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It's everyone's dream to spend the day eating baguettes, strolling down streets shopping and having drinks with one of their best friends in Paris. Difference between everyone and me is that I get to LIVE THE DREAM!!! For real!
Lani and I spent the day eating and shopping and drinking. In Paris. If I haven't mentioned that part enough times :) We woke up and headed to the rows of markets set up every Thursday and Sunday at Bastille. The markets were FULL of fresh fruit and veg, Crepes, meats, flowers, CHEESE, everything you could need! Lani and I went in search for the best places with the freshest fruit. Most would offer you things as you went by to entice you to buy their product. We were looking for the reddest tomatoes, the juiciest strawberries, the nicest olives and the freshest baguettes! So much choice! Our first purchase was these to amazing dips bought from a guy willing to give us plenty of samples which was what sold us to buy two full containers of hummus and an olive dip! Perfect to go with our two huge baguettes for 1.80 euro. Finally we would look like locals. At every place we were sure to have extra thrown in and be given an absolute bargain on grapes, avocados, olives, anything we wanted!
We finally tracked down the perfect salami and prosciutto as well as Brie and goats cheese. PERFECT!!! Before leaving with our arms FULL of fresh goodies our assumptions about what the French have been muttering to us have been CONFIRMED! We were passing a fresh fruit stall and this guy was talking French at us and we paid no attention. A passer by stopped and translated it for us telling us that the gentlemen thought we had great legs!! Writing this now it sounds like I'm actually making this up but I kid you not- it actually happened! So all this time we were right :)
We headed underground from Bastille and on towards the Eiffel Tower coming up just next to it to search for the best most shady location to enjoy our absolute FEAST! We laid out the 5 euro scarf we bought for the purposes of our picnic blankets and unravelled the goodness. Now we had planned all along to over cater and to make sure we weren't wishing for more, but we definitely could have done with making about 5 new French friends with the amount of food we had. We set about constructing the perfect baguettes and sat back to have a- as Lani would call it- *Pause Moment* at our lives right now. I mean we had it pretty good sitting under the Eiffel Tower!
After we let the food digest we decided to walk it off and head up the hill to see the Arch De Triumph. On our way we passed the actual kilometers of line just to purchase a ticket to go up the Eiffel Tower! It was insane. Lani and I were glad we had opted out of the intense tourist activity, instead choosing to browse the Champs Elysee.
Here we navigated through the crowds to get a strawberry tart for dessert and browse the shops. Though I'm not sure browse is the word for what we did at Sephora. This amazing store is filled with all the brands of makeup you could ever dream of! There were great European prices, let alone the amazing 'soldes' that we really got around. When we had spent what seemed like hours (and let's be honest, easily could have been) trying products, testing brushes, thinking whether we could really justify our purchases we left with HUGE smiles on our faces from our fab buys! Success in Sephora.
That night we put our new makeup and jewelry purchases to the test and dressed up to head out on the town! Lani had been to this bar once before and we headed there for cocktails and tapas. When we got to Barrio Latino we were asked to pay 20 euro and had to seriously consider it!!! Especially after our last ten euro comedy disaster! We asked if it was busy and the man immediately replied yes in a monotone voice without even looking around. We took the risk and went it. Dead. But we had been given a drink ticket on entry to use upstairs at the bar which technically brought out entry down to 5 euro after purchased an extremely strong cocktail from out nice barman from New York! I had a tequila sunrise and Lani chose a mojito of some sort. They were incredibly delicious but was also avec lots of alcohol! The only words Lani and I have seemed to need when in Paris have been avec (with) and sous (without). Hand when ordering eggs avec bacon, chips sous salad and most definitely NOT drinks sous alcohol!!!
After we sat down and enjoyed our drink there were more and more people I the club! We had headed out at 1130, which is Paris is apparently early! We looked over the balcony past the tapas floor to the pumping dance floor with a mix of Latin and western music with a bit of Shakira, Pitbull and even Beyonce! Lani and I were stoked and hit the dance floor hard.
Though we got hit on hard by not a few but at least 15 guys, taking on our personas Charlotte and Isabelle, we did meet a group of guys who were really fun and not as seedy as the rest! Francesco, Francesco and Pablo provided us with a very entertaining night and even a bottle of vodka and orange juice for mixing. Now don't think me and Lani weren't insanely paranoid we were gonna end up drugged and in the French sex slavery but we watched with hawk eyes any drinks that were poured and we have LIVED to tell the tale- thank god!!!
What an amazingly fun night to have in Paris with our new best friends hitting up the dance floor attempting a Parisian version of our dance moves and ending our night with a massive pizza with 3 olives and went back to our amazing expensive hotel with feature fountain and courtyard. Oh the power of yes haha
- comments
Lani Maitland This is by far my favorite blog ever! You describe everything so accurately! It really does sound like the BEST Parisian day EVER, which is convenient...cause it WAS the best day ever! X
Linda Fantastic picnic. And you went for dessert after all that ?!
Dad I agree with Lani. It sounds like a wonderful day - except towards the end maybe. Remeber to make good choices and it is okay to say no!
Cat "Francesco, Francesco and Pablo" - this is my fave part hahaha