Merci!!!

Saturday morning I met Anne for brunch at Rose Bakery. I was so tired because I didn't sleep till 5:30 the night before, but their amazing organic coffee woke me right up. I had the cheese scone, salsa, and scrambled eggs, which was amazing, of course. Something about the way the cheese scone was with the eggs....and then we had this weird pear thing for dessert because the waitress said she loved it. It wasn't my favorite, but obviously still good. 

Then we tried to meet up with Alex at Musee d'Orsay, but after waiting for 45 minutes in the cold we gave up and just went inside ourselves. I started feeling really sick and I had just been to the museum a couple weeks ago so I just sat down while Anne looked at the exhibits. Oh well. 

After a nap and some Tylenon Cold and Flu that I dug up, I felt soooo much better. Anne and I went to Ave Maria for dinner, a really kitschy cool Day of the Dead themed Brazilian place in Oberkampf. Very dark, weird lights, lots of colors. We ordered a drink (slushie cosmos, so good) at the bar while waiting for our table, and these British guys noticed us speaking English and started talking to us. They turned out to be really cool -- one was a linguist, one was a photographer who had taken a 6 week roadtrip across Europe and Asia to raise money for an orphanage, and I don't remember what the other one did but he was really funny. They were all in Paris from London celebrating the one guy's  birthday.  After a couple drinks and talking for awhile, they invited us to join them for dinner. 

The waitress was really mean to us, but we made it fun. She would come over and ask us if we knew what we wanted yet, and we would just be like "uh, we don't have the menus." It was terrible. But the menu was really interesting -- it had all these Brazilian specialties and stuff. I got the Hakuna Matata, which was like stewed chicken and vegetables with salad and exotic fruit and rice. The best one was the "Unhappy Destiny of Emily the Chicken" (in french obviously) and the menu description was a story about how this poor chicken  met some sweet potatoes and they all ended up being cooked. The 5 of us had really good conversation throughout dinner, and then we all split desserts -- this coconut creamy thing with raspberry and kiwi sauce, and "Death by Chocolate", a super rich chocolate cake with chocolate sauce.

During dinner, one of the guys got up to go to the bathroom, and came back and said, "There's a note in the bathroom that just says 'Merci' and has two lines of coke on it. I didn't believe it, but then I tasted it and now my tongue is numb." We were all shocked, and didn't really believe him either. Anne and I decided to go investigate, but by the time we got there, the note was left behind but there was no coke on it. It was on an index card, and it just said "Merci!!!" in blue highlighter. And we found 5 cents and another note, that said "Franck -- Salut. Je t'aime. Gros Bis!" (Franck -- Hi. I love you. Big kisses.) At that point we realized we had definitely interrupted some coke deal-love story. Woops. 

After dinner, they invited us to go dancing at L'Alimentation Generale. After much confusion about which direction it was, we finally made it there and danced till 4am. The name means "General Store" and the decor was really funny, with tires as lamps and random bottles hanging from the ceiling and the menu written on a chalkboard on the wall. The music kept switching between like world music, techno, rap, and random oldies, but somehow it worked. There was also this really drunk guy who kept trying to grab, grope, and hang on to all of us, male or female. Eventually he ended up just hugging the speaker for an hour. Poor guy. This 50 year old man also tried to steal my purse, just like grab it off my shoulder, which was really crazy, but luckily our friends jumped in and helped me out. And around 3am, two of the bartenders got up on the bar and started pouring mint vodka into anyone and everyone's mouth, but one of them had terrible aim and we all ended up very sticky.

One of the British guys took pictures of all of our adventures, so hopefully I can get those later :) I did take some ridiculous ones of everyone dancing though: 

Last weekend in Paris

Thursday night Anne and I tried to make reservations at Aux Deux Amis, this place with excellent reviews and that I once walked by and looked fantastic. We didn't think it would all be booked up by 3pm, but it was. So instead we scrambled to try to find somewhere else cute and French to go to dinner. We ended up making reservations at Jeanne A, but when we got there it was completely empty (despite the reviews we'd seen online). We were freaked out, so we went next door to Astier, which is the same chef. It was slightly more expensive, but so good. Although this one waiter was a bitch, she insisted on talking to us in English even though our French was fine and all the other waiters spoke French to us.

