Monday, March 15, 2010

parisian celebration.

i celebrated my 26th birthday in france last weekend. a special thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes and all my fun treats. here are the flowers sabine sent over. :)


celebrated the actual birthday at the pub with a few co-workers. followed it up the next night by treating myself to 'dirty dancing' the musical which was amazing. it was basically like watching the film happen live. they say all the same lines and of course have all the same songs/dances etc. thursday was a co-workers going away party so continued the celebrations and then friday i was off to paris to meet up with diana.

i was greeted by beautiful (albeit) cold weather. there was no cloud cover which meant it was super sunny but super cold as well. i had some lunch (a crepe of course) and headed to the musee de orsay which was amazing. one of the favorite museums i been to - just the space is beautiful. it's an old rail station so the ceiling is made of glass and there is lots of light. i also meandered around notre dame since it was so near our hotel then took a nap. although the nap was bad because it made me miss the eiffle tower at sunset but i did manage to get there just in time to catch the of the sparkle and a few night shots.

diana got in about at about 11:00pm and we just walked around the neighborhood a bit debating whether or not to get crepes.

the next day we got up and headed to a delicious little bakery and ate delicious little pastries for breakfast. when picked up some macaroons and proceeded to walk through the jardin luxemborg towards the rodin museum which again was really cool. it was an old mansion they turned into a museum with an outdoor sculpture garden. it's a smaller museum so it feels really manageable and not overwhelming at all. we walked there through some really cute side streets popping into shops every once in a while to get out of the cold. there was a really cool shop that made ballet slippers that was just adorable. good thing i didn't go in to that one because those suckers (i later learned) are expensive.

after the museum we got lunch at a delicious little asian restaurant diana knew of and then wandered through the jewish quarter and over to the most amazing little tea salon. who knew the french loved tea as much as the brits? definitely have tea in a tea salon if you go to paris. the one we went to was called mariage but there are a few others that we passed up such as la duree. after our superb tea we headed back to the champs de lysses and checked out the fancy shops and then walked home through the concorde area where i caught this night shot thanks to my nearly dead camera battery.

we walked all the way back to the hotel from there but were nearly half frozen. we took a nice break then grabbed a late dinner at a delicious little restaurant near our hotel diana hear was good. i had an amazing steak. just melt in your mouth buttery delicious. yum. we conked out early after our super packed day. after all, i am old now. :)

sunday diana had an earlier flight then me so we just got up, grabbed breakfast, and grabbed some macaroons for her trip home from la duree. from left to right - lemon, orange blossom, passion fruit chocolate, coffee, raspberry, and green apple. i definitely think the orange blossom was my favorite. so light and fluffy with the perfect amount of stickiness.

after diana left i went to the louvre. it was freezing cold that day. literally - it was -1c below outside. the louvre was amazing but pretty overwhelming. it's just so big and there is so much to see. i should have gone in with a game plan, but i'm sure there will be more trips in the future where i can fully stake it out. if you go, definitely take a couple days and have a plan of everything you want to see - because there's a lot. i really only caught the highlights because there were just so many people and i didn't feel like laying out a plan right then and there. look how big some of the hallways are! but it was really amazing. saw the mona lisa and the venus de milo which even on their own were cool. plus it was the first sunday of the month which meant it was free to get in. which is probably also why it was pretty crowded.

after the louvre i walked through the nearby park over to the concorde area again and then back over to st. germain where our hotel was. i was nervous about getting back to the hotel after my last trip to paris circa 2003 ended in such a disaster trying to get home so i wanted lots of time to get back to the airport. good thing two considering the two minor disasters. first - i bought a train ticket to the airport and was putting it in the turnstyle while trying to maneuver my luggage under the turny thing when someone who was in a much greater rush then me shoved her ticket in the machine and grabbed mine instead of hers as she ran past. this left me with a regular ticket and her somewhere with my train ticket. i tried to explain to the train people what had happened but my french didn't come across so well apparently so i had to buy another train ticket with 30 seconds of buying my first one. argh.

oh well. not such a big deal. i board the train and head off to the airport or so i thought. i ended up in a small town outside paris realizing i had taken the train in the right direction but on the wrong track. i had to pay for another ticket back to paris and then finally caught the right train to the airport. thank goodness i left myself plenty of time! i was no where near late but still, given my previous luck leaving paris i wasn't putting anything out of the question. good thing i stopped for a baguette on my way out of town so i at least at something to eat on this journey because the food at the paris airport when i finally arrived sucked. they have the most delicious bread/cheese/wine in the world and can't get their airport food right - go figure.

and then after all that when i finally got back to london the tube was being worked on meaning i had to take a bus to another tube before i finally got home. phew. a pretty eventful ending to an otherwise relaxing and easy trip. diana is great to travel with - she has everything planned and lots of options for things to do but is flexible enough that when things don't go as planned she doesn't sweat it. that's kind of the way you have to be when you travel. and i like it.

more on other london happenings and this most recent weekend later. i'm all blogged out.