Sunday, March 22, 2009

PARIS-DAYLIN'S VISIT!!

Last weekend I finally got to see Daylin!!!  We met in Paris, at the airport, on Thursday.  Funny thing about the airport was that I was picturing this perfect reunion (maybe even flowers), and little did I know it wouldn't be so perfect.  Since Daylin didn't have his phone with him, we just planned on meeting outside of my gate since his flight landed before mine.  So, here I am walking out of the plane searching around for Daylin...no Daylin.  So, I go down to baggage claim thinking he just would be there and...no Daylin.  At this point, I'm like Ok, maybe he is just around a corner and I can't see him yet.  So I get out of baggage claim and...no Daylin.  I didn't want to move, because if he came to where I was and I wasn't there, well without phones I'm not sure how we would have figured that out.  So, I sit ona bench, for an HOUR, and wait.  I finally figure out what terminal he landed in (thanks mom!) and head in that direction, angry, and hoping to cross paths with him.  Shortly after I set out, there's Daylin!!  I wasn't sure if I should be happy or angry or what, so it was a mixed emotion reunion!  But, at least we found each other!

So, the first night after we got to our hotel we went to dinner nearby.  I had called ahead of time and made reservations for this nice dinner, romantic, blah blah.  I don't think I took into consideration how tired he would be!  We were sitting at this DELICIOUS dinner, and every few minutes Daylin's eyes would slowly start closing and then he would startle awake, it was actually pretty funny!  But, anyway, this was us at dinner!!


The next day, we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel and headed out (map in hand) to find Museum D'Orsay. We figured that even though neither of us are museum people, we had to see at least one while we were there, and we were told that this one was more interesting that the Louvre. So, after taking a really long time to find it, we did!!  Here we are in front of the museum!
Daylin, who is normally so opposed to pictures, turned a new leaf this trip!  All of a sudden, he wanted me to take all sorts of individual pictures of him (many of them are of him immitating statues like this).  
After leaving the museum, we decided to walk across the bridge and explore other parts of Paris on our way to the Arc de Triomphe.  So, we are walking across and wanted to have a picture taken of us.  There was a pretty normal looking lady walking toward us (purse, decently dressed, clean, etc.), so we stopped her and asked her to take our picture.  As she is about to take the camera from us, she "finds" a gold ring on the ground, and is like soooo excited about it.  So, we play along like it is a great find (even though it really isn't).  So, she takes our picture, and returned my camera.  Then, she offers to give us the ring and in her broken English claims we can get money for it.  Confused, we told her no, she found it and she should have it.  She then gets really close to us and takes our hands and asks us for money.  This is when we figure out that she is a form of a beggar (A Parisian one).  We say no, we have no money, go to a pawn shop for the ring...and she walks away FINALLY!  Only later, do we learn that there are several people like that in Paris who plant the ring and then put on a show and either attempt to pick pocket you while doing it or just get money out of you.  So, we are just thankful she didn't run off with my camera!!!
We walk over to this square, with this pretty statue (ya I'm sure it has a name, but I don't speak French and never will).  This is one of my favorite pictures we took!


We decide to walk down to the Arc on Champs de Elysse, and 30 minutes later we get there!  The walk is a lot longer than it looks!

After staring at the Arc for a few minutes and realizing that there are people on top of it, we decided to go up there...and 300 steps later we were there..AMAZING views!!  Oh, and Daylin thought he was going to have a heart attack on the way up..gym?

Going down made us very dizzy!!
Because we opted out of going into the Louvre this trip, we decided to at least walk by it and see it from the outside.
After all this site seeing, we went to a famous Cafe called Les Deux Magots on St. Germain.  It was really close to our hotel, hence our hotel was in a great location!  So, we sat there for a while.  All of the cafes are set up so that there are a ton of tables on the "terrace" aka sidewalk and all the people face out.  It was great people watching...and I realized how fashionable Paris really is..I had to step up my game this weekend :)
After lunch we met up with Nadine who is studying abroad there.  She took us to do a little shopping, well I should say she took me and Daylin tagged along. Then we went to see her apartment which is in a great location, and really close to where we were staying...here we are on her balcony!  
That night, we went to dinner at a restaurant that was on the fifth floor of a Museum overlooking the Eiffel Tower.  The food was amazing, again, and we got to see the "light show".  After dinner we walked over the the Tower and although we didn't go up, we got to see it up close and at night, perfect!
That night, we met Nadine and her friends at a club called Cha Cha.  It felt like an LA club, extremely exclusive, had to be on a list, made you wait in line, etc.  But once we got in it was really fun.  We watched a friend of Nadine's do a "jam session" on the guitar with a guy who was playing the piano.  It was a very European feeling night!
After our long night out and sleeping in, Day and I got crepes off the street, YUMM! Then, we went to this fountain :)

Next, we went to Notre Dam and the surrounding area! It was so pretty and the inside was unbelievable.  Trust me, I have seen a million cathedrals and churches and basilicas by now in Europe, and this one was definitely the best!


Since we were being oh so European, we went to lunch at another really cute Cafe and had baguette, open faced sandwiches and then went to yet another cafe to do some relaxing and people watching!  Daylin wanted to fit in, so as we drank our wine, he smoked a cigar.  We watched the Saturday night happenings of the Paris teenagers.  It was basically us going to an American movie theater, but it was them on a street corner with cigarettes and Vespas.  IT was hilarious to watch!
Since the theme of our time together is obviously food, that night we went to a local Italian place that we found near the hotel :)  On our last morning in Paris, we went to breakfast at a cute cafe/bakery and then headed to the airport to come to Prague!!!! I am officially in love with Paris!




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