Friday during the day I did some wandering around Paris, which was nice, but mostly I just slept. I think I'm sick-ish again. Or maybe just exhausted.

Then at night Anne and I met up with Maya and her friend Liz at Cafe Parisienne, their favorite cafe with super cute waiters that I've been to a couple times. It's the perfect mix of local, fun, and good food/wine. The mouelleux au chocolat is to die for. And then we finished our dinner with these flaming coffee Bailey's shots. Awesome.

We took the metro to La Regine, which was packed. We did a bunch of tequila shots (but they gave us lemons instead of limes and they didn't have salt. WTF?) and then this promoter came over and gave us fans and bracelets and told us there were free polaroids. So we had fun with that. And then we danced. There was  a weird amount of old guys there, but whatever.

Unfortunately during all of the drinking and dancing, I lost my Blackberry...it fell out onto the dance floor, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I asked the bartenders and the coatcheck and everyone, but nothing. It's fine, it's not the end of the world, it's just annoying and now I won't have a phone when I get back to the US. Ugh. Usually I break things, it's so unlike me to lose something!

Snow

The NYU garden while it was snowing yesterday. If you look closely you can see the drops of snow falling in the lower left hand side! Apparently it was the worst snow since 1987, with 15cm. Or so I read when I was bored in class today.

10 day countdown

AH! I had a minor freakout yesterday because I thought the NYU ticket said the 17th and not the 18th, but I bought my flight from JFK to SFO for the 18th. Plus that would mean that I have one less day here than I thought. Thankfully it turns out that NYU put the wrong dayh on the PDF but the ticket actually is for the 18th.

After my presentation tonight, I don't actually have THAT much work left. Thank god. I need to plan amazing Parisian things to do before I leave. Mostly just restaurants to eat at, haha.

It's a serious blizzard right now. I will take a picture later. It's craziness.

Also, I finished Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer on the way home from Italy. It was so fucking amazing. I almost cried in the airport towards the end. Everyone should read it. The way he takes on the voices of the characters is just mindblowing. It's a book that will make you laugh, cry, think, everything. He has a new book out I want to read. And he spoke at NYU this semester, kind of bummed I missed it.

Another thing: is Facebook trying to peer pressure me? This just popped up on my Facebook. Sorry it's in French: "Danielle Price, Price Padgett et 27 other friends uploaded 527 photos last month. Upload photos." What are they trying to imply??? I'm pretty sure I've uploaded about 500 photos myself in the last month, so shut up Facebook.

And RIP Elizabeth Edwards. Sad. :(

Roma

Mich and I woke up absurdly early on Saturday morning to catch a train to Rome from Florence. The train we took looked like a bullet train, but Mich said it wasn't, it was just the "fast" train. Didn't really make sense to me, but whatever. The tickets for the train we wanted were sold out, so we bought a ticket for the later train and then just got on the early train. Apparently we weren't the only ones that did that, and a seat isn't "guaranteed" on Italian trains, so we ended up on the floor in between two train cars. It was freezing, and I slept on the floor even though it was so uncomfortable and kind of hobo-esque of me because I'd only slept like 4 or 5 hours the night before.

When we arrived in Rome, it was sunny! We walked to our hotel, which was awesome! So nice. It was 69 euros for one night between the two of us, and apparently the hostels were far and about 25 euro a night per person. So we won there. After dropping our stuff off, we walked like 5 minutes to the Colosseum! So cool. It was amazing to be so close to it, and just to see the contrast between these ancient, ancient structures and this bustling city. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go inside because it was a 45 minute wait and we wanted to make sure we got to everything.

From there we walked past the Roman forums, past some gorgeous old government buildings, and to the Pantheon. Right when we were getting close, there was a flash monsoon, so we bought this crazy rainbow umbrella for 4 euros that we named Frederico. But the Pantheon has this hole in the middle that collects rainwater, so it was cool to actually see it in action.  By the time we left, the rain had stopped.

