Paris, je t'aime

Wow, it's already Tuesday and Paris feels like so long ago. Here's a recap of what I did in Paris with Jocelyn, Kathryn and Lynn:

Thursday: I sent out some postcards and after everyone came home from class, we decided to head to the train station.Unfortunately, we all thought the train was supposed to leave 20 minutes later than it actually was, so we were on a time crunch when we got to St. Pancras International Station and were ushered by the workers so that we would make the train. After finally getting on, we were all separated since we didn't buy our tickets together but we all made it onto the train safely and two hours later, we were at Gare du Nord in Paris! We found our hostel, the Young & Happy Hostel and went to have our first dinner at Le Pot de Terre, which was delicious.

The Hostel

Dinner @ Le Pot de Terre

Friday: We started off the day with the Louvre, where we saw the Mona Lisa and all of the other famous works displayed there. After that, we headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was really pretty. We had lunch at a cafe nearby and the waiter was super nice and we had a great meal. I had a ham and cheese crepe and we all had a dessert platter afterwards with coffee. It was delicious. Then we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower where we didn't actually go on top but just took pictures of it from the ground. And we spent a good hour figuring out how to fit the entire tower in our pictures. Next, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and paid six euros to climb to the top. The view from the top was nice, and afterwards we walked around Champs Elysees for a while and stopped by the huge Louis Vuitton store. After a long day of doing touristy things, we decided to try fondue for dinner. Apparently, the French like to have white wine mixed in with their cheese fondue which was a little too strong and bitter for us, so it was the least enjoyable meal we had in Paris (and quite expensive as well). Then we went back to the hostel to get some rest and to plan the next day.

The Louvre

Group Picture at the Eiffel Tower

Saturday: This day was a little more laid back. We didn't wake up as early and our first stop was the Sacre-Coeur, which was quite beautiful but littered with hundreds of tourists and annoying beggars and street performers. However there was one guy on the steps in front of the Sacre-Coeur who was playing the harp, which was a beautiful combination with the surroundings and the church. Since it was close by, we went into Paris's gypsy district to find the Moulin Rouge building, which was pretty cool to see. Too bad tickets were 80 euros and up, or else we could've gone to see a show! C'est la vie. After that we ventured over to the Longchamp store to fulfill our main goal of coming to Paris... just kidding? Lynn, Kathryn and I all bought bags (for only $101 USD!) and proudly carried our green Longchamp shopping bags with us for the rest of the day... lol exaggeration much. Then we stopped by a small cafe and had a relatively normal lunch, complete with mac and cheese, cheese burgers, and Jocelyn and I ordered a tiramisu that actually turned out to be homemade and was served to us in a jar. I've never seen tiramisu served like that before! Next, we ventured back over to Champs Elysees to check out Laduree, a French gourmet pastry restaurant that Serena and Blair actually "bought" macaroons from in one of their episodes in Paris. It was super cute, but we weren't prepared for the long line shooting out the door so we decided to come back the next day for brunch. We did a little shopping, then headed back and had crepes for dinner. We decided to try and see what the Paris nightlife was like by walking down the street and checking out a couple of places. Good thing our hostel was located on such a convenient street; there were at least 10 different bars but we only went into one and sat for about half an hour. Jocelyn and Kathryn wanted to dance and according to the French people at the neighboring table, there was a dance floor downstairs, so we ventured down only to find that French people indeed smell.. and not the good kind of smell. It was a blast of human b.o. and sweat. Nasty. When I went back to the room after I showered and everything, and I was literally right about to crawl under my covers, this cranky old British lady who moved into our room at the hostel that day basically scolded me for "making an awful lot of noise for the middle of the night." Correction: it was 1AM and you're in a youth hostel. If you're a light sleeper, you better give up on getting any rest because there are going to be at least 10 groups of young people coming back drunk and speaking loudly. She even had the nerve to tell some girls who were in the bathroom across the hall from our room to quiet down an hour or two after she yelled at me. Please lady, if you want to save some money next time don't try to save it by staying in a youth hostel.

Sacre-Coeur

Our new bags!

