Paris, Nice, and everything else from the past week and a half

So I'm at an all-time backup on blog posts, so I will warn you right now that this will most likely be a long post. Anyway, I'm going to go back to last Wednesday, the 3rd of March (eek) and then go from there. Cool? Cool.

Last Wednesday Jason and I took the chunnel to Paris from London. If I could honestly travel by train everywhere I probably would because not only is it 234 times easier than traveling by plane, but I also think trains are more exciting than planes for some reason (probably since I've only taken about two long-distance trains in my entire life). Anyway, the chunnel was great and we got into Paris and found the apartment we rented for our time in the city. It was a tiny little studio, but perfect (read: clean and didn't have to walk down a hall for the shower). We relaxed for a few minutes before meeting up with Elaine for dinner. We weren't really sure where she lived in relation to us, but it turns out it was two metro stops which is about 4 blocks, so we were able to find her easily. She had scouted out menus and prices of restaurants in the area earlier and took us to a restaurant called En Attendant L'Or. She advised us to order Parisian dishes, so the three of us split one goat cheese salad and two orders of steak tartare with frites. Clearly, I anticipated to get a lady boner for the steak and pick around the vegetables in the goat cheese salad. QUITE ON THE CONTRARY! The salad was probably the best I've ever eaten with goat cheese, bacon, apples, and this sweet vinaigrette dressing, and the steak had little chopped up pickles in it (that's a dealbreaker, ladies!). The moral of the story is that you can't always judge a book by the cover and also that I am still dreaming of this salad. After dinner Elaine brought us to her dorm and we split a bottle of wine and got to see where she lived. We hung out for awhile before walking back to our apartment and going to bed for the night.

The next morning we walked towards the Bastille memorial and got breakfast at a boulangerie (bakery). When we were with Elaine the night before, she had done all the communicating in French, but when it was just Jason and I, I was solely responsible for communication with the natives. I thought this was going to be nearly impossible seeing as my high school French education was a waste of time, rendering my last valuable French experience when I was 14 years old, aka 7 years ago (sheesh I'm getting old). However, I guess I underestimated my ability to retain French after learning it in songs about ratatouille, and I was able to be an adequate translator for our weekend in France. Anyway, we walked past the Bastille and all down the Seine to Notre Dame. I'd seen it when I visited Paris the summer after sixth grade, and I think it still is my favorite European church (I guess I'm just a sucker for those stained glass windows). After walking through Notre Dame we went to the Holocaust Memorial, but it was closed so we could only look at it and not walk through it. We said we'd come back but ended up running out of time. At least we got to see it...

We walked further down the Seine to go to the Musee D'Orsay. The D'Orsay specializes in impressionist paintings, and I hadn't been there on my first visit to Paris so I was excited. We saw a ton of amazing artworks, and as Jason said, it's really cool to see these works of art in person after hearing about them forever. By the time we left the museum, we were both starving, so we got sandwiches at another boulangerie down the street before heading to the Louvre.

I remember thinking from my first time in Paris that the Louvre is an amazing museum. What I forgot (or maybe just never knew in the first place) is that it is absolutely MASSIVE. We spent a few hours there and still only saw a portion of it. We did try to hit all the highlights though: The Code of Hammurabi, The Venus de Milo, The Winged Victory, and of course the Mona Lisa. Elaine met us at the museum for the end, but all of us were a bit overwhelmed and satisfied with what we had seen so we walked down the Rue de Rivoli to Angelina, a famous tea house that's known for its hot chocolate. When I say hot chocolate, I don't mean milk with chocolate in it, but it literally tasted like a melted Cadbury bar. Obviously delicious, but wildly rich. We also had a waitress who was the epitome of an asshole Frenchwoman, rolling her eyes at us when we asked to share even though there were clearly people sitting around us who were sharing. Bitch.

