BAD SCHWARMA WEEKEND!!!

So despite our best efforts, for some reason we had the worst luck this weekend. It was our first three day weekend (and last FULL weekend in Paris) so we tried to make the most of it aaand well, read on.

Wednesday:

(I know its premature for a weekend, sbi)

Finally…the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

FIRST ATTEMPT TO GO OUT IN PARIS.

Désordre chaud. (hot mess) I got dressed up, finished a Faxe (basically blackout in a can, see pictures for the size) and would be ready and raring to go according to UCLA standards. However, the French don’t really do the cute drunk girl thing. And my group of friends were definitely not cute after being 7 shots deep (I, of course, was the responsible one who could hold my alcohol…GGoulart style) and needless to say we did NOT experience Ladies Night at the hottest gay club, QUEEN. My hopes and dreams were basically shattered at this moment because QUEEN was going to define my Paris experience.

But the night didn’t end there. Oh no.

We promptly staggered to a near by Duplex (bowling alley/ club), paid to get in, used their restroom, then peaced out. Most expensive restroom I’ve ever used. After navigating the metro (which stops running at 12:30 am, so you can see how early we went home) we stumble upon an open schwarma place. Drunk food? Forget fiddies, chicken schwarma (shaved meat) is the way to go. Yes, I do realize “shaved meat” probably isn’t the best for someone with a weak stomach but hear me out... The girl I was with kept demanding chicken nuggets and I was not about to walk her ass all the way to a French McDo so I ordered her a poulet (chicken in French) sandwich. I give her the goods and she replies: “I’m a vegetarian”. WTF. What about your damn nuggets, woman?! “Oh, those aren’t actually meat. I eat them.” So I had to eat the damn sandwich and suffer the consequences. She actually brought me a 9 piece nugget combo to share a subsequent night, so we’re all good in my book.

hahahaha.

no wonder that group hasn't asked me to go out with them since.
I'm just too sexy for my own good.
(it musta been the Faxe)

Thursday:

Class was hell. Faxe = worse than most wine hangovers, but I think the worst part of my hangover was from the poulet sandwich. FML.

That afternoon, despite the worlds longest hangover, was mostly a success! We toured the Georges Pompidou Center. Crazy modern art building, really fun to see if you’re getting sick of all the tombs, churches, marble etc. (I’m not, those are my fav) but still a nice change of pace. It looks like hamster tunnels that take you up to the top, but they’re actually sick huge escalators and every floor your climb you get giddy like a little girl because the view becomes crazier and cooler. Ok, I got giddy because I’m oddly obsessed with this place. So at the top you can literally see EVERY landmark in Paris. Notre Dame, Sacre Coer, Eiffel Tower, and basically the Statue of Liberty. Ya, I saw it way in the distance… After the breathtaking view I sort of forgot we were going to a modern art museum in the actual building. It started out pretty cool, but let’s be real here, modern art is hella weird (first and last time that word will ever be appropriate). We only made it through the female artists and we were all sufficiently drained and defeated. Every depiction was telling the hardships of being a woman (obviously they had to portray countless vaginas to do this) and while I’m all for girl power, it just got old. Instead of crying about it with your vag sculptures, go do something!! I’m pretty sure Hilary Clinton hasn’t painted any vaginas to get her voice heard. And I really hope Michelle Obama hasn’t either. Dinner was supposed to be Chez Janou (I clearly wanted to go because I miss Janou and I was hoping she’d pop out). We ended up getting lost in Le Marais (which is never really a failure) and walked along the bumping gay cafés that made me a little bitter for not getting in to QUEEN.

Georges PompidO IT. if you're ever in Paris.
(can you see the hamster tunnel confusion?)

Dress made of meat. yes, dried MEAT. Like steak flanks and such.
"Women are like meat". I told you, we came out defeated.

Can you spot the reproductive organ?
Hint: It appears twice on places you would normally never find it.
And most men don't have these.
*Despite the grotesque-ness, this was actually a really cool painting. You can't read it but the text on the sides is legit*
By: Elke Kristufek (butchered that spelling)

Friday:

Slept in late and THAT was glorious. We all finally met up on the islands in the Seine. Wandered St. Louis and did some shopping. No big deal right? Just a casual morning and we’ll start the major sightseeing later. WRONG.

ATTEMPT 1 FOR THE CATACOMBS:

We arrive at the Catacombs right as they are closing, they literally stuck the "ferme" sign in our faces. The catacombs are these crazy underground tombs of millions of dead Parisians. Back in the day, the cemeteries were getting so full that the dead bodies were polluting the water lines so they moved all the bodies wayyyyy underground in to these stone quarries. Talk about gross in so many ways. Somewhere along the line someone thought it would be cool to make it a walking tour, so you creep under the streets among thousands and thousands of decayed and decaying bones with no windows and no doors (but no tomb-buggy like hte Haunted Mansion unfortunately you have to walk the dang thing) Sanitary? Probably not. Unfortunately we’d have to wait to walk with the dead, good thing they’d still be there the next day, right?

