Falling in love with PARIS

Friday morning, the morning of Paris. I woke up by my own mental alarm clock, glanced at my alarm clock which read 11:45pm. This freaked me out; I must have knocked it in my sleep somehow and changed the time, therefore my alarm hadn´t gone off. I may have overslept! I jumped out of bed and looked at my phone which said that I had a missed call. Shit, it´s probably Melissa at the bus station wondering what happened to me. However, I was wrong, it was Marcos. OK, tangent here. A week and a half ago I went to Alfalfa and talked with this lame Spanish guy named José, about which I have written. The next day he texted me asking if I wanted to hang out. Spanish guys are so overly insistent and don´t leave you alone, so I decided to just go ahead and be overt and just say no. So I texted him back just saying "No." He never called back, so I was proud of myself for finding the correct strategy to keep lame Spanish men off my back. Rewind: Marcos. Remember Marcos? We hung out twice in January, bad kisser. He texted me once or twice after that and I never responded and since then I hadn´t heard from him. Well, this past Thursday night I get a text from José asking if I wanted to meet up at Alfalfa. WTF?? My negative signals could not have been clearer. I mean, I blatantly said "No," what more can I say? I decided to not waste my money on his stupidity. Then, later that evening I get a text from Marcos asking to meet up at Alfalfa. WHAT??? Am I in the twilight zone?? I was pretty sure that he was a goner for good and would never hear from that one again, I mean, my negative signals towards him were pretty clear 2 months ago! Well, what are the chances they both text the same day asking to go to the same place. Idiots. So, the missed call I saw Friday morning was from him. Yeah, he even called me. What is with these boys? Anyhoo, after seeing the missed call I checked the time, it was 5:45am. Shit, I had overslept, but thankfully not too much...I had set my alarm for 5:15. I wanted to be out of the house by 6:15 so I was in a huge hurry since I still had some last minute packing to do. I didn´t make my bed, I turned the light on in the room (sorry, Stacey), stumbled over things, oh it was a mess. Luckily I was fairly well rested since I had passed out at 10:45 the previous night. I got my things together on time and rushed out of the house at 6:15 on the dot. Way to be, Lisa, way to be! I got to the airport bus stop by 6:40 and waited for Melissa to show. I had not expected to be so early, after all that stressing, I tell ya. She got there at 7 right as the bus showed up, which was a stroke of luck since we planned to meet there at 7 thinking the bus came at 7:15. Yeah, talk about good timing. We boarded the bus, paid the 2.40€, the bus stopped in Nervión and Jessica and Courtney got on, and then we rode the 25 min. to the airport. We got there, checked in and stuff. In line for check-in we struck up a convo with a girl who goes to Boulder but is originally from Bloomfield Hills who, therefore, has a thousand connections to UofM. She´s studying in Sevilla and was going to Paris to meet up with her bf. So we walked and talked with her in the airport and at the gate and stuff, helped her out since she was traveling alone. We then boarded the plane at a quarter to 9. It was weird being on a plane, I hadn´t been since I first flew to Sevilla. Crazy. I sat with Courtney and Melissa, I read some Harry Potter (it´s starting to get good) then took an hour nap (who knew I was tired?). The flight was an easy 2 hr and 15 min.; the only thing that sucked was that they don´t serve free food or drink, it´s all to order and completely overly priced. We arrived at the Orly airport in Paris around 11:45, claimed our bags, and then waited for the OrlyBus outside. It was pretty brisk outside, which was noticeably since in Sevilla it´s really starting to warm up. Luckily the sun would peek through the clouds periodically. The bus came and we rode to its final stop somewhere in the middle of Paris at a stop called Denfert Rochereau. OK, let me just say that I was already falling in love with Paris although I hadn´t seen nor done anything. Just the overall feeling of it, it´s just what you´d imagine from the movies. Also, the language. I love the French language, it´s really fun to try to learn and pronounce, and it´s easier for me to pronounce, actually, than Spanish because I can´t roll the Spanish "rr" but I can do the throaty French "r" (thanks, Hebrew school). We sat at Denfert Rochereau for awhile waiting for Melissa´s friend, Sarah (who is there studying for the