Elaine hadn't been home from class yet so she went back while Jason and I walked through the Tuileries gardens for a while and then headed back to the apartment. We were on our own for dinner, and I wanted to go see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, so once we were ready we took the Metro down by the Tower and found a restaurant near there called Le Bosquet. We each ate French onion soup (and yes, I did sing the Anne Maries' French song from 7th grade in my head, and out loud) and then split a goat cheese salad (far inferior to the previous night's) and a chateaubriand steak (mmmmm). We walked by the Tower and it was beautiful, and then we went and met up with Elaine, Jill and Lauren at Lauren's apartment. We pregamed and then headed to a club called Cab. After a little while, Jason and I went home, where I hung out in the bathroom...but hey, that's what I get for only drinking wine and hot chocolate all day. (soundtrack to inner monologue: "You Live, You Learn" by Alanis Morrissette).

The next morning after a very unpleasant night's sleep I woke up and (slowly) got dressed so Jason and I could meet Jill and Jana Kritz at L'As du Falafel for lunch. I was feeling anxious because I had never eaten falafel before, but I was feeling optimistic after Jill's endorsement that it tasted better than the falafel than she'd had in Israel. The place was run by French Israelis and the falafel was DELICIOUS, so I was applauding myself for stepping out of the box a bit. We walked around the Jewish area where it was located and then made our way over to the Centre Pompidou, which is a modern art museum in France that is basically housed in a building that looks like it's inside out. Jill suggested we try to get in free as students and ride the escalators to the top, where there is an amazing view. We were all able to get in free (cha-ching!) and went straight to the top floor where there truly was a beautiful and unique view of the city, not to mention one that I would never have known about without Jill's guidance. We were going to leave immediately, but I felt weird going into the museum without seeing any exhibits, so I made everyone go to this collage exhibit that was just-modern-enough for our tastes. Then we parted ways, and Jason and I headed to the Eiffel Tower. We had hoped to to ride up to the top but hadn't taken the ridiculous lines into account, so we decided that we would have to pass. Either way, it was cool to see the Tower up close.

We headed home after taking a few pictures to wait for Genna to meet us, since she was coming in town for the weekend but the person she was staying with wasn't there yet. We waited in the apartment for two and a half hours, unable to get in touch with her, before we finally decided to go get crepes with Ashley and walk around with her for a little bit. It was great to get to see her, even if only for a little while because of her class schedule.

When we got back to the apartment, Genna was there and we headed to Refuge Des Fondues (aka "The Baby Bottle Place!") to meet Elaine, Lauren, and Lauren's friends from school. We sat in these long booths making fondue and drinking wine out of baby bottles (which I may or may not still have...). It was definitely an experience. The restaurant was literally a long, narrow rectangle lined with booths that didn't even have a gap to sneak through to get to the inside--we had to step on a chair and climb over the table. It was really great except for the fact that I was in way too close of quarters with the fondue pot and literally felt like I was melting after a period of time (luckily I had the cold baby bottles to cool me off). It was like the Melting Pot, only with atmosphere.

After dinner, we walked around Montmartre, which is like Paris's Red Light District. We got to see the Moulin Rouge which was really exciting since that's been one of my favorite movies since I first saw it (and yes, I was disappointed that there was no elephant in front). We also got crepes from a stand right there before Jason, Genna, and I headed to see the Arc De Triomphe and walk the Champs Elysees. The Arc De Triomphe was amazing, and the Champs Elysees had some amazing shops. We got macarons (as recommended by Elaine, Jill, Lauren, and co.) at La Duree, which was the first place where the storekeeper seemed even moderately grateful that I spoke French. The macarons were delicious and nothing like Jewish coconut-infused macaroons. We even got to see the Eiffel Tower with the flashing lights (a la The Devil Wears Prada) before heading home to eat our macarons and go to bed so we would be ready for our 7am flight to Nice. Paris was wonderful, the architecture is beautiful, the food was amazing, and I got to see everyone there who I had planned to which was really wonderful. It was strange how even after being apart for so long it literally felt like I had seen them a few days earlier.

