St. Patricks Day

I arrived back in Paris on the 17th, also more popularly referred to as St. Patrick's Day.  I was originally supposed to get back to Paris the day before but about 3 weeks prior, EasyJet decided to cancel my flight that day leaving me the option to fly back the next day.  I got home around 7pm, showered and got ready and met my friend Maggie at (where else) CORCORANS!  Good thing my favorite bar in town just so happens to be an Irish one.  I figured the place would be crowded but didn't realize it would be packed to the brim.  Everyone was sporting Guinness hats and drinking the dark brown milkshake lager.  Somehow Maggie and I managed to find a little nook with 2 bar stools that we could sit in comfortably and do some people watching.  Guinness not being my favorite beer, I opted for my 1664 blonde that I have come to love.  Corcoran's also had a live band playing some traditional Irish tunes and ever so often someone would walk by with a bucket to tip them with.  I contributed about 2 Euro's worth and called it great.

Later on Maggie's friend Cyiril showed up with a couple of his friends and they joined us in our nook.  It's there we decided to play paparazzi picture time and snap a bunch of photos.  If you're wondering where my "green" is, it's my hat dammit, and yes it counts!

That's my french moustache with a couple of Guinness stickers that some girls were handing out.  Despite the above pictures I kept it pretty tame that night since I needed to get some things done the next day before my mom arrived for our EuroTrip 2010!!!

Kilt Kountry Part 4...Edinburgh & Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

The next morning, after many attempt from Terri, Tiffany and I sadly shot down the idea of hiking over AND up to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh.  It literally looked like it was miles in the distance and it seemed like the only way to get to the top would be by helicopter.  Okay okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration but it didn't look close that's for sure.  So instead, what do 3 girls do on their last day in a historic beautiful old city?  Why SHOP of course!  In Texas we don't have stores such as H&M, TopShop, and Next which are three trendy clothing shops.  So we browsed up and down the main strip of shops on Princes Street.  I bought a leather wallet at Top Shop which I needed badly since the last time I bought one I think I was in high school.  It was genuine leather and only set me back 15 Euros which I think is a pretty good deal.  Next place we go to is H&M but I don't buy anything here.  Tiffany bought a couple of cute dresses and I think Terri just perused the store.  Last place we hit up was Next where I bought a sailor print top and some jeggings.  I love those things.  They are tights/leggings that look like denim jeans thus forming "jeggings!"  We also made our way over to the newer area of town where some high end stores were.  We found a store similar to the US' Abercrombie & Fitch but it was even more overpriced than A&F.  I think it was called Jack Wills.  In here we took a little nap on the Great Britain flag couch.

While strolling down George Street we happened upon a restaurant called Browns that Terri had eaten at before.  Feeling a little parched, we decided to peek our heads in and walk towards the bar area.  Come to find out it was happy hour pricing on selected drinks.  We sat outside on the sidewalk and each had 2 cocktails and gossipped about nonsense.  Just before leaving we took a gander at the dinner menu and decided we wanted to come back that evening for supper.  Afterwards we did some final souvenir shopping and I mailed off postcards to a few friends.  Poor Terri bought a cover for her ipod and it didn't fit.  It was a bit too small and she kept trying to cram it in, only to find it getting more stuck.  Back to the flat we went to relax before getting ready for our last night out.  Grabbed a taxi back to Brown's for dinner.  Wish I could remember what I had to eat but I guess that shows you how memorable it was.  Next we decide to go have some cold ones for our last night in the big city, which was a Monday night.  After getting lost and backtracking a few times we finally found the piano bar Terri was telling us about....and it was shut down!  We were then forced to just go to any place that happened to be open.  Went to a traditional pub first for one beer but it was quite the snooze fest, not too much going on there so we hit the pavement again in search for our next venue.  We happened upon a few promoters handing out flyers for free cover and 2 GBP vodka and red bull's.  The name of he place they were promoting was Shanghai.  We were a bit weary so Tiffany proceeded to ask one of the guys, "So if you weren't promoting club Shanghai, where would YOU go on a Monday night?"  And as any good promoter and loyal employee would say he replied with "Shanghai, of course!"  So what do we end up doing?  Going to Shanghai.  Once inside Shanghai we found that this place was a haven for the youngsters.  Not that any of us three are "old" but the average age of the clientele here was between 18 and 21.  Apparently Edinburgh has several universities and is somewhat considered a college town.  The girls were wearing next to nothing, but here's the kicker...it was FREEZING outside.  I mean I'm all for looking cute but these girl just looked like morons cause it was so cold outside.  While in Shanghai we did chat with a few friendly people and danced around a bit.  After several vodka and red bulls we were feeling good and we too felt 21 again!

