J'adore Paris

Paris weekend with the interns 26th October-28th October was great. It was nice to all go on holiday together like one big happy family.

We took the a bus to waterloo from Gloucester, (very early in the morning...we all had our starbucks needless to say), then hopped on the EuroStar. Woot! It just felt like a normal train ride, except when you couldn't see anything because we were under water. Once we got to Paris, we took another bus to the Gare de Lyon / The Mercure Gare de Lyon which was another train station and also attached to the hotel we were staying at for the weekend. Very nice hotel, and quite different from being in a hostel.

We pretty much had the entire weekend to do whatever we wanted. Which we spent, wandering, sometimes getting a bit cranky, exploring, sightseeing, and shopping. Friday afternoon we found our way to Notre Dame Cathedral. Once again: Small F-ing World. Who do i come across? None other than the wonderful Catherine Rinaldi from URI. I saw a girl that I could have sworn was her, but tossed the idea away and didnt have the guts to randomly walk up to someone (in Paris mind you...) and see if it was her. However i probably kept creepily staring...a bit of facebooking when i got home and sure enough it was her. wow. unbelievable. you're never too far from home. On our way back, we found the f-ing Harry Potter Knight Bus. for real. it was AMAZING. and free!! it was sooo cool. the 7th book had debuted in France that day (i guess it takes that long to translate?) free posters and everything. totally made my weekend. friday night we went out to go get some grub, and it was happy hour. Rock on. mojitos, and someone got a strawberry mule. once again, for protection of reputation i won't mention his name. we all got french onion soup, but it is THE THING to have when youre in paris. it was amazing. scott and christie gave escargot a try, and said it was like shrimp or mussels and really garlicy. i wish i had gotten around to trying it. where was my can-do attitude and video camera on that one. slacker. we ended up on a road full of dive bars and clubs which was cool, but were too tired to go into any. so we popped in the local mini-mart and experimented with a few cheap champagnes, sparkling cider and cheap white wine. and brought it back to the hotel. we're classy like that.

saturday morning we hopped onto a bus tour with all the interns and that was fun to see most of the city and take a few photo ops at the eiffel tower, where i did cartwheels (in the mud) for a special someone. we ended at the louvre, and got to go there for free, which was really cool. Mona Lisa, as expected, was over rated. tons of people surrounding it from 50 feet away because its harder to get near than Fort Knox. Seriously, theres like 10 feet of glass protecting it on top of a 50 ft blockaded perameter. rediculous. but i got to see a lot of roman and greek sculptures, which were really neat. we also stopped by the oriental rug section haha. and i found the first starbucks to be found in France as we were leaving. but i refuse to pay 4.50 euros for a cup of coffee...Translation: $7 for a tall chai tea latte. no thanks. the rest of the afternoon was spent looking for some food, looking for a place to shop (which was never found and we just spent hours roaming around aimlessly and grumpy) and then we ended up at the eiffel tower to climb it :). However, i got in the wrong line and we had to take the lift. lame. AND they closed the top tier before i could get my ticket, and it was re-opening in merely an hour. i could have waited, but it was too late, and the group wouldnt want to wait too. so we took the lift, and it was beautiful. the lights went on right as we were on the second tier. it was gorgeous. i took the stairs down, because i thought the girls had left already...but apparently they hadn't and i was all alone at the base for about a half hour, kind of freaking out after the first 10 minutes. it was dark, and there are gypsies everywhere pickpocketing and trying to sell you things and scare the hell out of me. pushy and very forward. not cool. luckily i got ahold of danielle, and they made it down to rescue me finally. we met back up with the others and got some dinner at a cool family style restaurant. then came back to the room and finished some of the drinks from the night before and played the clap clap game. and watched Scrubs in french (briefly) before Dani chose to remain on the French version of American Idol 'Popstars'

Sunday was a better day. we got breakfast and headed off on the metro to Sac de Cure? A really big and beautiful church up on a hill. There was a painter's market and tons of cafes that we explored as well. We grabbed lunch at a little italian style bistro and I got a glass of vin chaude (hot wine) it was really cool. you add a bit of sugar and its like hot apple cider, but wine. We then walked down to the moulin rouge, which was on Sex St. USA pretty much. every porn shop, sex toy shop and "gentleman's club" you could think of. but we got to the moulin rouge (which is now apparently a restaurant) and took some provocative pics. thats how we roll. Then we headed back to the hotel, to meet up with the crew and head back to the UK.

Over all it was an awesome weekend but I was really glad to be back in London actually. I don't know why but Paris just didn't 'do-it' for me. It just wasnt exactly what I expected. Don't get me wrong. It was awesome because we had a holiday weekend together and it was Paris. But I don't think I'd ever want to live there. It was nice to visit, but didn't live up to expectations unfortunately. Ireland won't let me down I'm hoping. Woot. Can't wait.