Last day in Paris (Part 3 of 3)

So today is the final installment of my trip to Paris! And luckily, it is short. I'll be uploading pictures and such on my facebook tomorrow, so stay waiting for those! I also have a lot of pictures on my photobucket site if you want to see those. For those you only need to go here. Almost all the pictures from the past few posts are on there, but hopefully I will be adding a couple extra. I will also put them on my flickr account for those who have that. You can find me on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/crazyinsanoman/ And also, once again, I have made it so each of the pictures you can click on and get a bigger version. But enough of all that crazyness, let me begin with the last half of my journey!

So we left off last time Sunday midday. I had just finished the Louvre and was meeting up again with Steven. Steven had spent all day at the Paris Marathon. So in honor of Steven's trip I included one of his 60 photos of the marathon. I call it 'the gay marathon runner.' I wonder if one day I'll ever have the ability to run a whole marathon. One can only dream. Well anyway, afterward we decided we were going to go and try and find the gay district in Paris. After walking a while, we were finally able to find the gay street in Paris. It was very cute and cuddly and pretentious. It was also VERY expensive. One can of Red Bull cost me 5.20 Euros. Almost $8 for a can of Red Bull! Anyway, so that night we decided we would go to a gay restaurant in Paris. I decided we would go to 'Le Gai Moulin' because it looked gay, and served traditional French food. Of course I went all out on this meal. I ended up eating escargot for appetizers. Escargot is actually really good. I thought it was going to be slimy and gross, but it turned out to be really really good. And the sauce it came in was a mint garlic sauce that was to die for. For Entree I had duck in orange sauce, which I'm pretty sure was my first time having duck before. And for desert I think I had a souflee. I had so many deserts in Paris I can't keep them straight anymore. The dinner was amazing though! And it only cost around 21 Euro for the whole meal. A bargain I say!

So after we went eating, we decided we were going to check out the clubbing scene in Paris. From checking online Cud Bar looked like a pretty chill place to go so we headed off there. We had ended dinner around midnight so we got to the club around 00:30. So it was very suprising to find out we were the 3rd and 4th people there. We grabbed a coke, which was flat, and sat down to just chat. After about 45 min in the club and only 6 more people walking in we decided to leave. That is when we saw all the crazy snow. It was snowing in Paris! It was very cold, but very beautiful. But I will never again go out in the snow in only a tshirt and a jumper! We went back to the hostel, awaiting the next day. Our day of SHOPPING!

So the hostel was pretty cool in that we would get free breakfast every morning. The breakfast wasn't amazing, but it was enough. We had a choice between yoghurt, cereal, and bread with butter/jam. Since I couldn't eat the cereal and bread is too much for me in the mornings I was forced to invent something that turned out really good. I would take the yoghurt and put the jam in the yoghurt. It tasted really good because it sweetened up the yoghurt and also added fruit. I would also have coffee and tea each morning to get me through the day. Monday morning though, I decided I was going to have fun with the coffee and drink it like the French do. So instead of putting it in a mug I put it in a bowl. I even ended up making my own mocha instead of regular coffee! All I did was mix hot chocolate and coffee. It tasted really good, and it was fun drinking from a bowl. So of course one of the first things we did was go to the Louvre in order to do the shopping under the Louvre. Under the Louvre we were lucky to get an amazing rainbow structure on the upside down pyramid. It was amazing timing on our part. So we spent almost all of Monday shopping for presents since I needed to buy presents for all of my family because I love them so much. Steven didn't know why I bought presents since it was a hassle and cost a lot of money, but for me, watching the person receive a present that they get randomly is amazing. Normal present times suck because you don't get actual happiness from the person. So I bought them all tons of presents and am hoping they enjoy it. My younger brother is IMPOSSIBLE to shop for though. I had no idea what to get him from Paris. Everything I looked at I felt he wouldn't enjoy. He is the hardest person to shop for. My mother is the simplest, and my stepdad is occasionally easy.

So of course most of my shopping consisted around the Champs Elysees since I am just that type of person. I loved this street because it felt very much like the shopping area I would love. It is high fashion and I wish I could afford most of the clothes there so that I can look amazing, but unfortuantely the money does not grow on trees. I did end up going into the Louis Vuitton in Paris though. It was so amazing walking into the very first Louis Vuitton. I ended up buying something for my mother and then it was funny how the staff finally looked all happily toward me. They treated me like royalty after that. It was sort of funny, but also very exciting being able to walk around and not being looked down on.

So of course after buying presents for everyone in my family, we decided to go to the Sacre Coeur since we had sunlight left over, and Steven really wanted to see it. It was crazy fun getting there. It is one of the highest points in Paris and looks over the whole city. We walked up so many stairs to get there, but it was every step. The view was breathtaking. After getting to the top though we noticed that a heavy downpour was heading our way! So just in the knick of time we got into a coffee shop and ordered coffee. I ordered my most expensive cup of coffee ever. It cost me 6 Euro. Almost $10 for coffee! Crazy right? It didn't even taste worthy. There was too much chocolate and not enough Hazelnut. Either way, we waited the storm out and went back to the hostel to drop everything off before heading off to dinner which again would be in the gay district. So this time it was Steven's choice to choose the place we were going to eat. He decided to go to a Spaghetti joint that we had seen the night previously. It was actually really crowded and very entertaining. It was very gay friendly and the waitors were very hot. The food was actually really good here too, but this time we didnt have room in our belly's for desert. We ended the night by going to a different gay bar that night. We went to Raidd bar which was amazing! The drinks may have been expensive, but it was tons and tons of fun. First off the music was not very loud so that you could have a decent conversation with people without having to worry about your eardrums falling off. Secondly, halfway through the night they had a special treat for the visitors. On the side wall they had a plastic wall that you could see a room through. Well, around 23:30 a guy in underwear walked into the room and the lights came on. He started rubbing himself with something like lube and started taking a shower. Of course he was also teasing the audience, and eventually took his underwear off and we got to see everything. It was a nice point in the night because it seemed very normal to everyone in the crowd. The funny part was that later that night we saw the guy walking around in the bar. The only part I didn't like was that no one was dancing. But other than that it was good and I wish we could have stayed longer. We ended up leaving around 00:30 because we had to wake up at 6:00 in the morning to catch the train to get to the airport on time to get back home!

