Paris: Days 6 & 7

Versailles. We had planned on waking up and getting to Versailles as early as possible. After our exhaustive Friday, waking up early proved to be impossible, so we took our sweet time pressing snooze.

Also, I had decided that I was in desperate need of an egg for breakfast (enough bread/pastry, I want to eat again in 10 minutes) with preferably some sort of bacon or sausage, so I made the call to hit up the neighborhood McDonald's again. You would do it too if a little quiche wasn't at your disposal and you were lacking protein. Trust me.

So off we went to Versailles:

(This was taken primarily for future reference -- I like the basket weave pattern of the boards)

Versailles ate up the majority of Saturday, and after attempting to walk a good portion of the grounds well after the actual palace had closed, we returned to Catherine's after 9:00 to find another note giving us the house to ourselves. We ate about 8 pieces of toast each (dinner) and went to bed -- uneventful but pleasant day.

In the morning, Amy and I did a test run of our trip to the train station to buy tickets to Avignon. With the EuRail pass, only certain trains are eligible in France for us so we weren't sure what time we would actually be leaving France. Turns out, the only option for us was at 7:30 in the evening, so the bright side is that we had the afternoon in Paris to bum around. Having not planned on the extra time, however, we made it as far as the Tuilerie Gardens where we ate some lunch and Amy did some sketching. The weather had just started to turn on us over the weekend so walking around and sitting was not as pleasant as it had been.

Regardless, we passed the time and eventually returned to Catherine's for our things and hit the road -- leaving Paris after a wonderful week for Provence.

Paris: Day 5

Jam packed exploring day -- get ready to be exhausted from the rundown, because we were.

The morning (well, let's say 11:00, because generally we don't get moving very quickly, but thankfully, neither does Europe):

• Metro to Sacre Coeur - We use our best "don't eff with us" faces to ward off the swindlers & pickpockets at the gates of Sacre Coeur; the cathedral is beautiful, more for the view and because of the white Gypsum that it's made from than the actual interior
• Montmartre - Awesome district of Paris that has roots as bohemian and artsy -- this is where the starving artists lived after the turn of the century because no one could afford the heart of Paris -- a really lovely neighborhood resulted; Think it's where I'll stay next time, as it's got cafe after cafe and great shops at reasonable prices
  
• Moulin Rouge - Crap hole, but you figure "well, while I'm here, I should at least walk by..."
• Lunch - Small outdoor cafe that was probably chosen more for the crepe stand rather than the sandwiches; Banana and Nutella crepes are introduced to us
  
• Bus to Luxembourg Gardens (by way of Louvre (super long walk) and another long walk in search of a boat thinking that maybe now is the time to go down the Seine)
• Luxembourg Gardens are amazing, even more amazing is the number of people in it; Paris, like Seattle, potentially consists of people that flee their offices at the first glimpse of sun in spring as the grounds are crawling with people (non-tourists) -- reading books, playing chess, bocci ball, kids having toy sailboat races, etc.
  
• Plan to go down river is hijacked by my desire to go to Flamant on the left bank (endless buses and walking/getting lost necessary to find the store that doesn't exist on maps, phone calls to my sister for directions ensue, as well as a Google map from a hotel concierge)
• Explored Saint Germain-des-Pres as a result of (being lost) looking for Flamant
• Finally find it! Amy gets hit on by two shopboys (real phone numbers and everything) and we're invited to go dancing; I'm told I am "beautiful, like their paints" and other people in the store laugh at the stupid American girl who is trying to ask what kind of base they use - "Resin? Acrylic? Clay?" Things get massively twisted around in translation, conversation is a lost cause
• Flamant bonus: Laduree is nearby, so I buy the famous macaroons for us under the guise that it's a thank you to Amy for aimlessly wandering Paris due to home store fetish (really just wanted to stuff face with cookies...)
  

Evening:

• Louve - Bus back to central downtown area and hit the Louvre after the Friday evening admission discount is in play; Power through the exhibits even though we're starting to feel the effects of the day; Highlight is not the Mona Lisa, but rather taking pervy pictures in a deserted wing of the Roman statue hall, wild schoolgirl giggling ensues
  
• Close down the Louvre and catch metro to the Eiffel Tower area so we can get on a boat for the river tour
• Disclaimer: Thought long and hard about this, but after being told to do it by several Parisians, we opted to follow-through -- especially thought it was a good way to see Paris at night since we were not staying in the thick of the city
• Consensus: Nice way to see the city at night, but wouldn't make the same recommendation to anyone else, some Asian guy did take Amy's picture though, potentially thought she was part of the tour, as people think she looks like Britney Spears
  

12:30 AM:

• Exhausted and whiny, we catch three different metro trains to make it back to the 'burbs; oddly, Catherine has left us a note saying she's not sure whether she'll be home for the night (shacking?) so we have the apartment to ourselves, not that we needed it, we both fell asleep immediately.