year) to meet up with us and take us to our hostel. She took awhile, but it was a good time to people watch and start to absorb Paris. I love all the corner cafés and cute buildings! It´s a big city, yet pretty low-keyed. It´s just, very...romantic...it really is! Sarah came and she took us down to the Metro. We were going to need the Metro to get everywhere so she suggested we buy a 10-ticket Metro pass, which we did. So there went 11€. Let me say this, now. What I absolutely hated about Paris is how expensive it is. I didn´t really do anything that requires a lot of money, but I ended up blowing 150€ the whole weekend despite my greatest efforts not to spend money. It´s nearly impossible not to. We rode a half hour Metro to our hostel area, which Sarah said was a good area...adjacent to the Jewish quarter or something. We walked up some steps to the desk area to be greeted by a Chinese man who spoke great English with some jumbled French meets Chinese accent. We had walked up all four of us with Sarah, and the first thing he says to us, very rudely mind you, "No visitors!" We were like, um, she's just showing us where to go. Then he got all adament about her not going into our room, which we were fine with. We hadn't even said a word and he was giving us a hard time, what'd we ever do to him? I wanted to pay with one of my traveler's checks that I brought, but he made us all pay in cash which was this huge ordeal. What's so hard about letting us pay separately? I started to realize why my Lisbon hostel was rated so highly. He gave us the key to our room, it was our own room with 2 beds--one king, one full--and its own shower and sink (not bad). It was a nice sized room with a great view, small balcony, and a heater. The hostel itself was kind of random. Just some winding staircases with rooms dispersed throughout and a single toilet bathroom on every floor. Random. After the angry Chinese man yelled at us for no reason we outwardly complained and said how we would give the hostel a bad review on hostelworld.com. I think that he may have heard us since from that point forward he was overly nice to us, haha. We hurriedly got ready, grabbed Sarah, and we were off for some Parisian touristy fun. We took the Metro to the Concorde stop which lets you off right in the middle of Louvre/river/shopping districty area. We thought to visit the Musee d'Orsay (the big impressionism musem), go to some famous cafe, and walk around the streets. We passed Orsay to see a huge line that wasn't worth the wait. So we decided to save it for Saturday, especially since the sun had come out, and walked down a really cute, posh area towards the famous cafe. The street we walked reminds me of Fifth Avenue with many cute cafes dispersed throughout. It's like a more ornamented New York, and more chilled out NY at that. Love it. We finally reached the cafe and luckily got seats. Unfortunately no celebs, unless some French ones were there of whom we were unaware. Supposedly, the hot chocolate is to die for, so we all ordered a chocolat. It was expensive, 7 euro (oh Paris), but it came in these teapot sort of things, so we got 2.5 cups worth. It was AMAZING! Mmmmm chocolat. After plentiful chocolat, we were actually pretty stuffed. We decided to walk it off by checking out the stores. There are lots of cool independent designers and such on that street. Let me also say that the trip had an interesting dynamic; you see, Jessica and I are very bohemian in our clothing interests while Melissa and Courtney are designer girls. So we definitely had our fill of both, yet Paris is the mecca for famous designers, think Louis Vuitton and Dior. So, anyways, while we walked we found a Cristian Dior boutique and went in. Me and my silliness thought it'd be fun (since designer clothes don't interest me too much) to try on the big high fashioned alien-looking sunglasses with Jessica and take a picture. When we did a shopkeeper kind of yelled at us...I guess that you're not supposed to take pictures in clothing stores in general? With my shopping inexperience I really was unaware of this rule. What a stupid rule, btw. So we got out of there pretty fast. Courtney loves Louis Vuitton, and there was a store on the street, so we went in which just made me laugh to myself the whole time. I'm sorry, but Louis Vuitton is just one of those things in this world that I'll never understand. After Louis we decided to go see Notre Dame. As we walked there the wind started to pick up as it became more overcast. Some rain began to fall. Good timing, I guess. Notre Dame was really great, at first I was a bit blah about it since