so, are you ready for this? paris was quite interesting, and by interesting, i mean a train wreck. i will start from the beginning, friday morning.
we woke up at 6am because we thought our flight was at 11am out of pisa. we were in florence, so we caught the 723am train to pisa. once in pisa, we were waiting for the shuttle when courtney reached in to her bag and felt something sticky. she pulled out her hand to find that nutella had exploded all over her purse. guess what was in her purse.... her expensive canon camera. holy crap.... maybe that should have been a sign that we should stay in italy......
this is real
we were all trying to clean the camera with wet tissues when the shuttle pulled up, so we hopped on, nutella covered. we arrived around 9am at the airport and immediately couldn't find our flight on the screens. hmm... that's weird, right? so we sat down at a small cafe in the airport to figure out what was going on. that's when kelly pulled out her confirmation email to discover that she actually booked the 14:25 flight. i then got on my email and checked my confirmation - 14:25.... us being the fidiots we are actually were booked on the 2:25pm flight, not the 11am.... another sign?
so here we were, around 5 hours early for our flight. so we decided to just sit at this cafe and eat breakfast/lunch (because we were there long enough to cover both meals). courtney continued cleaning her camera with a bobby pin. she thought it would be more effective to pull the covering off of the end, so she started biting it. that's when she chipped her tooth. yuupp... there's a small chip in the bottom of her front tooth now. so after that we killed time by charging some random american guy's ipod, helped some other american girls search for trains online when they missed their flight to barcelona, and mapped out our summer and fall class schedules. finally it was about 2 hours from take off and we were able to start checking in.
we got in line to check in for our flight and of course courtney goes first........ she had revealed to us while sitting at the cafe that she hadn't actually gotten a confirmation email from the airline.... maybe we should have checked in to this more while we were sitting there doing nothing? but we didn't. so when she went to check in there was no reservation in her name. panic set in at this point. while courtney went to the ticket counter to figure out her problem, me and cydney were packing and repacking our suitcase (we were gone from ariccia for a week and decided to pack together to save cost on checking bags... which is 22 euro a bag... if it's under 20 kilos) three times until we were finally holding 3 coats each, our computers, our toiletries, and our carry-ons were overflowing. once we finally made it down to 20.6 kilos, the lady checked us in.
from there cydney and i walked over to the ticket counter to check the status of courtney's situation. which had gotten worse, believe it or not. she had actually booked the 11am flight for saturday, not friday, and it was going to cost her 220 euro (approx. $300) to change her flight. so courtney's crying, we're all sweating from heaving luggage and repacking, we're carrying outrageous amounts of crap, and we didn't know what to do. we started to try to figure out a plan b for courtney because at this point we were all checked in but her. trains were our first thought, but that was quickly shot down since the train to paris is 14 hours long. finally, with less than an hour until takeoff, courtney's mom called her and told her to go buy the ticket!
it was a mad rush. we grabbed courtney's stuff while she sprinted to the ticket counter, bought her ticket, checked in, sprinted to security, and ran to the gate. out. of. control. needless to say, we all made it safely to paris. courtney a little poorer, but we still made it.
you think that's bad? we land in paris all excited! we go get our metro passes, shovel out 30 euro, to find out that mine doesn't work! nope, the entire weekend i crawled under the gates. my pass did not ever work once. hmmm... glad i wasted that money.
we made it to our hostel, oops! paris. WARNING: DO NOT EVER STAY AT THIS HOSTEL!! they screw you over. we checked in and heather had booked a 6 bed room. there was 5 of us, so we paid extra so that we wouldn't have someone we don't know staying with us. they told us at check in that there was an electrical problem in our room, so they had to move us to two 4 bed rooms. that was fine, we said, as long as no one else was staying in our rooms. they promised us that it was just us in those rooms that night and no one would be staying with us. so we foolishly agreed and said we would move to our room saturday night. we left for the louvre after this.
beautiful
me in front of the louvre
i love the louvre, it's beautiful, it's just the biggest museum in the world. i think it would take me an entire week to actually see everything. i don't think we even saw 1/4 of it, but i still really liked it, especially since it's free friday nights after 6pm! we saw the mona lisa, which im sure all of you already know it's microscopic. i still don't understand why we had to stand 5ft away from this tiny painting that's preserved behind glass? it's not like i could breathe on the glass and the painting would be ruined... ? oh well, it's still pretty cool. i love da vinci's work, so i was excited to finally see a big chunk of it in the louvre.
aaarrrrtttt
every room is like this... headache
heather for scale
mona lisa
admiring the painting
louis the xiv's crown and sword
i did love this room with all of louis xiv's stuff
the jewelry boxes in here were incredible
boooooty
there's a lot of egyptian artwork/things in the louvre
my favorite part of the museum was probably napoleon's apartments. they were bbbaaaaddddaaassssss. i love insanely ornate/historical interiors. it's so fascinating that people actually lived in these rooms. i wouldn't want to touch anything in fear that i'd ruin it....
an entertaining room in napoleon's apartments
napoleon's dining room
faaancy
napoleon's chair
(or norton? norton's rule!!)
