Day 1 -
My first morning in Paris began with a wicked backache. I think the entire bunk bed Alisa and I slept on weighs about 10 lbs. I felt like a 97 year old woman.
The British guys were gone when we woke up. I am not sure if they snuck out in the middle of the night and changed rooms, or they actually had somewhere to be. I do hope it was the latter.
I am not entirely sure Parisians drink water. Alisa and I had a really hard time getting our hands on it. Downstairs in the hostel, there is an internet cafe that serves croissants, coffee, and really weird juice I have yet to identify. Coffee already has the milk mixed in, and it is not actually coffee, it is espresso with milk. These people drink the HELL out of coffee. It is a remarkable sight to see. But water? Apparently not. We eventually bought bottles from the grocery store.
I do admit our day started late. We hadn't properly slept in days, so our sorry asses weren't our of OOPS! until 11:30. Oops.
First stop was a restaurant/cafe near where we were staying. This was actually an Italian pace, but the food had a distinctive French style. See, the French like to put egg in everything, and their bread is sweet. We ordered a pizza with bacon and eggplant (hello, random) and a salad that had a whole smorgasbord or crap thrown in. We also decided to kill the remnants of our wine hangover with, you guessed it, wine.
The food was amazing. The salad had a dressing I have never had before, but it reminded me a little of ranch, a little of mayo, and a little of vinegarette. The bacon on the pizza wasn't really bacon, it was the soft, fatty part mixed in with the eggplant. This may sound gross, but it was very good and worth every calorie (almost).
Alisa continued to communicate with an impressive amount of French. She gets a little quiet when shes speaking it because it is difficult to come up with all the words when you are still learning, but I think she knows more than she thinks she does. It is impressive and inspiring to watch. She just started taking classes after her first trip 7 months ago and has been consistent with it ever since.
Anyway, after we paid the bill, it was off to Notre Dame! People who have traveled with me have learned along with me that there is one thing I love: old shit. I love old shit so much. The older and bigger and grayer the better. Old.
Notre Dame is a big giant Catholic cathedral located on the island (ile de la cite in the 4th Arrondissement). This thing was a giant slab of old French gothic-ness. Consrutruction began in 1163 and they tore down the old cathedral in place before it (hey, the Romans were busting out churches left and right, they had to keep up with the Jones'). It was completed about 90 years later.
In the 1790s, a bunch of French people were really mad (radical revolutionaries) and destroyed alot of the church and the items inside. It was fully restored in the 19th century.
Get this, Alisa and I went in and there was a service going on! A full on choir was singing and the bishop was going on in French. There was the giant bronze cross at the altar over "La Piete" (imagery of Mary holding her dead son) and a statue of Mary with a ton of roses at her feet (I guess those are always there). The bishop and all of the lower ranking Catholic important people were wearing yellow robes and embroidered hats. I am honestly surprised that angels in long satin didn't soar into the room.
The church is narrow inside, but very tall. Unlike the Roman arch, gothic architecture comes to a point, and the beams cross eachother. The design is repeated consistently throughout the church so it sort of looks like you are standing in a room of mirrors.
There is also a ton of stained glass, including one for each sign of the zodiac, complete with representations of the vices of each sign. Lining the sides were different little chapels or prayer rooms dedicated to different really important Catholic people. There was a huge statue of Joan of Arc, lots of confessionals (those always make me nervous), and thousands of candles. Around the back you can see the choir off in the wing, singing almost the entire time.
True to form, I wandered off and got separated from Alisa. She was very patient with this, as though she knew it was going to happen alot. I met her outside while the church bells were ringing to a tune that sounded suspiciously like "Three Blind Mice."
Somehow, while in the church, I managed to lose my hat. I cannot imagine how I do these things. What, did I take it off and throw it? Did I place it in the basket with the sweet Baby Jesus and wander off? Sometime when I lose things I like to imagine where they are at the exact moment I am thinking about it. Right now, I think that hat is in a big, steaming garbage bin with 20 lbs of leftover French bacon fat.
