Frenchie Flat Party & Versailles

Although Versailles should be in a post all on it's own, how can you leave a good ol' fashioned flat party out of the mix?  I've met some very nice native Frenchie's through my roommate and also from hanging out at the Cafe Ziem that is right by my apartment.  I could literally throw a rock at it, it's so close. Anywho, occasionally i will pop into the cafe for a brewski or a coffee and get to chatting with the few people who speak English.  One evening, one of the regulars at the cafe decided to throw a flat party and I was invited to join.  Never one to pass up an opportunity to party, I agree.  Plus I wanted to see what exactly this party entailed.  She lived in a small 2 bedroom flat, smaller than mine for sure, not that mine is small but that is besides the point.  She had her bedroom basically cleared out, lights off, and a colored strobe light flashing and music blaring from speakers that she had hooked up through her computer and was jamming some itunes.  Her room also served as the dance floor.  Then in her son's room (no the kid wasn't there) she had food and drink set up.  I gathered it was her son's room from the bunk beds and dinosaur paraphernalia lurking around the room.  Lots of good finger foods which included guacamole and tortilla chips, sausages, candy, different cheeses and loads and loads of champagne.  I of course hovered around the food area, as per usual.  I did make it on the dance floor for a few songs though!  Here are some pics.

The girl with me is my roommate, Magali.

Now onwards to Versailles!  I tried going to Versailles back with my friend Lauren was here visiting me and that just turned into a FAIL.  Simply for the fact that we went on a Monday and the palace is CLOSED on Monday's!  So I made the trek back out to Versailles on a nice sunny day.  It takes about an hour to get out there, maybe a little less, on the RER train.  I first walked in and bought my ticket and made my way over to the area where you get your cheesy headphone set so you can hear a little history on all the rooms and what not.  Here's a pic of me with my headset on, haha.

So the very first room you are show in the chapel area with it's ornate ceilings and ginormo organ pipes. The palace is just so very beautiful.

It's also crossed my mind a time or two as to how everyone stayed warm in a large palace such as Versailles. I mean these were the days of no electricity or central heating!  Well folks wonder no more!  Check out the size of this fireplace! It's like a small bonfire inside your house.

Now this is sleeping in style my friends, check out this bed. Every room is very lavish.

And of course the famous hall of mirrors (and chandeliers)

Now it's on to the gardens, probably what the palace is most well known for.  Since they are massive and span a large area I decided to take a little tram throughout the gardens rather than walking although I'm sure I could have used the exercise.  I asked the driver to snap a quick pic of me.

We weaved in and out of the gardens and i got some really gorgeous pictures.  I wish I could tell you more history on the palace and the story of Marie Antoinette, but I'm no historian.  You'll just have to go and visit one day!

English Speakers and Pub Quizzes!

Living in a foreign land and not speaking the language can suck at times, so it's nice when you meet some cool people that speak the best language on earth ENGLISH!  I jest, I jest (picked that one up from my English friend, Tom) but seriously I'm so glad that in the English language there is no feminine and masculine words!  It's just a table, it's just a plate, why do you need to specify it's gender, it's only an object!  Anywho I've met some cool peeps here within the last month.  My friend Maggie who is from South Carolina and teaches English at a University here.  Tom who is from England and also teaches English and the some university as Maggie, and Louise who is also from England and went to college with Tom back in their motherland.  Louise is a nanny for a family here in france.  I've been hanging out with quite a lot and we all live basically in the same area except Louise who is over in the 16th I believe.  Along with my native English speakers I still hang out with the two French girls that saved me a creepy guy on my very first night here in Paris!  I caught up with them on Valentine's weekend for a little "single ladies celebration."

There was a rather cute Irishman who bought us some shots and I got to chatting with for awhile.  Earlier that evening there was a huge rugby match between Ireland and France.  France ended up winning but Corcoran's was packed with a ton of Irish due to the fact that it's an Irish Bar.  Apparently after a few drinks I wanted to try his Ireland jersey on and snap a few pics, haha.

So a couple weeks ago Maggie, Louise, and I decide to go on a pub crawl that Maggie's friend Olin knew about.  We started off at Corcorans and from there went to Cafe Oz and also O'Sullivans.  This was a fun night!  When we first got to Corcoran's it was pretty low key and we found a table where we decided to play a little game.  Everyone wrote a famous person, dead or alive, on a piece of paper and then we each drew a name without looking at it and stuck the piece of paper to our forehead so everyone else could see it but you.  Then you had to ask each other questions to try and figure out the person you were.  I pretty much sucked at the game!  I couldn't remember the questions I already asked and at one point I ran out of questions!

Above is Olin and I.  He was Lance Armstrong and I was Britney Spears.  After we finished playing the game, Tom showed up with his friend Michael who lives in southern France but is originally from Ireland.

