Cannes You Keep Up?: September 2012

Bonjour mes amis!!! I could not be happier that my first European excursion to the mainland was back to where the blog all started, France. We arrived in Edinburgh a full week before classes started, so after getting settled in, we had a perfect opportunity to take a long trip somewhere exciting! Seizing the chance, Tara and I spontaneously booked a round trip ticket to the City of Lights, the one and only, Paris. I had been there with my family once before when I was younger, but Tara had never been. It was so amazing to go back with fresh eyes, and I am beyond thankful I had the opportunity to see this magnificent city once again. We were there from Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon, and after those four days, I can honestly say (my broken black boots--RIP--will back me up on this one) that we walked through EVERY single area of the entire city. Since data is très expensivo in Europe, we had NO iPhones/Wikipedia/Google Maps/Google Places/Google to rely on, and let me tell you, as daunting as it was at first, it ended up being extremely gratifying and liberating. We left the trip feeling so proud of ourselves because we learned to rely on pamplets, word of mouth, and our own two feet to get by.

We were super tourists in every sense of the word, and though we tried to hide it (Tara spoke enough French to get by... Thanks T$) our maps definitely gave us away. We would NEVER travel anywhere without them, and had at least two on us at all times. One with the streets, one with the subways, and occasionally another with all the major tourist attractions on it. We tried to be creative with it, so we broke the map into quadrants along the folds, and everyday, we would tackle a new quadrant. With so much we wanted to see and do, our itinéraire was PACKED to the fullest.

The Seine

Wednesday: We arrived in Paris, hopped on the metro from Charles de Galle Airport (largest airport I've ever seen) to the Left Bank to get to our hotel on the Boulevard St. Jacques, dropped our stuff off at the hotel, changed, and went to our first dinner at Chez Francis overlooking the amazing Eiffel Tower. The food in Scotland is meh, so we devoured French bread, fresh pasta, and of course, rose vino. We walked over to the Eiffel Tower and excursioned upwards, greeted by breathtaking views of the city. We never made it to the actual top though, because we brought with us the fickle Scottish weather and it of course started to pour with gusting winds right when we reached the second tier. We didn't let it put a damper on our night in the least though, and we went back to rest up for the next day.

Thursday: Probably, without a doubt, the busiest day of my entire life. We woke up early and headed to the Louvre, in which we spent 3 hours exploring. Days could be spent in that museum, but we managed to walk through each exhibit and hit the highlights- Napoleon's apartment, Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, El Greco's the Crucifiction, Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, and so many others. Afterwards, we needed to recharge so we picked up sandwiches and chocolate croissants (oh, how I missed those) and ate in the Tuileries Gardens. It was so beautiful despite it being a cloudy day. Then, our walking tour of the Right Bank began. We cruised through the Palais Royal, saw the Sainte Chapelle, walked through Les Halles, took the famous outside escalators up to the top of the Centre Pompediou, and then ventured over to Notre Dame. The inside of the church is absolutely breathtaking, and even though we were exhausted from walking all day, we still wanted to climb to the top of the bell tower. Sadly, we missed the closing time by half an hour and weren't allowed to go-- we were bummed, but our legs thanked us in the end. Sorry, Quasimodo, we'll catch ya next time...We continued on and walked through St. Michel and saw the Sorbonne. Finally, we conlcuded our tour of the map quadrant we dominated that day by walking through the trendy Saint Germain-de-Prés area and having dinner at Le Deux Magots, one of the most famous cafes in the city. It once was an intellectual hotspot that attracted and inspired writers, artists, and thinkers, like Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso. We walked down Rue Raspail and stopped at the dorm where Tara's mom (Hi Joyce!) used to live when she was a study abroad student here, and it just so happened that it was the one apartment building in the entire city under construction- classic. We also ran into our SDT friend Cordelia walking on a RANDOM street corner on the way home, when she lives on the other side of town-the three of us were freaking out (tourist giveaway #2)-- life really works in mysterious ways.

