

There HAD to be one of these:

I have returned from Easter Weekend in Paris slightly reluctantly (the city was BEAUTIFUL), and also slightly poor. I've never seen prices more out of control, but I tried to convince myself i was paying for the experience of eating a crepe, or a pain au chocolat, rather than just for the actual food. Right? Yeah...err.
Luckily, Brie has a friend studying in Paris at the moment who allowed us to stay in her flat in the city with her, so there was no lodging expense. She was such a great hostess and also extremely beneficial when it came to encounters with rude people who had zero tolerance for non-french speakers. Oh, right..that was almost every encounter. Sorry to be offensive, Paris, but your citizens should look up the word "polite" or at least "cordial" in the dictionary. My goodness...
Our adventures arrived Thursday night when our plane touched down late at night at Charles de Gaulle. Brie and I felt pretty proud when we navigated ourselves out of the airport, onto the metro, and to her friend's flat with virtually no issues. Hooray. We called it an early night in order to make the most of the next day and snuggled up into a fold-out couch. On Friday, we visited the Lourve, tasted our first crepes, had an absolutely splendid lunch, and visited the Eiffel tower. Both of us were a little disappointed the line to get to the top of the tower looked to be almost three hours, so we decided not seeing the top would just be our excuse to someday maybe come back to the city. We meandered through the streets for the rest of the day, took a wee nap back at the apartment, and finally went out to a French bar with Kathy and some of her friends.
Lourve

VERY anti-climactic.

Delicatessen :)

Saturday was a little quieter-we allowed ourselves to sleep in, got brunch at an Italian restaurant, got STARBUCKS (we caved), explored a cemetery, and sat in a park. When evening came, Kathy wanted to visit a museum and Brie and I opted for a boat tour down the Seine. I would say it was the best spent 11 euro of the weekend.
A spur-of-the-moment decision was made Sunday morning when Kathy, Brie, a girl called Jane, and myself decided to go to Mass at Notre Dame for Easter morning. It was probably one of the most beautiful (and the most crowded) cathedrals I've ever seen. It also was my first time going to Catholic Mass. It might've been a little more interesting if any of it had been in English, I suppose.
Ah, my computer is acting kind of funny. I shall update more later. I really need to get back on a regular schedule of blogging-I've been really busy and lagging behind lately.
Ciao
Karen
*Louvre... sorry, had to.
ReplyDeleteI know, aren't the prices crazy... le sigh. The sadder thing is that when I came back from London, things actually seemed cheap in France (though they aren't). I was sooo happy to see a Starbucks in Paris too. I didn't find the Parisians to be particularly nice either even though I tried to speak French consistently (I think it might've been the presence of my overtly american parents) but they do appreciate just "bonjour, madame/monsieur", "au revoir" and "merci." It does wonders.