After Corcoran's we go to O'Sullivans where we danced the night away into the wee hours of the morning.  I believe they are open until about 5:00 or 5:30 am.  Here we checked our coats which is the first time I've ever done this!  Fancy Schmancy! We payed 2 euro to check the coats so we didn't have to lug them around on the dance floor.  Which come to find out you can't have coats on the dance floor anyway, they make you check your coat, which is kinda BS in my opinion!

Olin, Louise, and Maggie tearing it up on the dance floor!

A couple weeks ago it was Louise' spring break so we girls decided to go out one last time before she left to go visit her folks back in England.  It was a Tuesday night which also happened to be Ladies Night over in the St. Michel/Latin Quarter area.  We first go to The Great Canadian and have a couple of cheap brewskis.  The olympics were on at the time and the place was fairly crowded.  From there we decided to go to another place in the area called The Frog and the Princess.  It was there that Maggie and I decided to have a cocktail rather than a beer since they were on special.  We are rebels.  At that point it was getting fairly late and we decide to take the last metro back to our neck of the woods.  We literally sprinted to the stations so as to not miss the metro.  That was a bit of an adventure, I definitely don't like cutting it close.  And low and behold we end up at our favorite place and ol' trusty...Corcorans.  It was a quiet Tuesday night there and we ended up chatting with this older gent.

So every Thursday at Corc's (I think I'll just shorten it since I write it so often) there is a music pub quiz!  I love these things and wich the US would adopt more of these.  Or maybe quite a few already exist and I just don't know about them?!  Anyway I usually can gather a small group every week to go up there and "kick some ass" although sometimes the quiz kicks ours.  Each week all the songs have a theme.  Some of the past themes have been Food, Magic, Dance, Countries.  So basically all the songs follow along with the theme.  The past couple Thursday's, my team has made it into the semi-finals but only to come out defeated. BUT last week was an exceptional week as we came in 2nd place!  We didn't get the free bottle of champagne that the winners get, but we did all get a free shot of jagermeister!  Here's our team!  Poor Tom got cut out, but his arm is in there!

Well that is it for now folks.  I leave in about 30 minutes to go to the airport to catch my flight to Scotland to visit my good friend Terri who has been living in Aberdeen for the past year.  I will of course update when I get back next week!

The Catacombs!

People, this is a MUST if you visit Paris!  I thought it was one of the neatest things I have done so far.  It's a bit eerie and creepy but it's definitely worth checking out.  And it's pretty inexpensive as well and no crazy wait line to go through!  I was originally supposed to go through the Catacombs with Lauren when she was here visiting me but on our way there we were on the metro and a girl overheard us talking.  She explained that during the winter the Catacombs close down because it's so cold outside and the Catacombs are so far underground that it's too cold for visitors.  So we got off at the next stop a bit dissapointed.  Well after some further investigation on my part I decided to look up the website a couple of weeks ago and nowhere on the site did it mention that is closed down during the winter.  So I decided to trek back over to the area and actually the day I went it was snowing outside...those catacombs never felt so warm! 

So the story behind the Catacombs:  There was a cemetary back in the 18th Century called "The Cemetary of the Innocent."  This cemetary had been used for nearly 10 centuries and had become the origin of disease and infection for all those that lived in the district near the cemetary.  After numerous complaints, it was decided that the bones from the deceased were to be evacuated and moved underground to The Catacombs.  The Catacombs are the final resting place of some 6 million Parisians.

Above is a long narrow passageway when you first enter the Catacombs

Lots of Limestone was used to build the undergournd cemetary.

There were several of these little places where sculptures were carved out.

Finally after winding my way through the long dark hallways I get to the main ossuary.  Skulls and Femer bones.

A little hard to tell but the skulls were in the shape of a heart. They were arranged that way on purpose, of course.

I look a little unsure and frightened in this one. Blame it on the bones!

Just a massive amount of bones, from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

Well after the pictures, hopefully you can decide if the Catacombs would be something up your alley or not.  If you're looking for something "off the beaten path" and interesting to tell to others, then I would highly reccommend this visit! R.I.P

Inside Notre Dame and Nights Out

So one day as I was casually strolling along in the very center of Paris, I decided to pop in the Notre Dame Cathedral to see if I could have a rare sighting of Quasimodo.  This was also one of the things Lauren and I wanted to do while she was here, but the day we were around, the line was some 500 deep and we clearly opted not to wait in that line.  The day I went there was no line, only a homeless lady sitting on cardboard right at the entrance begging for change.  The name Notre Dame means "Our Lady" and the cathedral is on a little island called Il de la Cite in the middle of the Seine river.  Here is a picture of the outside at night, although when I went it was during the day.

