Les Cauchemars à Paris

... I will explain the title later.


Ce week-end dernier, Ally, Ashley, Morrisa, et moi sommes allés à Paris! C'est la première fois que j'ai pratiqué mon langue française. Il était un peu difficile, mais je me suis souvenu plus que je pensais.

Ok, so I must admit, I did cheat a bit and use a translator for parts of that because I have forgotten my verb conjugations. BUT if it was 3 years ago, I could have totes done that. Plus, I can still understand it :)

So we began our journey by taking the Eurostar aka the really fast train that goes through the Chunnel. It's really convenient because St. Pancras International is 3 blocks away where we live so there is no need to spend extra money for trains to the airports... thank god. Since we left fairly late, once we arrived, we quickly got on the metro and went to check in at our hostel. On the way, we got to have a few laughs at Ashley trying to speak French first. Womp.

Compare the size to the people on the right...

We started our first official day with baguettes and nutella for breakfast, aka the beginning to our carb feasting, and trying to figure out weird european showers (they shut off every 20 seconds forcing me to press a button over and over and over again), we were off to la Musée du Louvre where I got to have fun with glass pyramids, chill with the Mona Lisa (that is surprisingly tiny), and look at MASSIVE paintings. We then walked around to find another carb filled meal (pretty much all sandwiches are made with baguettes, and served with a side of baguettes) and went off to Notre Dame! Sadly, the clock tower was closed so I couldn't pretend to be a Disney character, but it was still gorgeous! Like I mentioned in my last post about Dublin, I loved the stained glass windows in St. Patricks Cathedral. The same goes for here as well. And then of course, we HAD HAD HAD to make our way to La Tour Eiffel! We hoped to see the sunset from the top but a. we could not go all the way to the top because of frost b. there was a line and c. it was so cold, I don't think I would have lasted. But even halfway up, the views were amazing! You could see every inch of Paris, even at dusk.

Louvre!

Notre Dame

Ally, Morrisa, Myself, and Ashley in front of La Tour Eiffel!

GORGEOUS VIEW!

Day 1: done. Now for day 2. We started off our morning at Musée d'Orsay where I got to see tons of the impressionist artists that I had learned about in high school including Renoir, Monet, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh, and the list goes on and on. I also find impressionism more interesting than the others with the vivid colors and you can get a different perspective depending on how you look at them. After that was time for SHOPPING on Les Champs-Élysées aka window shopping. I must say, to my parents disbelief, I have been very good at saving money and really only spending it on the necessities and travel. We walked down the avenue all the way to L'Arc de Triomphe to get our typical snapshots and then turned around, for some oh so delicious Ladurée. I was adventurous and tried all completely different flavors including Orange Creme, Rose Petal, Lemon, Coffee, Blackcurrant, Chocolate, Vanilla, and Raspberry. As lame as it sounds, Vanilla was my favorite, probably because the flavor was very rich which I liked. Sad to say, they were all gone within a few hours.

L'Arc de Triomphe

Omnomnomnomnom...

Ok so here is where we get to the title, Les Cauchemars à Paris... Nightmares in Paris. We went to Les Grands Boulevards expecting to have a good night out. For starters, as many people have heard, Parisians are rude (the custom officers were really rude when we left Paris too). At the first bar we went to, they wouldn't let us in because we were American, even though 2 of our other friends also got in. We eventually gave up and moved on. At around 1:00, we find out that the metro closed (we thought it was open until 2:30 since Friday is usually considered the weekend). By the point we were ready to go home, it was IMPOSSIBLE to catch a cab. People were up and down the street trying and every one is "occupied". It was below freezing and windy so we were not lasting long. Ashley and I kept running into phone booths to warm up...ish. Eventually, we gave up and decided to go back inside the now dying bar. At this point, we planned on staying there until the metro opened. We sat there falling asleep until the bar closed at 5. We are all exhausted and frozen. The metro does not open until 5:30. We could barely last a minute and nothing nearby was open so we were in a panic to find warmth. Eventually, we manage to walk into a hotel across the street and chilled in the hallway for a half hour until we could finally get the metro back to our hostel. We get back and the cherry on top of our horrible night? Someone is sleeping in my bed, so once we got that fixed it was about 6:30 and the sun was starting to appear. If any of you saw my "Worst. Night. Ever." tweet, this is that long story.

Room of PINK!!!

3 hours later, we wake up to check out. ugh. Thankfully with caffeine, we managed to pull through. I guess being a college student helps you with that. We went to a boulangerie/patisserie down the street where we had... MORE CARBS!!! and coffee. We headed off to Versailles which was absolutely... WOW! No wonder why everyone hated Louis XIV. If you want to be a hated ruler, spend all of your money on your palace by making huge gardens, a mural on the ceiling of every room, and multiple crystal chandeliers per room. Sadly, we could not go in the gardens because of the snow (it wouldn't have stopped us). 

