One trip that every girl has on her bucket list is a trip to Paris. I’m sure of it. But what’s more fabulous than spending the weekend running through Paris? Spending the weekend running through Paris with great friends, a box of macrons, a fluent French speaker, and being only twenty. You can all just start referring to me as Blair Waldorf.
Quick notes of Paris before I get on to the story here:
- Chicago has prepared me for life in many ways, but the biggest is in light of transportation. The subway system in Paris was a replica of the L if I’ve ever seen one. Thank God for life in the city.
- If you’re going to Paris in the future, make a friend who speaks French. Everything is easier.
- I’m 98% sure the French diet consists of only pastries, aka I need to move there.
- Being nice to store owners gets you humorously ugly scarves for free, and I’ll be wearing it to Christmas mass when I’m home, Mom.
Friday morning, after a sleepless night, we all got up without complaints at 4:15 AM to get ready to head to the airport for our 6:50 flight to Paris! It was like Christmas morning. 16 girls had flights between 6:30 and 7 in the airport that morning, so we had called a bus the night before to take us to the airport at 5. However that morning at 4:45 when we piled out of the albergo, we found a party bus parked out front. Apparently we had booked a party bus. Sleepless and excited, we decided it was funny and stuck with it, riding the whole way to the airport in the blue-lit bus.
We didn’t plan for the security line to be equivalent to a line to get into a Taylor Swift concert, so after getting through we made a dash for the airplane like you see in movies. Ryan Air being Ryan Air though, we were more than okay at the gate. Same drill: blinding bright yellow seats, weird turbulence I don’t realize because I’m passed out from Dramamine, being awoken by celebration horns and applause, mad dash like the plane is on fire to get off the plane. I’m going to experience reverse culture shock when I have to fly home on American Airlines.
Landing in Paris was freezing. A solid 20 degrees colder than Rome, even my South Bend skin felt pierced by the wind. This didn’t stop us from wearing our cute, saved-for-France dresses though; we put on some gloves and sucked it up. We dumped our bags at the hotel in record time and walked our way about forty-five minutes towards the Louvre so we could really take in the city. Despite being a little gray, it was absolutely gorgeous. As of course the Eiffel tower was number one on everyone’s must-see list for the weekend, we walked that way in the late afternoon to see it before it got dark out.
From a distance, I remember thinking, “that’s it? Wait the Sears tower is way more impressive…” but of course as continuously proved I was WRONG. The Eiffel tower beats any other tower I’ve ever seen. Plus it photographs perfectly; please refer to me entire photoshoot in front of the Eiffel tower. Who knows when I’ll get pictures like that again? Post tower we went to the Louvre museum to kinda half look at a bunch of art BUT MOSTLY see the Mona Lisa. Signs all around the museum point you straight to her because that’s the only art anyone knows.
Mona Lisa was:
- Small
- So distant behind the glass AND roped off area
- Still awkwardly half smiling. Nothing has changed
- The perfect addition to my selfie-pictures
I posted just one selfie I took with the Mona Lisa, but please trust me when I say I have at least a dozen.
For dinner we went to a fun French restaurant where we had Vegitarian Croque for dinner (which is like cheese and bread) with salads and FRENCH FRIES! So authentic! Really, though, it all hit the spot after our long day.
I really wanted to go to the Musee d’Orsay while I was in Paris, convinced by both my dad and TripAdvisor that it was a must see, so while everyone caught up on a little sleep Saturday morning Katie and I instead got up early to take on the museum before meeting the rest of the gang at Notre Dame at noon. We decided to make it a morning of pastries, stopping for a Nutella-pudding like pastry and a box of fresh macrons. We got so distracted looking for crepes too that we walked all the way to the Louvre before we actually gave up on it, conveniently enough a couple minutes from the museum. The line to get in was just long enough for us to try all our macron flavors (pistachio, lemon, vanilla bean, raspberry, coffee, and caramel). We couldn’t get over how many famous pieces of art were kept there as we wandered into seemingly endless rooms of Picasso, Monet, and Degas works. Really sealing the deal for us though, on the fifth floor, were the three painting of Degas’ dancers and the Marie in Fourth Position sculpture. It was great to have mutual dancer appreciation for it, plus I’ve watched to see the sculpture my entire life.
