paris. Session 1. Take 3

Sight seeing with a hangover-

Sadly, I wake up feeling as though I have been punched in the face. Im not sure why because I know that I drank a lot of water with the wine that I consumed but apparently not enough. We finally make it out of the house and head to the louvre which we don’t get to stay at for too long but long enough to see a few things. And the good news was that the first Sunday of the month is free to get in!! Saving money right and left.

After the Louvre we head to the L’arc de Triomphe which has a beautiful view of the Effle Tower and the Champs Elyese. The spirial stairs were killer on our thighs but we finally made it to the top and got a great view of the city, and more good news was that we didn’t have to pay for this great work out because it was free to get into the L’arc de Triomphe.

After our little sight seeing adventure in the rain we head back to Borus’ house and make a HUGE pasta dinner for the guys before getting all cozy to watch a movie. We needed a not so crazy night since everyone was so worn out after the Halloween party. And hey, how many people can say that they went to the Louvre with a hangover? Classy? I think not. But at least I didn’t get sick in the Louvre, I would never forgive myself if that had been the case.

Paris. Session 1. Take 2.

Halloween 2009!

The next day we decide to take it easy. Im not sure why we decided this but I guess at when it gets to be a certain point in the day you kind of just give up on going out. We had a great brunch of pasta, tomatoes, bread and cheese. Then we just chatted with the guys, Bobo, Matt, Nathan and Nathan’s younger brother who looked much older.

Our only outing of the day was to the grocery store to buy things to make raclette and far too much wine. Raclette is a French dish that consists of boiled potatoes and meat topped with melted cheese which you melt yourself over a flame sort of thing. I even tasted the meat just to see what it was like but I didn’t think it was any better with the meat than without it.

I would say that there was about 20 people at our little Halloween party and I would also say that we were the only ones dressed up. We stood out as those Americans who dress up for this silly holiday. However, once everyone had a few glasses of wine and got to know each other more we realized that our wigs were a huge hit. Everyone wanted to wear them. So everyone did wear them.

So in a nutshell, our Halloween consisted of the following.

1. Halloween party in a house in Paris.

2. Raclette/wine.

3. Dancing.

4. Sharing of wigs.

5. People speaking in French.

6. People smoking cigarettes inside (seemed so weird to me)

All in all, it was a lovely holiday. I mean come on, any chance to wear face eyelashes with jewels on them is a good time in my opinion.

Paris. Session 1. Take 1.

Right away once we get into the city we have to split up due to the fact that Katie has to head to the airport to check on her missing luggage that has been MIA for over a month now. I suppose I hadn’t mentioned this before but yes, our dear friend Katie has been living in France now for one month with only half of her belongings that she packed because the airline has not found her bag yet. Thankfully she has met lots of lovely teachers who have been generous enough to help her out a bit; however, if anyone else wants to help out our Katie Baby in anyway, Im sure she would appreciate that a great deal.

Anyway, getting back to Paris. Katie heads to the airport while Becca and I do a little exploring. We find the Notre Dame de Paris and a few interesting streets to walk down. After coming across a cute little park to take a rest and read in we see that there is a river in the park and that there is water only in parts of it because it is divided into sections. It was a locks and Becc and I were fully entertained for quite some time just watching the sections of the locks rise and fall with the water so that a boat could go through it.

Once we meet up with Katie again we head back to the Notre Dame to get a few more photos and then we go for some expensive Parisian coffee and then a Croque Madame which is basically a grilled ham and cheese sandwhich with a fried egg on top. But I had it without the ham. Everything is more expensive in Paris. However, we ended up spending not too much due to the fact that we had a few lovely hosts while we were staying in the city. A few friends that Katie and her friend Matt, who is also from Bellingham but teaching in France, met while in San Fran and then spent time with while they were in Paris a month ago. Bobo/Borus/Vampire Bobby was kind enough to offer his beautiful home in Paris for us to spend time at, as was another friend Nathan. I must just say that Parisian homes are amazing. We only got to see a few but from what I can tell they are adorable, so classy and….. I don’t even know how to explain it. I adored everything about these homes

Once we met up with the guys that evening we were starving so we all went to sushi, we wanted Thai food because we have been craving it lately but apparently it is super expensive in Paris so we decided to have a sushi party! After the sushi party we went out to have a few drinks at this great bar that was entirely covered with posters. Im not sure what the posters were of because they were in French but it looked awesome. I would say one of my all time favorite bars. After this bar we decide to go dancing, however, we miss the last metro and are then stuck in the wrong part of town. We spend a long, long time walking around the city, which was beautiful at night, until we all got so tired that we just had to call it a night. But even the walking around the city was great, we met lots of great people and I greatly enjoyed hearing so much French spoken.