Somehow we managed to shut down ol' Shanghai and we took a taxi back to our place.  We had a fairly early train back to Aberdeen so we pretty much passed out.  Woke up the next morning, got to the train station and slept most of the entire way on the train.  I can't recall if we grabbed any lunch but I do know we went fairly quickly back to Terri's place to rest up a bit more!  I played around on the internet (big surprise) while the others dozed off.  Found out that Terri's co-workers were to play in a soccer match later that evening so we conjured up a plan to figure out where they were playing and to surprise them.  We ate dinner at Pizza Express first.  Terri had a coupon voucher for an appetizer, glass of wine, and pizza for just 12 GBP which was a helluva deal.  We each got our own pizzas and they were delish.  We then walked over to the guy's soccer match.  They were pretty surprised to see us and they actually won their game.  We only caught the tail end of it, but that 15 minutes was enough for me.  Andrew, Terri's co-worker gave us a ride back in his car so we didn't have to walk which was great.  Andrew dropped off Terri and Tiffany because Terri had to work the next morning and Tiffany had a 4:30am wake up call to get ready and be at the airport around 6:30am.  Andrew drove me around Aberdeen for awhile showing me some places I hadn't seen while walking around. We went by an area that looked somewhat like Putt Putt Golf & Games, went by the lighthouse (who doesn't like lighthouses?!), showed me a "dogging" spot which apparently is a place where people will drive to, park their cars and wait for others to come knock on their window for a quick hookup!  That is just crazy but I guess to each their own!

                  

                  

Overall I had a fantastic trip in Scotland!  The countryside is absolutely beautiful and the people and towns are great.  I will definitely have to return to the country one day and maybe head over to Inverness to see if I can get look at the legendary Loch Ness Monster!

Kilt Kountry Part 3...Edinburgh, SCOTLAND!

We arrived at the train station in Aberdeen a bit early despite being out fairly late the night before.  We pretty much slept the whole way to Edinburgh to feel refreshed and ready to hit the streets when we got to the bustling city.  Once we arrived at Waverly train station we grab a taxi to take us to our flat that we rented for the next couple days.  We had originally booked to stay in a budget hostel but it was really only supposed to be for 2 people rather than 3 so we decided to play it safe and nixed that idea.  Terri found us the cutest little furnished apartment right in the center of the Grassmarket area of Edinburgh, that we called home the next couple of nights.  I wish I would have gotten some pics of it but unfortunately I didn't.  It had a shower and bathtub (something I've been lacking in Paris), a fully furnished kitchen, a bedroom with a queen size bed and the most comfortable mattress I've slept on in AGES, and a nice sized living room complete with satellite tv and a faux fireplace that when flipped on looked like a fire was burning!

Since the place wasn't quite ready when we arrived and needed a bit more cleaning from the previous occupants, we just dropped our things off and decided to walk up to the castle that wasn't too far from our area.  We ended up not going inside but took a few obligatory photos so we could indeed say "Hey, I've been there before!"

A giant church also lay in the streets of Edinburgh just outside the gates of the castle.  I'm not sure how old the church is, but it's gotta be getting up there due to the charred black look it's got going for itself!

Walking down the streets I spot a ghost, or perhaps my eyes were deceiving me.  After I did a double take I realized that I was indeed right the first time...when suddenly appearing before my eyes was the man himself...Mr. William Wallace aka Braveheart!

After losing the sword fight and surrendering to your's truly, we decided to call a truce.

Souvenir shopping was on the agenda next.  I've been sending postcards to various friends back in the states from all the places I visit so I snagged a few of those while Tiffany shopped for her boyfriend and his family.  She was also looking for some little food items and candies to take back to her classroom.  Poor Terri had already been to Edinburgh several times and she was subjected to all our various stops at the different stores which essentially all sold the same things.  It wasn't quite dinner time after the shopping but we had worked up a little snack appetite and stopped off at a cheese stop.  We grabbed a baguette and some soft cheese that was similar to brie only more yummy.  We took that back to the apt. and chowed on that a bit to hold us over until dinner time.  Somewhere between relaxing at the flat and having the bread and cheese, we drifted off into a short slumber.  By the time we awoke, took showers, and got ready it was around 9:30pm.  But hey, this is Edinburgh, a large tourist city and hailed as a party place right? WRONG.  We went to a small little restaurant to grab some food and they were closing! I had specifically remembered reading this particular restaurants hours of business in a brochure and their hours were "10am to Late."  Well apparently their definition of late and our's are completely opposite. We asked the waiter where he recommended us to go that might still be open to which he replied with a smartass answer..."I recommend you find some place that is still open!"  How rude! We decided we would not be spending money in that establishment for the rest of our stay.  Since it was pretty late AND a Sunday, the girls and I decided to just eat some bar food at "The Last Drop" that was around the corner from our flat. Story is that this pub was the place that people who were about to get executed went in to have their last drink before getting the axe, literally.  I opted for a traditionally Scottish meal of minced mean, neeps (turnips), and tattis (mashed potatoes).