Inside the church is very beautiful, but right off the bat it didn't impress me near as much as The Sacre Coeur as I have previously written about.  Notre Dame is extremely old however and construction started in 1163.

I didn't purchase any cheesy memorabilia but I did buy one of the candles, like above, for 5 euro.  I'm not catholic however, and just brought it back to my apt where I like to burnt it occasionally.  Over all I'm glad I got to check out the inside of the Notre Dame, but if I can make a recommendation if you're ever visiting Paris....please try and go to the Sacre Coeur, you won't be dissapointed!

As for nights out, I was able to experience my first concert here in Paris, free of charge!  My roommates birthday was in early Jan. and her boyfriend at the time had bought them concert tickets to go see Air.  Well the night of the concert he pulled some shady business and was unable to go!  So she had the tickets and asked me if I would like to go with her and of course I said yes.  At the time I had never heard of Air.  They are actually a French band from Versailles.  Once they started playing some of their songs, I definitely recognized them.  One of their big hits is "Sexy Boy" and was part of the soundtrack for the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. 

A quick fact I learned about Air.  The lead singer and band are very good friends with the guys from the band Phoenix, who have recently gained some popularity.  Phoenix is also from Versailles as well.  Phoenix lead singer is also dating Sofia Coppola who directed the movie Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst.  She has also put both bands songs in several of her movies.

I also hang out with my 2 french friends Emmaunelle and Priscilla.  I met them the first night I was in Paris, at Corcorans.  They introduced me to an English guy named Tom who is here in France teaching English to French kids at a university.  Here are some pics from our nights out which mostly take place at Corcorans and sometimes O'Sullivans and Oz Cafe.

Above is Emmanuelle enjoying a double pint o' 1664

Us sitting in our favorite booth right next to the bar!  Looking a little rough, it had rained on me earlier!

Above is Tom aka Harry Potter and it seems as though he may be dancing on Emmanuelle, she looks a bit frustrated!

And onward to Cafe Oz, an Austrailan bar.  This was my first time at this bar, they stay open till like 11:00am!  Above is Emmanuelle, Steve, and James an Irish dude.

Since I'm not working and don't go to school here, I spend a lot of my days exploring the city and quite a few nights enjoying some pints (that rhymed)!  I'm sure there will be many more pub pictures posted in the future.  For awhile I was going to 2 pub quizzes a week, something I think that US bars should offer more often!

The REAL Football in Paris!

As many of you know the Europeans like them some football, as do I, but not the same kind!  I enjoy what they would call "American Football" as their definition of football is soccer!  On Jan. 7th one of the most watched games in the US took place at 7:00 pm central time and about 2:00 am (on the 8th) Paris time....the BCS College Football Championship where the Texas Longhorns were matched up against the Alabama Roll Tide!  Not too many places were showing this game but I had gotten a few suggestions from the guys at Fat Tire Bike Tours as to where they would be watching since most of them were Texans.  They named a couple places called The Moose and The Great Canadian which are both in the Saint Michel area which is nowhere near me.  I somehow convinced my Scottish friend Steve to tag along with me since the place was a bit far away.  We decided to go a bit earlier so we could at least take the metro there (the last ones usually shut down around 12:30 or 1:00 am).  First we went to The Great Canadian and it was a bit dead, then we decided to mosey over to The Highlander which was actually a Scottish bar and Steve knew one of the bartenders....i.e. we were getting discounted drinks which is always a plus in my book AND they were showing the game so all things were good!  Here are a few pics from the evening.  I tried my hardest to wear something that was similar to "burnt orange."

I found another Texas fan!!!  That was pretty exciting.  I don't remember the guy's name but he said he spent 1 semester at UT before finishing up his degree back in France.  Towards the end of the game the Highlander decided to go ahead and shut down.  I suppose they didn't have very many people watching the game and the barstaff was ready to get the hell outta there, which I don't blame them.  Steve and I ended up going back to The Great Canadian to finish out the game where UT had a devestating loss with a final score of 21 to 37.  All in all it was a fun time and I think the game ended around 6am!

Back it up a bit....earlier that day I received an exciting knock at the door.  Who better than the postman delivering a rather large package addressed to ME!  My best friend Andrea sent me a little care package with some of the essentials!

She sent me a jar of Joe T. Garcia's  hot sauce, which just so happens to be my favorite Mexican food restaurant EVER, a bottle of Cholula, some Twix minis, a cute Eiffel Tower jewelery holder, and most importantly a stick of deodorant!  Every deodorant here is all roll on, gross!  No one likes wet armpits, haha!  Basically she did a stellar job on the care package, of course the hot sauce is already gone but I am using the Cholula quite sparingly!