Getting ready for Halloween and Paris 10/29ish

The day before we leave for Paris we decided to have an early night so that we can get extra sleep and get up in time for our early morning trainthe next day.

This early night includes a few games of phase 10, a card game that if you haven’t heard of it you should put that on your to do list, a delightful dinner of pasta followed by tea and chocolate, (white chocolate for Becc).

I know this sounds like a boring and uneventful but you must understand that we are like old women who enjoy simple things and being in bed early.

The other thing that you must understand about this evening is that we were all wearing our Halloween wigs and mustaches that were drawn on with eyeliner.

As I stated in a previous post, we know how to entertain ourselves with rather simple things. We are fun girls who are having fun in France.

Gravline, France

Graveline is a town totally surrounded by water. You must walk over a bridge to get into this quaint little town. The five of us; Katie, Becca, Patrick, Laura and I, take a bus that only takes about 30 minutes from Dunkerque. Once we get there we do a little exploring of a statue garden and of the town itself, then we head to the ocean which has perhaps the largest beach that I have ever seen in my life. It looked like a desert. The weather was crisp and breezy but not uncomfortably cold, and it helped that there was so much beauty everywhere, the colours of fall amaze me all the time, I feel as though they will never get old to me.

We walk along the boardwalk to get to the ocean, which takes quite a while since the beach is so dang long. A few stops are made along the way to explore the sights around us. Laura is a German teaching assistant that Katie knows through her program and Patrick is her man-friend who is visiting her for break. Patrick and Laura like to take pictures while they are jumping, so we decided to try it.

Once we make it to the end of the boardwalk some of our party, (Katie and I are not included) decide that they want to walk on the beach which includes climbing down a rock cliff like thing. Katie and I have shorter legs than most of the group so this adventure was a bit more scary for us, but we did finally make it and were thankful to be safe on the ground.

Exploring Dunkurque

If you walk down the beach of Dunkurque eventually you will get to Belgium, and before you cross the boarder you will find bunkers from WWII. It was a long walk and we were quite tired but we decided to make the trip down to see what was left of these historical buildings.

What was interesting to me was that they are not being protected by anything really so they continue to be vandalized and tattooed with graffiti.

Another thing that was neat about these old buildings was that they are all tilted in the sand, Im not sure why this was so fasinating to me, but I really enjoyed they way it looked.

Katie, Becca and I are pretty easily entertained, whether it is taking photos of ourselves pretending to fall off of these battery buildings or hopping from rock to rock trying not to touch the lava (sand) below, we always seem to have fun.

We finally made it to France and to our katie.

Two days ago, Becca and I left Germany to get to France. We buy a ticket to Paris and then we plan on heading north to the town of Dunkerque to be with our dear friend Katie. While we are on the train we hear it announced that we are in Belgium which happens to be closer to katie's town than Paris, so naturally we take a chance and get off the train. We take a few more trains and get to the town of Lillie which is about 45 minutes from Katie but their are no trains until the morning. So, naturally we get a shitty hotel room which may or may not have been cleaned in the past few days. We sleep like cocoons in our sheets that we have brought.

The next morning we get to Dunkerque but have no way of getting ahold of Katie due to the fact that it is Sunday and nothing but a bar is open. So we sit in the train station for a few hours eating candy bars from the vending machine.

Finally we find a bar that is open that has internet use so we email katie and we get her phone number which we cannot use because we do not have a phone card. So we each get a beer. At around 11:30 am. The bar tender who speaks a bit of English lets us use his phone and we leave a message for katie, she then calls us back and comes to rescue us.

Now we are in France!

We go to the beach.

We explore the beach.

We get ice cream.

We go to a childrens film that is dubbed in French about meatballs falling from the sky.

And we are happy. We are happy to be together and to be not in creepy ass hotels.