on the way out we ran in to starbucks. first starbucks i have seen since america. i thought it was a mirage.....
aaahhhhhhhhhhh
my starbucks paris mug!!
the man laughed at me when i told him this was all i wanted
dinner friday night we went to a sushi place that courtney found on sushi finder. it was delicious. might be better than fuji :)
best/biggest california roll i've ever had
we finished dinner probably around 11pm and were exhausted. it was time to crash. cydney, kelly, and i were staying in one room, while heather and courtney were in the other. at around 230am, when we were dead asleep, our door was opened and some girl turned on the light and started speaking spanish. of course we all think this was a dream at first, but quickly realize this was reality. she took a pillow, said some things in spanish, and left. whaaaat? i was pissed. so kelly and i stormed down to the reception to raise hell. there was zero communication between the guy that checked us in and the guy working the night shift. so he put some spanish girls in our room without letting us know. he was very easy to talk to and was more than apologetic, but couldn't do anything because it was the middle of the night. so we decided we would talk to whoever was working in the morning. we went back upstairs, locked the door, and fell back asleep undisturbed.
kelly dealt with the lady working reception in the morning who turned out to be a total witch. we paid them for a room to be alone and they messed up. but apparently to her we had thrown off all of the bookings and this was our fault. i don't understand how we did anything wrong? but she refused to give us our money back and said she would try calling her manager (lie). so kelly went over and grabbed some breakfast because she was frustrated. after finishing her tea, she decided she didn't really want her croissants and put her dirty trash on top of the plate. she handed the guy working there her plate and he seriously took the trash off of the plate and reserved the croissants. disgusting. im so glad i skipped breakfast. and on top of that nastiness, they store their food and "clean" towels in the luggage room with guests dirty luggage! uhhh huh.
we decide this wasn't going to ruin our day, so we left for versailles. versailles is like 45 min outside of paris and definitely worth the trip! it was/is amazing. i definitely loved the part in the introduction of the audio tour where the president of versailles gives a shout out to america! he said the only way that the versailles museum and restoration happened was because of the americans. thank you rockefeller family. making the world go round. we stopped at starbucks before we went in, duh.
starbucks again! guess which one's mine
us in front of the versailles gates
feathers!
the hall of mirrors
totally worth the trip out there just for this room
gold.gold.gold.
after we saw all of the interior of the beautiful versailles, we decided we definitely wanted to go see the petit trianon, home to marie antionette. we had to hang over an extra 6,50 euro to ride the bus out there because it was a 40 min walk with like 50mph winds. no way were we walking! the petit trianon was a tad of a let down to me. i liked seeing where marie antionette lived because i think she's very interesting, but the exterior was under construction so it was covered in scaffolding, and the interior was pretty empty. there were only a couple interesting rooms. but they were still worth it.
a game room inside of the petit trianon
my favorite room in the petit trianon
i love the blue and white! this room is worth seeing
we took the long train back to paris to move our luggage in to our new room. we thought maybe we would have better luck with the man working in the afternoon? we were wrong. he told us that when you book their hostel you are booking beds, not bedrooms, so they can put you wherever they want. this is a lie, no hostel works like this, they were just trying to cover up their asses. while we were standing at the counter, a german man was standing next to us and told us that they did the same thing to him. great. so we had been begging to speak to the manager, but she refused to help us. the man literally called her right in front of us and she still wouldn't talk to us or refund our money. apparently this is the most irresponsible hostel in the world, and the manager won't even give her customers the respect to just talk to them. unbelievable. so we gave up and we were even threatening to call the police... they didn't care.... because they were essentially breaking the law because they were double booking beds and making more money than they should. what goes around, comes around, right?
so after we surrendered our position at the hostel, we piled on more layers and headed out for some more sightseeing. we first went to moulin rouge and montmartre, which is an up-and-coming art district of paris. this was really really fun. i enjoyed this whole area, but im sad that we missed the sacre croeur, which is a church that is at the top of the hill and overlooks all of paris. next time!
moulin rouge!
once we saw what we wanted, we jumped on the metro (still sliding under the doors...) to the arc de triomphe and champs-elysees, which is the giant road with all of the good shopping. i found some marc jacobs sunglasses that i am now coveting, but practiced my self control and did not buy them (i can't afford them after all of the crap i've bought for other people...). dinner was yum, i had grilled chicken and creamy risotto. then we got back on the metro to see the eiffel tower for the first time. cydney spoiled it a little bit for me because i didn't know that the eiffel tower actually sparkles at night, but it was still amazing (sorry if you didn't know!). that thing is huge. we were on the last elevator to the tip top, enduring those now prob 60mph winds in the freezing cold weather. definitely worth it though!
arc de triomphe
sparkles!
view from the top of the eiffel tower
beware
p.rez enjoying some metro music
we craaashed after the eiffel tower. still dirty, going without showers because oops! charges you 3 euro for towels (not that they're clean anyways...).