The next morning Jason and I hailed a cab to Charles de Gaulle airport at 4:15 a.m. The cab driver was blasting Tupac the entire ride there, which was interesting to say the very least. Additionally, the airport seemed to be still asleep and our gate was isolated from anything you might need before a flight, including bathrooms. Regardless, we got to Nice around 10am and made our way (after missing our tram stop) to Hotel Paradis, which was glamorously situated between Louis Vuitton and Emporio Armani. This front is deceiving, since the shower in our room was being held together with duct tape, but the room had a TV and that was enough to quell any complaints we had. We took a nap so that we had even the smallest shred of energy for the day, and then woke up again around noon. By this time, it was sunny and about sixty degrees in Nice, which was amazing. We had lunch at an outdoor cafe called Le Ritz and then headed into the old city, or Vieille Nice, where they had all sorts of old buildings and also a huge flower market.

After walking around there for a little bit, we went to Le Chateau. This is not a fancy castle, but rather the remains of a fortress that overlooks the entire city and the Mediterranean. The day was gorgeous and so were the views, and we spent several hours climbing up and looking around from a different perspective. It was honestly one of the most perfect-looking places I'd ever been, with bright, beachy buildings and amazing views of the water. It's a city designed for a gorgeous day like the one we had, so we took advantage of the outdoor seating options and warm weather. We also got ice cream at this place called Fenocchio which had roughly infinity ice cream flavors (beer! avocado! nutella!). It was delicious, and we ate it while walking back towards the city center, where we explored and relaxed until the sun started going down. We went for dinner at a place called Le Quebec, which was a bit touristy it seemed but the food was decent. Then we walked around a little longer before getting dessert (split ice cream and a crepe) and heading back to our *glamorous* hotel.

The next morning made me grateful that I had taken full advantage of the warm weather the night before, since it was chillier and overcast (rainy at times). Additionally, it seemed that the entire city shut down on Sundays, with no open stores and very few open restaurants. Luckily, the museums were open, so we headed to the Marc Chagall museum which was definitely on the smaller side but every painting inside was absolutely breathtaking. His use of color was unreal, and it was cool to see Jewish subject matter portrayed instead of the usual Christian topics of Renaissance and other artwork. After the museum, we got lunch at a little cafe and headed to the Modern Art Museum. I was apprehensive because sometimes Modern Art Museums are a bit much for me, but I thought this museum was great. They had some famous modern paintings and also a lot of cool installations that were modern but not ridiculous like modern art museums sometimes are. The most notable was an installation by an artist who had taken dead, stuffed pigs and created tattoo designs all over their bodies. A bit disturbing, but also pretty cool to see.

We tried to kill time throughout the city for the rest of the day before we had to head to the airport around 7, and ended up getting dinner around 4:45 at a place called La Civette du Cours. I ordered Chicken with Spices which ended up being stir fry, but it was delicious. We also ordered this kind of pancake-y bread that is native to south France which was delicious even though the name is currently escaping me. We killed some more time before heading to the airport and getting back to London around midnight, with another hour and a half before we got back to the dorm.

(FELICITATIONS! You've made it back to London!!)

Monday I had classes and then went to dinner with Sarah, Jason, Nick, and some of Nick's friends from school at Yo! Sushi, since they have a deal that every plate is only 2.20 on Mondays. Yo Sushi is a place where you sit around this giant island and sushi comes around to you via conveyor belt. Let me tell you, this is AWESOME. Especially for someone like me who would like to have three pieces of 5 different sushi rolls instead of 2 full rolls. Lots of yummy sushi that made up for the pre-Avenue Q crunchy avocado fiasco that I feared would turn me off from sushi forever. I also went to HMV and got the new Broken Bells and Gorillaz albums (both amazing), and it was so nice to buy physical CDs. Just a sidenote.

Tuesday I worked all day, and then finished my projects due Wednesday....A THRILLING DAY!