I felt that you've seen one cathedral you've seen 'em all. Initially it felt like that until I walked deeper into it. I don't know, it sounds cliche, but there's definitely a unique spirit to the place. The windows are beautiful, the statues are beautiful, AND there was a children's choir singing there! It was very nice. When we left it was really windy, cold, and rainy. We opened our umbrellas but they all went inside out--Jessica's even broke! So we walked holding our umbrellas down since the wind couldn't even pick a direction. We decided that it was time to sample some authentic French crepes. Crepes are sold everywhere at stands, restaurants, and kiosks. Typically they're eaten like a wrap or a quesadilla since you take them to go. We found a random crepe stand which, little did we know, would turn out to be the best crepes we'd ever eat. The menu was huge, you could pick a sweet crepe or a salted crepe. Courtney got nutella banana, Jessica got a thon (tuna), fromage (cheese), and tomate (they have tuna EVERYWHERE in Paris, and the fromage is so amazing since it's not pasteurized, aaaaand they douse the crepe in cheese), Melissa got chicken, and I got the best one: the vegetarian. Let me describe this to you. First of all, at this stand the salted crepes were made with buckwheat which was a huge plus. Mine had peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, falafel, loads of cheese, grilled onions, and a ton of spices. It was a gift from the gods. While he made our crepes we stood under his awning as the rain let up while he served us free mint tea! He was awesome. Anyways, the rain stopped and we walked. I was lost in a heavenly culinary trance with my crepe. It was so much food, though, that I couldn't finish it, and unfortunately had to give it up to Courtney and Jessica to split the rest. We walked to the Metro and went back to the hostel. We made plans to meet up with Sarah for dinner at 9 at the Eiffel Tower. On the way back Courtney called her best guy friends from home who are studying in Sicily but were in Paris for the weekend as well. We planned to meet them at the Eiffel Tower that night, too. Then we all got ready to go out, and were off. It was so cold out, mind you. Oof. We got off the Metro and saw the top of the Eiffel Tower with its spinning light. It was so exciting, I mean, it was the freaking Eiffel Tower! Despite its touristiness, that is the symbol of France, it is something that I never thought that I'd see at this point in my life. As we got closer we saw that it was sparkling! The Eiffel Tower was literally sparkling. Turns out that they make lights flash all over it during the first five minutes of every hour. Wow. We finally got up to it, took a gajillion pictures, and walked under it. We decided not to go up since all it is is an aerial view of Paris, and it costs 13euro. Walking up to/under the Eiffel Tower was amazing. I can't really explain why. I just became really present to the fact that I was in Paris. That's a blessing right there. I was seriously falling in love with Paris, and I don't even have a reason for it. It was all starting to make sense why so many movies and such are taped there, why so many things are stationed there, why so many people strive to visit there. There's just something about it that gets to you. I really can't put my finger on it, but it really has this profound effect that just kept me in this constant state of happiness. I'm so unbelievably lucky to have such opportunities at this point in my life, it's incredible. I was in fucking France! After awhile of coldness and confusion we found Courtney's friends, Nick ("Munch") and Edgar, and their friend from their program, a very heavily accented Bostonian, James. We all met, talked, etc., and walked to meet Sarah at the Metro stop near the Eiffel Tower. She took us to this cool bar/restaurant that had a live DJ playing awesome music and great lighting. We ordered 2 bottles of wine, and I ordered the best salad I've ever had in my life for my meal. It was a green salad with lots of shrimp, fresh sardines, and two large wheat baguettes--one covered in smoked salmon (mmmmm lox...so amazing), the other in caviar (mmmmmmmmm!!!). It was so amazing and well worth the 11euro. Speaking of which, when eating out it's nearly impossible to find a meal below 10euro. My meal consisted of shellfish, smoked salmon, and caviar, and turned out to be the least expensive out of everyone's. Wow, talk about good eats in Paris. After dinner it was time to go out. Sarah told us of a good bar district and told us how to get there by Metro (she wasn't coming out with us