Days 29, 30, 31, 32 and 33

Hello from back in the UK... finally. I fell in love with the idea of Paris, but while actually there, I felt homesick for London and its clean streets and its friendly people. BUT had a great time and great adventures while in Paris!

Day 29 aka bread bread bread and more bread.
The morning started out with a French continental breakfast which consisted of mini baguettes and croissants. That's all they eat in Paris, apparently. Sarah and I left early to get to the area around the Musee D'Orsay and to get some Euros out so we could actually pay for things. Our hotel was in the strip club district, so no shopping there. When we got to the Musee D'Orsay, we saw tons of furniture and home goods stores, but no clothes. Weird. The museum highlights: Degas ballerina statue/ paintings, Monet everywhere, the design for the Paris Opera building (aka the real life Phantom of the Opera setting) and lots of French art all over the place-- basically all art comes from France, I'm pretty sure. I bought a crepe outside the museum-- SO DELICIOUS. After meeting up with the group we went on to the Louvre!

locks on the bridge to the louvre.. you're supposed to leave one there with your true love <3

Did you know that you are allowed to take pics in the Louvre but not the Musee D'Orsay? Weird. There we saw the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde in French), the Athena nike and Venus de Milo statues and some amazing artwork including 4 other Leonardo da Vinci paintings (out of the like 20 that exist). Not to mention the effect of the building itself. Gorgeous.

roomies at le louvre

After the Louvre we had free time and went to dinner at a (pretty empty) cafe. They took forever, so we didn't go to the eiffel tower light show that night. Instead, we went back and got ready to go out! We went to a dance club called Cafe Oz and had a great time, even though it was PACKED. I decided to head inside early when we went back towards the hotel, but my friends went walking around Paris looking for more clubs and ended up just walking for an hour and coming back.

Day 30 aka SO HOT and dehydrated but who cares because it was awesome
The day started off with a large headache and 80 degree weather but I was still excited for the day's activities. First up was Notre Dame. It was so huge!

no quasimoto sightings, unfortunately. but the pope was inside!

We couldn't go inside unfortunately because they were doing a HUGE ordaining service. After listening to the service on the loudspeaker for a while, we went to the Eiffel Tower. To be honest, I wasn't really THAT impressed with standing below it during the day (more on this later). We also went to the Musee di Quai Branly, "which is like the British Museum on crack" according to Jay, the culture by design professor. It had basically French conquest and imperialism stuff from around the world. Afterwards, we met up with some of the group and stood in line for going up the Eiffel Tower. NOW I was impressed. The view was beautiful! And it was the only time I got to see the Arc de Triomphe, but it's huge-- I could find it from the skyline.

crepe i bought outside the eiffel tower right before the whipped cream splatted on the ground.

After the Eiffel Tower, we went back to the hotel and napped. I ended up accidentally missing dinner, but that's ok because my friends spent a lot on their meals. We met up again at 9:45pm and headed back to the Eiffel Tower for the light show!

It was beautiful at night, and way cooler than during the day. We drank wine and watched it light up several times. Then I realized I hadn't actually eaten anything all day, but when I went to go get something, all the stands were closed, so I ended up just going to the only open stand and bought a bag of chips and a pistachio ice cream cone. Perfect dinner. We realized that it was almost 1am and we needed to catch the metro. We made it back around 2am. It was a great last night in Paris.

Day 31 aka you thought yesterday was hot?!
Sunday was an entirely free day to walk around Paris and we decided to go shopping in Montmartre, which was just north of the sex district where we were staying. It was so cute, we walked up the hill to the Sacre Coeur cathedral, stopping to shop or eat croissants along the way. Once we got to the cathedral we sat on the hill and got another view of the skyline of Paris.

sacre coeur church

It was gorgeous. But so hot. Emily, Haylie and I lost the rest of the group and tried to walk back down the hill, but we got lost. So we walked part of the way back up and eventually met up with our friends. We walked back down the right way and got dinner at a cafe near the hotel. By 7 we were back at the Gare du Nord ready to go back to London, exhausted and sweaty. We got back around 11pm and then I had to work on my Media and Politics term paper. I worked on it from the minute we got home (minus a cold shower) to about 3:30am. It was SO HOT in the apartment I could barely sleep.

Day 32 aka exhausted.
I woke up at 8:30 and scrambled to get ready for Media and Politics. I ended up being a couple minutes late, but my paper was printed and ready. I was also late because poor Catherine has pink eye so I printed her paper and brought it as well. We watched a movie as our outing and you could tell everyone had been up so late doing this paper (I started on Wednesday, worked on it on Thursday afternoon and night on the train to Paris, and all night on Sunday) and even our professor fell asleep during the video. I came back to work on my theatre presentation on The Cherry Orchard, which we saw last week. I ended up not taking a nap because it was so hot outside, I didn't even want to move. I went to class and gave the presentation with Catherine and I think it went really well. Class got out about 15 minutes late, so I had just enough time to make dinner before heading to the Young Vic for their The Government Inspector. I did not really have a good attitude going in because it had been such a long day, but I ended up really enjoying it! We got back at around 11pm and I started to work on the two papers due at 9am. I worked on them until 3 am and then decided to get up and finish the rest in the morning.

Day 33 aka you thought you were exhausted yesterday?
I woke up around 7:15 to finish my paper. Good thing, because it literally took the entire time I had to work on it and get ready to finish it. I was late again, this time because mine was the only computer working for the printer and so I eventually just told people to use it and bring it to class so I wouldn't be so late. We literally answered 8 questions the whole time and then went on an outing to the London Greek Radio station, which was cool, but pretty far away, especially for being so tired. But! I did find out about a Russian Orthodox CATHEDRAL (and some churches, but I want to go to the cathedral) in London not too far from me so I will be trying to go to church on Sunday if someone will go with me. If not, I might go anyway on my day off since they have the services like every morning and vespers or a vigil every evening. After class I took a nice hour and half nap, which is exactly what I needed before going to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at the Haymarket Royal. I absolutely loved it. Tom Stoppard is such a word genius and Trevor Nunn's direction focused on the death themes and pointed out the ties to Waiting for Godot in a really good way. I especially liked the way they handled the Shakespearean scenes and the way that the set actually was a box. A wooden stage with a wooden ceiling with a fixed viewpoint. Tomorrow we'll be having a Mexican fiesta in our apartment with the whole group! So excited! Ta ta for now!