I would give this meal about 2 and a half stars. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't unbelievably great either, then again that could have been because it was served at a bar rather than a proper restaurant.  We then went in search of a pub to have a cold one but did not succeed as it seemed the entire city shuts down early on Sundays.  Knowing we had a full day ahead of us on Monday and more sites to see we took it back to the flat and got a good nights rest to gear up for day 2 in Edinburgh...

Kilt Kountry Part 2...Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

So after a wild Friday night us girls were a tidge hungover the next day but we managed to peel ourselves from the confines our our comfy beds, or in my case, the sofa and head to the train station.  We caught the train down to the next little town south of Aberdeen called Stonehaven where there was an awesome 15 and 16th century castle called Dunnottar Castle.  The best part was that it was situated on a cliff overlooking the North Sea!  We climbed up an endless amount of steps to get to that puppy but it was well worth it!

Before we actually made the trek over to the castle we of coursed hiked around a bit and took various picturesque photos, the pictures do it no justice!

After walking around the castle for awhile and going in and out of the different rooms we had worked up a bit of an appetite.  Thanks to our fabulous tour guide, Terri, she knew of a great little fish and chip shop right on the coast in town.  We grabbed a taxi and headed to Bay's Chippery.  We all got some haddock and chips and sat on a bench that overlooked the ocean.  The ambiance was simply amazing besides a few pesky seagulls that were eyeing our fries!

After lunch we played around and walked along the rocks and posed for various cheesy pictures.  Finally we made it back into the city center and caught the train back to Aberdeen.  Here's a pic of the train station in Aberdeen, its quite nice and they have recently opened up a shopping center connecting to the train station.  Of course we had to take a stroll through the H&M and do a little girly shopping.  I tried on a couple things but nothing I was too excited about.

After doing a little window shopping we made it back to Terri's and relaxed.  We ordered in a pizza for dinner and it was delicious. And the best part was that they delivered and we didn't have to leave the flat.  After we were rested up from the day's activities we started to get ready to go out for a few drinks.  Once again we let Terri be our tour guide and we headed to our first pub called "The Globe."  We just had 1 drink in there because it was extremely crowded and they had a live band that was way too noisy.  Poor Terri had nearly lost her voice from the previous night from yelling over loud music so we didn't stay long.

After this it was over to the "Monkey House."  Here we were able to snag a seat and listen to some dance music.  We would have stayed here longer but the bar was closing around midnight and we needed a new venue.  This bar was pretty fancy though, it looked very upscale on the inside but the clientele would suggest otherwise, ourselves included, haha!

After Monkey House closed down, we decided to meet up with my friend Steve (from Paris) who is originally from Scotland and who recently moved back.  It was his birthday on Saturday night so I figured we would grab a drink to celebrate.  We ended up at some dance club/warehouse called....well you guessed it, Warehouse!  It was super packed but again we were lucky enough to snag a seat so we could all socialize.  I was unlucky, however, as a girl with a large ass decided to post up next to me and stick her j-lo booty in my face, damn near knocking me out of my chair!

You cannot capture the fullness of that thing from the picture!  Andrew, Terri's co-worker, who was out with us the night before met up with us for a few cold ones.

And here is the birthday boy, errr girl (according to his pink pin)!

We finally decided to call it an "early" night around 3am as we had to catch the 3 hour train ride to Edinburgh the next morning.  And of course part three is to follow...

Kilt Kountry Part 1...Aberdeen, SCOTLAND!