since she had an early flight to Barcelona the next morning). We got there in about 20 min and headed straight for an Irish bar that she recommended called the Frog and the Princess or something like that. Drinks there were so expensive, and it was crowded and dark. Jessica ordered a mixed drink which cost 7euros. Not worth it to me, and I didn't want to drink beer, so I ordered a shot...which was 4euro! I can get a shot in Sevilla for 1euro. The others ordered beers which turned out to be 6euro each. 6 euro for one beer?? Ridiculous. I can get a beer three times the size in Sevilla for 3euro. Melissa, Jessica, and I were standing, cramped and talking when this lame french guy comes up to us and asked if we watch Sex&theCity. We said yes. Then he asked if when we watch it we sit in our pajamas and eat Nutella. Um, no. He then said that all of his girl friends in France do that. We gave him strange looks, then he began to get all deep saying that he sees it as some psychological thing...I don't know. We were pretty standoffish to him. Weird guy. Disgruntled by the scene and the price we decided to leave and find some place better/cheaper. We passed a plethora of bars to realize that in Paris everything, especially alcohol, is expensive. The cheapest we found, coincidentally, was some random Spanish bar that was pretty chill. Melissa, Courtney, and I decided to split a pitcher which was (gulp) 16euro, so about 5.50 each. Turns out that that's standard. Melissa, Jessica, and I then stood in a corner again when suddenly this creepy, drunk-as-fuck, middle-aged french guy starts coming up to us, says something in French loudly so all of his drunk-ass buddies could hear it, and then started laughing. This occurred numerous times in a row as we continued to give them the dirtiest looks. Soon he came over, grabbed us and tried to pull us over to talk to his buddies. We resisted like crazy. Then he got a hold of Melissa and asked if she spoke English. She shook her head and started talking in Spanish. Haha! He got frustrated with her and us and yelled in English "Fuck Spanish!" Ha! Little does he know we are bilingual, mwa ha ha. Well, fuck you, buddy. Bastards. Then we decided to get out of that corner and we stood with everyone else at the bar. Suddenly, unknown to me, there was some mishap with some of the guys we were with talking to them and being threatened or something which turned into us leaving the bar quickly. Somehow they figured out that it was a gay bar and they were being drunk and overt or something and threatening, I don't know, it sounded pretty weird. Who knows. It was a weird experience. Then we went to some little wine bar which really had barely any people in it. Everyone ordered a glass of wine but Jessica and me, we were not willing to fork over 6 euros for what would probably be a shitty glass of wine (which they were, so I heard). We just sat on the couches, we were growing tired. From where I was sitting I got front row seats to this couple basically on top of each other (gag me) and this group of Asian tourists singing along to the disco and eighties music playing. It was a strange time at the bar, let me tell you. Around 2ish we were ready to go since the bar was closing. In fact, all of the bars were closing. I'm not used to the whole last call thing since being in Spain! Since the Metro closes at 1am (bastards), we had to cab it home. We literally hailed down 10 taxis before getting one that would actually serve us. The French do not like people who don't speak French, especially Americans. I was told before coming that you should always ask right off the bat if they speak English, many times when we did that they would rudely shake their heads and speed off. Ugh. Finally we got a cab with a super nice driver who spoke good English. The taxis there are so expensive, though. The meter starts at 2 euro and goes up really quickly. Our ride cost over 10euro which is pretty expensive for how short of a ride it was. Ugh, Paris and your fees. We got back to the hostel and passed out by 3, which was a good thing since we had a long day ahead of us. Despite the sketchy night, I did have a good time. I just love being in Paris and it's really exciting to try to get around and pick up the language. I love using the language to order food and drinks, the accent is so fun. I want to get better, I definitely want to take French 100 or something in the Fall. Screw my Portuguese ideas, French is my choice 3rd language! Exciting. I had an amazing day in Paris, I just love the Parisian life. Again, I don't know how, but I seriously was falling in love with Paris.