This weekend I declared Paris as my favorite city in the world. It was very close behind New York for a while, but all the greenery and flowers just bumped it up to first place. I was hesitant about going back because I had already been twice before but I’m happy that I made the choice to go. Paris in the spring time may be my favorite thing ever.
My friends – Ann Marie, Rachel, Jane – and I stayed in my good family friends apartment in the Marais section. It was the perfect location, and was the perfect apartment! Thank you Gendrons!! We felt as if we were living like kings and queens because we could walk around barefoot – without our feet turning black – we had sharps knives too cook with, amazing kitchen appliances and ultra comfy beds. We joked it was our cute little couples retreat.
My favorite view of Paris from the Arc de Triomphe
We got in late Thursday night and grabbed some dinner around the corner from the apartment. The food was great, but the eye candy was better. Our waiter was extremely cute and Rachel and I nicknamed him Klaus from The Vampire Diaries because he resembled him. Not to mention, he had an adorable French accent, which only made him that much cuter. After dinner we got drinks at one of my favorite cafes, La Favorite. My drink was so delicious and might be my new favorite, except I cringe when I say the name because it’s called a Porn Star Martini… Why’d they have to go and name it that?! It’s a passion fruit martini with a champagne shooter, m’mm m’mm good!! Rachel didn’t love her drink as much as I loved mine because, well, she had water, not by choice. The French-English language barrier in the Marais section can be pretty severe and our waiter thought she order water instead of a cocktail. She sure did save a lot of money though because those drinks were NOT cheap.
Friday we made another appearance at La Favorite, but this time for breakfast. Two times in less than 24 hours, sounds exactly like my last trip to Paris when we went there nearly every day for breakfast and then late night drinks. After a delicious croissant, cappuccino and Eggs Benedict we went to Notre Dame and then later the famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. I think we spent longer in the bookstore than we did in the church. The store was so cool and housed some of the prettiest book covers I have ever seen. The walls were lined, ceiling to floor, with books of all different genres, colors and sizes. I left with two books – The Fault In Our Stars and The Great Gatsby -and 100 iPhone pictures of beautifully designed book covers.
Shakespeare and Company
On our way to Sainte-Chapelle we stopped and got some ice cream and whoa, plot twist, it wasn’t gelato! After trying and failing at getting a cool food in the air picture we took our cones and sat on the side of the Seine River. My salted caramel ice cream was melt-in-your-mouth (literally) delicious. But really, I think I liked it more than some of the gelato I’ve had in Italy. I think it was the flavor that really did it. Now I’m on the hunt for salted caramel gelato because that’s got to be amazing!!
The beautiful Sainte-Chapelle chapel
By 4pm we had already walked nearly 7 miles and were running on empty. We stopped and got lunch at a little cafe and this is where I was practically forced into trying escargot for my first time. There were two British guys at the table next to us who began talking to us and then, before I knew it, they were handing me a plate with a snail on it from their platter of escargot. He insisted I had to try it because I was in Paris and all my friends agreed, irregardless of their knowledge for my dislike towards exotic foods. Ann Marie ate one before me to prove that it was good and once she didn’t it I knew I couldn’t back out because I’d look like a wimp. So I closed my eyes and pulled the thing out of the shell and chewed as quickly as possibly. Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but the whole concept still really freaks me out. I used to play family with those creatures when I was little and on the beach! What if I just ate someone’s mom?!?!?
Me cringing while I ate my first bite of escargot
After lunch we went to the Eiffel Tower to read and hang on the lawn. We wanted to chill out and relax before going out to experience the Paris nightlife. We went to a club called Rex and it was pretty cool (minus the EDM music and the odd I-look-like-I-just-got-electrocuted dancing) but the best part of the night was our pregame. Even though it just consisted of the four of us, it was so much fun. We played the card game bullshit pyramid and concocted some interesting cocktails. After we finished two bottles of wine and a bottle of Desperado we moved onto the bottle of Absolute. We had no idea we’d drink that much in one night so we had only bought one mixer (Side note: weirdly none of us were drunk at this point… probably too many croissants). We quickly ran out of our watered down orange juice and had nothing more to drink. No fear, Rachel had a genius idea to make our own juice, out of jelly and water… I know, disgusting, right?! Surprisingly it wasn’t as bad as you’d think it would be, but the wine from earlier may have altered my judgement a little. Now I can say I’ve tried two new things in Paris, escargot and raspberry jelly water juice! Yummy!!