Salty crepes.. super cheesy

Sunday: We woke up relatively late but our train was actually later than what we had originally thought so we left our suitcases behind and went to Laduree for our brunch. They seated us at the bar and Kathryn and I shared a meal complete with coffee, juice, eggs, fruit, and a variety of bread and pastries, which were all delicious. The line for the pastry takeout (where you get those cute little green boxes and bags) grew longer while we were sitting and eating, but we wanted our macaroons so we had to hop on the end of the line and wait it out to finally get them. Then we killed some time at H&M and headed back to the hostel, picked up some food, took the metro to the train station, and took the train back to London! And that ends my journey in Paris :)

Our brunch at Laduree

Grapefruit juice! Yum

My beautiful macaroons :)

Today: My biggest accomplishment was going to the gym today with Kathryn and trying a new class called Body Attack. Well let me tell you... my body certainly was attacked, like WWII nuclear bomb status. Everyone was sweaty besides the instructor who looked perfect and barely tired by the end of the hour long class, but it was a very rewarding experience and I definitely plan on going to that every week from now on. I expect to be sore all over tomorrow morning when I wake up.

On that note, going to finish my episode of Pretty Little Liars when it finally decides to finish loading and head to bed as I am pooped! Au revoir.

Happy New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! I should really have gone to the Chinatown here in London to check out the decoration and whatnot, and eat some yummy food but alas, there is no time. We are departing for Paris this afternoon in a matter of three hours so I'll have to wait and hope that the decorations are still up when we arrive back home on Sunday!

So a quick recap of what I've been doing since I last wrote an entry:

Skrillex was great.. unfortunately I was unable to enjoy it because I was busy bawling in the corner since someone took the liberty to reach under my coat, unhook my bag, and reach in and take my blackberry. And this was fifteen minutes after my friend's blackberry had already been stolen. I'm over it for the most part by now, but I still mourn for the loss of my best friend. Haha just kidding but it was really sad. Think about it: no more foursquare checkins, tweeting, checking emails as I get them, or looking at facebook notifications? It's sad to admit but my life felt pretty empty for the few days after I lost it. Oh well, I got myself a phone with bad touchscreen sensors but it will have to suffice.

On Sunday, Lynn and I ventured over to Tottenham Court Rd to look for my new phone and to look for the bookstore. We stumbled upon the K-Town of London, AKA three little shops and decided to stop in one of them for a quick snack. We had kimbap and kimchi fried rice. Later that night, Charine cooked us an authentic Korean dinner. Haha. It was kimchi stew.. with tofu and spam. My first time eating spam and the dinner was delicious! Props to Charine.

After class on Tuesday, we ventured over to Sir John Soane's Museum, which was actually very cool. It was his house, but also had hundreds of paintings and various sculptures, busts, etc. It's hard to imagine that someone designed and lived in such a huge and intricate house. He was a great Gothic architect and had his students paint all of the rooms in his house, which was how the museum keepers ensured that the way all of the artwork and objects were laid the way they were when Soane lived there. It was also cool how he incorporated daylight into the design of his house, playing with reflections and light seeping through grills on the grounds so that even the lower floor and basement were lit up during the day. I wish we were able to stay for the candlelit tour, where they light the entire house by candlelight on the first Tuesday of every month, but the queue was already building up by the time the daytime version of the museum closed at 5pm, and Lynn, Charine and I decided to go explore the Lincoln Inn buildings nearby instead.

Finally, last night a few of us bought some discount tickets from the student centre to go see a production titled "War Horse." While the story line sounded a little silly and the pictures of the horses on the website looked very minimal and mechanical, it was actually a really great play. What the whole audience found intriguing was how detailed the movements of the horses were. The story is about a boy who raises a horse, but his dad sells it to the army to make a profit and the boy runs off to the army to make sure that his horse is still alive and to get him back. In order for the horses to move around, there were two men standing under the horse inside the shell of its back, and there was one other man standing on the side, controlling the horse's neck, head, and movements of the ear. The play began with the horse grazing on its own, and when it poked at the grass and began to eat, or when it whimpered and sneezed, or when it whinnied and jumped or ran, the movements corresponded to those actions so realistically that it could have passed for a real horse. It was truly amazing and I'm glad I decided to go see it!

This post has gone on for too long. Expect an update on Sunday. We are heading out to Paris this afternoon by train and returning on Sunday! I'm very excited :)