Big day. Did the tourist in us proud.

Sacre Coeur

Lunch in Montmartre

Luxembourg Gardens

Toy sailboat races that could warm even the blackest of hearts

Mecca

Get a load of that sky, Micheal. Eat your heart out.

Really encourage you click and enlarge

Ditto

From the boat

Paris: Day 4

It's easiest to just break up our time in Paris by the places we stayed: Mother-in-law's, Parisian friend's and Couchsurfer's (hereafter known by her given name of "Catherine").

Before going on this trip, I got so many warnings from people telling me to be safe and not do anything stupid, and I think that we've done a pretty good job following those instructions, but for the first time, I could hear a few voices (Lisa, Stacie) saying "What?! You're couchsurfing? What the hell are you doing?!" But that's where Amy and I ended up -- sorry guys.

Fueled by the lack of desire to pay for a hostel/hotel in Paris, we turned to couchsurfers.com for a place to stay. On Wednesday morning, it was worth putting out a few emails to people with good references. To our credit, we only looked for female couches and tried to use people who had been verified. By Wednesday afternoon, we had the go ahead to stay at Catherine's, a woman of about 28, living in the suburb of Marie des Lilas, about 20 minutes outside the center of the city on the number 11 metro line.

Deal. On Thursday, we showed up with suitcases and sleep sacks in hand.

Having squared away our sleeping accommodations, Amy and I spent the day being lazy. Amy had been been struck with a killer migraine, so we made it as far as the mother-in-law's to pick up her camera (shipped to Paris from wonderful Chapman parents) and then took the metro to the park where she slept it off and I read.

Amy has gotten migraines for as long as I can remember, but within the last two years, it's with crazy frequency. No one knows why, it's just a fact -- neurologists are puzzled. But aside from them being extremely debilitating for her, they give me an excuse to feed my inner couch potato.Because for as much as I like being all active and stuff on this trip, it really cuts into my sitting around time. So with the headaches always on the horizon, I can keep a frenzied pace for a few days, and then eventually, I get to sit on a bench for a few hours and rest up. It's a cruel line of thought, but I offer to get water or hard candies to combat the nausea, cool compresses and such.

Eventually, we returned to the suburbs and trolled for dinner. After walking around looking for places to eat, we were faced with a difficult decision. No places in Marie des Lilas seemed to be serving meals, or if they were, they were way outside of our price range. So. Left with little else, we rationalized a trip to McDonald's. With such a small budget and a desire for a hot meal after so many sandwiches and baguettes, it tasted like heaven. Sometimes you jut can't fight it, even when you're in Paris (well, alright, a suburb of Paris).

We ended the day with grand plans for Friday -- a killer schedule, but sure to be a good one.

Paris: Day 3

Arriving at LauriAnne's was a total 180. In a wonderful way.

Upon meeting her and her boyfriend, it was friends at first sight. Much small talk and getting to know you's later, here's what we established:

LauriAnne: High school Spanish Teacher; late 20's; eager cat named Lolita; teeny, tiny apartment; stereotypically French accent and cigarettes; says "mah-mao" when passing by attractive men

Boyfriend (aka "Steven"): Australian, but living in Paris for almost 10 years; early 30's; recent architecture grad currently freelancing and enjoying his sports; translator for LauriAnne when she's feeling overwhelmed by English

After Amy and I did our parts by explaining ourselves (we could almost say each other's lines to the tee), Steven and LauriAnne made dinner reservations for the 4 of us at a little restaurant that specializes in wine, but serves up food that should really be more expensive considering how good it is. People pretty much attend for the wine selection, but come back for the food -- a quintessentially French meal since they were disappointed that we had only eaten their version of a grilled cheese and some curry that Mary Madeleine had made for dinner.

So be proud of us, because we ate fois gras and sausage filled with I don't want to know, and fillet mignon of pork. And be even prouder of us, because we thought it was delicious. Afterwards, we went to another bar for dessert and espresso before calling it a night. It was truly a great night of being out on the town in Paris.

In the morning, Amy and I walked through the Marais neighbohood thinking maybe we would find some shoes to replace the ones that hurt our feet (my birkenstocks, her cole haan nike air flats, go figure it's the 'comfort' shoes that got us...) but no dice. We did end up on the fringes of the city again though so it meant more people watching and eating.