Friday: We didn't slow down one bit. We woke up in the morning and hit the ground running. We went over and explored the Champs Elysee, the main shopping street in Paris. We climbed the Arc de Triomphe for more amazing views of the city and learned some nuggets of history in the process. (Shoutout Rachel, Emily, and Danielle: we had PAUL donuts. UNREAL. And stopped at Laduree for macaroons- so much food, but way too good to resist.) We walked from there over to Rue St. Honore and window shopped at all of the high end stores, and then stopped in a random brasserie on a side street to have some traditional French Onion Soup. It was amazing and then we hopped on the metro (at the Madeleine station! hey madz) and booked it over to Sacre Couer, a church on top of a hill deep in the right bank of the city located in the cute, artsy area known as Montmarte. The church was beautiful, and we walked through all of the windy cobblestone streets until we finally found the Moulin Rouge (which actually was a struggle, since every single person we asked told us a different direction to go in....) We metroed back to our hood and took a much needed nap at the hotel, before going for a late dinner at an outdoor bistro around the corner (two words: cheese. plate.) It is literally impossible to have a bad meal in Paris.

Saturday: Yet another packed day. We headed by train to the Chateau de Versailles, the royal court of France from Louis XIV's reign through the French Revolution. It was undeniably the largest and most ornately decorated palace either of us had ever seen. There was so much history behind it, and we toured the interior, before arriving at the famous gardens in the back. They stretch for MILES and are so perfectly maintained it is hard to believe they are hundreds of years old. We wandered through and had lunch outside at a cute bistro on the grounds before watching a water show in the gardens that occur simultaneously in all of the hundreds of fountains. We got back on the train to the city and took a boat tour down the Seine. It was such a beautiful day and the sights were breathtaking. Afterwards, we ventured over to the Champ du Mars, expecting to lay in the grass and stare at the Eiffel Tower like Mary Kate and Ashley did in Passport to Paris (maybe even have a little baguette fight?) Alas, the greens are now roped off. Our dreams were crushed. Major fail. Instead, we sat on a bench, wandered around looking for the right metro stop (tourist giveaway #3), and went back to the hotel to change before meeting up with our favorite Parisian, Cordelia, for dinner in St. Germain. We sat at a cafe drinking wine for hours and finally got the steak frites Tara and I had been craving all trip. And gelato....Food bucket list completed.

Sunday: Le finale. After hitting all of the historical sights we wanted to see, eating all the food on our bucket list, and walking through all of the map quadrants we set out to, there was one thing we had left to do: SHOPPING! Well, as great as Sharon and Tara are at shopping, we clearly are not as great at looking up times said stores are open. If we were to have done so, we would have realized that ALL--repeat, ALL-- the stores in Paris are closed on Sunday. Fermé. Cerrado. Chiuso. CLOSED. Though our moms and our credit card bills were extremely happy with this major fail, we were not so elated, and the sealed doors of the Gallery Lafayette mocked our stupidity and were begging for us to enter them. We quickly hatched a Plan B for the day, and decided on the next closest thing to shopping: going to a museum exhibit at the Les Arts Decoratifs Museum about designers whose products we wish we could buy: Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs. The exhibit was cool and semi-cultural (Vuitton=French. Winning.) In our last hour we had to spare, we walked down Rue Rivoli to Angelina, one of the best dessert restaurants in all of Paris. The hot chocolate was epic, and we shoved our faces with bread, caesar salad, and their famous Mont Blanc pastry at what bystanders probably thought was the legitimate Last Supper. We left for the airport, and three hours, some broken train tracks, a trip to the wrong terminal, some tears, and a nice (right, Tara?) jog through the EasyJet gates, we finally made it onto the plane back to Scotland.

Between the stunning views, rich history, French culture, company, and of course the food, my four days in Paris will be impossible to forget (sorry Billy Crystal).

Au Revoir France...for real this time.

"We'll always have Paris."