Paris

I'm way behind in keeping this updated, I know, and I'm really sorry. I've been wildly busy the past few weeks though. I'll start with Paris. We spent November 15th through 18th exploring Paris. I wasn't even that excited to go because I've been there already and didn't want to experience it without Khaia and Jillian. Turns out I enjoyed it just as much, if not even more this time. There was a public transportation strike so the Metro wasn't running as much as it should have been. My friend Martin and I didn't realize any of the lines were running and thus spent about 9 hours walking through Paris on Friday. It was great, but our sore legs were happy to learn that some lines were working on Saturday. Friday we just wandered the city. We went under the Eiffel Tower and walked all along the river. We went to this little cafe where French existentialists used to hang out and drink coffee and write about...life. It made Martin really happy to be there and I liked it in spite of the 4 euro coffees and mice running around under the booths. After the cafe and much deliberation we decided it was necessary to go to the Louvre. I was torn because it's said to take 6 months to view every piece of art in the museum. I hated the idea of going in just to see the big name pieces, like Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' and ignoring all the other works that probably get ignored all the time. I felt bad for them. In the end I decided I had to go. We saw the Mona Lisa and then concentrated ourselves in the wing of the Spanish and Italian painters. It was really neat to see works of the Spanish artists I've been studying. We tried to see Rubens' work as well, but that wing was closed. All in all, I'm glad I went. Later we tried to go to this bar where Khaia, Jilly and I hung out, but it was too packed so we went across the street to O'Neil's, a little Irish pub where they brew their own beer. It was great. Exhausted from walking and drowsy from the beer we strolled home and stopped for pizza a great little Italian restaurant near our hotel. Saturday we set off in search of the Marche des Luces, an enormous flea market across the city from our hotel. We found it and it was everything I'd hoped for. Stands around the perimeter offered an eclectic blend of ghetto fabulous clothing, hookah and other smoking supplies, vintage records and cd collections, army clothes and beautiful jewelry. Once you pressed through to the inner part of the market you could find gorgeous antiques and vintage clothing as well as a variety of paintings. It was huge and just really cool to wander through. We had crepes there for lunch. They were fantastic and so so cheap! Saturday afternoon we wandered through Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, two high end department stores. They had the 360 euro Swarovski crystal necklace I've been coveting and great wool pea coats that Martin would have bought were it not for the 800 euro price tags. Exhausted and overwhelmed by the crowds we found a grocery store to buy our feast of cheese, baguette, ham and blush wine, hopped back on the Metro to the hotel, stopping along the way to pick up a small strawberry tart and a walnut one as well. We spread our feast out and Zoe joined us to watch "Hook" in German. Luckily I have the movie practically memorized so we all knew what was going on. The plan was to find a jazz bar after the movie, but we all fell asleep before it ended and were too wiped out to go out at all. Sunday Martin, Matt, Sam and I went to Musee D'Orsay, a beautiful museum which houses the works of many of the impressionists. They were amazing! Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Degas, all under one roof. The colors were incredible and it was great to see such famous works in person. After the museum we grabbed some more crepes and ran to catch the bus at the hotel. Paris was so great. It was freezing cold, but it was a nice change from the heat of Sevilla. The Parisians were unbelievably friendly and so forgiving of my lack of knowledge of the French language. I would love to go there sometime in the spring or summer and visit Versailles and the gardens when everything is in bloom.