Saturday in Paris ...

1-31-2009

Today we were all together. Romina, Caitlin, Eline and myself woke up at 9/9:30 and got ready for a full day in Paris. Let me begin by describing my companions ... Romina is a Latina firecracker. She is a born leader and if Romina says it's so, don't argue. She is from Argentina and has been pretty much everywhere. Caitlin is an American debutant. She rides horses and is from Oklahoma. She has a great personality and gets along with everyone. Eline is French. I just met her yesterday. She was born in Paris and now attends the Sorbonne. She is in her first year and is studying Italian. She's quiet (maybe because her first language is French and we all were speaking English) and extremely polite.

Eline fed us breakfast. She had the best assortment of French pastries. Sooo good. I wonder how all the French women are so skinny. For example, there were apple chaussons, puff pastries with chocolate, croissants and more. She made us Columbian coffee too. We needed it! After we ate we headed into the city. Eline's house is very close to a train station, which made getting to and from Paris really easy.

Once in Paris, we headed to Sacre Cur and Montmartre, a charming neighborhood just behind the church. We stopped along the way and bought souvenirs. We walked up the stairs to Sacre Cur and viewed the church. Then we walked to Montmartre. I loved this neighborhood. It might be my favorite place in Paris. There were artists everywhere and really great little restaurants. Romina had her portrait drawn by one of the artists in Montmartre and I stopped to write my postcards. I was really dissappointed because I left my iPod back in Rome. The iPod has my address book, so I was only able to write to those whose addresses I knew by heart.

After a little while, Caitlin, Eline and I went into a restaurant to escape the cold and waited for Romina. We drank coffee and I finished writing my letters. Romina came and joined us and we all decided we would head to the Eiffel Tower. We left Montmartre and headed towards the metro. We rode the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The tower is huge. I was really surprised by how big it was. I don't know why, but I expected it to be smaller.

Romina and Caitlin wanted to ride to the top of the tower, but I really didn't care to see the view at the top. I was so cold and I knew it would be even more freezing up there. Eline and I left and would meet them later. Eline took me to the Opera house. Sooo beautiful. Then we went to Starbucks and had a snack. Afterwards it was time to meet Romina and Caitlin. Eline had a party, so she needed to get home and get dressed. I rode the metro back to the Eiffel Tower and Eline headed home.

I met the girls. They wanted to head to Eline's and then meet up with their friend Louise for a night out in the city. We did just that. We met their friend Louise after freshening up. She took us to a bar that used to be a train station, called Fleche d'Or (the golden bow). Louise was really cool. She is French and lives in Paris. She is interning at Cosmo. She had an event earlier in the day and she said she met Lauren Conrad there. Lauren invited her to intern for her new company. She was thrilled, but the internship was in LA and she's looking for something in New York City.

We watched a band play at the bar and then we headed out to a nigh club. We rode the metro a few stops and found the club. It was packed. There was a line out the door spanning the entire street. We would have to wait at least 2 hours to get in. We decided it wasn't worth it and left. Louise headed home and we were on our way to Eline's. We rode the metro where we needed to make our connection. When we got to our connection the metro was closed. AAAAHH! Disaster. We had to figure out the night bus situation.

Thank goodness for Romina. She had the bus time card. She picked it up at one of the train stations. It said that our bus would come every hour. We just needed to figure out which bus stop was our stop. At 2:30 a.m. we were looking at the bus schedule. We saw the bus we needed to take drive right past us. Just a couple blocks ahead was the bus stop. So, we had to wait an entire hour for our next bus. It would have been fine, but it was sooooo cold. I mean this is the coldest I have ever been. My feet were frozen. I had tights under my jeans, a thick pair of socks and wool lined boots, and I was absolutely frozen.

I really wanted to call a taxi, but it would have cost a lot of money. I have become really cheap. I mean REALLY cheap. The exchange rate is crap, so I pretty much refuse to spend dollars unless it is necessary. And I literally make no money. I have to save my euros to travel. I cannot squander my euros on taxis and clothes. This makes things a little more difficult and sometimes I will have to pamper myself a little or I'll get depressed. For example, I am going to find a good salon and get a haircut. I also need to have my hair colored because it turned a weird red color that I hate.

Anyways, back to Paris. We waited at the bus stop for an entire hour. When the bus arrived we were sooo releaved. It hurt when my feet began to defrost. The bus took us to the train station next to Eline's house. We went straight to bed. I slept in two pairs of socks and my sweatshirt. I was still freezing even after we were in our warm beds.