So that was the whole trip to Paris. I hope this little thing helped you see how amazing it was and how you all should go and visit it. If there are any questions or anything people want to hear about/comment on, feel free to leave a comment!

Exhaustedly,
-Aram the Garmo

First Day in Paris (Part 1 of 3)

And today I will finally talk about my trip to Paris! I unfortunately, won't talk about all of it today, but I will go over some of it today, some tomorrow, and maybe a 3rd day. Maybe 1 post for each day I was there, that sounds pretty good. So, I guess we should start at the beginning; leaving Clarence Dock.

So we initially walked out of Clarence Dock. As you can see, Steven was a gentleman and actually carried our luggage for me. We walked all the way to the bus stop and took the bus to the airport. Here is myself and Steven getting ready to get our tickets. Around now is when they told Steven it was not allowed for him to take pictures. They were very funny. Then we sat and watched as the planes took off, and were generally bored until we took off. It was Steven's first airplane flight so it was bound to be super exciting for him and he could not stop staring out the window. It was super cute.

So after around 2 hours in the plane we land in Paris! And of course what is the first thing we do? We take the train to the city centre! The trains were really cool and took us about an hour to get to the city centre. Our hostel was really cool. We got to meet this awesome Canadian named Brian who was from Vancouver! This was my first hostel so I was partially scared, but it's like a simplified version of a hotel. Totally worth it, and I will totally be doing my travelling in hostels from now on. I was fortunate enough to get the top bunk. The best spot in the house. We also had reading lights so I could read before I go to bed! And that is the end of Friday since we got there so late. The next day would for sure be much more exciting!

On Saturday we ended up walking EVERYWHERE in Paris. In the end we walked a little over 20km! We did get to see some random things in the city because of though. We got to see a building that's called telephone [on right]. Our guess was that it was called telephone because back in the day it took the whole building to run just one telephone. We also saw a random cathedral [below] that I loved. Because we walked the whole day we didn't take the metro. But because we were tired of walking near the end I took a hopeless picture of the above metro in hopes that eventually we may not have to walk. At the end of the day we decided not to walk all of Paris again. It was an 8 hour walk from one side to the other; on the way back we took the metro and it only took 30 minutes!

So while walking we did end up finding the Louvre. Our main attempt was to know where the Louvre was so that the next day (when the entrance was free) I could easily find my way over there. Since I have over 60 photos to share, I will be saving the Louvre pictures for tomorrow, but there are some pictures we took from right outside the louvre. The one underneath is a picture from the louvre. You can obviously see the Eiffel tower in the background and a statue of a spider in the foreground. The picture on the right is me eating the spider. It was a very big sculpture and was actually really cool. From the Louvre we went to the Champs Elysees which again I will cover in the monday edition since there are so many pictures to go through. The Champs Elysees was beautiful though. The other picture is an arc that is in front of the Louvre that I liked a lot.

So after walking to the End of the Champs Elysees and Seeing the Arc de Triumph [below] we decided it would be fun to actually make it to literally the other side of Paris. So we walked all the way to La Defense which was another 3 kilometers away. By the end we were pretty exhausted, but we did get a nice view of the two art pieces to either side of this section. Personally, not much interested me at La Defense, but Steven really liked it and so we went there. The only part I liked was that there was a shopping centre there. I personally would have gone shopping and spent tons of money, but Steven was tired so we sat down instead. Probably better cause I may have spent all my money way too early!

On the way over to La Defense we were able to cross over a river that runs on the edge of Paris. It was very wide and partly reminded me of Leeds. I may have been homesick, but I sure as hell didn't want to go back. Also, once reaching the edge of La Defense I turned around and took a picture of the Arc from it. If you look really really closely at the picture you can see a tiny Arc de Triumphe. Thats about 1/7 of what we walked that whole day! Crazy right? If the image is too small, you can view it again here without it being scaled down. The image to the right is Notre Dame. I personally think it's very postcardesque, but thats just me trying to make myself look good.

So of course, the last thing we did that night was go and see the Eiffel Tower which was amazingly gorgeous. I personally thought I wouldn't be impressed by it, but it actually was very impressive. We actually even just sat and stared at it for a while. I really wanted to go up to the top and eat at the restaurant they have there, but Steven didn't want to so we decided not to. It was a very beautiful day, and I enjoyed our first day.

Tune in tomorrow to see what we ended up doing Sunday and Monday! I am hoping I will have time to actually put them online. This one post took me over 2 hours to complete cause of the complexity with trying to get a nice view of all the pictures, so enjoy them! I will give a link for all the pictures and some extras on Monday! Once my final installment is in, I will also update the photos on Facebook. I'll catch up with you all on Tomorrow at 8pm again!

Tired from Typing
-Aram the Garmo