Sooo- November 4th was a big day for me! I finally turned 21!!! Instead of celebrating in the typical ‘go on a pub crawl in Boston and get carried home’ way though, I got to spend it in Ireland! That’s a break from the norm, for sure!
On Wednesday night, Stacie, Alex and I headed into the city to a nightclub called Tripod. It was a really cool venue and the queue was huge! Once we finally got in, we spent some time dancing and getting a few drinks. At midnight, I took a ‘Happy 21st Birthday’ shot and we headed back to the dance floor! We stayed here for quite a while, leaving at around 1 or so to head to another club that’s open late, Copperface Jack’s. We stayed there until it closed around half 3 and were home by 4! We enjoyed some delicious frozen pizza upon arrival back home, and Deanne surprise me with cupcakes in the kitchen when I walked in! Needless to say, I went to bed pretty late and had a nice time on Thursday sleeping in J. Thursday afternoon, Stacie and Alex went to the supermarket and got all of the materials necessary for the birthday dinner we were making!
We spent most of the afternoon preparing the meal- making stuffing and putting it inside the 2 chickens they had bought and peeling and slicing potato after potato in order to make the 3 different dishes they had in mind. We made one potato au gratin dish with Gruyere cheese, one with cheddar cheese and onions, and also some roasted potatoes with rosemary. The chicken was phenomenal and we sat down to dinner at around 7:30. The dinner guests included Alex, Stacie, Deanne, Chris, Aidan and Sean (roommates), and Dara, one of Aidan’s friends from home. It was absolutely delicious! Lucky for us, the boys volunteered to do all the dishes and cleaning! J Later that night, all of us went downtown again for another 21st celebratory night. I needed to be up at 4:00 to get a 4:30 cab to the airport so it wasn’t too crazy!
Stacie and I hopped into our cab at 4:30 am and were at the airport and through security by 5:15. We waited until our plane began to board at 6:00am. We took off and arrived in Paris Beauvais airport on time! I slept for the entire plane ride, so it seemed like it was only 10 minutes- in reality, it was an hour and a half, with a 1 hour time change. We hopped on a one hour shuttle to the center of Paris, got off the bus, and were finally beginning our Parisian adventure!
We had mapped out the directions to our hotel, but the walk would have taken us about an hour. Not knowing a word of French apart from “Bonjour” , I walked up to a taxi driver who was idling on the side of the road and asked for directions. Yikes! He tried to direct us the best he could with our little understanding, and we finally made our way to the metro station to get across the city. After waiting in an insanely long line to get our train tickets, we boarded the metro and took it 3 stops to where the taxi driver had told us to go. Unfortunately, this was nowhere near our hotel. Looking at the notes I took about directions in the area, we eventually found some streets that I had written down and followed the directions backwards. I think we might have walked in circles or something, because a walk that should have taken us 10 minutes (we later found out, once we knew where we were going) ended up taking us about 40!
Eventually though, we found our hotel, checked in and settled in. The weather on Friday was absolutely gorgeous, so we decided it’d be best for us to go to the Eiffel tower that afternoon. We consulted the front desk for directions and were on our way! We got there easily and soon stumbled upon one of the most famous landmarks in the world! We spent a lot of time in the square near the tower taking pictures and just taking in the sights.
Then, we got in line to go to the top! Unfortunately, the top wasn’t open that day, so we had to settle with going to the 2nd level- the highest you could go aside from the top. We got some great photos from the top of the city skyline!
We also had time to grab some hot chocolate and a pastry from the café located inside the 2nd level. They were absolutely delicious- loveeeee French pastries!! We rode the elevator down and then headed back into the fountain area to wait for the hourly light show to come on!
After we watched the light show for about ten minutes, we decided to head back towards our hotel to grab some dinner! We ended up going to a bistro restaurant a few doors down from our hotel and it was absolutely fantastic! I was really looking forward to eating in France because the country has a great reputation for it’s food! Stacie and I both ordered Onion soup as an appetizer. This was absolutely the best Onion soup that I have every had! There was soo much cheese and it was just so incredibly delicious!! We each had a hamburger for dinner, but instead of a bun, it came with a fried egg on top- interesting, but delicious nonetheless! After dinner, we retired to our hotel room because we both had gotten virtually no sleep the night before. It was a much needed rest though, because we had a lot to do on Saturday!
When we woke up on Saturday, we saw that it was raining. It wasn’t an annoying windy rain though, just a fairly constant and not too downpour-ish type of rain. With our umbrellas in hand, we set off! Our first stop: The Notre Dame Cathedral. Another one of France’s most popular monuments, we arrived and took photos amongst the sea of umbrellas of those who were waiting in line to go in! Once we were inside, we were able to walk around (without disturbing the mass that was going on!) and look at the ancient works of art, stained glass, statues, sculptures and wood carvings that had existed in the church for hundreds and hundreds of years. Here are a few photos of the things we saw!
After the cathedral, we spotted a cute little café along the side of the road. What better time for some good ol’ French crepes, right!? We sat down in the restaurant, got some cups of tea and ordered our crepes- Nutella and banana! When they finally came, it was as if heaven was in food form on the plate in front of us. No really, look:
When I say these crepes were some of the most amazing things I have ever tasted, I mean it. I don’t think I can ever have American crepes again because they will be held up to such a high standard. Once we demolished this plate, we were off again, on our way to the Montmartre section of Paris.
