20!

So yesterday was my birthday, and it was a pretty amazing day. No complaints.

Went to yoga in the AM (best present for yourself!). Then I met Anne at a cafe near school, Aero, that I have been wanting to try. It's got tons of outdoor tables and is always super busy. Wine was necessary, of course.

In my break in between classes, we went back for crepes. The waiter gave us funny looks, but whatever. They had hot chocolate sauce and Berthillon (the best in Paris) ice cream.

Then it was back to class from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. I didn't mind it so much, because it didn't require much thiking, but I was so anxious to leave! We got out at 8:40, and those last 10 minutes were miserable. I was trying to rush home to get ready and be out of the house in an hour, and I have a 40 min commute home!

The plan was to go to Ice Bar, at Hotel Kube. I thought we needed a reservation, so I was kind of anxious that we were going to miss our 10:30 one, but it turns out that it's only really necessary for busy nights. Because it was a Wednesday, it didn't really matter. The hotel is in kind of a sketch area in the 18th--there are a lot of people out in the street, but they are all CREEPERS and making lewd comments. The hotel was very hidden, but once inside, it was like super swanky modern Euro design. The hotel is known for it's design apparently. Everything was very decorated, including the bathrooms and elevators! Fur and animal print everywhere.

 We bought tickets to go into the Ice Bar part at 11pm (38 euros, blah. But included 4 drinks!). It was scheduled in half hour increments, so we had like 20 minutes to kill. Obviously we took a bunch of pictures in the bar area. The Ice Bar was upstairs at the hotel bar, so there was a whole regular bar downstairs and upstairs.

[Ali took more pictures too, I promise I'll steal hers and put them up ASAP].

To go into the Ice bar, you have to put on a parka and gloves. I almost wore no tights and open toed sandals--so glad I didn't make that mistake, because it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit in there. We were the only ones in there (except for the bartender) because it was a Wednesday night, but that made it more fun. We could dance to the techno and take ridic pics without being embarrassed.

He made us four cocktails, served in cones of ice, all with Grey Goose (the sponsor).

1. Lemon vodka with basil and orange

2. Cosmo with cinnamon

3.Strawberry with Speculos (that magical Teddy Graham tasting flavor they have everywhere here. I bought a bar of Speculos butter, like Nutella....mmmm)

4. A marshmallow with a shot of vodka

The bar was set up like a "house". It had a bathtub with toiletries frozen in ice, a living room with a tv, a bar, and a bedroom with sleeping bags. But everything was made of ice obviously--walls, counters, etc.

The bedroom

Round 1

The living room

The bar

Frozen in ice

The bathtub

After 30 mins though, we were really fucking cold. Kind of glad it was over. Then we enjoyed a delicious champagne cocktail at the bar downstairs.

And this morning I went to the right class at Sciences Po!!

AND NOW IM OFF TO BARCELONA. PEACE.

routine

I'm starting to settle into a routine, so no real news today. Wonder if that's a good thing or bad thing? I guess the daily excitement of just being in Paris is wearing off, although I still feel like there's so much to do and see. Because there is. And it's not like I don't have anything to be excited about (my birthday, Ice Bar, Barcelona, etc...) But I guess every day won't be AMAZING anymore. And that's what I wanted--a real life in Paris.

Also, I'm really starting to get annoyed with all the dog shit that's everywhere. It's a legit problem in Paris, more so than in any city I've ever seen.

One of many cultural differences

At my cousin's BBQ today, I was talking to a French woman there who was asking me about the differences between New York and Paris and what I thought of them both. She was saying how she thinks Paris is so fast-paced, and that everyone is always in a hurry, and things move so quickly. I burst out laughing--it's amazing to me how slowly things move here. An errand that would take 10 minutes in the US often takes 40 minutes here. She says what takes 3 hours in Paris would take 3 days in Aix-en-Provence, which is where she spends a lot of her time.

One of the girls there also had a gluten intolerance, and I was talking to her about it. She said sugar is never a problem because all the sugar in France is made from beetroot, not cane sugar, and so it's totally fine. I thought that was weird.

New/old dichotomy

Met Anne for lunch in the St Germain de Pres. We cannot stay away from that neighborhood, haha. I was there on Thurs, Fri, and Sat. We walked around for awhile and finally found a cute cafe, where I had the tarte nicoise. What I really wanted was the poulet roti, the other special of the day, but they were out! When we asked the waiter for water he brought it to us in an Absolut bottle, hahah. He joked about how he was gonna get us drunk so he could take us to dinner tonight. What a cutie.

Then we walked and tried to catch up with the Paris Techno Parade. On our way, we ran into an animal rights protest in front of the St Germain Church.

And we quickly began to here techno music, and we knew we'd fond the parade. It's this annual event, kind of like Lovefest in SF I think. Apparently there were like 400,000 people there. Basically different DJs go through the city on different floats, and people dance in the streets and follow them. Some of the floats were like fun happy techno, and some were really hardcore. It started in the 14th, and made its way up through the 7th to the 6th to 5th, and then ends in Bastille. We joined around the 7th, and walked/danced with it for awhile. It was insane! We were definitely too sober for it...if only we'd pregamed. My ass got grabbed! And someone passed out on me, and then his friend carried him away. Later we saw him unconscious on the street with a policeman checking him out. I really hope they took him to the hospital. Oh, and another guy grabbed my wrist and was like "On-y va" (Let's go) and I was like what?? And after a min of me being really confused he realized I like wasn't his friend. Hah.