Wednesday morning I had my British Youth Culture midterm presentation. The assignment was to get into a group and apply concepts learned in class to make up an American band and say what would make them successful in the UK. This project was amazing, so much fun to invent band members and their histories, even though it is a little depressing to think of the music industry as little more than marketing strategy. I worked with Max, Kev, and Sarah, and our band was called the Livingstons. Side note: when I turned on my ipod after finishing the project I was kind of really sad that this band wasn't real. Later that afternoon, I watched a movie for class called "Crash". No, not the 2005 Oscar winner starring Chris "Ludacris" Bridges. Instead, this is the 1996 David Cronenberg film about a cult of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes and crash their cars and fuck each other for 96 minutes. Watching this movie ruined my day.

Thursday I worked all day and then went to see Passion Pit at the HMV Apollo with Jason. Earlier that day, I had seen via their twitter that they were releasing a limited-edition poster commemorating their UK tour. I got really excited and went to look at the link online, which said the poster was FORTY SEVEN POUNDS. I was disappointed because this is way too much to spend on a poster. We got to the venue and were waiting in line for coat check and I saw that they had the same poster at the merch stand for 15 pounds! (inner thoughts: sweet! a bargain!) Not only did I buy the poster, but I was able to charm the American merchandise worker to hold onto it for the entirety of the concert so I didn't ruin it before leaving the venue (cha-ching!). The show was great, I really like Passion Pit a lot and had been looking forward to the show since before I came here. They sounded amazing live, too, and from where we were standing I could see the stage the whole time--a definite bonus. We were planning to go to the after-show  at a nearby bar after the concert, but then we realized that they didn't play until 12:30, exactly when the tube stops running, and we had no idea how to get home from Camden via bus. We headed into Leicester Square and decided instead to have a snack (which turned into a second dinner) in Chinatown...aka a perfect end to the night.

Friday, I worked again so that I can take a day off when my parents come in town. I really like work because the festival stuff is in full swing. After work, I came home for a little while before getting dressed and meeting Jason, Nick, and Sarah at O'Neill's. There was a band playing upstairs, and even though I normally despise bands who play other people's music, this band was unbelievable. They played everything from "Dani California" to "I Gotta Feeling" to "Valerie" and everything was spot-on. We danced all night before we were all exhausted and decided it was time for some donerkebab before heading home for the evening.

Saturday, I woke up and walked around by the other side of the Thames. Unfortunately, this area wasn't very exciting, and I soon got tired and came home. Saturday night was spent hanging out and drinking wine. Sunday, Jason and I explored this area called Clapham Common which had some cute shops. Then we went to Topshop and I helped Jason pick out some black jeans at Topman before I made him sit through 2 dressing room visits...whoops. On the bright side, I got grey jeans and some tank tops that were on sale! Okay fine, the Topshop addiction is getting out of hand. I took Jason to Bodeans (the most delicious barbeque place) for dinner and then we walked through Carnaby Street and Soho where I got my very first Candy Cakes cupcake (truly a gift from heaven) before heading home. I tried to blog yesterday but it took so long to update my pictures to my computer that I had lost my attention span by the time it was done and just went to bed.

Today I had classes and then Jason and I took advantage of London Restaurant Week by going to this place called Homage and getting a three-course dinner and a bottle of wine for 25 pounds each. It was delicious and it's always nice to have good food when you're used to chicken and pasta.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU MADE IT! If you actually read to this point you should comment and I'll get you your very own English prize because I am impressed that anyone has an attention span that is as long as this blog post. I'm being pretty much entirely serious.

gorgeous days in the uk

The past two days have been some of the nicest I've had since coming here, and certainly the nicest consecutively. Monday, I had my first (and only) midterm. It was in architecture and it was totally fine. I finished pretty quickly and then Sarah and I decided we would walk around, having nothing else to do on this gorgeous day, and see if we could get tickets to go see Oliver. We walked the 10 minutes to the theatre and got seats for that nights performance: center in the second row of the balcony (seats that are usually 75 quid for only 25! Gotta love student pricing). More about Oliver later

