Today we look like this.

Today is day 21.

Today, we look like this, in case you were wondering.


James has found the beauty of pound cake and butter today. It's cold in Paris. James says it's not cold, but breezy. I don't agree.

We don't know what today holds yet, but it's gonna be a good day.

Black Eyed Peas is huge here, along with the Fray. James is super happy about the prior. And that I'm typing everything he's saying.

:)

Pictures!

Couch Surfing

I really don't know where all the cliche's come from, perhaps because Europeans in general don't smile as much as Americans, but I haven't encountered a single outlandishly rude person in Paris.
Everyone has been so great and helpful, even coming up to me and asking if they can help when I am looking at my map. In addition, I've been given three random phone numbers from people I had a conversation with on the street, and now I'm staying on a stranger's couch for free.

Yesterday James and I had a great day. It was Sunday, which have been lazy days for us and this Sunday was no different. We got up around noon and had breakfast, then James went down to the Champs de Mars, which is the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. I agreed to meet him a little later and bring some wine, jam, butter, and a baguette.
Ahh the life.

Anyways, so before I got there I decided to look on couchsurfing.org real quick to post that James and I needed hosting for the next night.
I joined an emergency couch surfing group for Paris and wrote a little ditty about how we fell in love with the city and decided to stay longer past when we had the apartment rented till, yada yada yada.
Before I could even close my computer to leave I already had a message! It was crazy.
Two seconds later I was Skypeing with my new CSer friend Junior, who conveniently lives ten minutes walking from the Tour Eiffel. I told him James was already at the lawn but that we would meet him in and hour and go back to picnic.
My life just felt so beautiful as I walked quickly to the Eiffel Tower to meet James. Along my walk I passed flower shop after flower shop, and finally passed a boulangerie that was open on Sunday and got a few pastries and a baguette.
James was playing guitar when i met up with him, and before he could even set it down to get something to eat a russian couple came up and asked to join us for the picque-nique and play James' guitar.

Literally two minutes later James and I found ourselves not being serenaded to russian folk music and singing while eating lovely french pastries, but surrounded by a French high school girl and her Spanish exchange student friend.
And it doesn't end there! After leaving Anne, Nuria, Leif and Natalia to go to Junior's apartment we walked back to the Champ de Mars to meet with more couchsurfers (CSers).

Junior, who is not Parisian himself but from Brazil, was hosting Maugerite, an Italianne, and we met up with a French girl who was my age (I think her name was Bernadine) who was hosting her friend Joseph from Prague while he studied in France. Again, we ended up at the Champ de Mars, this time finishing out the baguette, and with a whole new group of people.

James and Joseph started playing guitar for a bit and then a crazy homeless guy from Finland came and took James guitar and serenaded us some Led Zeppelin.

People are so beautiful, and James and I were able to look back on our day and say we "pique-niqued" in front of the Eiffel Tower with a russian couple, a french high school girl, a spanish high school girl, a brazilian man, an italienne, a czechoslovakian man, a french woman, and a random Finlandaise homeless guy.

We both got to use our French a lot, which was awesome and difficult but mostly awesome. Maugerite, the Italianne, was better at French than she was at English, and Bernadice the French girl could only understand English but only spoke French.

That night we went home for naps, dinner, and a movie, then packed because we left our lovely apartment this morning.

I really wanted to cry (and still do) over how beautiful it was to live there and how much I am going to miss it. Through couch surfing we found housing near the Grande Arche at La Defense, which is on the very North Western edge of Paris in a ville calle Courbevoie. Four hours later (we got lunch and really took our time) we found ourselves as Chez Jessica, a lovely Angolan who moved to Paris 5 years ago and just recently opened her house to couch surfing.
Staying with her has been wonderful so far. After taking naps James and I went into Montemartre and saw the Moulin Rouge, which was honestly disappointing and surrounded by many (sexy stores) but then we walked north towards the Sacre Couer and ate dinner at this really great cafe.

Twas a wonderful night and I can't wait for tomorrow. We're in Paris till next Sunday, when we leave for Nice for a week and a half to stay with James' uncle. I'm ready for more exploring and I hear the south coast of France is really something else.
Mediterranean Sea, here I come.

Well...it's 1:50am here and we're both passed out on Jessica's sectional, but all is well and I will try to update more later.

Bonne nuit!

19 Rue Vaneau

Tomorrow is our last day in our Parisian apartment.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=19%20rue%20vaneau&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Life here has been so lovely, and I think we will miss it dearly.

Post coming later to talk about what life here in this apartment has looked like for us. :)

For now, here's a teeny tiny vid that exemplifies our mornings here.



Side note: Most days we walk to the Boulanger Pattiserie and get pastries for breakfast. And today I had some amazing muesli with raisins and bananas topped with sugar for breakfast. We actually ARE eating, don't you worry, lol.

Love you all.

Good Morning sweet city.

I wake up to this everyday.

Yesterday I walked around without my camera. I went to Shakespeare and Co, the bookstore that Hemingway and other Lost Generation writers often frequented, and then walked through the Latin Quarter a little bit. I got a crepe with nutella. Oh man.
Then I went to Notre Dame, and got to go inside in the day this time. It was gorgeous and breathtaking. Then I walked around the Historic Jewish Area of Paris called Marais, around the Pompidou Centre, and then through the Louvre Gardens and the Tuilleries again along Rue de Rivioli.
Twas a beautiful day.

Here are some random things I've noticed:
-Schoolkids dress to the NINE's here. We're talking...I thought there was a funeral or something. But I guess that's just school uniform. So posh.
- Scarlett Johanssen's Mango ads are everywhere, it's weird.
- Barak Obama is everywhere, especially on little kid tee shirts. Also weird.
-There are lots of Japanese tourists in Paris.
- Paris has the best shopping I've ever seen. Ever. How can you love EVERYTHING in every single store? Impossible right? But not...



