"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris"

         So I’d been getting real nervous. See, it’s nearly the end of March and Friday was the 70^th day I’d been in France and all I’d seen of Paris was Charles de Gaulle airport and Montparnasse Train Station.  Unacceptable. And I was getting nervous because everyone here has been to Paris at least once, often twice, or more, or you know just casually lived there for a while but I’d hadn’t so much as glimpsed the Eiffel Tower and was worried no one would want to go with me. Luckily, my darling friends Laura and Newton agreed to make the trip and though we are abysmal planners and frighteningly adept procrastinators, we managed to get tickets and (the day before we left) find cheap beds in a hostel.

         The sun rose on Friday morning, bright and cheerful and I awoke with it—grumpy, groggy, drowning in post-red wine misery, and feeling like I’d been ever-so-gently curb-stomped. Joy. 40 minutes of intense struggle later, I stumbled out the door, flailed my way to the bus and tripped onto the train and was off! Watch out Paris, here I come.  

          We checked into our hostel and immediately wandered off to see Notre Dame. Of all the churches I’ve already seen in Europe (and I promise, there are 12 kajillion) she really is a stunna. Not to mention that it was 70 degrees and sunny, which was absolutely sensational. Anyway, we got our flying buttress on and wandered around inside—admiring the beautiful stained glass and all of the secret intricacies hidden in every corner. Apres ça, we wandered down the along the Seine in the brilliant sunshine and summer-esque heat until we made it to the Musee D’Orsay. This museum, for those who may not know, houses a lot of the ‘newer’ European art like Impressionist paintings and the like. So, naturally, it was mah jam. Art aside, the inside of the museum/the architecture is awesome too. They don’t let you take any pictures in the museum, but here’s one I stole from Google. Thanks Google!

          Hard to say what my favorite thing was in this museum and to differentiate what I saw here from what I saw in the Louvre, soo much great art in so few days! Eep! The little art nerd in me was so excited. I have such a fond spot in my heart for Cezanne’s Apples and Oranges since a poster of it has hung in my bathroom at home since I can remember and you can see it every time you look in the mirror. So that made me smile. There were Monet’s Rouen Cathedrals (pee your pants good) and Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone and one of his self-portraits and soo soo many other masterpieces. Being unaccustomed to waking up before 7AM, all of us were pooped by the end of the museum so we decided to walk to the Eiffel tower and just lay in the grass for a while. So, we walked down by the Seine again and en route we saw this guy:

          Woo! Valentinoooo! He’s so cooool! He had just finished walking his pug and was climbing into the backseat of a very suave car. Definitely the most famous person I’ve ever seen. We pointed and stared blatantly like idiots, but it was totes worth it. Anyway we wandered to the Eiffel Tower (gah!) which is just as cool as I always imagined. I’m just astonished that it exists in real life. Before I saw it it almost felt like one of those things that doesn’t really exist and Hollywood just made up to make Paris look better in movies. But no, it’s real! We lay in the grass for a while and openly mocked some stupid American ginger biddie who was trying so hard to impress the two guys she was with and was failing horribly. I include the fact that she was a ginger merely because she literally talked to them about her ginger hair for about fifteen minutes strait. Girl—no one cares if anyone else in your family is a ginger or not or how interesting and different you think you are because you’re a ginger. Shut up. Go back to America.

         We then had a sufficiently shameful photo shoot in front of the Eiffel Tower just to make sure everyone knew for sure that we were from the states. Sadly, though it was sunny just before and just after we wanted to photograph the Eiffel Tower, it got cloudy right as we got there—great. Ah, well.

of course this sweet picture is ruined because i can't for the life of me rotate them...

        We then took the metro over to an area of Paris called St. Germain des Pres where Laura had stayed before and is awesome—lots of shops and restaurants. We wandered around trying to find somewhere to eat until, on a random side street we were approached by this restaurant owner guy who was trying to get us to eat there. Now usually you just “non, merci” and keep walking, but he wooed us with free drinks and free dessert so we decided to take a chance. After our free Kirs I had some mussels to start followed by a steak with béarnaise sauce, fried potatoes and haricots verts and then some creamy and delicious chocolate mousse. Nom nom! For 12€, not too bad! Stuffed and sleepy we made our way back to the hostel where we had scored our own room (good deal for a hostel) and went to bed quite early. It took me forever to fall asleep because Parisiens are always driving and always aaaalways honking their horns at each other. They love that shit. Bah!

         The next morning we ventured to the Louvre! Everyone was exceptionally dumb and all waiting forever in line in front of the main entrance, but we went around to the Porte des Lions on one side and there was not even a single other human there. Win. I art-nerded out a lot more and kept oohing and getting over-excited, but that place is so cool. Despite the fact that it is absolutely massive, there were sooo many people in every inch of the museum. Not surprising—it’s like the Mecca of the art world. I got to see all of the famous works and took cheesy pictures in front of them all. 

         

Next we sat for a while in the Jardin des Tuileries and ate trail mix (great travel snack, thanks Natalie) and then geared up for some more museuming at the Orangerie. This is a small museum right by Louvre that people don’t seem to go to but it has two huge oval-shaped rooms covered by Monet’s Les Nympheas, which are the giant, gorgeous water lilies murals. Like this one:

    

       We sat in silent wonder for a while just soaking up all the beauty and then wandered back into the sunlight and up the Champs Élysées. This would have been really cool except for it is insanely insanely busy and I was terrified that someone was going to mug me at any second. Fortunately, this did not happen, and we got up to the Arc de Triomphe without any problems. It’s giant (duh) and gorgeous (duh) and, er…triumphant. That’s all I have to say about that…

        

      We went back to St. Germain des Pres to go to this bakery that Laura said was really good. Oh yeah, it was PIERRE HERMÉ. Oh yeah that’s where BLAIR WALDORF gets all of her macaroons. I don’t care if it’s embarrassing that I know that—that shit is DELICIOUS. The line was out the door and it’s quite expensive but we got six macroons and shared them so we could try all the flavors and my mouth has never been so happy. We had Rose, Crème Brûlée, Passion Fruit/Chocolate, Orange/Carrot, Choclate and Caramel. Each one was more sensational than the last and even though some of those combos sound a lil weird, they were like little pieces of heaven. In fact, chocolate was the least good. I KNOW, RIGHT? How can that be? Usually I feel really really good about chocolate, but these other macaroons were just unbelievably good. I could have died and been perfectly content. I can’t talk about it enough. Go eat these. Seriously. Now.

         We then wandered around and stopped for some Croque Madames which are like an open-faced grilled ham and cheese with a fried egg on top (yum!) also, so good. Sadly, our trip ended in the rain, but other than that it was a perfect Parisien weekend. Tellement, Paris, je t’aime.