, fruit, toast, juices, etc. was
incredible!
From there, we went to the Musée d’Orsay which was completely
new for me. There was a big exhibition of Van Gogh and Arnaud going on which
was pretty cool as well as some great impressionist and post-impressionist
galleries. I’m not a very knowledgeable person when it comes to art and museums
and I can only be in them for so long before I stop absorbing much of anything.
However, I can definitely appreciate it and have my mind blown by it from time
to time—which most definitely happened.
After, I went with a group of girls to see The Deux Maggots
which is where Hemingway and all those awesome people would meet up and talk
and what not. We wanted to try to eat there but it was very crowded so we got
croques and sandwiches at another café nearby.
Then we met our group at the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) and
got to take a tour of that which is apparently a pretty special thing to do. It
was INCREDIBLE. So ornate and mind blowingly detailed and gorgeous.
We had free time after that until a show so I went to Notre
Dame with a group. We wanted to go up in the towers but couldn’t because of the
pollution which was a bummer (I’ll have to save it for next time now ;) ) Then
we lost Elsa temporarily and found her at Shakespeare and Company, a very cool
bookstore where, once again, many a famous writers hung out and wrote.
There was some very good looking/talented musicians playing
outside who we listened to for quite some time. We actually spent a good half
hour deliberating on what to write on a note to one of them after he said they
took tips and food and phone numbers from beautiful women (as he looked
directly in our direction). None of us have phone numbers that work here though
so we wrote him a nice note that said something along the lines of “You may or
may not be human perfection. We’re tourists and don’t have phone numbers we can
give you so you’ll have to settle for our hearts.” It was goofy, yes. But
funny. We also checked out the Latin Quarter and got some crèpes—which are
everywhere <3.
THEN, (yeah I know, long day), we met back at the hotel and
went to a show called “How to Become a Parisian in One Hour.” It was a one-man
show that was very funny and just poked fun at a bunch of different cultures,
especially Americans.
That evening I had dinner with a group of girls at this
random but delicious Italian place we found that was reasonably priced. Dinner
went pretty late so we probably got back to the hotel around 22h30 or 23h00
(10:30 or 11:00). Then we “rallied” and went out to a bar/dance club thing by
the Latin Quarter. It was pretty fun but very crowded and very hot! And soon
after we decided to try to find something else in the Bastille area where our
hotel was, but by the time we all got cabs home (since the metro closes at
1:30) we didn’t go out anywhere else. We tried valiantly with the metro, too.
We left around maybe 1:15 and got to the station to find a train about to leave
with the doors open, so naturally all 20 or so of us sprinted down the stairs and
barely made it—it was quite exciting and probably freaked out the local Parisians.
However, we got to the connecting train literally 2 minutes after 1:30 and
hence the need for cabs…
The rested up for Day 3!
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