Bonjour! After, a month long hiatus from blogging, I’m back and ready to share about all of my trips I’ve taken & the wonderful times I’ve had in Flo!
Thursday night after a busy week in Florence, I set out to the airport to catch my flight a day earlier than Diana and Nat to reunite with my favorite person on Earth, the one and only Anna Douglas Piper, to see her new home! Despite my trauma with Air France, I decided to endure it and return to the fated CDG airport. This time restored my faith a little as I arrived early and navigated the metro to meet Anna Douglas. Along the hour long ride, she was taking the metro in the opposite direction in efforts to catch me at a stop. I received a text to get off the metro, and a few minutes later, my knight and shining armor in ballet flats was running at me with open arms. What a way to be welcomed in! We rode the metro back to her neighborhood and spent the night catching up on our adventures, snacking on French chips and dip to supplement my dinner.
The next morning, AD had already gone to class, but luckily Diana and Nat took the 5:30 am flight to Paris, beating me to be up. I gathered my stuff and met them in the park to find a cute spot for brunch where AD could meet us in between classes. I got my first Croquet Monseiur and a cappuccino. I hugged AD goodbye and we headed to our hostel. At the hostel we met Sophie, another study abroad student studying in Madrid for the semester. She was solo traveling, so we asked her if she wanted to join us. It was a great experience to meet new friends abroad & now I’ll always have a friend in Iowa!
After moving our stuff in and getting settled, we headed to the Montmarte Neighborhood to explore the church and do some shopping in the cute stores around the city. In traditional Italian fashion, we stopped for a glass of French wine and headed to the cutest restaurant ever, cafe L’Artist, where we were blissfully greeted by a golden retriever puppy. We enjoyed French onion soup, which many know is one of my favorite dishes, and traditional beef bourguignon, a recipe of the chef’s grandmother! After dinner we booked it to the Eiffel Tower to catch the last sparkle of the night. We had gotten extremely good at navigating the metro by now, so we were truly on a sprint to get there. And surely enough, we caught the sparkle right at 9, a sight I hadn’t seen in years.
It was right after this that I had received a text from Cecelia, one of my best friends from school, that she was ready for us to come over and say hi, but that she couldn’t leave because the electrician was at her apartment . We headed over there to sit for a bit, and as the best surprise ever, four of my favorite people on earth were pretending to be the electrician to surprise me. Clare, Sabrina, Cecelia, and Marissa were all there and I had no idea! Best night ever. We caught up for a while until Diana and I headed back to the hostel to get sleep for a long day tomorrow.
Saturday morning we woke up and headed to a bakery around the corner to grab a French pastry breakfast! We walked in, and not a soul was in there, a little weird for peak breakfast hour but we didn’t question it. The owner asked us what we were there for, we responded breakfast and she seated us. To our surprise, we never ordered. Instead, she sent fleets of food out to our table, including buttered croissants, spinach and cheese tartlets, and weirdest of them all, Indian curry pizza? We were just as confused as you are reading this, but it was cheap and delicious, so we did not complain one bit. Yet, things began to take a turn when all of a sudden screams were coming out of the back of the kitchen. Still foggy to this day, but we believe the owner was yelling at her husband telling him to not bother her at work. She attempted to speak into my phone to tell us why, but classic Google Translate gave us French gibberish that only remained in giggles from us. Safe to say we were ready to get out of there, but for a 5 euro three course breakfast, I’ll take it!
After breakfast, we hopped straight on the metro and headed to the louvre, an obvious must see in Paris. We obviously had to take the stupid pyramid pictures to count as us going there so enjoy my stupid posing. We walked around for about 3 hours in the exhibits. I read that if you spent 1 minute looking at every painting in the louvre, it would take you over 10 years to complete which is insane. But, we got to see our girls Mona and Victory and my personal favorite of the louvre, pictured on the album cover of Viva La Vida. Ready to give our feet a break, we went to Les Deux Magots, as suggested by Aunt Jana, to try their world famous hot chocolate. It did not disappoint. We tried it with their pastry sampler and a scoop of ice cream, and it was the perfect pick me up.
We walked over to the Notre Dame to see the outside & had to go back to the Eiffel Tower on our last night to see it sparkle one last time. For dinner, we read raving reviews for Bistro Victories and their 13 euro steak frites, and for good reason. I sampled their French onion soup & got the steak frites for dinner with Bernese sauce, another French classic. We finished up dinner and hopped on the metro to attempt to make it in to Caveau de la Huchette, the famous jazz club featured in La La Land, one of my favorite movies. Sadly, the line was backed up further than I had ever seen one, so we instead met Cecelia, Clare, Sabrina, Marissa, and Lucia at a Canadian pub and had a lovely time playing cards and catching up before going to bed. Another great day in Paris!
Sunday morning, Diana, Nat, and I grabbed breakfast before they set off for their early flight. I had the day to myself, a thing I’m actually really working towards enjoying while abroad. It truthfully was quite weird to be completely alone in the center of one of the largest cities in Europe. I shopped around a little bit and explored a church which I sadly do not remember the name of, but it was beautiful. I didn’t find the best stores in the world, so I left for the metro empty handed and grabbed a croissant on the way as my final farewell to Paris. Au revoir, Paris! (And see you soon again!)
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