I left Thursday at noon, and took a train to Paris. It is the fastest train in the world, and so it only took me 3ish hours to get there. Minnie and I had planned to meet at the train station at 5:30, even though I got in a little before 5, because she had class. I gave her my phone number, but I forgot to get hers. At 5:30, when I hadn't heard from her, I started to get worried. I decided that the best plan would be to hope that Phil was online and would check his facebook. Thankfully, at the same time, Minnie had the same thought and we were both getting into contact with Phil, who is in Italy. Apparently the number I gave Minnie didn't work, she had gotten out of class early and had gone to a different train station and was looking for me there. Thank god for my blackberry once again. We finally met up once Phil emailed me Minnie's number and I talked to Minnie. It was resolved within half an hour, and I didn't even know I was lost for the first half hour, because Minnie had gotten out of class early and had been trying to find me for a while, haha.
We took the metro back to Minnie's aunt and uncle's apartment. Their apartment is so beautiful. Everywhere in Paris looks like palace's, because the doors are enormous. We hung out with her aunt, who is awesome, for a little while and had dinner with the family. She has two cousins who are 9 and 11. After dinner, we went to meet her friend Shane at a cafe. We ordered dessert and wine and just hung out for a while. Hanging out at cafes is the french thing to do, so we didn't do a lot of that, but I had to experience it. I hadn't had chocolate mousse yet, so I had to order that. It was soo good. Then, we met some of her other friends a few streets over at themed bar. The bar was called Footsie, and was themed after the British stock exchange, so the prices of drinks was based on how popular the drink was and how many people were ordering it. The prices of drinks changed every 3 minutes. It was a really cool idea, and a lot of fun, even though we were the youngest people there by like 5-10 years, haha. We ordered the cheapest beer, but couldn't drink more than two of those, and the metro closes around 1:30, so we went home and went to bed.
Friday we woke up and Minnie's uncle had gotten us croissants for breakfast. That was so nice. We sat and ate breakfast at home, while trying to decide what to do. I knew I really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, I mean, you can see it from Minnie's house, but I wanted to see it up close. First, though, Minnie had to register for classes, so we went to her university. She showed me where she hangs out and that there are tons of American programs all centered in the same area. It was really neat, and there is a really cheap coffee machine that I got a hot chocolate at. We sat in the courtyard and drank our beverages. The courtyard was really pretty and it is a really cool place to hang out, except probably not when it gets colder. Then, we walked through this really pretty park and sat down for a while.
After that we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. The lines were so long to take the elevator and it was ten euro more, so we decided to walk up more than 600 stairs to get to the second floor, where taking the elevator is a lot less expensive. Man, I learned why! It was pretty exhausting, but I felt a lot more accomplished and truly like I had experienced the Eiffel Tower. Minnie and I took a ton of pictures of the view and ourselves climbing the stairs, which was a lot of fun. Then Minnie and I went on a boat tour of the Seine River, which runs through Paris. It was an hour long, and I got to see soo much of the city and hear about it's history. Again, I took tons of pictures, that I can show everyone and explain more. It started to get cold and dark during the boat tour, and we didn't want to get rained on, so we went downstairs on the way back because we had already seen everything on the way there. Minnie and I were on our own for dinner that night, so we went out to a nice Italian restaurant. Then, instead of having dessert at the restaurant, we went to a grocery store and bought wine and pastries and went to eat them by the Seine.
We sat by the Seine, had dessert, and people watched. It was really interesting, because we could see the Eiffel Tower directly from where we were, so the view was beautiful, but the Eiffel Tower looked very different from how it usually does according to Minnie. The top of the Eiffel Tower was white and the bottom was red, when normally the whole thing is illuminated yellow. We googled it on my blackberry, and found out that France was celebrating Turkey and having a week-long friendship and cultural celebration of Turkey and the Turkish President was visiting France. We thought this was really cool considering our love of Turkey and especially Cem. People took pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower with the Turkish flag and we watched and there were people getting off of the boats from the fancy dinner tours and we watched them as well. They were funny, because there was a huge puddle and some people stepped in it and made funny faces.
Saturday we got up early and did more sightseeing. We wandered around an area for a little while looking for the area with tons of falalfel, but it was Saturday and they are run by Israelis, so only one store was open. We waited in line for a long time and then walked around eating our falalfel. Later, we went to Notre Dame and the Louvre. We didn't go inside either one, but we went and looked at the structures and took pictures, haha. Then we got crepes, which were delicious. I got an egg and ham crepe and a nutella crepe. Then we went to see the Arch de Triumph and window shop at Champs Elysees. To finish off our day of posh Paris shopping and sight seeing, we went to the flagship Haagen Dazs shop for early dinner. We got amazing sundaes and sat and watched all the tourists around the area.
That night, we went skyped with friends from F&M for a while like Bonnie, Cem, and Catherine. Then, we went to party with Minnie's aunt and uncle for a few friends that were moving to Argentina. It was really nice, because Minnie and I just got to hang out for a while and talk, and we decided that either for new years or when we go back to F&M, we want to throw a party exactly like that. Sunday morning we woke up early and did a little more sight seeing and tried to shop, but nothing was open, because it was Sunday and France has very serious labor laws against working, haha. Then, we went to sit outside the art museum that is very modern, but it was too expensive, so we went to the train station and sat at a cafe for an hour and talked, a very french thing to do.
I got home Sunday around 5 and went to dinner at Liv's with Liv and Greg. Liv made grilled cheese and gnocchi. It was delicious and it felt great to be back in Heidelberg. Then, I went home and met my new suitemate. Her name is Avila and she is a freshman, so she doesn't know anyone. Her parents had been there this weekend and went to Ikea, so the apartment was cleaner and looked like someone actually lives there. But I went back to sleep and Livs and catch-up since we hadn't seen each other in such a long time. Today, we have been hanging out at the study center getting ready for classes to start tomorrow.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen