Paris, I'm In Love!

This past weekend I went to Paris, and I can truly say it was one of the best/most interesting weekends of my life!

THURSDAY:

We left Florence at 3. From Florence we took a train to Pisa, where we got on a plane to Paris. The airport we landed in was an hour outside of Paris, so we took a bus. It was a very long journey, though it did not feel like that! The cast and crew for this weekend = Brigid (that's me guys), Mandy, Sara and Jessie. Upon arriving in Paris we got on the metro and made our way to the hostel. Lucky for everyone I wrote down the metro stop to get off, or we would never have made it!  (Ya hear that Liz?  I'm responsible you would be amazed!)

We got to the hostel thinking we were late for check- in. 

OH NO!!

We're a whole day early! Jessie accidently booked us for Friday to Sunday, not Thursday to Saturday. So after handling that little mix up we got ourselves settled in our room. The staff was very nice and accommodating which I was thankful for!

"You ain't seen hostile till you put me up in one"

The hostel was painted a beautiful lime green/dirt purple combination that looks good no where. That was lovely! As far as hostels go though I was pleasantly surprised! The first night we were in a room with a stranger-man because of the mess up, but the rest of the weekend we were in a 4 person room! The "Stranger man" we were with was actually named Sammy and he was studying to be a pilot.

He had more hair product with him than any girl I have ever encountered in my life, including myself.

DOWNSIDES:

1. The outlets for camera charging/hair products did not work in the room, which meant having to charge downstairs in the common area which was frightening...what if there were thieves!?

2. You need to bring a sheet or pay for one. I brought a sheet, if anyone even thought for a second I would pay to use a USED sheet, you are joking!

UPSIDES:

1. Breakfast was delicious

2. FREE CREPES! Do you hear me?! THE CREPES....WERE....FREEEEE!

Did I have a total of 5 crepes in three days? I'll never tell!

3. Everyone was really friendly, there was free wi-fi and the staff was nice

4. FREEEEEEEE CREPES!!!!!!!!!!

Common Area/Front Desk

FRIDAY:

We woke up verrrrrry early (8 am) and hit the ground running! First things first was Musee d'Orsay. Students (with ID cards and visas) got in for free! That was nice. 

FUN FACT:  The museum used to be a train station!

The museum was really cool, it has mainly french art and is known for its collections of impressionist work. Painters like Monet, Degas, Renoir and Van Gogh are hanging out in there!

THIS WAS A NO PICTURES PLEASE MUSEUM! 

THE PICTURES BELOW ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN! 

NEVER TELL!

Renoir: Le Moulin de la Galette

Seeing some of these pictures made me feel like I missed my time period! I wanted to jump into this one and dance and hang out with everyone!

Degas' paintings of ballerinas made me nostalgic for my dance years!

Degas

Rodin

I really like this sculpture. When I went to Paris in high school (gosh what a snob I am!) we went to the Rodin museum and it was unreal. We didn't go there this trip but it was still cool to see one of his works!

Dad, you can definitely MAKE THIS! So I took a picture/thought of you :D

After that we walked down the street along the river and saw the little vendors. Our destination was Notre Dame. 

Mandy and I

It was supposed to rain on Friday and instead I was comfortable in my sweater, I felt so lucky!

Notre Dame was beautiful. We went inside and a mass was going on which  I thought was really cool. I felt a little bad taking pictures during it, butttttttt not bad enough!

I lit a candle and said a little prayer inside:

After Notre Dame our goal was Centre Pompidou- a modern art museum/ really cool area. On our way we saw some shops...

I may or may not have strongly considered getting this apron....

Decided against it, it had holes in it and they were still gonna charge me!

After that we got baguettes! They were DELICOUS!

Me, Sara and baguettes!

STORY TIME- 
After getting food, we sat on a bridge to soak up the sun and breathe in all that is Paris. We are sitting facing the river and someone taps me on the shoulder. SURPRISE, there is a man wearing an old man mask and he was right in my face. I jumped and screamed off the bench cause it was so startling. 
Well at first it was funny, it could have gone the whole "remember the time Brig got scared in Paris" route.
OH NO, this man proceeded to follow us down the bridge, across the street, and into a restuarant. It was not right. Mandy, smart girl that she is, decided we should be around a lot of people and if they react like it is weird we should go to the po-po. Well we sat down next to the lovely French and he kept his distance. HOWEVER, he did point and make the motion of slitting his throat at us. We were pee-your-pants nervous.
Some people came up to him and he started interacting with them and we RAN AWAY AS FAST AS OUR FEET WOULD CARRY US!

It was icky and we hated it, it was literally the only bad thing about my trip to Paris.

Freaks got you down??? TRY OUR CREPES! Filled with nutella and banana they lift your mood in an instant!

Crepes, to cure your stalker blues

We got food after that incident AND WE FOUND A STARBUCKS! Ahhh starbucks, how I've missed you! Not saying the cappucino in Italy is not amazing, it just does not come in something likeeeee say A GRANDE! And there are no mocha-fraps here. Why am I even bothering, I JUST LOVE STARBUCKS OKAY?!

Centre Pompidou is a modern art museum. We did not go inside but we did see a lot of weird/cool stuff in a fountain outside. 

When we were sitting around the fountain I saw a school of kids signing! They had cochlear implants so they could also hear, but I went up to their teacher and told her  I was learning American Sign Language. She obviously didn't know AMERICAN sign language, but she did understand English and it was pretty cool to get to sign!

From there, we had San Chappelle in mind as our goal. HOWEVER we ended up walking along the river again, checking out the vendors, and making our way to "jardin des tuileries" in front of the Lourve. It was so beautiful outside and the grass/gardens were incredibly gorgeous! There were tons of people out which was pretty cool.

So happy I could cartwheel?

Me, Mandy and Sara sitting in the gardens!

We made our way down the Champs Elysees which was filled with tempting shops! And then we climbed ALLLLLLLLLLLLLL the way up the Arc de Triomphe for a view of Paris at Sunset!

Coordinating my scarf with the sunset, no big deal!

After that our dogs were barking and we needed to rest up! We went back to the hostel for a little cat nap, and then hit up Montmartre for some place to eat. Montmartre is where The Moulin Rouge resides! No one had 170 euro to spend on dinner and a show there (thank goodness!)

Mandy, Me and Jessie!

We had a very wonderful dinner! In France they don't call it "French Onion Soup" it is just Onion Soup! CAUSE YOU ARE IN FRANCE SO OF COURSE IT IS FRENCH! 

....I got it just because of this, it was great!

Sara's Salad!

My dinner, FRENCH fries?!

Sean, this dessert was on par with the greatness of the Godiva Sundae we had! Come over so we can go to Paris and get them?!

Dessert!

SATURDAY:

Woke up around 8 with a big day ahead of us- Versailles! 

First things first though,

Jessie was super pumped about Versailles because she had been there before and could not wait to show us. So, being the hilarrrrrrioooouuussssss (hilarious) person that I am, I thought that the 3 of us should act like we were wondering where the actual Palace was, and like we were unimpressed.

We are walking towards this BEAUTIFUL palace and we're asking Jessie where the rest of it is and if "that was it"- the look on her face was priceless!

This is a music box OF Marie Antoinette made for her! So cool!

This is a fireplace in "The Hercules Room" which was a ballroom! Also am in love with the green wallpaper below, Mom we should really redecorate the kitchen!

We were seeing BEAUTIFUL rooms and amazing things and surrounded by so much history. It was incredible really. But since any good joke must be followed through on, we got to a  blank red wall and I had Mandy and Sara take a picture like it was the best thing they had ever seen!

The Hall of Mirrors:

This room connected the Kings and Queen's rooms. It is beautiful. The King would walk through this room everyday, someone is modest!

(Future house decoration: CHECK!)

Just a girl in the Hall of Mirrors!

Sigh, Jessie where is the rest of the palace?

The King's bedroom was RIDICULOUSLY decorated. It was created by Louis XIV in 1701. It looked like a carpet all over the place. It was really cool however I am not a fan of so much pattern! The King had royal rising and going to sleep ceremonies.

The Queen's bedroom was a lot prettier, I loved all the floral! Marie Antoinette actually fled from this room to the Kings through the door on the left (not pictured) when the riots were going down!

The gardens outside were gorgeous, unfortunately it was starting to rain so we didn't get to frolic outside as much as I had hoped! Still got some good pictures though, it was an incredible place to be!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the crepes....BUT CREPES WERE SO GOOD! 

We stopped at a creperie for lunch, I got one with almonds, nutella and whip cream

...sigh  I miss it already

We got back into Paris and headed straight to the Louvre. Now, being the classy cultured lady that I am, I have been there already. (snob snob snob)- and because I am SOOOOO nice (modest modest modest) I let Mandy and Sara lead the way because they had never been.

Heyyyyyy Mona Lisa heyyyyyyy!

After that we were toast! So we headed back to the hostel....got a free crepe....and took an hour nap!

Woke up and were women on a mission- EIFFEL TOWER!

After that we went out to eat and .....got more crepes!

SUNDAY:

Last day...womp womp! We were saving our trip to the top of the eiffel tower for last, you know go out of Paris on a high note.

WELL that would have been nice, however I will let this picture speak for itself:

We ended up shopping for an hour and the fog cleared so we did get to go to the top! Yayyyy Paris!

It was a truly memorable and incredible weekend.

I was definitely glad to be back in Florence though, it is so much smaller than Paris and it felt great to feel "at home" once back in Florence!