Alisa and I were exhausted. We hadn't fully gotten over the jet lag yet.
After our tour of Notre Dame, we wandered around the island admiring the river, looking at the different apartments, and warding off agressive street vendors (seriously, I want to meet the guy who does all the European watercolor paintings sold on the street for 15 euro). Behind Notre Dame, there are rows and rows of cafes, boutiques, bars, and restaurants. Alisa, audibly recognizing a "big, frothy beer sign," led the way down an alley to a small pub with a wide selection of beer. She made me try one called Strongbow, a light and sweet beer. Upon ordering we were drunkenly greeted by a French man drinking Guinness out of a straw and playing air guitar to the American music on the stereo. He would continue this activity for hours, not even setting him imaginary instrument down when he needed to light a cigarette.
Somehow we moved on to pitchers. We drank two pitchers of Stella and decided there was no chance in hell we were going to make it home before our night began. Thus, we decided to start our European evening right then and there.
Alisa warned me that Crankypants was about to come out if she didn't get some grub. We swaggered down the street and happened upon a Chinese food place. All the different entrees were labeled at 1.50-2 euros each, so we ordered all kinds of garbage. Turns out, this crap was sold by weight, so we ended up spending 20 euro for what would cost 9 bones and Panda Express. Dammit.
After scarfing down microwave re-heated French-Chinese, we headed over to the Bastille area. This place is lined with fun pubs for people our age. Heading in, we were greeted by the French equivalent of a loud American frat boy.
"Where. ARE. yooou fromm?"
"America. Los Angeles"
"Amereeca?!? I 'ATE Ameerica!"
"You ate America?...oh....OH! (Lightbulb) You HATE America!"
Jackass. (Le douche bag)
We entered the pub to find a beautiful beautiful man playing the guitar beautifully and singing even more beautifully. We grabbed a caraffe of wine and parked it front and center. I made the decision to take this man as a lover. I think Alisa made the same decision as well. For over an hour he played popular French songs and random American ones. His performance was flawless. Additional entertainment was provided in the form of a French cougar dancing and swooning by the bar. I think she loved this man more than we did. I admired her tenacity.
After the set we enjoyed another caraffe of wine, which we did not need. I managed to meet my guitar playing lover, who ended up not being able to speak a single word of English. On top of this, he was royally uninterested.
Burn.
Alisa, after chatting up a cute guy in a tshirt with fake suspenders silkscreened on (gotta give him props on humor), announced that it was time for us to get our sorry asses home. It is on this journey where I would have my first great fall of the trip.
See, when you get to the train station, you have to buy these little tickets that they stamp. You can buy several at a time, or you can buy one. Either way, by your 2nd or 3rd voyage, you are bound to have 3 or 4 of those little fuckers floating around in your pockets.
This, combined with the fact that my brain was working at about 35%, made it damn difficult to get past the little entrance thing. Justifying that I did in fact have a valid ticket...somewhere...I placed my hands on either side of the seperators and attemped to hoist myself over the bar.
I didn't even get close.
Instead I landed flat on my back in front of 5 or 6 people, and Alisa. She was preoccupied with her own malfunctioning ticket and was thus unable to be of immediate assistance. I was weighed down by my 3 layers of winter clothing, heavy purse, and noggin full of wine. I absolutely for the life of me could not get up. I couldn't even lift my head. I called to her for help, shamefully admitting that I had in fact fallen and couldn't get up. Instead, I was swiftly hoisted to my feet by a man behind me and the lady from the ticket booth (who came out to see what all the commotion was about). Each lifted me under an arm. It was really exhilarating.
Embarrassed, I dug out the proper ticket and properly entered the terminal. The rest of the journey was without significant happenings as we wandered to our hostel and got into bed. I am truly humbled and blessed at the fact that I made it to the top bunk without breaking my damn neck.
At the time we arrived, there was no one else in the hostel. This would not be the case in the morning.
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