Basically, every conversation we have in France consists of something along the lines of:

"Mmmm, look at that tart/pastry/crepe." (Emphasis on the "mmmm," imagine a very deep guttural noise that no one would recognize as having come from us... very attractive).

or

"You know what sounds good? Crepes. Nutella crepes. How soon until we can get one?" (And then the other tries to come up with a time table that rationalizes the purchase, but also doesn't seem unjust or cruel).

We spend most of our time rationalizing our eating habits. It can be anything from eating our weight in pastries but then saying "Well we didn't have a real breakfast..." or for me, finishing all of Amy's food and then defensively telling myself "Well, I'm bigger than she is" in my head.

I don't know whether it's just that I'm not used to being so active or what, but I'm constantly hungry. It also probably has something to do with a lack of will power, but I'm burning through food like mad. In search of protein that we could afford, we cracked and ate at McDonald's one night because carbs are not cutting it for us, and most meals with real protein are out of our price range unless we starve ourselves for the entire day to save the money for it. All anyone eats here are carbs and then the rich people get the protein. It's no surprise the people revolted against the upper class, they were probably crazy from a lack of meat or poverty stricken after having eaten it.

But, we have lucked out out and found ourselves with hosts who have offered to cook, so Wednesday night LauriAnne opened a bottle of wine and cooked pasta (more carbs, but delicious ones). This expensive city actually ended up being rather affordable for us in some ways. It has helped having a free place to stay since there was so much we wanted to do in Paris. Potentially, we would have had to say no to more things had we not been fortunate enough to stay with new friends who not only offered a bed, but toast and coffee too.

Wednesday night was our last at LauriAnne's. We were both sad to leave her apartment, but also relieved to let her living room return to normal and not feel as though we were imposing.

So couchsurfers.com, here we come. Yes, couchsurfing. I said it.

Paris: Days 1 & 2

Arriving in Paris was like waking up on the right side of the bed. After Spain, for everything good that it did have, being in France was the change we needed and had been counting on.

We had been scheduled to spend the week at a friend of Amy's neighbor's, but with our crappy phones and a gap in the internet universe, no emails or phone calls had reached her and she had scheduled a trip to Rome that overlapped with our arrival. Amy's neighbor (with her French hospitality) offered up her mother-in-law and simply told us, "she'll meet your train and either take you to her house or Laurianne's (the friend)." With just that bit of information, we arrived by train in the morning and almost immediatly spied an older woman with a sign that read "Emy Chapman. " I could have cried with relief. So much of me was desperate for things to work out in Paris. I really did not want this city to be less than perfect for us because of all that it has to offer and with the amount that I had been looking forward to it, seeing something go right for us was almost overwhelming.

Mary Madeleine, the mother-in-law, quickly gave us the double kiss on the cheeks and ushered us to the tube to go back to her house. We would be staying there for the night until we could move to LauriAnne's. I'm glad they had all talked, because at this point, we still had made no contact with her. After a crowded, Monday morning tube ride with our packs, we had coffee and toast at Mary Madeleine's and then set out for a whirlwind tour of Paris, led by a 60-plus-year-old woman.

First, we took the tube to a stop right outside the Champs-Élysées, with the Arc de Triomphe visible on the other end. We were there just for the view I think, because we essentially got on another bus to go straight to the Eiffel Tower.

For as many Parisians as there are that hate it, Amy and I loved it enough to make up difference. I remember seeing it as a kid with my parents, but I think the view hits you differently as an adult because it is so quintessentially "Paris." For us, the moment we realized we were within sight of it made our trip here real. For as much money as we have had to save and as much as we have left at home and as much as we miss everyone, being so close to something that some people only see in postcards really hit us and made us realize how lucky we were to be here.

After the Eiffel Tower, Mary Madeline walked us up to Rue de Passy, what turns out to be a rather well-to-do area of town (no wonder I liked the shops) for window shopping and lunch. We stopped at an outdoor table for a bite to eat and an espresso -- after so many tapas in Spain, a croque madame was amazing.

After lunch, the downtown area of Paris: The Opera, Sarkozy's formal residence ( just a walk by the outside), Palais Royal, and the stretches of streets with all the stores that no one normal can afford. We did spring for some English books, however, since we had finished the few that we brought with us and we're dying for more.

Exhausted, we returned to Mary Madeleine's, where she cooked us dinner and gave us a place to stay. It's a little odd feeling homeless and completely at the mercy of someone else, but we were truly lucky to have been given a bed and the offer to stay longer if need be. We also got in touch with LauriAnne and got the go ahead for lodging until Thursday, when she needed to go out of town again. Not the best news, since the plan had been for a Sunday departure, but we've learned to roll with things, so we decided to cross that bridge later in the week.

