week three, tuesday - sunday

I know I know I suck. I haven't updated the blog in six days and am about two weeks behind in story telling, as in it is sunday today and I've only talked about last last monday. My goal is to catch up over the weekend so that I can finally start writing "live" blogs, as in I actually get to talk about what happened that day. So much happens, even on a boring normal school day, and I feel like my lagging is causing me to forget about the little funny/amazing/priceless moments in france. Let's get started!

Tuesday of last week was boring. I mean I'm sure something fabulous happened at one point, like when me and dorene were too focused looking at the metro map that we managed to not hear the fact that the metro had arrived and left right behind us, but since I'm behind sadly I don't know what day that actually happened. It was straight out of a movie though. We were standing there with our back to the actual spot where the metro arrives arguing about what path was better only to turn back around right as the metro was leaving. We laughed for awhile. It was totally worth missing.

Oh now I remember, and by remember I mean I asked dorene what we did tuesday night. We went out to this bar called footsie off the opera metro stop. I remember walking up the steps to exit and being amazed that I was standing in front of the famous opera house in paris, like no biggie just hanging out in the heart of paris on a random tuesday night. Anyway, so we get to this bar that was supposed to work like the stock market. They have this ticker board, which is updated every two minutes, that says how much certain drinks cost at the moment. It works just like the stock market where the more people buy that drink the higher the price gets. I don't understand how it makes common sense to use that method in a bar but I went with it. I ordered a monaco, which is stella artois with grenadine. It basically tasted like a shirley temple and I loved it. Dorene ordered a white martini, whatever that was and a ricard because at the time it was cheap. Turns out the ricard drink tastes like disgusting black licorice, not like black licorice can even taste good but I needed to get across the how bad it tasted point. Dorene didn't even finish it, and she never not finishes drinks!

Wednesday our art class was cancelled, allowing me and dorene to procrastinate on doing our impressionism art presentation. After my french class we went shopping for a bit. I bought my first true parisian club dress. I was so proud of myself. Wednesday night we didn't do anything noteworthy.

Thursday night dorene told me about this place her aunt suggested we go to for french onion soup. It was called au pied cochon, which literally means pig's foot in english. Apparently it is also famous for some dish that includes pigs feet. Of course I immediately started craving french onion soup and told dorene we had to go that same night. We got the crew together and headed off to have what was the best french soup ever. I haven't actually had many french onion soups before but it was so good you just know its the best one. We ordered a fixed menu thing so we had soup to start and then I had this white fish and dorene ordered duck. We were all so full after the huge cheese infested soup and baguette with butter (I was really excited about the butter, the french don't usually give butter with their bread at restaurants) we barely could make it through our entrees. I had trouble falling asleep that night because I was so full and busy day dreaming about the bread and butter I would be eating tomorrow because dorene stole the leftover butter for me. Don't worry, it was individually wrapped and amazing. 

Dorene has fridays off so after I was done with class we decided to be tourists and go visit the notre dame just because we can. The school supply shopping place is right next to the notre dame so of course I went and bought another notebook. Afterwards we crossed the seine river and had a little photo shoot in front of the cathederal. Dorene was more focused on all the pigeons everywhere than the notre dame but whatever floats her boat.

We went inside because it was free and we had nothing better to do. Turns out we were lucky and got to see a mass going on. Dorene felt bad taking pictures but I was okay with it so here you go.

After our touristy hour we decided to just walk around paris, you know being parisian. Luckily I'm a true parisian and carry an umbrella around with me everywhere unlike katie and dorene. While we were in nafnaf looking around mother nature decided to be bipolar. It started raining, pouring actually and I was the only one with an umbrella. Of course I was wearing my brand new boots and carrying my speedy for the first time in paris. Basically, we stood under the pompidou museum until katie and dorene were brave enough to run to the metro station in the rain. Thanks to my blackberry we were able to find the closest metro and made it there without them getting fully soaked. For the record I did offer to share my umbrella but they both declined. If i were them I would have definitely taken up on the offer. 

On saturday me and dorene thought we should check out the monmartre wine festival, apparently so did every other person within a twenty mile radius of paris. (I mentioned awhile back that my guide during my monmartre tour told us that they had a festival every year when they cut the grapes from the three small vineyards they have in paris.) We walked up to the sacre coeur because the little metro thing that takes you up was packed. I couldn't help but think about how those stairs beat the santa monica stairs for working out. 

Once we got to the top we walked down (and by walked down I mean that we were stuck in a mob of people not moving) this little hallway between all these tents that sold everything from wine to candy. 

We also saw this HUGE skillet filled with potatoes, oil and sausage. We wanted to get a plate so badly but then realized how gross it really looked.

Once we made our way out of the hallway of death we walked around a bit and drank some parisian water.

We caught a bit of a random parade that was  going on. 

We saw what we guess was a wine club standing outside in cool looking robes cheering on the parade. 

We got semi lost trying to find another metro station and just happened to stumble across the moulin rouge, then went back home to get ready for a parisian discotheque night! (Discotheque means club in french, I've always loved that word but didn't think they actually still use it.) 

I was excited to go out that night because I had bought my first real parisian going out dress earlier this week. They don't really dress up the way we do when we go out in los angeles. They don't show a lot of skin, in fact you feel a little out of place if you do. They wear tights out, which I'm all for since it is less than 40 degrees out. And some girls even wear flats out to clubs, which is a big no-no back home. So this weekend I was ready and excited to be a parisian clubber.

We first tried going to this club called cab, which is right across from the louvre museum. We got there only to see a huge line and the group decided we were too cool to stand in any lines so we decided to go to the club me and dorene went to the first weekend here, duplex. We all went back on the metro and got off near the arc d'triomphe only to realize we didn't know exactly where that other club was.

Luckily we bumped into some random french guys who were also headed to duplex. Once we finally got to duplex we were shocked to find a line maybe five times the size the one at cab. There must have been at least 100 people waiting in line to go in, please keep in mind that it's about 1am already. Since I love attempting to speak french to people I was talking to some of the guys, asking them what other clubs we could go to that night, and what the best club in paris usually is. One guy told me the best club was duplex, so score me and dorene for going to the best club on our first weekend. Eventually the guys decide they're going to this club called queen on the champs elysees so we decided to follow them and took a touristic photo along the way. 

Queen was awesome. They served there drinks in hard plastic cups with lids! LIDS! Why has america not thought to put lids on the drinks they serve in clubs? It prevents all the "liquid spilling everywhere while dancing and holding your drink" moments. I obviously thought it was genius. The club played relatively new american music which was perfect. All in all it was a great night. Sadly I couldn't handle being out until the metro opened back up (around 5:30am) so instead I hailed us a cab around 5am off the champs elysees!  I had never hailed a cab before and now I'm hailing cabs off one of the most famous streets in the world. So cool! 

Our midnight (really 6am) snack this time was this frozen rice that dorene had bought that day. It was much better than the soy jerky from that other weekend. 

Sunday, as always, was recovery/champs elysees day. Since not much is open on sundays in paris me and dorene like to go to the champs to go shopping/return things we bought during the week because they are always open for tourists. It's our one day of the week where allowed to be tourists, other than that, according to my postcard "I am not a tourist."

I know I failed and wasn't able to catch up to real time yet. I will do my best tomorrow. For now dorene is pressuring me to post and go to sleep because she has school tomorrow so if you're craving another post, blame her.