For some reason we stayed at Rex until 4am and didn’t go to bed until after 5am so, needless to say, waking up the next morning was a bit of a struggle. Brunch at Le Pain Quotidien made the morning much better though. After we ate, we walked around the streets to try and burn off some of those calories from all the jelly (just kidding, it was mostly from the mass amount of bread we had had). We took a spontaneous trip to the Pompidou to see the Jeff Koons exhibit and laughed at how we went all the way to France to see the work of an American artist. I really loved almost all his work, except for a few overly bizarre pieces. In one room there were four photographs blown up to huge sizes and hung on each of the four walls. They were no ordinary photographs, they were photographs of Jeff Koons having sex with his porn-star ex-wife. I’m talking zoomed in, full on porn pictures. I tried so hard to be mature about it, it took all I had to keep my jaw from dropping or a giggle from escaping. It was one of those moments where you need a friend to turn to so you can vent about the “oh my god” moment, but NONE of my friends were in sight!!! They had all already exited the gallery and couldn’t come back in. I snapped a picture of one image because I knew if I explained the picture they wouldn’t believe me because it was that unbelievable that something of that nature would be hanging on a wall in an art gallery! I won’t show the picture on here because it is too explicit but feel free to look it up yourself, you’ll know the one when you see it (Hint: it is called the Made in Heaven series).
Jane, Ann Marie, Rachel and I at the Jeff Koons exhibit
After the Pompidou we walked to the gorgeous Galeries Lafayette and then had dinner at Buddha Bar. The restaurant was a trendy Asian restaurant with dim lighting and exotic decor. I loved it, but I left with a much lighter wallet and a half full stomach. While walking home we passed by the United States Embassy and Rachel and I got super excited when we saw the American flag because we hadn’t seen one in over three months. In the heat of the moment, we whipped out our phones and started taking pictures to put on Snapchat. Seconds later, a French military guard, with a huge gun, came running at us yelling in French. I had no idea what was going on, but immediate became extremely alarmed. Eventually he started speaking English and asked where we were from and what we were doing, in a very stern voice. Little did I know, it’s illegal to take a picture of an embassy building. He had us delete the pictures and then, because that wasn’t enough, he made us go to the deleted file on our camera role so he could check that the photo wasn’t stored there. All I wanted was a picture of the flag, I could care less about the building!! I didn’t think there was any harm in that. I apologized and tried to joke with him about how we just got so excited about the flag but he was NOT having it! Rachel and I scurried back to Ann Marie and Jane who witnessed the whole thing from afar. This event was just the beginning of our strange night.
We went to the Eiffel Tower at dark to get crepes and sit on the lawn. The crepes were wonderful, but the creepy men were not. On the way to the lawn we were practically harassed by these three guys who kept asking us what language we spoke. They trailed us until we took a sharp, and unexpected, turn onto the lawn to lose them. Once on the lawn we passed by some more creepy guys selling wine and champagne. When they saw us they called out, “Ooh sexy’s, so beautiful” and then once we passed we heard them mutter “oh look at the bum.” It was so gross and uncalled for but also extremely hysterical. We couldn’t suppress our disgust and amusement and fell to the ground laughing. Some of these French people sure are bold. I joked that next time I was going to speak to them in fake Chinese so that they’d think we didn’t speak their language. I got carried away and started speaking in fake Chinese a little too loudly, without realizing that a group of Chinese people were sitting directly behind me. Luckily, I don’t think they heard me and we all got a really great laugh out of the almost bad situation.
On the metro home we encountered some more creepy individuals. A group of guys walked up to us and pretended to take our cell phones out of our hands. It freaked us out and put us into hyper aware mode as we got onto the metro. When we got off at our stop the same guys got off too and we witnessed, what looked like, a mugging attempt. The group of guys got in a fight with a girl who was walking alone in the station. To defend herself, she poured a drink on them and tried to kick them, but she was one against four. We hung back in the station to make sure she got away okay because it looked like it could have gotten bad. After all of these events we made a B-line for the apartment and eventually got back safely.
On Sunday we went to Montmartre in the morning and visited la Basilica du Sacré Coeur. It was a section of Paris I had always wanted to visit but never had a chance to, until this past weekend. We had lunch at La Buvette and then walked to the Champs Élysées to go to the original Ladurée and the Arc de Triomphe. On our walk there we had two different people ask if we were Italian. I know I don’t look any bit Italian so I’m assuming it was Rachel and Ann Marie who they were looking at. I suppose Italy could be rubbing off on me more than I thought.
Ladurée macarons on the Arc de Triomphe
The rest of the night was very relaxing, as we were exhausted from our full day of running around. We went to dinner at a little place in our neighborhood and I tried escargot for a second time. Still not my favorite, but not too bad.
Monday morning we woke up early and went to the Eiffel Tower to go up to the top. The view was incredible, as always. After the tower we went to Musée de l’Orangerie and saw the work of Picasso, Monet and Matisse. Then we got lunch in the Tuileries Garden and lounged in the sun for a bit. We didn’t have much time to do anything else substantial because we had to get back to the apartment to pack for our flight. The turn around was quick and before I knew it we were loading our suitcases into the cab and heading out toward the airport.
Even though I wasn’t exploring a new city I loved every minute of my trip to Paris. We had so many laughs and fun times and, as cheesy as it sounds, made memories that will last for the rest of my life. France, thanks for another incredible visit and I know I’ll be seeing you again soon!!
The view from the top of the Eiffel Tower
When in Florence 