Now all journeys have to come to an end, and we we kind've happy to be going back to London. It started on a high note, but unfortunately, did not end well. Hopefully, I will return again so Paris can redeem itself.

It looked like it was made of gold!

Hall of Mirrors

Selfies in the mirrors

Luck of the Irish!

Now that I have been settled in London for a number of weeks now, I finally had the chance to go on my first trip! For 3 days my roommate Morrisa and I traveled to Dublin, Ireland, the land of potatoes, rugby and NOT leprechauns (I'll explain later).

Our first day was fairly uneventful since we had a later flight, but I did get to try Persian food! I know I should be trying actual Irish food, but when it's 9:00 pm and you want food, pubs are only selling booze (aka Guinness) and a pint was not going to satisfy our appetite. Morrisa also learned that when you pick the right hostel, they are not scary (It was her first time staying in one). The one we stayed at was only build this past summer and for €11, you can't beat that.

Me and my Type A personality, I had to plan out everything. After getting ready in the morning, I sat on the floor off our room, laid out our map, and circled everything we wanted to visit. From there, we sorted out which places we would visit each day so we could just walk. However, Dublin is so small, we actually did walk everywhere which was great for everything but my feet.

Officially Certified Jameson Taste Testers

After spending an hour circling my map, we were finally off to our first destination. We started at the National Museum of Ireland of Decorative Arts and History. My favorite exhibit was the different eras of furniture. We also went to the museum cafe for lunch where I had a garlic potato cake. I couldn't leave Ireland without having some kind of potato. Next was the Jameson Distillery. Being that I am technically still underage in the United States, I am not the most knowledgable when it comes to my alcohol except for Natty Light, Jungle Juice, and Andre. We went through the process if how the whisky is made and how Jameson differentiates from other brands. At the end, Morrisa and I were selected to be official taste testers and compare Jameson with Jack Daniels and Scotch. By far Jameson was both of our favorites. After the taste tests, we received our "diplomas" for whisky school!

Fun Sized!

Our next endeavors were to the National Leprechaun Museum. Since we came straight from Jameson after our taste test and our free drink on top of that, we were definitely a bit giggly and talking about mystical creatures was no help. The museum starts with everyone becoming the size of a leprechaun for the adventure and walking into a room with giant furniture. Our entire tour was women so the tour guide continued to make fun of us. We then walked trough the rainbow to the pot of gold when we learned that leprechauns are not from Ireland, but an island in the Irish Sea near the Isle of Man. According to our tour guide, the original stories were all lies.

The view from the Gravity Bar inside
Guinness Storehouse

On Friday, we started our day at the Guinness Storehouse where I had my education on brewing beer. At the top floor of the Storehouse is the Gravity Bar with gorgeous views of Dublin and everyone receives a free pint. While we were up there we managed to find other Bucknellians who were also in Dublin. Apparently, the Bucknell Bubble cannot even burst in Europe. Compared to what I am used to, Guinness was much heavier and I tried, but I could not finish my pint, so we gave the rest to two other guys from Bucknell who most likely downed it.

After Guinness we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Inside was GORGEOUS and there is so much history. I was by far the most in love with the stain glass windows and their intricate designs. My mother loves this, but there was a gift shop in the back of the church and what did I buy? The best leprechaun shot glasses ever. Sad to say most other shoppers were looking at them as well. Why they were sold within a church is beyond me. We then ended our touring at Dublin Castle which had oh so fantastic pink, green, and navy rooms, my favorite :)

Pretty St. Patrick!

They look so much better in person

Inside a Dublin Castle guard booth

We finished dinner in Temple Bar at a Mexican/Italian restaurant. Weirdest combination ever, but it was still good. We then went to a pub and  somewhat began to understand rugby. The six nations game of Ireland vs. Wales was on so there were many Irish, as well as Welsh fans around us who tried to explain the game to us. They then proceeded to say american football is not real and one guy in particular kept telling us the Patriots were going to win the Super Bowl. Clearly that was a bunch of lies.

Birds "walking on water". Can you find the hidden heart?

Our final day in Dublin was sadly a rainy one, but that did not ruin our fun. We started off by walking to St. Stephen's Green. I have not seen so many birds before. One elderly woman kept feeding them whole pieces of bread (and they flew holding entire slices) so they were going nuts. I kept wanting to sing like Julie Andrews "Feed the Birds", but then I realized I was not in London this time. After our stroll and bird photo shoot, we went to the Irish National Gallery and then the Book of Kells at Trinity College. It was interesting to see how the books were written and the shelves of books that still remain.

Like all adventures, they have to come to an end and this one had to end on the Luton runway in the snow. Considering every plane was delayed, I have no clue how we landed, but only Ryanair I guess will take that feat when your ticket is £13.

Oh yeah, and I can't forget about by new St. Patrick's Cathedral souvenirs!

My Lucky Irish Leprechauns!