TOGETHER IN PARIS

The benefits of living in france: friends will come to visit you cause your country has one of the prettiest cities. :) Courtney and I would’ve met up anyways somehow some way. I’m glad it was in Paris though! She was like a kid in a candy shop. :) it’s always fun to see people react to paris for the first time because it truly is magical. Seeing the Eiffel tower for the first time is amazing especially seeing it glitter at night and just seeing the city that’s in so many movies, all over pinterest, basically just a beautiful place it really is amazing the first time. And the times after that of course but the first time is always the best.

So she flew in and got there at 11 and I was taking a carpool supposedly getting there at 12:30 so we decided we’d meet up at a train station where the train from the airport goes to and where I could easily get to. So I get to this train station and I didn’t have any internet and her phone wouldn’t work since she was in france so I said ok just chill at a café and I’ll find you meaning a café inside the train station. Well I am searching all over for this girl and can’t find her. After some help from my wonderful father for being able to text her and find out where she was and then call me and tell me we were able to find each other. I was walking down the street searching for this café and I heard a crazy “raaaah!!!” and some crazy girl running towards me! HI COURTNEY!!!!!  First thing she said to me: “Corinne what are you wearing?!” looking at my harry potter pin and I said the exact same to her because she was wearing silly pants! Oh well, that’s how best friends are we can laugh at each other but we don’t really care. (even though my harry potter pin is my most prized possession) so then we started on our adventure! ON Y VA! (that’s French for here we go)

First things first we headed to champs elysées for the arc de triomphe and macaroons from ladurée (insert heart eyes here cause omg so amazinggggg) seriously. If you ever go to paris you have to go to ladurée. It’s heaven. I imagine heaven being macaroons served to you on a silver platter (I’m not a big fan of gold) all day long. 

They never get old. 

Next stop was the Eiffel tower. IT’S SO PRETTY. I hadn’t seen it during the day before so I was excited to see it in it’s glory during the day. There was this guy doing big bubbles in front of it and then some performers who were pretty funny and good. 

And of course we took a billion and one pictures. :) it’s just so pretty! I’m sure it’s one of the most photogenic landmarks. Seriously no matter what angle or type of picture you take it’s beautiful. 

hahahahahaha i'm clever. and funny.

besties.

who would've though two crazy girls in sixth grade would be in paris 9 years later?

After that we had to go to check into our hostel so off we went to the outskirts of paris. Such a nice hostel. I was a little concerned at first because when I first found it, it had no reviews and was fairly cheap and when I googled it nothing came up and same with when I looked it up on facebook. And they don’t give contact information until you book it so I couldn’t call to find out if it’s a real place or not. So I held off on booking it because I was so worried and then when it was like two days before paris time I went to book it and the prices went up. >:( but it’s ok it was so worth it. It was new so the sheets were nice and the beds and furniture was all new, they said they’d only been open for two weeks. It was soooo nice! I’m glad we got to stay in it even though it was far away it was still so nice and worth it. Then it was dinner time. And oh. My. Gosh. CHIPOTLE. MEXICAN FOOD. HOLLA FOR A DOLLA. OLÉ. 

YAAAAS BURRITOOOOO

So to be honest I had never been to chipotle in the states so I hadn’t known what to expect. It was good, café rio is better, but it was Mexican food. I have been CRAVING Mexican food. And I have never heard so many americans in one place in france. It was a bit unsettling. I wasn’t used to it. I felt weird. I’m used to being the only American and being cool for it. Not one of the masses. And I’ve gotten used to blocking out other conversations cause it’s in French and I don’t understand but there I understood everyone and everyone was talking loud so I was having a hard time talking to Courtney because I was listening to everyone else's conversations because I could…it was odd indeed. 

Then from there we decided why not go to the louvre at night time? See it all lit up. So we did. There was hardly anyone there sooooo photo ops on photo ops!!! 

And we layed on the ground and took it all in. then across the street was this thing called “viennasphere” so we thought ok why not and it was weird. We laid on the ground and it was a big dome with a little light show kinda thing and it was just odd. So we left. And back to the hostel we went to plan the next day.

DAY DEUX

We woke up and decided to head over to notre dame and saint chapelle. Well saint chapelle had a line longer than long so we headed to notre dame. We stopped through the flower market and it was so pretty. A French lady got mad at us because we were taking pictures and I guess we were in her way. sorry madame. Then we got to the notre dame, went inside, it was pretty like always, then went outside and the line grew like 500x longer than it was when we went in. thank goodness we went in when we did then.

notre dame-ing

 From there we decided to go to the musée d’orsay and the louvre and walk along the seine. 

paris, you're too cute.

Then we got to the louvre, found the secret entrance (no wait time that’s whats up) got in for free cause we’re students, and we promptly found the mona lisa and took our selfies with her and then we found a couple other cool things…heeheehee. 

mona is so small. and there's so many people.

i'm part of the louvre now. :)

Then we went to the musée d’orsay and it was nice. Very pretty. I’m not much of a museum person, I like them and I’ll look at them and say oh that’s pretty but I don’t care about reading all about them or really sitting there soaking it in like some people do. But it was pretty to see the monets and everything. And when you’re a student and you get in for free might as well take advantage of that. 

there was this derptastic huge painting so courtney and i recreated it and i just wish you could see the painting better because it's really funny i promise.

