baby it's cold outside

Hello from art class again! This time I thought ahead and decided to bring my laptop with me so that I could just type the blog instead of writing it out and and having dorene type it up later. I will be back home in three and a half days! I cannot believe it, I’m truly in shock. I really only have two and a half days actually left in paris, the half day being the rest of tonight and the two days being tomorrow and friday. My flight leaves at eleven thirty saturday morning and considering the fact that I’m going to be at the airport around nine my saturday here basically doesn’t count. Dorene and I just started packing last night and of course I’m already stressed. Dorene shopped a lot here (and to my credit I ate a lot of yummy things here instead) so she’s going to have a hard time getting everything back while not going over the weight limit. I’m only mentioning this because I think it’s hilarious. She’s been talking about all the stuff she is going to throw out here to save space and weight. Well here’s her throw out list so far: a pair of super light flats, a tank top, two pairs of socks, her linen pajama pants, an ace bandage and a pad of post-its. All I have to say to her is, bonne chance mon amie, bonne chance.

Last week was gyro-tastic. Saturday morning we went to the biggest flea market in paris which is located in the north of paris. The flea market was in a really ghetto area and pretty much sold nothing but crap so we didn’t stay for long. Since we were already up north we stopped by the montmartre.

I wanted to see the view from the top of the hill, outside the sacre coeur, one more time before leaving. It was fun being able to notice different monuments and buildings I’ve learned about since being here.

I also really appreciated going around and looking at paintings done by local artists. Some of their paintings were beyond beautiful but sadly the artists knew their pieces were beyond beautiful too so they were beyond overpriced it. I hope that one day I will be able to afford flying back to paris simply to pick out and buy some amazing one of a kind paintings to decorate my home with back in la.

For lunch we had gyros from the same place we went to twice before the same week. It was perfection, as usual. We ate in the actual shop this time so we had it nice and warm, which made it even better. I had to take a photo from the inside for memories sake.

Since we had visited the sacre coeur already and were right next to the notre dame we decided to have make it a mini holy day and go inside the notre dame as well.

When we got out we were greeted by about sixty drunk people dressed up as santa clause, pere noel as the french call it. Why were they all dressed up as santa claus running around paris? No freaking clue but it was fabulous, god I love the french.

Saturday night was our last going out night in paris so we needed to make it worth it. We ended up at our usual spot now (no not the gyro place even though that would have been amazing too) duplex, which is right next to the arc de triomphe. We cut the line like before, for some reason no one notices an asian and persian pair of girls and got inside pretty quickly. We had a great final french club night.

We happened to stay awake until the metro opened up again but we were tired so we took a taxi home. My favorite moment of the night was my french conversation with the taxi driver. I figured I would attempt speaking french as much as possible before leaving. I might have a horrible accent and barely get my point across but the fact that I can even try makes me happy.

Sunday was our recovery/resting day. We had some yummy warm baguette at home, watched a movie, wrote our fashion of france essays and tried to comprehend the fact that it was our last sunday in paris together.

Monday was cold. COLD. Before this week I had semi gotten used to dealing with it being 40 degrees fahrenheit outside but I was not ready for the high of the day being 32 degrees, the high! Oh and please keep in mind it was technically 32 but with wind chill and everything it really felt like 22 degrees. I don’t think I can physically fit more long sleeve layers on my arms anymore but I’m doing my best. Anyway, on monday we went to the champs elysees christmas markets again to go see ice magic.

Dorene read about ice magic on some paris website and it sounded pretty cool so we decided to go. What the hell is ice magic? Well it’s this tent which is kept at a constant negative six degrees celsius (sorry for switching between the two different degrees but I don’t feel like converting that to fahrenheit so bare with me) which houses ice sculptures which were made to look like all the most popular parisian monuments.

There was the eiffel tower of course, and some person and me playing the piano.

And the mona lisa. And the thinker sculpture by rodin.

And a big hotel de ville. (It took dorene and I about two months to realize hotel de ville means city hall.)

And the disneyland paris castle!

And the notre dame.

And the sacre coeur.

And the arc de triomphe.

And an ice bar but sadly no bartender.

We spent about ten minutes inside the freezer aka ice magic trying to take as many pictures as we could. My philosophy was that I would just take a lot of pictures and look at them later on my computer while sitting next to a heater. The craziest part about leaving the place was thinking that the negative two degrees celsius outside was actually warm but at that point my fingers were purple and we both had lost feeling in our toes. I was pretty much convinced that they would be black when I took my shoes off when I got home but I’m happy report that I still have all ten fingers and toes…for now.