Also, we almost got killed multiple times during our little touring adventure, because Roman drivers really do live up to their name. They are crazy as fuck.

We walked past some more piazzas (because it's Italy), and stopped at a random place for lunch. I had bruschetta and penne alla arribiata, and a huge cocktail, which was kind of awesome. And not a bad price. The waiter really hated me though -- whenever I would ask him for something he would glare at me and not give it to me for like 10 minutes even though there weren't that many people there. I think it was because I was being a stupid tourist, speaking in English and acting American and stuff. But really, the restaurant was in a really touristy location and everyone else there was probably a tourist too, so like he should have gotten over it. But no, he really hated me. Whatever.

Notice the hair wet from the rain...

Rejuvenated by some cocktails, we walked to Vatican City. It was amazing, even though I only saw the outside. Apparently it's a 4 hour wait to go inside the museum/St. Peter's Basilica/Sistine Chapel, which we did not have. Or you can make a reservation. But even if we had done that, we wouldn't have had the hours to spend in there that it deserved. So I just saw it all from the outside, which was cool anyways. I'll come back one day...Plus, I was technically in another country!!

Next stop was walking across the river to the Spanish Steps, where we also stopped for a cappuccino and pastry. The cappuccino was pretty fucking amazing. Perfect blend of milk and espresso.

Romulus & Remus -- they're everywhere in Rome

The bird was drying itself off by flapping its wings

My favorite shot from Rome :)

Last tourist stop was the Trevi fountain, where you throw in three coins without looking -- one for luck, one for love, and one to return to Rome. Very cute. And the light was amazing. My camera rain out of batteries right then, but it was kind of perfect because it was our last tourist stop.

After showering and resting at the hotel for a bit, we went out for pizza with Mich's friend Erin. The pizza was great -- mine was mushroom with mozzarella and basil. The waiter hated me there too though, wtf. I didnt' do anything!!! On the way to dinner, this waiter outside a restaurant we walked by heard us speaking English and stopped us. He asked us where we were from, and we said were all (me, Mich, and her friend Erin) studying in Europe for the semester. He asked if we were going dancing, and we were just like uh...no. He said we had to go dancing, he would tell us where to go. We tried to walk away but he made us take out our map and he showed us the metro stop to go. Then he insisted on knowing which states we were from. When I said CA he jumped over and gave me a HUGE, unwanted hug. It was so weird. I stood there petrified. When Mich said NY, he told her he didn't like her because he liked the LA Lakers. At that point, we basically ran away.

After dinner, we walked to the Spanish Steps again to meet up with the group for the pub crawl that we had booked. We paid 25 euros for the tshirt and open bar until 11pm at the first bar, plus free entry in everywhere we went after. Idk if it was a good deal or not, but let's just say I made it one by taking full advantage of the open bar. We also played pong, which was a little random. The rest of the people there were Australian, Canadian, and American, but it was cool because it was all just like international students having a good time in Europe and stuff. The people decided to have us stay longer at the first bar rather than moving on to the next one, which was fine by us because at that point we were all so drunk and making friends with each other. They also gave us more shots, which is always good. Then we moved on to a club, which was kind of crazy but I was so drunk it was all a blur. Mich and I took a cab home around 2am, I think. The pub crawl website had some memorable pictures, to say the least. Some of which I will not be posting here.

The next morning we took full advantage of the breakfast that was included in the price of our room. We had so much trouble paying for the room, because I had exactly my half of the cost but Mich's card wouldn't let her get cash from the ATM. Then the hotel's card machine wouldn't work with ANY of our cards. We managed to scrounge up everything but 5 euros of the cost in coins, so thankfully the woman let us go.

Then I took a train to the airport, and came back to cold, cold Paris. It was actually quite difficult because my hangover made me so dizzy that I couldn't see straight. It was weird, I wasn't nauseous or anything, just super dizzy. It was miserable.