So a little over a week ago I booked an easyjet flight over to Scotland, a mere 1 1/2 hr. flight from Paris, to go visit my friend Terri who has been living there for a little over a year.  She works in the oil and gas industry and was relocated from Houston to Aberdeen, Scotland which is the oil and gas capital of Europe.  She was gracious enough to open up her flat to me and another of her girlfriends, Tiffany.  I arrived on Thursday, March 11.  My journey there was no easy task, I have officially mastered public transportation and to be honest it feels quite good.  Starting from Paris I took the subway to Gare du Nord to catch the RER train out to Charles de Gaulle Airport.  From there I flew into Edinburgh where I then caught a shuttle bus that took me across town to the Waverly Train Station.  I then hopped a high speed train to Aberdeen that took around 2 1/2 hrs. finally landing me in Aberdeen.  From there it was just a short taxi ride to Terri's door. Whew!  I got there about 11:15 and Terri greeted me with a glass of red wine and a lot of banter that we needed to catch up on.  Tiffany arrived the next morning, her flight went directly into Aberdeen which was nice.  Friday was our first day in the "big city" and Terri had to go into work for a little bit.  We walked with her to her office and met some of her co-workers that we would later be going out with that evening.  While Terri was taking care of a little business, Tiffany and I wandered around the streets near her office and into a little gift store called Nova.  They had lots of cute trinkets and stuff, but neither one of us purchased anything.  At this point we were pretty hungry and snuck into a little sandwich shop called Food Story.  I got a bowl of Thai Chicken Soup and a cheese and bacon sandwich.  Pretty tasty.  Afterwards we met Terri back at her office.  We then decided to go back to Terri's flat and rest up for a little bit before our first big night out.  Plus Tiffany was pretty jet lagged from just getting in earlier that morning as she said she didn't really sleep on the plane.

Around 6:30 we had dinner plans to eat our first round of the delicious Fish and Chips at a restaurant called Ashvale.  My new friend Amber who also lives in Aberdeen with her husband made reservations for all of us.  Amber and her husband Mike also had friends in town visiting from Texas.  At dinner we had a total of 10 Texans, it was Awesome (even if some of them were Aggies...just kidding!).  Here's a shot of our table.

And of course the delicious fish (haddock) and chips with lots of salt and vinegar, yum!

Outside the restaurant they had one of those cheesy little props where you can stick your head through a cutout and take a picture. And since I'm never one to turn down a photo-op...

After filling our bellies full of food, we embark on finding a nice little place to throw back a few.  Our first stop is the Howff, which I would refer to as a traditional pub.  I tried to document all the places we stopped off, but I very well could have missed a few.

After a beer at The Howff, we let our tour guides lead us on our merry way to the next drinking establishment.  I'm not sure of it's name but the whole point of us going in was to check out the really cool bookshelf....or was it even a bookshelf?!

Surprise, it was the women's bathroom!  Kind of a cool design but I'm glad I had friends to tell me where it was otherwise I'd be one of those people with the lost look on their faces when trying to find the WC.  After a few photo's of the bathroom we continued on our journey to the next watering hole, Ma Cameron's.

Above is Amber, Terri, Tiffany, and myself...all proudly representing the Texas State Bobcats...eat 'em up!  Also at Ma Cameron's I discovered a delicious Scottish beer called Tennet's which was a nice break from the usual 1664 I get back in Paris.

After having a pint or 2 at Ma Cameron's it's then time to meet up with a few of Terri's co-workers whom we have heard many a story about.  They decide to take us to Soul which conveniently happens to be a renovated church turned bar.  We learn during our time in Aberdeen that these are quite popular and tend to be the norm.  We snag a table at Soul and the first to arrive are JC who works with Terri, his friend Clarke, another of Terri's co-workers, Andrew and Doug who could easily be mistaken for Alan from The Hangover .  In true gentlemanly fashion they order a bottle of vodka for us at the table with some red bull.  It didn't take us anytime to polish that bad boy off, but in the mean time Tiffany and I said a quick prayer.

Here's a picture of the stained glass window that you can somewhat see in the above picture

And a picture of the church/bar from the outside

Soul closed down around 2am and we emptied the bottle of vodka so what else were we to do? Certainly not go home so we mosey over to Espionage!  This place had 3 levels.  The bottom floor had a bar and dance music but they were spinning oldies tracks like Greece Lightening.  As much love as I have for John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, I just wasn't feeling the bottom floor.  On the 2nd level it was mainly just a bar area and booths to chat and mingle.  This is where most of our group holed up.  And last but not least was the 3rd floor filled with bumping booty shaking music, sweat, and B.O.!  Spent quite a bit of time upstairs dancing the night away with my dance partner and protector, Andrew.  White boy can drop it like it's hot, haha! 

Here is a pic of Terri and Clarke with the Espionage sign above!  I'm pretty sure we closed ol' Espionage down as well which was roughly around 3am.  We took a cab back to Terri's where we went up to her flat and hung out a little more after finally drifting off sometime after the sun started to rise.  And that, my friends, was just night 1 in Scotland.  To be continued!