Then we decided that we were both desperately in need of haircuts. I had done some research online to find a place that was cheap and somewhat reputable, and I found a place that had a student discount and gave free head and neck massages (!) with a haircut. Naturally, this was the place I chose for us to go to. We get there (it was called B-Zar), and realize that it is a Japanese salon. Both a little bit nervous, we sat down to get our haircuts and were both extremely pleased, which I guess is a sign that it doesn't hurt to step out of your comfort zone a little bit. We came home and changed and ate very quickly, then ran back to the Tube to head to Oliver.

Sarah and I have been talking since literally the day we got here about how badly we want to see Oliver. We both love the show, but have only seen the movie and the Northbrook Theatre rendition that we were both in when we were in 6th grade. Somehow the timing was never right and we put it off for a month and a half before finally going to see it. The show started at 7:30 and we were running late, literally got off the tube at 7:15 and had no idea where we were supposed to go. We asked 5 different people, who all gave us different directions, and were sprinting around Covent Garden like absolute lunatics trying to find the theater. We ran in the door at 7:32, the show started at around 7:36, giving us enough time to find our seats before the show began (score!). The show was amazing, we both were obsessed with the kid who played the Artful Dodger and everyone else in the cast was great too. It was also cool because the show takes place in London (duh), and we realized that one of the buildings on the set was on our Architecture midterm and also that the song "Who Will Buy" takes place right outside where we take class. Also, we figured out that Fagin is Jewish (because Bill Sykes called him the k-word, but still). We both struggled to not sing along with the cast. We're cool like that. We headed home afterward with stupidly big smiles on our faces and souvenir postcards we bought at the concession stand (which were definitely the best value thing that has ever been sold at a West End production). I came home and did my laundry, which I don't even care to discuss because the laundry facilities here redefine the term "subpar" and that should be reserved for my upcoming post "Why I despise the IES Building"...stay tuned!

Yesterday, I woke up and it was sunny and warm again, so I quickly put my laundry away and straightened up my room (which I had been delaying for weeks) while watching the latest episode of Friday Night Lights. When I was finished, I decided that it was imperative that I get my eyebrows waxed since they were bordering on unruly. I headed back by the hair salon to a new place called Cucumba (which I pronounce in my head like the baseball team in Hardball, but I think it's really more like the vegetable). After getting my eyebrows waxed, I realized I was bordering on famished, so I walked around and smelled this barbeque place called Bodean's and decided that I really wanted barbeque. I only realized later that this was because the FNL season 4 hangout was an amazing-sounding barbeque restaurant, but I got a pulled pork sandwich and fries and it was absolutely delicious even if I was full for about 4 hours. Afterward, I decided that I would walk around Soho, which I did for about 3 hours until my feet were on the verge of bleeding and I realized I was essentially walking in circles. While walking, I found some really cool little shops and also the hair that Myla donated to Locks of Love in junior high!!

Literally on the verge of exhaustion and not knowing where to go next, I boarded a bus home. As soon as I got on the bus, I talked to Sarah who was heading to Trafalgar Square with Keetin. One stop later, I got off the bus and walked to Trafalgar, because in spite of my aching legs, I thought it necessary to take as much advantage of this day as possible. Plus, I hadn't been there yet. There were so many statues and it was really beautiful. We climbed on to one of the lions  and took pictures (which are on Sarah's camera), and walked around before going into the National Gallery (which is right there). The gallery was really cool and really a beautiful building, but we weren't there for very long because it was closing and they started ushering people out. When we got outside, the sun was beginning to set and it legitimately looked like a scene from Peter Pan. We took the tube home and hung out for the rest of the night. I haven't done much today because I've been packing for Paris and Nice, which I'm leaving for this afternoon and really looking forward to. More about that when I get back!!