There was a Picasso painting and we heard this little English kid go “mum these paintings are weird...” it was so funny. Little English kids are so cute. Why didn’t I au pair in England I could never get mad or annoyed with kids with cute little accents. I think I’ll raise my kids in England in hopes of them getting an English accent. Then from the museums we went to Montmartre and the sacre Coeur. It’s just so pretty! So we hung out there, took pictures, ya know the norm. then we went back to the hostel to change and get ready for our evening. So we did and we went to a little area next to the Eiffel tower and got some dinner, we went to this great Italian restaurant and it was sooooo good. I got ravioli and Courtney got gratin and it was delish. And the Italians who worked there were so nice and sweet. Then we headed to the Eiffel tower to watch it sparkle. And that is always so pretty and magical. I love it. We got to see it sparkle twice and then we weren’t sure what time the metro stopped, one person said 12:30, another said 1, and another said 2. So we didn’t know who to believe so we just went at about 12:15 because we did not want to be stuck with no way to get back to the hostel. 

SO PRETTY! (me of course.) (just kidding, me and courtney and the eiffel tower) 

So we made it back and hung out in the common area with a few other American girls and one of the guys who worked there and then we decided we better get to bed. It was already almost 2 and daylight savings time started at 2 so we didn’t really get to bed until 3 and we were so sleepy.  

DIA TROIS

Last day in paris L we headed to the catacombs to see some bodies. We woke up and we took a bit longer to get ready because we had to get all our stuff together and make sure we had everything and check out and blah blah blah. So when we got to the catacombs it was a loooong line. Rick said to arrive there at about 9:30 to avoid getting stuck in the long lines but we had some difficulties that morning. we had to go to the train station to put our luggage in the luggage lockers and we encountered another experience of how French people are just mean and don’t go the extra mile for others. So you can only use coins to pay for the lockers so Courtney used a five to get change then we had 50 cents in small coins, 5s and 1s cause it was 5.50. well the machine thing didn’t accept anything smaller than a 10 cent piece so I went to the desk and this was how the convo went:

Me: I have 50 cents in small coins can I exchange it so I can use the locker?

Lady: no

Me: ok well how can I use this then?

Lady: there’s a change machine over there

Me: and it’ll accept small coins and give me bigger ones?

Lady: no

SEE HOW USELESS THE FRENCH ARE?! THERE’S A CASH REGISTER RIGHT BEHIND YOU WHY CAN’T YOU HELP A SISTER OUT?!

So Courtney ended up having to put in her ten to get more change out (I didn’t have any more cash on me) and the machine wasn’t accepting her bills. So I went back to stand in line to talk to her again and tell her what’s up and Courtney was with me and she said “you stay here to talk to them and I’ll keep trying. You’re better at talking to people angrily.” Hahahaha I am not afraid to get angry on lazy French that’s for sure. Courtney said she would’ve asked and they would’ve said no and then she just would’ve been like oh ok sorry. Whereas I would lay it on them and let them know I’m angry. #sorrynotsorry

So we finally got change for the ten and got our locker and then we headed off to the catacombs. we got there and for some reason we had to scan our ticket before we got out of the station. Well I pulled out the wrong ticket so I was so angry and frustrated because I didn’t know it was the wrong one and I couldn’t get out but they didn’t have any machines for if your ticket doesn’t work anymore you can buy another. So I was an angry American and frustrated and then I found my correct ticket and then off we went to go see some bones. And stand in line for a good portion of our day. Behind us was a kid from Israel and he kept butting into our conversations  and it was so awkward and he was telling us how he was fifteen and ninth grade is so hard. WELL AT LEAST YOU DON’T MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR BEST FRIEND IN NINTH GRADE BUD.  Aaaanyways, we got crepes. They were good. The lady in front of us wouldn’t put her umbrella down even though it wasn’t raining. Courtney and I almost lost our eyes a few times. 

of course we took pictures while standing in line. lolol.

So we finally got in the catacombs and it was very interesting. A lot of stairs. Really creepy. So many bones. It was cool though. A one time thing, I don’t think I’ll go back again but it was a cool thing to have done. 

Then after that we went to go see saint chapelle but the line was so much longer than it was the day before and we were already crammed for time and we didn’t want to stand in line to rush through it or stand in line to have to leave the line to get back to the train station and not even see the saint chapelle. So we went back to champs elysées and got more macaroons then we ate lunch and we went to the gardens by the louvre and enjoyed our last few moments in paris. Then we went and got our luggage and to the airport and said our farewells. So sad. L but it was so fun and I’m so glad she came. We made our video to apply for the amazing race because she’s going to be 21 soon and we are going to get on it and explore even more of the world!! WAHAHAHA! anyways, it was real and it was fun and it was real fun. then i went off to explore other places which is another post for another day. the csquared paris video will drop soon, i gotta edit it and make it all flow still. i always worry i won't have enough footage then always have too much. oh well better to have too much than too little right? right. well have a great day the end bye.