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Wednesday 5/27
In the morning, I took the Metro to the center of the city. I walked along the Seine river, checking out the Petit Palais and the Jardin de Tuileries. The Petit Palais is a free art museum in which I spent an hour or so. The Jardin de Tuileries was very nice and symmetrical, but I prefer the Jardin de Luxembourg because it doesn't have as much empty space. But the Parisians love their grand walkways, and the Jardin de Tuileries definitely has that. After relaxing for a bit, I went to the St. Michel fountain in the Latin Quarter for a free walking tour of Paris. Sandemans New Europe is this company that has free tours in almost every major European city. The tour guide works for tips so in the end, you decide to tip however much you think the tour was worth. Most of the guides are expats; my tour guide was a student from Wisconsin studying in Paris. The tour was pretty interesting and enjoyable and filled with little bits of history and random quirky facts about the places we visited.
Afterwards, I walked over to the Musee d'Orsay since it was free from 5pm to 6pm. I ran in at 5 and went upstairs because the Impressionism section on the top floor closes first. I quickly glanced at as many paintings as I could and then walked back down to look around the rest of the museum. I spent the rest of the night in the hostel hanging out and talking to the people in the room.
Thursday 5/28
On Thursday, I had tickets to Phillipe Chatrier Court at the French Open. The schedule of play that day for center court :
Marion Bartoli v. Tatiana Garbin
Roger Federer v. Jose Acasuso
Serena Williams v. Virginia Ruano Pascal
Gael Monfils v. Victor Krivo
I got to the stadium around 10:30am and got settled into my seat for the first match.
Here are some of my random thoughts throughout the day
• The girls who were ushering in Philippe Chatrier were hot.
• Women's tennis can be pretty boring.
• Garbin had a 70 mph second serve
• Wow, I just saw a rally longer than 5 shots. Maybe it's not that boring.
• This is such an ugly match. No one can hold serve in the second set.
• Tony Parker was watching the Roger Federer match too.
• SICK MATCH
• Guy next to me is annoying as hell. He is trying to impress his friend by commenting on every point.
• Nonstop talking from his end. Please just shut up and watch the match.
• He keeps talking about how the player who controls the center of the court wins the point. No shit, Sherlock; what an amazing observation.
• Serena Williams domination is not very interesting. Left to go walk around the stadium.
• Came back for Monfils and snuck myself into a lower level/better seat
• Wanted to go see Roddick on Court 2, but it was full
• Walked right past Mary Joe Fernandez, but realized too late and didn't get to ask for a picture with her.
At night, Will, Krystina, Laura, and I went out to Marais. First, we went to this Latin bar that had nice music and a good environment but was way expensive. We ordered cocktails and they were over 9 euro each. After we finished our drinks, we were intent on finding some cheap alcohol. We ended up buying two bottles of wine with twist open caps hahaha because we didn't have a wine bottle opener. So we took the two bottles of wine and drank them while walking along the Seine. It was dark but peaceful, and eventually we got to a bar in the Latin Quarter and chilled there for the rest of the night.
Friday 5/29
Friday morning, I woke up kind of late since we were out the night before. We (Krystina, Laura, John, Will, Lindsey, and I left for the Catacombs around noon. Basically, the Catacombs is this underground place in Paris that they used to move dead bodies into during a time where there wasn't enough space above ground to bury the dead. It was kind of creepy but cool. You walked through this long tunnel cave filled with human bones and skulls. After the Catacombs, we were kind of thirsty so we stopped at the nearest café. Turns out it was this deaf café called Café Signes. It was really surprising and definitely an interesting experience. Our waiter was deaf and gave us these pamphlets to teach us how to sign for things on the menu. We continued our death theme for the day and went to Pere Lachaise Cemetery to try to see some famous graves (Jim Morrison, Moliere, etc). Sadly, it was around 4pm when we got there, and we had barely made any headway into the gigantic cemetery when someone started chasing us out because they were closing.
At night, we (Krystina, Laura, John, Lindsey, Will, Dave, and I) went out for dinner in Montmatre. We ate at an authentic French restaurant with menus completely in French. Dave and I were the only ones who could read French so the ordering process was a little hard. The descriptions for many of the items on the menu contained ingredients that I was unfamiliar with. Eventually, we all ended up ordering something haha. There were two plates of the day: a tortellini with cheese dish and a fish with rice dish. I ordered the fish but realized later that I preferred the tortellini. John, Lindsey, and Dave peaced out after dinner, but Will, Krystina, Laura, and I continued on up a hill to see Sacre Coeur and then down the hill to see Moulin Rouge.
Saturday 5/30
On Saturday, I woke up around 10 and checked out of St. Christopher's. Krystina, Laura, and I went to the Louvre around midday and stayed there till the late afternoon, spending some of the time viewing the artwork and some of the time just goofing around. The conversations were quite entertaining.
In the evening, we went grocery shopping for dinner, but malheureusement, I was unable to stay for the meal. I was off to Madrid. Barely. My train was to leave at 7:45pm, and I left St. Christopher's around 7:15. I finally called down a taxi around 7:25 and told the guy to step on it. Man, that taxi ride was crazy; a true experience of reckless Paris driving. From St. Christopher's to Gare d'Austerlitz is 25 minutes by metro. The taxi driver got me there in 15 minutes. I ran out of the taxi and sprinted to the platform as soon as I found out where my train was. I got on, and it was no more than a minute after when the train left. Phew!
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Marisa
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Paris Rocks
I love Paris and all the romance and great historic sites that come with it, we stayed in the Citadines Apart´ Hotel Paris Bastille Nation thanks to our Royal Holiday vacation points and had the most romantic honeymoon ever.