Aujourd'hui , il fait beau a Paris.
I wonder where playing will end me up today. :)

A bientot!

We took a walk yesterday...

Yesterday was a wonderful day.

I woke up early, as usual (only when traveling!) and let James sleep in (as usual, lol) while I went to my favorite Boulanger Patissier, which is conveniently like a 3 minute walk for our apartment. *love love*

I got two croissants and a Parisian croissant with almond butter. Yummies yummies.

Then we went to the grocery store for the first time, yay! Did some groceries, then walked to Jardin du Luxembourg. It was so beautiful; I love how Parisians picnic. My kind of people, seriously. Everyone was just out laying in the sun on the most gorgeous day.

After walking all around the gardens we went to the Musee de Louvre. Though it was closed yesterday (Tuesday's) we just walked around the courtyard and through the Tulleries. It was so gorgeous and each little eave had a different musician playing in it. We spent a really long time here just walking around and I got to talk to two different old Parisian men, who were really sweet and cute. With one of them I had my conversation entirely in French!

As the sun was setting we walked back to the apartment along the river Seine, while passing the Musee d'Orsay (Rue Vaneau, where we live, dead ends here) and more little Parisian bistros.

This city is absolutely intoxicating. I love it.

We made dinner last night (yay frugality) which was just spaghetti and wine and cookies for dessert. Anyone got any fun recipe suggestions? We don't have an oven, just a stove.

After dinner we watched a movie. Not a big deal, but a great night.

What is a big deal is that there is a window-ed building across the courtyard from our apartment (which overlooks the Prime Minister's gardens, yeah no big *Ahh*) in which you can see the sparkling reflection of the Eiffel Tower.

HOW IS THIS MY LIFE?!?

Laundry day today and then solo-adventure day. I'm gonna check out Marais, the Jewish Quarter, and maybe the Sorbonne area, and then maybe meet up with James for a Montemarte adventure tonight. Versailles tomorrow, je pense que.

Miss you all, be praying I don't spend too much time online because of it, I'd rather be playing if you know what I mean.

I'm overwhelmed with the pictures I have to post, but I'll try and get on it tonight!

<3>

Just Pics

just a preview, off to play back later!

I tell time by church bell here.

Oh friends.

It's been so long, and it's honestly kind of overwhelming to write about all that's happened.

As far as the "why" to why I haven't updated, well London has CRAZY electric plugs, and our converter didn't work for it, so our computers died and we had to go to the Internet cafe for necessities only. Necessities like finding housing! Oh how that was stressful. Then, when we got to Paris our converter blew up in the airport. Lol. Something about not converting enough electricity. Twas really funny actually. Then we tried two different converters and they didn't work for our Mac chargers. Third time is the charm and yesterday we finally got what we needed. :) And now, hello world.

Honestly, it's been kinda nice to be without electronics for the past couple of days. Refreshing really. And we really have been telling time by church bell here (we don't have watches and couldn't charge my cell phone, and people in Europe don't believe in clocks! Seriously!). There's a church down the street from our apartment. It's crazy. Crazy beautiful.

So, from the beginning now!

After our escapades the first night getting into London, paying so much for a hotel, getting a suite, etc. etc., James and I finally booked in a hostel we could afford (even though that hotel was the sweetest thing ever!) and luck has it that it was right down the street, five minute walk, from the first hotel. We threw our stuff in then went to explore the city.

I think that day might have been our favorite day in London.

We just walked all over and explored the Natural History Museum which was right across the street from the hostel and from Victoria and Albert's, then found our way to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. We literally napped under some trees in Hyde Park (and I forgot to bring my Austen book, so sad) and then played in the park all day. We found the Princess Diana fountain, which was so beautiful, and played. The sounds of children filled the park and everyone was playing in the water; just like she would want it to be.

I exposed James to his first Magnum bar, which was a lovely experience and totally worth the tummy ache after! Then we randomly walked toward the London Eye and ended up at Buckingham Palace! It was night so you couldn't really see anything, but we did find this cute little restaurant, Genevieve's, across the street that where we split some good ole fish and chips (yum yum). The day after that I feel like we did the same thing, except we explored the Science Museum and then Hyde Park, saw Buckingham Palace in the day and then walked toward the London Eye and the river until we got to Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc.

That was a funny moment, because we knew what we were walking towards, but we were talking and then all of a sudden we were in front of a pillar at the Houses of Parliament. We were stunned into silence and it was one of those "mouth open, head to the sky" will never forget the awe of this sight kind of moments. Twas so beautiful.

Sweet Jesus totally took care of us because we found free housing in Bounds Green the next night, which is just outside of London, through couch surfing with our new friend and fellow CSer Nick. What an awesome experience. The next day I let James sleep in (which he does like....every day, lol, but he was a little sick) and went into London by myself, exploring the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, some old churches, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, and *drumroll* Tate Modern. This day was the only rainy, cold day we had in London.

Oh gosh, I was so happy, and I need to go back to Tate Modern come November cuz I definitely DID NOT spend enough time there.

Then I met James at Westminster Abbey for the Evensong service, which we attended and then got to look around *for FREE* afterwards. It was so beautiful. Then we saw a show at Shakespeare's Globe and on the way to the Tube found this great little historic pub where we drank some great Foster's.

The next day was ....the day from Hell.

Travel Day.

Ugh, they really are the worst, but this one in particular was really bad. Ended up spending almost $80 just to get to Paris, due to London transportation (and rude, unhelpful, unkind, transportation workers) and twisting my ankle carrying my bag down the stairs to the Underground (it's better now, but a little sore sometimes) but we finally got to Luton airport and on our plane to...

PARIS!

which will be in the next post...get excited!