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Travel break 2 continued...
March 19th, 2007
Today was a LONG day of traveling. We left London in the morning and took a bus to the airport. While we were on the bus we met a woman named Shaye and her son Adam. Adam was by far one of the cutest kids I have ever seen. He looked like he was straight out of a magazine. He had longer curly hair, olive skin, and was wearing these like plaid pants with a red polo and a khaki jacket. We sent the entire bus ride talking to them, and it was very entertaining. Shaye owns her own nightclub, and she and Adam basically travel all the time together. During the bus ride Adam would take pictures of Heidi, Ashley and me, and at one point he was playing with his toys in the backseat and the bus stopped and his toys went flying. All of a sudden you hear "S***!" hahahahha. Apparantly swearing is very common in London, even at age 4.
Adam also thought it was fun to pretend he was driving the bus from the back. He stood up in the aisle and put his right arm on the arm rest that I had, and his left arm on Heidi's arm rest...and would pull up and down on them as if he was driving. Then, he would say "I'm drivin here!!" to people if they were like standing up or not acting the way he wanted them to. Oh man it was funny.
SO we arrived in Paris, and again, it was FREEZING!!! We definitley didnt pack correctly. Poor Ashley has size 11 feet, and the shoes she brought were so uncomfortable. She resorted to wearing her sandals which we refer to as Jesus sandals because they are like tan and worn and torn. When we arrived in the airport the passport control guy was cracking up at her...and this became a reoccuring joke amongst the French all day. Ohhhh stupid Americans.
We then took the train and 2 metros to our hotel. By the time we arrived we wanted to just fall over. It is not fun to lug ur bags through metro stations and trains. But despite that, we got in and walked around a little bit around our hotel. We were hungr so we ate at this little restaurant near us, and tried nutella and banana crepes. Ohhhh man they were SO GOOD!!!
Then we walked up the street by the souvenir shops, and all of a sudden this African American guy comes up to me and puts my finger through a loop of string and starts talking to me. He's asking where I'm from, saying Hakuna Matata...and just all this stuff. He started making a bracelet while my finger is through the hole, and I'm just really confused. All of a sudden these cops pull up and stop in the middle of the street and just STARE at him. Thats when I knew this probably wasnt sure a good idea. They stayed there for about a good 5 mins, and finally drove off. You could tell the guy was getting nervous. At the end he asked me if I liked the bracelet and my response was "do I have to pay for it?" and he says "only if you like it" and then I said "nope, no thanks." and walked away. hahha whewww that was close!
March 20th, 2007
This morning we were woken to a pleasant surprise of breakfast in bed. There was coffee, hot cholocate, crossaints, french bread, butter and jelly. So much for a low carb diet...I had no choice! I had a piece of french bread...sooooo tasty!
We got up, got ready, and hit the town. We went to this HUGE malll called Printemps. One building that was 8 stories high was simply the beauty and home store. They also had the same type of building for womens, and then another one for men. The womens store was unreal. It was 8 stories high of designer luxury goods. There was a floor for bags, shoes, sportswear, citywear, etc. There were all the big brands such as Prada, Armani, Ferragamo, Pucci, Diesel, Puma, Replay, MaxMara, and SO many others.This was probably one of the coolest things I have seen.
After that we went to the Eiffel Tower. I gotta say, this was not as cool as I had expected. It just looked like a big building of steel. (which it is, I know). But still, I just wasn't that impressed. I was expected a different location and such. While we were there, we were approached by a ton of gypsies one by one. We had been warned of these women who ask you if you speak English and if you say yes they follow you around and take your stuff. So annoyingly enough I got asked 15 times whether or not I spoke English. At first I just replied "no", but by the end I was being a smart ass and saying "No I don't speak English at all and I am sooo sorry to disappoint you" and I kept speaking English to them. THEN at the end I started getting angry and I told one woman that I spoke English and if she tried to take my stuff I'd punch her. (I wasnt necessarily that nice about it...) hahahha I know it's not nice, but I think it got the point across.
We took a tour on the Batobus, which is a boat that takes you to all 7 major tourist stops. You can get on and off as you please, and so it's really flexible and a great 10 euro investment. We didn't get off at every single one though, we really only wanted to see Notre Dame and the Louvre. Funny thing was when we got to the Louvre it was closed. Stupid Paris.
We got back to the hotel got ready for the night. We bought tickets for the Moulin Rouge show, and we were so excited about it. It was extremely expensive (100 euro each) but we sacrificed some meals so we could afford it..haha. I have to say, it was the highlight of my Paris trip. HOWEVER, the show was in a location that was basically the red light district in Amsterdam...so you can imagine just how ridiculous it was. I think we got offered about 15 jobs that night. I guess if life fails me I know where to turn...JUST KIDDING!
SO yeah, Moulin Rouge was really cool. It was very different and random, but thats what I liked about it. I didnt understand any of it because it was in French, but it didnt matter. It's not like there was a plot anyways. It was just a bunch of singing and dancing for 2 hours. The costumes were so out there and beautiful, and the whole show was just awesome to see.
Funny thing when we left. We were walking home and spotted a McDonalds right in the middle of this area. (weiiiird location). It was right next to a sex shop..so you can imagine the weird feeling we got when we saw a kid in the window eating a happy meal and next to him was a poster advertising the "show" next door. Nevertheless, Ashely and Heidi stopped in for some late night food"
March 21st, 2007
Another day of breakfast in bed. I could definitley get used to this...
It took us a little bit to get up and get ready, but when we did we made our way to this designer outlet mall about an hour outside of Paris. When we got there we only had about an hour to look around because Ashley needed to get back to catch a flight back home. On our way there in the train station we were trying to find out how to get there, so we stopped at the information desk to buy a ticket to this different zone. The guy didnt speak english, so he got another guy who did to talk to us. At this point we were extremely frustrated because they kept telling us that we could be a cheaper ticket if we went to a different station and then jumped on a different train and blah blah blah...but we were on a massive time crunch. Heidi was all frustrated because Ashley wanted to go to these outlets but we knew we wouldnt have time but we were going anyways because it was something she wanted to do. SO basically, Heidi starts getting verbally frustrated with this guy telling him that all we want to do is buy the ticket and everything, and it turned into a little bit of a heated conversation. I had to walk away and later apologize to the guy. I felt bad for him.
ANyways, things got better after that. We went to the outlets, came back and took Ashley to the bus stop to bring her to the airport. When she left Heidi and I didnt realy have anything to do so we just walked around a little more and saw this amazing church by our hotel. When I walked in the ceiling on the altar had a picture of Jesus in the middle in all His glory with the saints around him. I turned to Heidi and told her thats what I wanna see in person when I'm in heaven. It was so beautiful.
We went back to the hotel because we were so cold, and my 8 layers were not working out for me. I looked like a stuffed pork sausage in my outfit, it was hilairous. So we went to the hotel and hung out there the whole night. We had a great dinner consisting of a jar of pickles, babybel cheese, tomatoes, and mini plastic bottles of cheap wine. We stayed up and talked for a long time, and then finally went to bed to get some rest before our flight to Barcelona in the morning.
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