SUMMARY- great weather, great food, amazing views, gorgeous buildings, tons of restaurants, the older metros make you feel like you're on a ride, huge city, feet are in pain, lots of liter, bums with cats, packed out metros, expensive, but well worth it.
-on friday our flight was delayed about an hour. czech airlines isn't so bad though. beats ryanair. sitting around airports gets boring. tried to sleep. peeled a lot of split ends which i haven't felt the need to do in a long while. time for a haircut i'd say. we got free sandwiches and wine on the flight. made up for the delay.
-we got into paris around 8pm and headed toward downtown to the place we were going to stay at. we met our couch host, eric. he greeted us at his big blue doors downtstairs and we proceeded to walk up to the 5th floor of winding narrow stairs(106 steps). so tiring. we talked with him for about an hour and then around 10:30 matt and i headed to a restaurant closeby called la marmite. eric recommended us the salads there. they were huge. we got a carafe of red wine and shared a big veggie salad filled with green beans, corn, tomatoes, and lettuce. on top of these french salads they put fried garlic potato slices. so filling and delicious. i am now craving it. but we just made a great looking salad that i am about to devour.
-anyhow, after dinner we headed up the hilly roads of montmartre to the sacre coeur. cute restaurants everywhere. lots of young people. it was packed out with people drinking. bottles everywhere. (guess that was something i couldn't stand about paris. people liter like crazy. very upsetting.) we sat there and enjoyed the nite views of paris. went back to the flat around 1am. sleep.
-on saturday we headed out... picked up some clementines, apples, and a chocolate croissant.
-first thing that we saw was the trinity church. so beautiful.
-stumbled upon the main galeries lafayette. there was some insane asian convention. the middle dome of this building/mall is just amazing.
-continued wandering. picked up ossau iraty cheese(YUM)fig confit, white wine, and saucisson(like salami) from monop. then we found a baguette from paul and headed to the tuilerie gardens. such a beautiful day. we sat in chairs(grass was just not easy to find in paris... you can't sit on the grounds in most gardens/parks) and ate our picnic lunch down to the crumbs.
-after relaxing we went into a super fancy cheese shop called fauchon. i touched some cheese and a man was like "i'm here to help you so don't touch anything." haha burn on me.
-saw the opera garnier.
-we went to the notre dame and the inside was beautiful.
-after this i took my friend paola's advice and found a famous glace(icecream) place called berthillon. matt got salted caramel and i got raspberry. we walked down to the riverside to enjoy it. was pretty amazing stuff.
-went to the lizard lounge bar for happy hour. i had a cocktail called lizard juice and matt had a cheap blonde. uh huh.
-for dinner we went to an indian restaurant called shenaz. it was quite a delicious feast.
-bought a bottle of champagne and got to the eiffel tower around 11:30. the light show was amazing. we took a bunch of photos of us jumping. so much fun and so romantic. :)
-got home around 1am. feet are swollen and in so much pain. no, i'm not preggo. i know it's cause i don't wear proper shoes. and by this point we walked for atleast 8 or 9 hours. sleep.
-on sunday we went to see the moulin rouge. it was only about a 5 minute walk from the flat.
-had some coffee and omelettes in front of it and people watched.
-pere lachaise cemetary HUGE. so many gravestones. hunted for edith piaf and oscar wilde. found them. perfect weather and surrounded by gorgeous trees everywhere.
-went to the marais jewish quarters.... for falafel! i asked eric where the best place to go and he said l'as du falafel to be exact. i am forever going to be thinking about this falafel. this street where it was was insane. packed with people waiting in lines and you just knew it was going to be good. and man. i can't even begin to explain... it was heavenly. they packed it with everything you'd want! cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, hot sauce, other sauce, like 8 small falafel balls. mmmmmm. wish we would have had more time to go another day but alas... ahh.
-after this we went on a long long long hunt for a caramel shop i had found during my research online. when we finally got to it... it was changed into a restaurant. i should've found out a bit more before we went to look for it. oopssss. but no regrets, we were content.
-matt wanted to go see the sorbonne university. saw that and then the pantheon.
-the luxembourg gardens were gorgeous. sooo many people. at this point we were literally needing a break. our feet were throbbing. we just put in a lot of work. a lot. it's ridiculous how big paris is and how much we saw... and wish we could've seen.
-we went on a boat tour on the seine river. soo nice. we got to see close up views of the eiffel tower and tons of beautiful bridges, the city hall, the islands and the smallest house in paris, etc.
-for dinner we went to the latin district and had mexican. a good amount of margaritas were had.
-on monday we realized that we didn't have enough crap to eat so we had 3 pastries. not each. to share. so whatever. they were so buttery and mmmm.
-sat at a little place for coffee waiting for the pompidou museum to open at 11. this museum was great. we walked around for about 2 hours and kinda rushed through the last bits of the permanent collection cause we were achey and we only had a little time left before we had to go to the airport.
-saw a great lebanese place and grabbed some tabouli to go.
-we went back to the 9th district where we were staying, bought some red wine, baguette, gruyere(SO STINKY)and jam/confit and decided we wanted to see the sacre coeur in the daylight. laid out a picnic. kinda sketchy people. there were "deaf" people that were possible gypsies trying to get money from us and then as we said no they tried to steal our baguette. that's real. tons of people. went inside the gorgeous basilica.
-airport. flight was delayed an hour again.
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| i promise there is salad under there somewhere. |
RECAP- we are so happy. we had a great time. we saw a lot
in 2 1/2 days.
(click photos to see bigger)
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| the doors to eric's flat |
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| sacre couer at nite |
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| trinity church |
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| inside the galeries lafayette. |
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| happy girl with baguette |
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| at the tuileries |
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| parisians basking |
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| fauchon |
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| bum cats :( |
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| the louvre |
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| notre dame |
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| indian feast |
we're silly. and actually off the ground here. i swear.
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| more cat bums. |
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| pere lachaise cemetary |
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| oscar wilde |
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| edith piaf |
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| most delicious ever |
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| luxembourg gardens |
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| boat tour |
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| <3 |
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| pompidou |
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| sacre coeur |
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| tonite's dinner :) (a dressing i made with some mustard i bought in france.) |
