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I'm not sure how I've managed to spend nine days here already. It's gone by very quickly. Part of me is ready to move on, but the other part of me just wants to stay. Actually, it would be great just to move hostels and then I could get a new perspective. Although this hostel is really nice, and I wouldn't find one this modern/clean probably. If you're ever in France I recommend it. There's a bar/restaurant, and a club in the basement that doubles as a chill out room in the day. An internet cafe (with an actual cafe part), curtains on your bed, and you're right on one of the main metro lines. Plus i get along with the staff really well. Now they just give me their keys and I can basically do what I want... for real. The metro is actually really very easy to use here in Paris. It's been easy to get around.
My last night in Paris was as I hoped it would be really. Yesterday I went to a flea market, the biggest one in Paris. It was really cool. I wanted to look at things, and maybe find something for my mom or a ring for myself, but the two people I was with hadn't seen each other in years, so they were just walking quickly a head of me and I didn't have much time to look at anything. I guess I don't really have any money to spend anyway. I was with my friend Jane from Philly. She's on her post-grad school trip. We've spent a lot of time together this week. We went and met a childhood friend of hers, who had been living in Nice and had been to Paris several times. She took us to this very very fancy tea room by the Louvre for their favorite hot chocolate. I guess you could say it's the fancy version of Serendipity in New York, but instead of frozen hot chocolate being there specialty, it's just normal warm stuff.... except it is the MOST DELICIOUS LIQUID EVER INVENTED. I wish I hadn't been a tad hungover and majorly sleep deprived, because after a while my stomach told me to stop... but it was soo great. I dont' really know how to describe it, i guess like warm chocolate heaven in a cup. We also got two pastries. It was le expensive. The hot chocolate comes in these little pots, so we got two pots and shared them, and with two pastries our bill was 28 euros!! Pricey. It was a snotty Frence place, and I was wearing shorts and sandals...but I wasn't the only one.
The night before I went on a pub crawl, run through the group I went on the tours with. It was okay, except that we were the biggest group they've ever had so they had to split us in two. And although my friends who had gone on other nights got as much free alcohol as they wanted, we only got about two free shots, and then our "discount" at the pubs we went to. Lucky for me I had good company and didn't really drink too much so I did have a good time. I met another guy from New Zealand, I seem to get along well with people from that country. Maybe because they're like Canada, and Australia is like the United States. A similar dichotomy. It was a late night though, hence me having a hard time with the hot chocolate.. although i did get a good cup in me before I gave up.
After that I decided I need some "alone time", to say goodbye to this beautiful city. I had my last dinner of bread, cheese and tomato. It's not france if it doesn't involve white flour. Then I took the metro up to Monmartre again. I can't exactly tell you why I love it there so much, but I just do. It really doesn't have as much to do with Amelie as i say it does, but it's like you can feel the creative spirit or something.. there are a billion artists there and it's just beautiful.... I can't describe it really. I mean I know I'm like the best blogger ever, but I'm not perfect. Plus there's a lot of white flour and sugar clogging my brain. So I decided to "treat" myself to coffee and a glass of wine at the cafe where Amelie was made. It's called Les Deux Moulins (there's a lot of wind mills in monmartre for historical reasons---it's also where the Moulin Rouge night club is). It's a cute place. It doesn't look exactly like it does in the movie, obviously, but it definetly feels about right. I was there around 8pm, so it was about half full. There's a big poster of Amelie on the back wall, and a couple of pictures of the cast, but if you weren't in the back you probably wouldn't know that that was what happened there. It was expensive, it's now become a magical tourist trap. But I was really happy to spend my 10 euros on those two drinks. I sat on a bar stool for a bit, like a character in the movie, then moved to a quiet table in the back and wrote/drank for about 2 hours. There's a famous scene that takes place in the bathroom, so snuck a couple of photos. I wanted to take good photos of the restaurant, but i didn't really want to seem like too much of a tourist... Even though there were lots of them in there. Around 10ish, I decided to leave because I had to take the metro back alone and it was basically dark out. I always have felt safe here though so I wasn't too worried about it. I took another half an hour to walk around the neighbourhood one last time. When a song from the Amelie soundtrack randomly came on my ipod, I almost burst into tears. I was very very happy. I am already anxious to come back and I haven't even left yet.
After that i came back to my hostel and found my friend from Brazil who's name I can't spell. We've also spent a lot of time together this week, we have breakfast every morning at the very least. We had a couple of drinks at the bar because she is also leaving today--then around 1am, on our way to bed, I ran into a group of people from the pub crawl and they wanted to have a goodbye drink. Then all of a sudden it was 4:30am and I'm in the room in the basement (where they ship you once the bar closes) with about 20 people laughing hysterical and almost nothing (the idea of chicken mcnuggets in the sauna is only funny at 4:30am when you've had a couple of drinks). Eventually, I made my way upstairs... happy (and i actually wasn't really drunk! Aren't you proud?).
Again I had the most annoying roomates of all time, because they were in a big group they figured that 8am was a fair time to turn on the light and talk as loudly as possible.... So needless to say I'm exhausted today and had to pack and check out by 10:30 this morning. I managed to sneak back in my room for half an hour and have a "nap", and by that I mean lay there while the garbage truck made crashing sounds outside.
I had lunch with Brazil, and then she just left to go and "say goodbye to the tower". I have to leave in about 10 minutes for the train station. It's a 6 hour ride.. i'm really not excited about it, unless I can sleep, then I'm excited about that! At least this time I have a seat.
I am looking forward to seeing all my friends, and not having to explain to people where i'm from for a couple of days. I'm spending two days in one hostel, and then moving to the one where Nicky and Jono are staying. Paris was far more than I expected. Last night was wonderful. I'm glad I did what I wanted to do.. The Amelie care was pretty darn amazing. I look forward to taking a friend there someday on my next trip back.
Aurevoire Paris, a bientot.
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Auntie V.
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The Adventures of Lana Continue.......
Hey Lana ! Great to hear all your adventures you wild woman It sounds like you have covered many places in a short time and are having an amazing vacation. You should try writing for a travel magazine, let them read your blog and they will be convinced to pay you to travel and write for them. Good idea? Enjoy yourself and travel safe. Look forward to reading more stories through your blog. Love you lots. Auntie V.