Montparnasse Tower

I kept hearing rave reviews on the Montparnasse tower and how it has a better view of the "City of Lights" than from atop the Eiffel Tower.  Because I've already been on top of the Eiffel the last time I visited Paris back in 2005, I decided to check out Montparnasse.  Apparently the Montparnasse Tower is a bit more centrally located and most importantly it lets you see one of the most popular landmarks of the city that you can't see when you are on top of the Eiffel Tower!  What is this landmark you ask?  Well I'll tell ya....it's the EIFFEL TOWER!  Clearly if you are on top of the Eif you wouldn't be able to see it, so that is what is so incredible about Montparnasse...it's also taller than the ol' Eif.  Okay so moving on.  I decided to go at night since previously I went to the top of the Eiffel during the day.  I got there right at dusk so I could see the sun set and I also got to see the Eiffel Tower twinkle at 7:00 pm although it wasn't quite all the way dark.  Here is the sun setting.

After I snapped a few photos I went back inside from being on the 59th floor outdoor terrace.  I read a few little fun facts on the tower and had a coffee to wait for the next twinkle time at 8:00pm when it was completely dark.  I got some gorgeous pictures and a couple cool videos on my camera.  The wind was absolutely crazy that evening.  It the videos you can hear it in the background.

Here are the links to the videos I took on top of Montparnasse Tower of the Eiffel Tower sparkling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGAROjjOIEA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_YgEeLmfZs

Overall I would recommend hitting up this spot if you ever visit the city!  There is no crazy lines to get to the top and it is actually Europe's fastest elevator that takes you to the 56th floor!  The price is around 10 Euros for adults and 7.50 Euros for students, which of course I used my old student ID...always trying to save a buck, I am!

Rodin Rocks

The other day I decided to go to the Rodin Museum here in Paris.  It has some of the most famous sculptures that Auguste Rodin created.  Typically I'm not much of a museum type of gal, although I wish I were, but I figured I'd go check his stuff out one nice sunny day.  His most famous sculpture, in my opinion, is The Thinker, although another sculpture of notoriety is The Kiss.  I decided to go when it was sunny out, because there is a beautiful garden area as well with sculptures placed in different parts of the gardens.  Once again I work the system and show them my almost 4 year old Texas State student ID and got a few euro's off the price. Here are a few pics I snapped while inside the museum.

The poor guy above could probably see better if he had his head on!

Pictured below is The Kiss

And here is the other side of it, just so you get the full effect, ha.

Now onwards to the garden area.  The gardens is actually where The Thinker is located which kinda surprised me.  Since it's one of the French sculpture's most famous pieces I figured it would be tucked away inside to preserve it's beauty.  However it's not and it's left out in the open air for rain, sleet, and snow to fall upon it.  I'm guessing whatever it's made out of is waterproof. 

Please note the tourist in the above picture, trying to get her "think" on.  Secretly I wanted a picture like this too, but I went by myself and didn't have anyone to take it for me!  Below are just a couple other pics that I took in the garden area.

After leaving the Musee Rodin, I just wandered about the streets of Paris and stopped back off at the Louvre to take a few more pics of the glass pyramid.  I also went on a mission to find the Creed cologne store to get my cousin Justin a few bottles of smell good.  I did  happen upon the FDR metro stop along my journey....at least the French liked one of our presidents!!!

That same weekend we were also celebrating Maggie's birthday. We decided to go eat Mexican food, which was a thumbs up in my book, however my last experience with French style Mexican food was not the best.  I had eaten with Lauren when she was here visiting me and it's a wonder we didn't end up dead!  I did a little research online however and ended up finding a place near the Latin quarter that had good reviews.  The place was packed and we didn't have reservations but we ended up sitting in an enclosed outside section with those space heaters.  The people in attendance were: Maggie (the birthday girl), Louise, Olin (another American), Michael (the Aussie and Olin's roommate), and Myself.  Me and the girls shared a pitcher of frozen margaritas which were actually quite good and they were stingy with the tequila.  For food everyone had the chicken burrito, except moi, and I had the chicken quesadillas.  Mine was delicious and the guacamole was darn good too, lets just say I cleaned my plate.  After dinner, the crew and I head back over to our neck of the woods to do a little more drinking and dancing.  Of course we end up at O'Sullivans which is the place with the huge dance floor in the back of the club.  We stay there for a couple drinks and get our dance on but ultimately decide to move it over to Corcoran's for cheaper drinks and a more laid back atmosphere.  After we closed Corcoran's down around 4:00 am we are starving...a case of the late night munchies.  Maggie and Louise' friend Khalid whom we met up with at Corcoran's just so happens to have a crepe shop right around the corner!  We decide to have a little late night crepe party and it was delish!  I had a ham, egg, and cheese and it hit the spot.

Above is Khalid firing up the griddle for the crepes.  Below: we figured the crepes would taste better if we did a little dance!

And finally here I am enjoying my custom made crepe!  Good times!