Our first stop: the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. The building itself was absolutely stunning- so ornate and decorative. It left us wondering- how on earth could they possibly have done that so long ago and with such little technology as compared to now? Mind-boggling, really.
From Sacre Coeur, we set out to find the Espace Dali- a museum dedicated to the works of Salvador Dali. We were both really excited about this idea because it’s not really something typical Parisian tourists do, and since both of us are interested in Dali’s work, we figured visiting the museum would be a really great way to make this trip special and our own. Once we got into the museum, we were able to (try to) keep up with Dali’s imagination- from sculptures to paintings, furniture to photography, Dali absolutely amazed the two of us. His paintings were absolutely magnificent- some of my favorites were the ones that interpreted scenes from Alice In Wonderland- a story he had grown very fond of in his day. Here are some samples of his work:
After we went to the Dali Museum, we started walking around the Montmartre section of town trying to locate the famous Moulin Rouge! Walking through the streets was half the fun though. There were a lot of open air markets lining the streets selling everything from flowers to fresh seafood. Very colorful to say the least! We found the square where Moulin Rouge was located and took a few pictures. It was too bad that we weren’t there a bit later when it was all lit up, but it was still impressive nonetheless!
From Moulin Rouge, we hopped on the subway and got off at the Charles De Gaulle stop- the location of the Arc de Triumphe. As soon as we emerged from the underground stiars, we were taken aback by the massive arc in the center of the traffic circle. Because it was surrounded by 6 lanes of roundabout traffic, we had to walk almost halfway around to finally locate the underground passage that brought you to the Arc directly! Once we got there, we admired the detail that was put into each and every part of the Arc and stood peering up as this behemoth of a structure. We decided not to go to the top because it was an overcast day and we’d already gotten prime panoramas of the city from the Eiffel Tower!
From here, we traveled back to the section of town where our hotel was. Asking for more suggestions of good places to go, the hotel staff suggested we head to a specific street about a ten minute walk away. There were plenty of impressive restaurants on this street and after comparing the menus of a few of them, we finally settled on a location. The interior was very interestingly decorated, but provided a great atmosphere to eat and enjoy the food! Stacie and I both got Onion soup (again!) and it did not disappoint. For my main course I got a pasta bolognase dish and Stacie got some vegetable lasagna. We had a magnificent bottle of wine between the two of us too- we ended up staying in the restaurant for 3 ½ hours! Regardless, it was a delicious meal. From there, we headed back to the hotel to get some rest for our last day in Paris.
On Sunday morning, we woke up early, packed all of our things, and headed to the queue for the Louvre! On the first Sunday of every month, entrance to the museum is free. Our trip coincidentally fell on this weekend, so we decided to save ourselves some cash and go early on Sunday morning. Well, so did the rest of Paris! The queue really wasn’t that bad though, and was constantly moving. I think we made it inside right before it started raining on the miles of people waiting to get in! In the Louvre, we picked up some maps and made a dash for our first stop: The Mona Lisa. Again, so did everyone in Paris. The painting itself isn’t very large, and they have it roped off with about 15 feet between the wall it hangs on and the red velvet rope viewers are told to stand behind. After waiting a few minutes for the crowd that was about 10 people deep to shift a bit, Stacie and I were able to get up to the front to capture a picture or two.
Since we got that out of the way before the museum was super packed, we were able to just relax and enjoy the remainder of the Museum. We saw some really cool sections- ranging from Italian sculptures and paintings, to Pacific Island artwork, even to Medieval structures. Following the map for the Louvre turned out to be quite a task, so we just kind of wandered around, took corners when we felt they were necessary, and ended up in all of these different places. One of my favorite parts of the museum was Napoleon III’s apartments. Here are some photos of the ornate rooms we walked through and also some of the bigger sights of the museum!
After the Louvre, we grabbed some lunch at a nearby café (which was again, delicious!) and hopped on the Metro to make our way to our final tourist destination: the Catacombs. Unfortunately, this didn’t work out as planned. Arriving to the square that the Catacombs were located in, we had a bit if difficulty following the contradictory arrows that were hung and couldn’t actually find the entrance for a bit. Once we joined forced with fellow lost and baffled tourists who were circling the square just like us, we found the entrance, only to see that the last tour of the Catacombs left at 4:00. It was 4:20. Bummer! I was a bit upset that the Lonely Planet Guide I had told us it was open until 5 but made no mention of a ‘last tour.’ We had plenty of time to make it there, but we assumed 5:00 was a viable time for a tour! After this, we got back on the metro and went back to Port Maillot, where we picked up the shuttle bus that took us to our Airport hotel for the night.
Once we got to our airport, we settled in for a bit and then headed to the restaurant located just across the way from our rooms. We enjoyed our last French meal here, complete with a cheese sampling plate! The cheese plate proved to be a bit more… flavorful.. than we expected, but we were really glad that we did it before we left! The next morning we woke up early and took a cab to the airport, boarded our plane easily and left just on time! When we got back to Dublin, we both took a quick nap before our classes began for the day, and life went back to normal J
Overall, it was definitely an amazing way to celebrate my 21st birthday! Something I’ll most definitely remember for the rest of my life. J
I'll update about Nick visiting this past weekend soon! Slainte.
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