The only thing that could make the morning better was a crepe, and luckily we ran into a crepe shop leaving the museum! I got a Nutella and banana crepe, and every bite further reminded me I needed to come back to Paris again ASAP for the food if nothing else. We walked the whole way to Notre Dame covered in Nutella. Not kidding.
The Notre Dame Cathedral was gorgeous inside and out, but I didn’t see any weird men with hunched backs or gypsies dancing on the streets so naturally I was a little confused. Maybe next time. Post Quasimodo search disappointment, we walked to the love bridge, where people for years have been hooking locks onto the bridge and throwing the key into the water. Super cute until “that girl” (Katie) in the group tells everyone they’ve been actually cutting off locks for the past year because the bridge is sinking. That really put a dent into the vision of things.
To make up for crushed dreams we took the metro to the Champs-Elysées. On the farther half of the street there were Christmas marts set up everywhere (I love that no one cares about thanksgiving here and we skip right to Christmas) so we pranced down the streets to Christmas music for a while. The Nutella waffles were perfect, and tons of the little shops let us try different cheeses and breads. Because we hadn’t eaten nearly enough, we got baguette sandwiches with brie from a place called Paul and went to have some of the famous Ladurèe macrons everyone raves about. Waiting in line to enter the shop was completely worth it, and more macrons were consumed (okay okay I’ll tell you the flavors; gingerbread, orange blossom, rose, chocolate, and salted-caramel).
Post stomach expansion, we decided to walk around and shop for a little for exercise but really in hopes of creating more room in our stomachs so we could eat more. We took pictures in front of the Arc de Triomphe (something I’ve wanted to see since I was a 6 year old watching Madeline VHS tapes on repeat), and shopped through the most expensive stores on the street because we were having a Blair Waldorf moment. Oh and side note, for anyone wondering, yes, Mercedes Benz has come out with their own line of nail polish.
Easily the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my entire life is the Eifel Tower lit up at night. You see it as you come around the corner from the subway stop, and no matter how many pictures you’ve seen on Facebook you still won’t be ready for it. It’s absolutely beautiful, and just as you don’t think it could look any more amazing it sparkles for the first five minutes of each hour. I looked like a three-year-old running around under it, trying to get to the other side before it started to sparkle again, but I don’t even care because it was the greatest moment of my entire life.
After we took enough pictures to fill our memory cards, we made our way back under the tower to the south leg to climb to the second floor. A million and a half stairs later, we found our way to the greatest view of Paris. It was worth every strained leg muscle.
Climbing back down was sad, but we drew it out as long as we could. We got back on the subway to an area that resembled Trastevere in Rome for more food. Hot wine is advertised all over the place, so we had glasses of that and cheese fondue to chat and reminisce on our weekend. We decided we also weren’t leaving France without getting another crepe, so we had another of those too before going back to the hotel for a whopping 3 hours of sleep before our flight. I got cinnamon sugar with butter, which in no way compares to any cinnamon sugar crepe I’ve tried to make at home. Which is also not saying a lot because I’m super bad at cooking. But it was amazing and a satisfying final note to French food.
Leaving was painful both because I never wanted to leave and because it was 5:45 in the morning. But here we are, back in Roma. It’s always funny going to classes as normal on Monday mornings but listening to everyone talk about their weekends spent in Switzerland or Poland. That definitely won’t be the same back in the Bend.
Realizing we’re entering into the final stretch month, I began to worry a little bit about the dip in my gelato intake but not worries I’m working on it. I also won’t know how to go home at this point and not continuously talk about food. Peace and love, you’ll hear from me post Barcelona adventure.
I'm still I'm still Haley from the Bend 