From May 18th until yesterday, I was in Paris, France with my mother and my grandmother. It was a kind of graduation gift from Grandma, and let me tell you right now that it was a dream come true. Ever since I started taking French classes in 7th grade, I've wanted to visit Paris. It's one of those things you have to do if you're learning French. And even now, I haven't stopped learning.
- Taking luggage on the Metro or RER is one of the worst decisions you can make if only because there will be complain-y people. Haha, sure you're speaking French, but I can still understand you...
- Ask the server for wine suggestions.
- Tip is always included.
- More people than you might think know and are willing to speak English, but they'll apologize for it. I'm sorry my French isn't better, your English is infinitely better than my French and I'm in your country!
La Tour Eiffel! - The Eiffel Tower is brown.
- Never ever wear your un-broken-in character shoes on the first day of a walking-heavy vacation.
- Band-Aids are pretty much the best things ever. :^)
- Croque-Madame and quiche Lorraine. Yes please!
- Steak burgers are infinitely better than regular burgers.
- Timhotel is lackluster.
- Chocolate croissants. Miam, miam, miam...
- L'Arc de Triomphe is in the center of a star of streets and yet un-findable when tired.
- The only public toilets are the shifty ones on the street.
- When you really need to go to the bathroom and think, "Hey! I'll just use this free museum pass to use a museum bathroom," none of the six nearby museums will be on the list of museums it can be used for.
- At some intersections you have to take your life into your own hands because there are no "walk" signals.
I'm going to miss these little walky guys... - "Don't walk" signals don't have feet.
- Shakespeare and Co. is beautiful.
- Gelato is absolutely delicious and eaten with little bitty plastic shovels.
- Orangina, chocolat chaud, and wine.
- Oh, it seems you bought your wares on Oriental Trading..."May I have 1000 chintzy plastic Eiffel Towers for $0.05? Thanks!"
Why thank you sir, I definitely wanted you and your elbow in my picture...
- The Venus de Milo initially looks like a hologram.
- The Mona Lisa is bigger than I originally thought it would be.
- Sometimes the view from Sacre-Coeur or the Musee d'Orsay can suffice.
- Little old ladies enjoy standing outside famous Gothic cathedrals and gesturing at the facade.
"You see there's a tall bit, a not-so-tall bit, and another tall bit..." - There's a tall bit, then a not-so-tall bit, and another tall bit on Notre Dame.
- Hausmann regulated building in Paris: carve the front out of stone, each apartment must have a balcony, the top floor needs to have one balcony all the way around, and windows in the roof.
- Everyone in Louis XVI's family was vaccinated.
- Never ever, ever take something being handed to you (paper silhouettes or clay pottery especially).
- Scarves. Leather jackets. Big glasses. Boots. Lacey dresses. Shorts and tights. Converse.
- 23 times.
- Wild poodles only come out at night, and your mother will continuously insist that it wasn't real.
- "First thing...and another thing..."
- The line's not as long as it seems, especially when you have a pass that lets you skip it.
- You need stamps to send postcards. Wait, really?
Ca c'est jolie!!! C'est une maison a Montmartre!
- Montmartre's a beautiful climb.
- Not all Indiana Cafes are created equal.
- "We're just going to give you drinks and we're going to ask you to pay first. No, you may not have menus, because we refuse to feed you." (Bad day.)
- Sleeping on a pallet at my mother's feet isn't that bad.
- I am Marilyn Monroe in Paris.
- Confirmed: my pajama pants and blanket make a laser light show in the dark.
- Tour buses are imaginary. Unless you don't have a reservation. In other words...your tour? It doesn't exist.
The view from the cafe Le Dome.
- Sitting at a cafe in the rain = :^D
- French keyboards are insanely difficult to type on.
- AltGr for @
- Jury duty?
- Walking crepes are delicious, and it's fascinating to watch them made.
- Craft fairs may be deceiving...
- You may be exhausted, but your RER train will stop the stop before your's and not move, forcing you to take a Metro back into the city to get to where you need to go outside of the center.
- Daytime television is vastly more interesting than evening news programs.
- "We'll always have Paris.""If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."- Ernest Hemingway
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