Later that night…the moment you’ve REALLY been waiting for…

A SUCCESSFUL NIGHT OUT IN PARIS!!
Featuring the lovely Danielle Burdick!
Swede 1, Swede 2, Moi, Danielle
photo from the French 575 (I missed the memo on being sexy)

So Danielle, a partner in crime from Tustin, and I have a history of doing damage in major cities. Together we’ve conquered L.A., New York, the infamous T-Town, and now Paris. We get a late start due to some mandatory gelato, and head toward Duplex around 12:30am. Redemption time for me. The place is poppin for sure, we drink our smuggled in Stellas and do work. We met quite a few new friends that evening; by friends I mean we can’t hear their names over the music(and most of the time weren’t asking for them) so we had to name them by their looks. The favorites were Beenie Man, Lenny Kravitz, and Nicholas in a “No Pictures” shirt. He must have been a celeb to wear something like that...Oh, I wouldn’t really call Beenie Man a favorite, it was more like he had a death grip on me and Danielle literally fought him off. She’s such a good friend. Around 4am we decided to have a photoshoot at the nearby Arc du Triumph. That plan was soon foiled because everyone in Europe assumes an American girl is a prostitute. The Arc is literally ½ a block from the club and we were harassed by about 6 different groups of international men. The worst part is that our outfits weren’t particularly slutty, no worse than the practically 14 year old French beezies we saw inside Duplex. RUDE. All in all though, SUCCESS and not a DRUNK MESS!

Saturday:

Clearly a VERY late start after that very late night. We rendezvous about 2pm for…

CATACOMBS ATTEMPT 2:

We get there and the line is longer than the line for most Disneyland rides. Where is the Fastpass option!? After waiting for 20 minutes we were told the line still takes an hour from where we were standing and by the time we would get up there it would be closed.

FAT FAIL. Ugh.

NOTRE DAME ATTEMPT 1:

So we hike towards Notre Dame and decide we’re gonna go to the top and say what up to Quasi. We get there and the line is twice as long as the Catacombs. Eff that.

RUE MOUFFETARD SUCCESS:

We decide Saturday afternoons in July are the worst possible time to sight see, so we head towards Rue Mouffetard (Mouffetard Street). Yup, say it just like you want to: MOOF- TARD. We have no clue if that’s the actual pronunciation but it is now. Rue Mouffetard is the last street in Paris that isn’t Haussmanisized aka it’s crazy with twists and turns and vendors etc (not under the same building standards as other Parisian streets). Mouffetard is actually very entertaining, lot’s of crepe stands, shopping, a GIANT candy market, fondue restaurants etc etc. Unfortunately I think we found the worst crepe maker on the row, more bad karma, I mean "schwarma", I guess.

Later that night to make a loooooong saga short, we were coerced into an Eiffel Tower picnic at 9:30pm. ..

Problems:
1.) it’s a 35 minute trek
2.) we get there and the grass is closed off for Bastille day
3.) we never find the people who twisted our arms to go in the first place
4. ) it starts pouring as soon as we get off the metro.

What did we do to deserve this?! We called it a night in hopes of better luck on Sunday.

Sunday:

Started out bleak. We were on autopilot and went towards the Eiffel Tower instead of the Catacombs for round 3, luckily we got our shit together and…

CATACOMBS ATTEMPT 3:
GREAT SUCCESS.

The pictures to most of the talking. So creepy. And it was still raining so there was awkward drippage action inside. Great for the lungs, I’m sure. Mmmm wet, musty, thousand year old bones. Plus we encountered the epitome of an bad American stereotypes in the 2 hour long line: A loud, obnoxious, know-it-all (in Nikes and jeans, obvi) with his white trash son. Ughhh. Were they eating McDonalds? No. but the large Texan family in front of them were. Sickening. The catacombs themselves were incredible, but if I thought too much about what I was seeing I would have lost my lunch all over my new “friend.” Not that it would have been all bad…

STOP! It's the Empire of Death!
Ok guys, lets go in!!

Disclaimer: These pictures are disturbing.
SO MANY BONES. seriously, you can't even fathom how many bones.
Oddly they we didn't see anything besides femurs and skulls.
Everything else disintegrate?

Are you still getting the depth of HOW MANY BONES are in there?

Up close and personal. CREEPY.

BONES.
Oops my flash went off. But CHECK IT OUT. do you get HOW MANY bones are in there yet?

Sans flash. creeEeeepy.

Post catacombs we NEEDED L’as du Fallafel. I know its inappropriate that we were hungry after an hour tour of bones, but like I said, we had to walk the damn thing. Getting that deep underground involves a lot of steps. After scarfing my falafel and challah (gotta love the Jewish quarter) I had my first experience of being uncomfortably full in Paris. L’as du Fallafel is the one place I’m willing to let that happen. Over and over and over again. I mean Lenny Kravitz even recommends it...

PHOTOSHOOT from the top of Georges Pompidou:
please take a minute to appreciate the clouds.

Les Invalides dome on left, Eiffel Tower on right

Sacre Coeur. Sacre COOL.


Who's that hottie thinking in the distance towards the Eiffel Tower?
Oh wait...just me.
Deep though, right?

View directly down. A man who looked suspiciously like Zac Efron was lying and looking up.
Yea, I could tell it was Zac from 50 stories up ok.
Really though, its just a cool picture.
(Zac was on top with me)


Another street view.

And finally, the glamor shot of the day.
Another pensive stare towards the Eiffel Tower.
I'm not sure if it shows up on this small of a picture, but it's there. I promise.
My chubby cheek = fat grin. Why I was smiling for a side view?
I just can't stop. ITS PARIS! ahh.

Bad schwarma (way more fun to say than karma) weekend ended well after all. Up next? BASTILLE DAY.