sunday was supposed to be a new, better day! we arose at around 7am to make it out of our hostel around 8am. we were not going to hang out in that hell hole any longer than we had to. we put up our luggage (with the croissants....), and left for the metro to notre dame! i love love this church. it doesn't beat italian churches, but outside of italy, it's definitely awesome. luckily we got there while mass was still going on. we walked in during the homily, so for a good 10 minutes i couldn't understand anything, but once the priest finished i knew what they were saying. i don't understand french, but it was really funny to know exactly what they were saying. i would have stayed longer, but the group wanted some breakfast in our empty stomachs (definitely weren't going to eat the hostel's free breakfast....). and the tower was closed, which was disappointing, but when i return one day i will go up the tower!
notre dame
front doors
interior of notre dame
a wooden model of the notre dame. i wouldn't want to make this
notre dame has the prettiest windows
metro
breakfast was awesome (expensive) at this restaurant where i guess picasso and many other famous people have eaten (and lauren norton). whatever, i don't care where i am, i still don't think that a 6,70 euro cappuccino is acceptable. i went with espresso and a keesh.
keeeeeeeeeesh
once our bellies were full, we wanted to see the pompidou because it is kelly wearstler's (famous interior designer for those who don't know, google her) favorite museum in paris. holy crap. thank god it was free because it was out of control. i have also learned during my 6 week stint in europe that americans are very conservative. i have never seen so many naked women in my life. i don't understand how some of the things in this museum are considered art? self mutilation? pornography? hmm... that's not art, it's just crazy. but what do i know? i just posted some of the things i enjoyed inside of the museum. i have to say they had some good modern furniture.
elevator in the museum
they look like the witches!
this one's for evan
i liked the colors
sweet booth
these are really cool. wouldn't mind owning these as my dining room chairs
i like these chairs. they remind me of the ghost chair
last stop in paris was the eiffel tower during the day. still awesome.
all of us in front of the eiffel tower
this was a really cool building. i think it's important, but i didn't bother crossing the street to read the historical sign
we were starving at this point. so we wandered a little farther from the eiffel tower so we wouldn't eat at some tourist trap. we found a really good restaurant and were done in 30 min. we had actually alloted 3 hours to get back to our hostel, get our bags, and leave for the airport. plenty of time, right? negative. we were a little farther from our usual stop at the eiffel tower, so we asked our server to point us in the direction of the closest metro stop. it took us over an hour to find this thing. in the freezing cold. and what is the first stop on this line? the metro stop we usually take by the eiffel tower. great, so if we had just booked it to this one we always used, we would have saved 45 minutes, easy. well, panic started to set it (you think we'd be used to it by now). i mean, we should have been filmed for a reality tv show, that's how insane the next hour of our lives was.
the cute restaurant we ate lunch at
we finally got back to our metro stop and sprinted for the hostel. im not kidding. we were in the luggage room, throwing bags out to each other, grabbing whatever we could see or find, and booking it back to the metro. i had mine and cydney's carry ons, while cydney was dragging our suitcase, and kelly, courtney, and heather were doing the same. now, this is where it got tricky because mine and cydney's metro passes still didn't work. we were chucking luggage over the gates, sliding bags underneath, crawling on the ground, like a bunch of circus animals. we threw our bags down the stairs to the platform and were just glad to be getting on the metro. we just might have made it in time. so we hopped on, little did we know, we were going the wrong way! so we had to back track 2 more stops. this was serious panic time now that we had wasted like 10 minutes.
it was a marathon of stairs and 50lb luggage, running people over left and right, with 2 more times me and cydney had to wiggle underneath the metro entrances. we literally got off of the shuttle at the airport at 520pm, when our flight was leaving at 6pm. normally in italy we had experienced this weird thing where you go to the gate and 15 min before your flight you started boarding all at once and got on a bus that took you to your plane. so we thought we were screwed. we sprinted to the check in where we found a line for easyjet out the door. cydney ran over to some easyjet man and told him we needed to get to rome! so he let us cut the entire line! courtney and heather threw their luggage on the scale first, then me and cydney. we were waiting to pay for our bags when the screens are saying our flight was boarding. we were freaking out. the woman was literally counting out the money as slow as she could. heather and courtney's bag was 4 kilos over, which in europe that is 18 euro per kilo, so their bag ended up costing them over 70 euro!
once easyjet finally handed over cydney and courtney's tickets, we took off for security, taking out anything and everything in our way. of course heather, cydney, and i get stopped in security by these women who totally unpack our entire carry on to find that we had like a tiny bottles of lotion in there. really? luckily we all made it just in time to beat a group of 50 preteen french boys. i seriously thought it couldn't get any worse when we almost missed our plane, but it definitely could. when you have a bunch of 12 year old boys cracked out on sugar screaming and pushing you, that's worse! but in the end we made it back to rome where patricia picked us up at the airport and drove us back to the palace.
god i love italy. i couldn't be more thankful for my friendly, hospitable, generous italians. hearing italian again was amazing. i will say that overall paris was beyond great (seriously minus the hostel and transportation) and totally worth everything! i love the feeling that paris gives off, the culture, the romance, and all of the sights! i want to return some day when i can afford to stay in a real hotel and ride in taxis! then it'll be all good.
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