September 12th

Time for the blogs about Paris trip September 2012. Our adventure in the city of lights started today, after Le Havre drench us in rain at 6 am of course. Can't have an adventure without a mis- in front of it. I decided the night before to wake up at least an hour early so that I could do my make-up without having to do it on the train ride. Well mascara, even water-proof, will bleed if it has no time to dry. Since our dorm is a fifteen minute walk to the train station and we did it in buckets of rain, I ended up looking similar to a drowned raccoon. Luckily the train was there and we hopped on without any fuss. I did regain some sleep as I listened to the latest All American Reject album; I recommend it, kids in the streets is a good tune.

Now, once we arrived at St. Lazare, the train station in Paris, Paula, Kate, and I tried to use the metro, or subway, map to go to our hostel. We failed at that. To be fair the maps at the station are somewhat confusing and we were doing this in the morning; for me sunlight is always an issue on my sense of direction. Continuing our mis-adventure, due to not knowing where we should go or what line we should take, we undoubtedly became somewhat misplaced around Galerie Lafayette.  It was at that moment that we decided to do what all English speakers must do when they are lost; we flagged down a cab. That is definitely the last time I take a Parisian cab. To put it into perspective, the man drove like a combination of Mr. Toad and an escaped lunatic evading the men in white. Personally, I value my life too much to ever put it into the hands of one of those people again. And here I though Chicagoan drivers were crazy, at least they know what the color red means. We did make it to the hostel alive, just a few years shaved off is all. Our room happened to be on the 5th floor, and man that was fun some nights. I was sarcastic about the whole thing and turned running up the stairs into an annoying game for Kate and Paula. I would, regardless of how tired I was or how much my feet hurt, skip up the flights and dash into our room. I then would greet them at the door with a dumb grin on my face; in my opinion they really should've punched me. Besides occasionally irritating my friends, Paris was quite eventful.

The first day, literally the day we arrived, we went to Notre Dame de Paris, le Jardin de Touilleries near Le Louvre, and Place de Lycée. I will start with Notre Dame since it was the first area that we visited. After we checked into our hostel, we are cheap students, and received some maps, we decided to try the metro again. I'm proud to say that we were much more successful since we actually made it to our destination. I was the navigator for the most of the trip and I didn't screw up, much. Anyways Notre Dame was beautiful as it always is. I do find it humorous that my favorite area of Paris is a Catholic cathedral, I'm a lil' urban Methodist girl, but it's the history and gothic style of the building that fascinates me not the religious aspects. Paula, a small town Catholic child, loved the fact that she could attend Mass there. She was on her own though, Kate and I were not waking up early on a Friday to attend a ceremony we don't even do in English. I did my usual business in Notre Dame; stared at the Rose windows, lit a candle for my deceased relatives, and bought a souvenir. This year's Notre Dame token was a small stained glass window of the cathedral. I simply couldn't help myself, besides it makes my dorm window look less bleak.

After the magnificent cathedral we took the metro to le Jardin de Tuilleries. It is right by Le Louvre and looks pretty fantastic in fall colors. We had fun taking dozen of pictures; some of them were serious but most were silly. We then had lunch at a nearby crêpe stand. Strawberry jam crêpes earn the title of both delicious and messy all-in-one.

Right after we moved on to the French fashion strip known as Champs de Lycée. It is a huge street that connects to Place Charles de Gaulle, the eight lane round-about by the Arc de Triumph. Anyone who's ever met me, even just looked at me, knows I am not interested in fashion labels at all. Paula is though. She loved marching up and down the block, peeping into stores, and contemplating whether or not a ring over 3,000 euros would be a good purchase. While she did that I tried my best not to look at price tags. Honestly in my opinion almost every store there was a waste of money. That said, I did splurge on a dress in Naf Naf. It was about $80, but it is absolutely beautiful and fits me perfectly.

On the strip there is a macaron store, Ladurée, which we be bought macarons from, who would've guessed. I bought a small variety, one of the flavors was black licorice. Oh how yummy it was. Unfortunately it was the only one that I could eat that day due to my sensitivity to sweets. Least macarons last for awhile, score for me. While Paula was in Chanel, Kate and I stopped into a bookstore. There I bought "Talk to the Snail" and "A Year in the Merde", two comedy novels by Stephen Clark that poke fun at the French. Perfect fate.

At the end of the day we relaxed for dinner at a place close to our hostel. I actually had a salad, since none of the beef was cooked on the menu, and a glass of 1664. Simply a good first day of mis-adventuring across Paris.