Right as we were crossing the Seine, nearing the end, out of the corner of my eye I saw Ali! I ran over, and we met up with a bunch of NYU people. What are the chances?? Then we got Berthillon, that amazing ice cream.

Seriously though, it was so bizarre seeing something so modern in Paris. The city is so old, sometimes it feels like it's out of a movie. But then to see like ravers and other hardcorse techno whatevers dancing and moshing in the streets was just the weirdest thing ever.

After a nap, I went over to Maya's to pregame. Me, her, and Tara split a bottle and a half of wine. I'm really getting better at not getting sleepy from wine!

Then we met Anne to go to a Brazilian club that I'd heard was good from a couple people. We got there and it was not what I was expecting AT ALL. But still fun. It was surprisingly light inside, but packed. The music was good--part rap, part ethnic, definitely some Latin influence, and some American oldies thrown it. We had a good time dancing, and the mojitos were legit, but Anne and I wanted to take the last subway home, so we left around 1:30. I can't afford cabs here anymore!! They're so expensive. You have to pay for how far they drive if you call them. And I'm used to splitting cabs with people all the time in NY, and here I'm never going the same direction as anyone. Ugh.

I'll add more photos later when I can steal them from Maya. Going to my cousin's today for a BBQ or something. Also, I had a dream last night that I was searching for post-its forever and finally found them. WTF.

Oh, America.

"The respondents were presented with unlabeled pie charts representing the wealth distributions of the U.S., where the richest 20 percent controlled about 84 percent of wealth, and Sweden, where the top 20 percent only controlled 36 percent of wealth. Without knowing which country they were picking, 92 percent of respondents said they'd rather live in a country with Sweden's wealth distribution."


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/23/americans-support-wealth-redistribution_n_736132.html

Day trip to Provins, etc

Thursday night Anne and I went to Syphax Cafe, a bar I walk by almost every single day. It' usually packed, with people spilling out onto the streets, because they have drinks for 1.5 euro every day. Legit. I finally got to check it out, and it was okay. There were some cool people but there was this 60 year old man that kept hitting on both of us. He was carrying a flag to protest American capitalists taking over his farm or some shit like that, and kept waving it in our faces, on purpose. And he would not stop talking to us. We ran away from him a few times, and he kept following us and invited us home to his house in Bretagne. EW. We finally just left because he would not leave us alone, and it was raining.


Friday I had to be up at 6:45am to leave for Provins. I slept the whole bus ride there, and when we arrived, it was so much colder than I expected it to be. I did not layer enough at all especially because I was so hot the whole day before. It was cold and windy, and it kept looking like it was going to rain, so walking around and touring medieval castles and buildings was not exactly what I wanted to be doing at that moment...but nevertheless I suffered through it.

Provins was this old trading center, almost as big as Paris, in the Middle Ages. So they built the fortress and church and stuff to show off their wealth to the king. The church and stuff was pretty cool, but I think I was just way too cold, hungry, and miserable to appreciate any of it. All I wanted to do was be inside somewhere warm, with some alcohol to warm up my blood and some delish food.

But my wish was granted! At noon, the approximately 100 NYU students on this trip met up at the banquet hall in the town, which was the old hospital/place for poor people, etc. Apparently the town only opens it a few times a year now, like only for special occasions. Like us.

We started with a delish aperatif, a red wine with cassis: 

And of course, we kept pouring copious amounts of wine throughout the meal. I ran to steal a bottle from an empty table:

And then they delivered these flaky breadsticks with tomato dipping sauce, almost like French bruschetta? One of them had ham in it, but I ate in anyways.

 The next course was salad with meat covered in a flaky crust...we thought this was our main course, the duck that we ordered. 

But no, halfway through, one of the program leaders comes over and tells us that according to the menu, this is course 2 of 5, and it's actually foie gras??? And then someone later tells us no, it was actually pork. Haha woops. Still not my favorite meat by a longshot, but whatever. I didn't die.


The next course was our duck, with some sort of sauce? Haha. And a potato pastry and a broccoli quiche type thing on the side.

If that wasn't enough already, they brought out a brie plate next. And then came our dessert: this amazing chocolate mousse thing with some sort of crust, maybe nougat? It had an orange sauce all over it and random fruit on the side. Amazing. And then, if that wasn't enough, they brought out little cakes and meringues. And then coffee...and finally our meal was complete. Good work NYU, getting us drunk and stuffed on a day trip. For free. (Or I guess, included in the insane tuition.)

After a meeting about upcoming cultural activities, we were taken to a falconry show. SO RANDOM. There was some sort of medieval plotline going on that no one could understand, so we basically watched big ass birds fly around crazily over our heads for an hour. It was kind of cool.

After the show, we had an hour or so to walk around Provins and explore. And the SUN came out. So much better.

Then, finally, it was time for the bus ride home. I fell asleep the whole way home, too. I was supposed to go to my cousin's house for Shabbat dinner, but I was too tired and wanted to go out. So after resting a little longer, I met up with Ali on Rue Princesse. The night was a little weird and essentially uneventful for me, but other people met up with us. It started raining too, ugh. But there was this weird bottle of alcohol with a snake inside:

And I took these delicious caramel shots at The Frog and The Princess! A pitcher of beer and 4 shots for 26 euro. So good. Def going back to that bar soon.