I just spent the weekend in Paris - it was AMAZING. I stayed with Anne in her room in the Cite Universitaire (in the 14th arrondisement) and we did so many things...I think the best thing to do is break it down day by day:
Thursday: I got to Paris on Thursday afternoon. Anne had a conversation session to go to (it's part of her program), so I walked around Porte d'Orleans for a few hours. I stopped in a cafe and took in the sights and felt very Parisian. Then Anne and I went to dinner at a Brasserie in the same area. It was a typical French dinner - I had duck (awesome) and we ate from around 9pm to midnight. Sorry, I don't have any pictures to go along with the evening.
Friday: It was raining in the morning, but we were brave and walked around Le Marais. It's a very fun/funky/gay area, so they have lots of cute cafes and a ton of stores selling fitted mens shirts (see picture of the cafe). Then it stopped raining (yay!) and we went to the 1st arrondisement to have noodles at a Japanese restaurant, which really hit the spot. After that, Anne took me to this lecture her professor was hosting...I'll just say this: it was really fun for everyone who had an in depth understanding of Czech literature. Friday night we went to La Fleche d'Or, which is a super hipster French club and we saw this Brooklyn band Levy (they played music kind of like Broken Social Scene on 3 cans of Red Bull...see picture).
After that, we met my friend Tiago (who lives in Paris) for a drink in Odeon (the nightlife area right in the center of Paris).
Saturday: Saturday was an absolutely glorious day. We walked around Saint Michel, the Seine, Notre Dame Cathedral and Saint Germain des Pres (where we went into Les Deux Magots cafe where Hemingway and Fitzgerald used to hang out). Then Anne went to do work and I went to do super touristy things, like the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomph and the Louvre (see pictures). Then on Saturday night we went to Bar a Soupes (a really good soup restaurant) and Le Motel, another hipster club that Anne frequents (is anybody else sensing a pattern?)
Sunday: We went back to Saint Michel, had brunch (consisting of eggs and crepes), and then walked around the park near Anne's apartment. Then I got on the train to go to Charles de Gaulle airport, and took in the sights of all of the Banlieues (the suburbs of Paris where all of the poor immigrants live...see picture).
That's when the trip went downhill...so I got to the airport, waited on the super long line to get my boarding pass, and then went to the line for security. At the security checkpoint, there was this woman sitting down fighting with the security agent. She was saying something like "I want to wait for the wheelchair..." and then I realized she had multiple sclerosis and had completely lost the use of her legs (keep in mind this woman could not have been older than 40). So everyone in line waits and watches as the security agents force this woman to stand up, then hold her up while other agents take off her legs braces to make sure that they were plastic (even though she told them they were plastic) and then give her the "scan and pat down" as a replacement for going through the metal detector. The woman is sobbing the entire time, obviously totally degraded and embarrassed, and I have to tell you, I have never been that uncomfortable and angry and not spoken up. I was really mad at myself, but I guess the fear of being branded a terrorist in a country where I barely speak the language took over. Then I went through security, went to the gate, and boarded the plane. I was listening to my iPod when I realized that we were running about 30 minutes late, and soon enough I saw an airport guard wheel the same woman onto the plane (so it must have taken them about 1 1/2 hours to get the damn wheelchair). I was mad, and the easyJet flight attendants were mad, and everyone on the plane was mad...so the moral of the story is NEVER fly through Charles de Gualle airport.
So, to recap: I ate amazing food, saw the most beautiful sights, went to hipster French clubs, and hate airports.
Miss you all.
xoxo Pam
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