(Pari is bolded)
We woke up around 9 and I jumped in the shower and went to get some stale bread for our breakfast. It wasn’t actually that stale this morning. Then we packed up all of our stuff and checked out. We were able to leave our bags in this hallway so that was good, even though security was iffy.
Then we sat in the park across from the hotel. We decided to go to Notre Dame so we took the metro and sat in front of that. Yes, it was a lot of sitting this morning but we were sooo tired. THEN we went to a café nearby and sat and had the most expensive cappuccinos ever. Paying for the view right?
After sitting for a good long while we just started walking around. We ended up back in the Maoz neighborhood which wasn’t as stinky the first time around. We went in just about every touristy shop there was. Pari bought a Caribbean blue beret and a scarf. We found the Saint-Michele and that was pretty cool. The fountain was very beautiful with Saint Michele and two lion dragons.
While we were walking we found a little Indian restaurant and decided to go in. It was very tasty. I got Dal Makhar or something like that (lentils) and Pari got Aloo Ghoobi. We also got this delicious rice and of course naan. It wasn’t that expensive, 23 euros I think. They gave us commemorative latin quarter incense, which I think they use to ward off the permeating smell of doody in hot weather. Then we went back to the hotel and got our bag and walked to the metro.
We had to wait in line to buy tickets because we didn’t have any coins and our metro pass had run out. The people in front of us were complete idiots. They were asking about all of the different passes and how to get there. It was soo frustrating. Did they not research anything before coming? Whatever, it just makes Americans look stupid, like most of them are.
Then we got on our train and we had to sit across from some people. I don’t know why they make little sections like that. Why can’t everyone just face the same way so you don’t have to watch people being all lovey dovey for 2 hours. God it was irritating. And something on the train kept making a squeaking noise which made it hard to sleep and was a little scary.
Anyway, we got there. Since our prepaid tickets didn’t work out and we had to buy new ones we could take any train we wanted that went to Cambridge. Which actually worked out well…we thought because we only had to wait for 20 minutes. But halfway through the trip the train stopped because there was a broken down train ahead of us. It didn’t take that long, maybe 30 minutes.
We finally got back to Cambridge around 8 and walked back to the dorm. After putting down our stuff we got subway. It was really satisfying, and it wasn’t falafel.
General thoughts about Paris:
- There is too much to see in one weekend. Pari was very frustrated about not seeing more beautiful works of art in the louvre. But finding a beret in her favorite color did make things a little bit better. Also, Parisians love cats. There are a lot of pictures with cats, cat knick knacks, etc. Unfortunately we did not see a real chat.
- The food in Paris is all in francais. It was hard to know what anything was, but we just assumed it all had meat in it and stayed clear. Falafel and Indian food are always delightful and usually economical as well. We still had a lot of options, although it would have been nice to experience some authentic French food.
- Crepes are delightful. The greek man who made our crepes scared Pari by saying “CA VA?” very loudly near Pari’s ear. Pari almost fell off the stool she was sitting on while suffereing from a bad case of the sugar shakes after eating probably a 100 grams of nutella. (Pari has no idea how much that is, but it sounds like a lot)
About the hotel:
• It was very deceiving how they advertised that the hotel was in Montemarte.
• The elevator was scary. I didn’t like it. And every single time Pari farted. It was soo smelly and it was so small. The smell probably continued to linger for hours.
• There were no pillowcases. Pari did not like this.
• The view was pretty from all 3 rooms. We could see the tip of the Eiffel tower.
• The walk to the metro was not bad. It took less than 5 minutes. There was also a very slippery grate that Pari slid over and almost fell. Haley thought this was funny. (Pari likes to write in the 3rd person so I will too)
• There was a very trendy Parisian club on the walk to the hotel from the metro. It was called Chic Favela and was hidden down a frightening alley. Unfortunately, we had to go a bar to be with Haley’s people so we couldn’t experience this club at the height of coolness.
Note: 1 month from today we will be back in the states
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