Tuesday morning: More coffee and toast and spoiling by the mother-in-law and a run down of her agenda -- Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter. We set off for the Isle de la Cite and toured the cathedral. It truly is remarkable. For as embellished and beuatiful as the outside is, it's actually one of the more tastefully done interiors as far as cathedrals go. For that reason, it falls just behind La Segrada Familia on my list of favorite churches.

After lunch in the Latin Quarter outside an entrance to La Sorbonne (Paris' Oxford), we walked to the Pantheon for a quick look. Not feeling like it was worthy of the admission price, it's as close as we got. I think it's at that point that Mary Madeleine realized she was exhausted from playing tour guide. We offered to pack it in and return to her apartment with the plan of packing up for LauriAnne's. It had been two packed days, so frankly, Amy and I were in need of a rest too -- she had tired us out as well.

So on to LauriAnne's. We saw practically all of the major sights in two days, which isn't half bad in the long run, because it meant that we could bum around Paris for the next 5 with clean consciouses. We hadn't had to miss a thing, but could thankfully get back to our own pace and spend time reading (for me) and drawing (for Amy) without guilt, some of our favorite pass times on this trip, just being in parks or people watching. The sights are lovely, but it's not the stuff that has made this trip memorable for us so far.

Mary Madeleine

Notre Dame, exterior

Notre Dame, exterior

La Sorbonne

To my DDB team...

One last thing before I forget and go to sleep:

While at La Segrada Familia, we were crossing the street to leave and before I knew it, I was surrounded by a swarm of slow-moving people with canes, oxygens tanks and wheelchairs. Upon further inspection, they all had a certain badge on that indicated they were part of a very special group, clearly on a shore excursion to "the exotic landmark of Antoni Gaudi, La Segrada Familia..."

They were also being led by an equally old lady holding an ultra-embarrassing torch/stick apparatus with a white flag acting as a beacon of sorts so no one lost their way.

Do I even have to tell you how symbolic and appropriate the white flag was for myself and them?

No? I didn't think so.

Barcelona: Wrapping Up

We spent our last two days in Barcelona doing lots and lots of walking. Finally the weather was nice enough that we could spend the entire day outside without the threat of being caught in the rain. We spent our final days there either reading on the pier overlooking the harbor and sailboats or walking to nearby neighborhoods.

With the ever-changing line-up of roommates in our hostel, we got a few new faces to mix up our routine over the 4 (almost 5) days that we were there, but we happily welcomed a German girl who had decided to come down to Spain as a break from studying economics. She replaced the drunk Australian who during his stay, marked his trip with a youth hostel hook-up and a tattoo (that I'm sure sounded much more deep while he was drunk then when he explained the significance to us later in the day) and also managed to spill liquid soap all over our floor in the middle of the night -- slippery for days.

But our German girl, we found a little bit of a friend in her and spent some time getting to know her, which was great because she was relatively familiar with Barcelona and getting to share bits of her culture made things all the better.

On Sunday, Amy and I killed time before our evening train ride with a long walk to Barcelona's man-made beach, only to turn right around when the only place to sit were beach chairs for 5 euros. So back to the pier we went for reading and sleeping in the sun.

Spain gave me one last kick in the ass though when I woke up to a seagull dropping a giant crap on my arm. Of all the luck, it's not a huge arm, really kind of thin and puny! But the bird managed to miss the deck completely and only make it on me and like a true friend, Amy wiped it off of me. I couldn't look at it without wanting to puke. It was so foul. So green.

So with bird shit on my only unpacked t-shirt, I cleaned up as best as could and we finally headed for the train station. After nearly going to the wrong station on the wrong subway, we boarded a night train for the 12-hour train ride from Barcelona to Paris.

We were booked for a 4-person, all woman couchette and when we got to the room, we were shocked at just how small it was, especially when we saw the size of the suitcases our roommates had. Two girls from Argentina were supposed to bunk with us and when we couldn't fit everything (and us) in the couchette, I think Amy and I were a little nervous. Thankfully, they were traveling with another girl who was in a couchette on her own, so after getting the okay from the conductor, they moved in with her and Amy and I were left with a room all to ourselves. Perfect after 4 nights in that hostel. Maybe it's all my time spent on sailboats with rocking waves, but the train and some cold medicine put me to sleep in no time. Amy on the other hand was not so lucky, I think she had another terrible night of sleep, but I was none the wiser.

None of it mattered though, because we woke up to Paris. Finally. The best way to start a day.

Watching boats for hours come through the retractable pedestrian bridge that enclosed the marina. Total pain for boaters and people, by the way, as I think they only open it once every 30 minutes (by our watches).

Not to be all Veruca Salt, but this one daddy, this one.

Shortly before I being shat on. Asleep at the time, arm totally exposed.