Paris

Last week, June and I went to Paris for two days. It was fabulous (super cold, but still fun times). My first thoughts on arriving...being in a country where you don't speak the language is entirely disconcerting at first. I had no idea what was going on and it was just so strange. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without June and her fluent French. Before we left, we discovered that my top two attraction choices were closed: the catacombs and the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. Here's me being sad about the bookstore (we just happened to be walking along across the street from it at one point and my librarian-sense must've started tingling or something cause I just knew):

Apparently all the museums are closed on Tuesday, so the first day we went to Notre Dame. Absolutely stunning. It was huge and it had massive stained glass windows and old religious arts and relics. The outside was so detailed. We even found a lobster. I'm not real sure why there's a lobster...so don't ask.                      

The Holy Lobster of Antioch!

After Notre Dame, we did a bit of walking around, found our hostel and got checked in, and then went for dinner at a cafe opposite the Sacre Coeur (it's another church). I had a ham sandwich with cheese and egg on top of it. I guess the French don't know that the bits of a sandwich go on the inside. Once we had finished dinner, we went up to the Sacre Coeur. It's on a hill and you get a great view of the city from there. We saw the Eiffel Tower way off in the distance and I insisted on going to see it straight away, which was great because it was all lit up and beautiful. It is so much taller than I thought it'd be, by the way. Very impressive indeed. It started sparkling! I was so excited about that! And I got video of it!

Sparkly Eiffel Tower from Jessica Smith on Vimeo.
We were entranced by the lights for a while but once we came back to reality, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Took a quick photo of it, then walked down the main shopping street which was mainly composed of snazzy stores like Louis Vuitton. There was even a Mercedes Benz showroom. I, of course, was lured in by the pretty cars and had to take pictures of all of them.

That was basically it for Tuesday. We spent all of Wednesday in the Louvre...and still probably didn't even see half of it. So. Much. Art. All the little descriptions were in French so I had no idea what anything was about most of the time. There were a few things that were on the audio guide so I got to hear about them in English at least. My favorite part was Napoleon's rooms which were on display. Dude had huge chandeliers.

Fancysauce

We saw some beautiful works of art, and of course the famous pieces too like Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.

Venus de Milo

Random statue in the sunset (or "I'm so artsy")

Mona Lisa

That's about it really. We had dinner Wednesday night in a nice little restaurant called L'Arsenal. The waiter guy was so, so nice. We tried to tip him a lot but he wouldn't take it because you're not supposed to tip in France. If you guys go to Paris, you should go there. But don't eat the horse burger because they had horse burgers on the menu (thank God that June knows French!). I had a skillet of potatoes with cheese and ham that was pretty delish. Yay Paris!

Until next time,

Duchess

Dragons and Sheep Parts....

Seems I haven't updated in ages. I have time for a quick entry though. Been quite busy lately with classes starting back and things getting back into swing. I have started taking all kinds of dance classes too: ballet, salsa, street, popping, anything else that happens to be going on. Won't be getting any dance classes in this week though (or football). June and I are going to Paris in the morning for 2 days. Then I have some catching up to do on Thursday and another packed day on Friday.

Yesterday I went to Chinatown for the Chinese New Year parade. I guess if you're short, you should get to these things hours before anyone else because I couldn't see a thing. I thought I'd catch the parade on its way back down to Trafalgar Square so I asked some people working the event where it would come by and they had no idea what was going on. I'm fairly certain these people were just grabbed off the street and given Yellow Vests of Authority for the sheer hell of it. Ended up missing the parade in all this mess. So went to find a spot to watch the performances in Trafalgar Square. It was over-crowded and I still couldn't see so I gave up and went to this bookstore I'd passed earlier and bought a book. Went to grab some Chinese takeaway and finally saw something interesting just before leaving for home. I got a video of it...


Chinese Dragon from Jessica Smith on Vimeo.

The cultural immersion continued when I got back home. Last night, we had a Burns Night dinner (a Scottish holiday). Katie made haggis with neeps and tatties for us and then Emma brought a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Good stuff.

I should go to bed now. Getting up early for the train tomorrow.

Until next time,
Duchess