Au Revoir, Paris!

Or at least I'm trying to say goodbye. Right now I'm sitting in the airport waiting on a flight. I got up at 6am in order to make a 9:45am flight, and got here just to find out it was cancelled. Apparently the weather is awful enough to delay most flights and cancel the rest. The travel gods of course made sure that my flight was cancelled, so I'm stuck here until 8pm when I can finally make my hour-long flight to England. Hopefully. I guess that just gives me time to tell you wonderful stories about my stay in Paris.

So let's see, where to begin? I arrived here on Friday after a very comfortable train ride. I've got the trains down now. Ain't no big thang. My friend Rachel Gregory was there to meet me, thankfully, and we made our way back to her place via the Metro (Paris' subway system). If you've been on a subway system before, you pretty much know what to expect. Pretty easy and safe transport for a reasonable price, and it's pretty necessary as Paris is such a big city. I won't ramble on much about the Metro, but know that it is quite useful.

Rachel is studying art in Paris (she's from Baton Rouge and usually goes to Tulane, but she's studying in Paris for a year) and she stays in a little one room apartment on the seventh floor of some building. It's really not big at all, but it works. There's a shower in the room and a toilet in the hall, and a window that opens out into the courtyard of her building. No loud outside noises by her window, which is nice. She's done a lot with the little space she has, and it's functional. It's pretty much your stereotypical tiny French apartment.

Anyway, I got into Paris in the late afternoon, so there wasn't much time to do anything besides eat and drink. We went to a little falafel place in the Jewish section that Rachel likes (she's a vegetarian) and met up with her other friend Rachael, so that my stories could be extremely confusing! Rachael also goes to Tulane, though the two Rach'es didn't meet until Paris, strangely. Anyway, after that we went out for some drinks. Drinking in Paris is really expensive. Scratch that, everything in Paris is really expensive. We went to a really kickass bar until our eyelids starting drooping, and then called it a night.

Ok I won't tell the whole boring story of everything I did in the order that I did it, but I'll hit the highlights. During my stay I managed to hit up two museums, the Louvre and the Museé D'Orsay. I'm just not gonna worry about all the spelling because I'm sure I'm gonna spell everything wrong. I saw some cool Impressionist paintings (including some killer Van Gogh), a neat exhibit on the Chat Noir Theatre (look it up on wikipedia), and a bunch of other stuff including the Mona Lisa and the Venus De Milo. Turns out the Louvre is ridiculously huge. I had no idea. Rachel said if you looked at every item in the Louvre for only 5 seconds, it would take you 10 years to look at the entire thing (and that's not counting the changing exhibits!) That kinda sounds like BS, but after being lost in Egyptian Relics section for an hour and a half (while walking pretty much constantly) you start to realize it's probably true. So, yeah, thumbs up to those crazy Parisians for having a bunch of crap.

One other thing, the Mona Lisa? Yeah, that thing is tiny. I didn't even get close to it because there were probably about 200 people in the room trying to look at it. I guess it's pretty thug, though.

We did a lot of walking around seeing stuff in Paris. Rachel knows her way around pretty well, and she made sure that we saw all of the famous sights and pretty areas. It rained a bit and snowed one day, so the weather threw a wrench in some of our plans, but we still managed to see most of the sights. Chances are if you name some famous Paris thing, we at least passed by it and Rachel told me the significance of it. I didn't go to the actual Eiffel tower itself, because there's not much to actually see there besides tourists. You can see it from pretty much everywhere, though, which is cool.

Saturday night we got cous cous at some place, and Sunday night we went to a dinner party with some British people she knew from school. British people are crazy. Apparently they don't use the word "shitty", but instead just "shit". For example:

American: "I felt shitty last night, so I stayed home and watched a shitty movie on TV."
British: "I felt shit last night, so I stayed home and watched a shit movie on the telly."

See, I'm learning so much over here! Also, for those with sensitive ears, excuse my French. And pardon my pun! HO HO YEAAA I'M STILL HILARIOUS!!!

Apparently in Paris everything ever shuts down on Sunday, so we actually spent a good portion of the day trying to find a grocery store that was open. We went to 4 or 5 different areas before we found a place that was open (even though some of them were supposed to be open on Sunday, argh). Still, Sunday was a good time to walk around the city, so I got some good pictures (with baguettes).

On Monday night, we went to this restaurant that was highly recommended (read: forced to go to by constant reminding, pleading, and then death threats) by a friend of mine called Le Coude Fou. I still don't know what the hell that means, but I think it means something like "best food ever– no joke". They had an extreme wine selection and an extremely confusing French menu (luckily they had an English translation for doofuses like us), but it was easily the best meal I've had in several months. I got a Boudin salad (weird, I know, but wowza good) and some rabbit with I think blue cheese sauce. Oh mannnnnnnnnnnnnn. The two Rach'es split a salmon dish with mint and basil sauce (wooaaaaaahhhhhhhh) and a goat cheese salad (ahasdfhdkjahfsdkhfaf). Everything was ridiculously good. We ate tons of bread and drank really good wine and had a most wunderbar time! It was the perfect end to my stay in Paris, so Rene and Josh, thank you for the most excellent dinner! And if you're ever in Paris, dear reader, do yourself a favor and take a trip to Le Coude Fou for awesome French cuisine. You won't regret it (unless you suck).

Okay, I guess that's it for Paris stories for now. Let's take a moment to have a quick Rachel review session so you aren't too confused.

Rachel Gregory is my friend from Baton Rouge who I stayed with in Paris. (Thanks, Rachel, I had fun!)
Rachael Granberry is her friend who is also studying in Paris. (It was nice to meet you! Come visit in Germany!)
Rachael Moreau is my friend from Baton Rouge who I am visiting in England as soon as this stupid plane leaves. (See you soon OMG!)
Rachael Moreau is staying Nottingham, England, and I think we're gonna hang out there for a day or so when I get there. I don't know, really.
Nottingham is in north/central England, I think. Anyway, we're gonna head down to London/Sussex and hang out with London/Colleen. I think. Actually I really have very little idea what is actually going on. I'm just trying get through one step at a time. I'll keep you posted.
I have plenty of Paris pictures ready to be uploaded with hilarious and informative comments, so GET SO EXCITED.

Well, I'm off to walk in circles around the airport until I get so bored I fake fainting to try to get a free bottle of water out of these stingy Frenchman! (2 Euro for a water!? I don't THINK so!)

P.S. Some people mentioned that get lost when I mention prices in Euros. Currently the exchange rate is $1.30 to 1 Euro. So every time I spend 10 Euro here, it's about $13 in the US. I'll try to remember to include US prices when I mention money from now on!