Paris Looks Better in Black and White

The icon of the city of lights.

Hey, it’s 2013!
Weird huh? Years ago, all the science fiction books were saying that around this time, we’d have those flying car things and teleporting everywhere. Like a Back To The Future part 2 kind of thing. But we don’t have flying cars and we don’t teleport. We do have all these high-tech cellphones and laptops. I’d prefer to teleport though.

Anyway, It’s 2013, so HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL. I’m late, but you are all probably still writing 2012 down on your papers anyway, so it counts. How did you spend your new years? Watch the ball drop? Light up some fireworks? Singed some hairs/eyebrows? :>

Guess where I spent mine.
The city of lights, that’s where.
That’s right, PARIS! :D

Champs Elysee

I spent 10 lovely little days in France, staying with a friend of my dad’s and her family. I say France because my first three days were spent in the country side.
This trip was what I’ve been looking forward to the whole of December. After my German courses ended, I had about 11 days of school and then Weihnachtsferien (christmas break) began.

I left for Paris on the 27th of December, after all the christmas celebrations (which I talked about in my last blog). It took a total of 6 hours to get to Paris from Crailsheim, including stop-overs and all. Then, arriving in Paris, Dad’s friend, Tita Heidi, who was in the country side already, asked a friend of hers to take me to another train station so I could take a train going to the town of Clermont Ferrand. Now, the way the french people pronounce french words is unbelievable. I can’t seem to get the hang of it. Say Clermont Ferrand the way you think they say it. You’re probably wrong, unless you actually speak French. They said “Welcome to Clermont Ferrand” and they said it all properly and stuff and I was like “Where!?!?” So yeah. French is hard. Can’t compare it to German though, cause I’m not trying to learn French.

So yeah, three days spent in the country side. Small town. Didn’t do much. Although! One day we went up the mountains where people go skiing and stuff. We didn’t go skiing though. We just went there to look and eat and take pictures. The snow was kinda melting anyway. But now I wanna learn how to snowboard…

We left for Paris on the 30th, right before New years. This was the night I first saw the Eiffel Tower. We went out the night we arrived in

Artists’ Square

Paris and they showed me the Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysee, and the Arc de Triomphe. Champs Elysee is like this long street where everybody can go shopping. There’s a gigantic Sephora and a gigantic H&M and all things like that. There are also a whole bunch of street performers like dancers and magicians and stuff like that. Come to think of it, it reminds me of Königstrasse in Stuttgart. Paris, by the way, is a city, the city, and therefore, is not as clean as it looks in the movies. Just thought I should put it out there.

The next day, I didn’t do much. It was the day of New Year’s Eve so I just went shopping in Sephora and MAC (Hihi, Hi mom.) Now, New Year’s eve. That was….something. :D Tip to everybody: If you ever plan on bringing little kids to Paris for New Year’s eve, yeah don’t do it. Unless you arrive to where you wanna go REALLY early. Like still light out early. Paris on New year’s eve gets crazy. O_O All the trains are full. Like. Worse than MRT in the Philippines during rush hour full, and that’s saying something. People are drunk and singing and pushing and you barely notice your already pick-pocketed bag. It was kinda fun though. An adventure. ;) So we gave up on the party we were supposed to go to (Oh yeah, by the way, we were supposed to go to a party) and ended up going home.

The next few days were spent sight-seeing. Man Paris is huge. I don’t think I even saw like everything. I did see a lot though. :P The Louvre, La Grand Roue de Paris (the ferris wheel), Moulin Rouge, the red light district, Sacre Coeur, Artists’ square, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles. Yeah that’s a lot, and I’m only gonna talk about a few.

The Louvre

First off, the Louvre. Holy crap that thing is big. Dang. If you really wanna appreciate everything in it, yeah one day is not enough. Now, if you know nothing about art, audio guides help. Especially when you’re looking at the Mona Lisa, amidst all the people pushing just to take a picture, and you’re looking at this painting and thinking “Okaaaaaay……why…….I don’t get it….”. No, really, the audio guides help. And the Louvre has high-tech audio guides. If you’ve heard about the Nintendo 3DS, yeah that’s what they use. It’s great really. It even has a map which helps you get around the museum. It’s about 5€, but believe me, it’s worth it. And yes, the Mona Lisa is a bit underwhelming. Especially since it’s across The Wedding at Cana, which is I think the largest painting in the museum. I was honestly more impressed by it. Plus, you also have to fight all these people to see the Mona Lisa.

Sacre Coeur is great. It’s a beautiful cathedral. Be sure to where some decent clothes because they’re really strict about that. And when the guy at the entrance says no pictures, YOU LISTEN. Some girl didn’t and got like a 5 minute lecture on how you’re not supposed to do that in sacred places and how if she were in like the Vatican or something, she wouldn’t do it. Or whatever. Just listen to them. Saves you a lot of time and embarrassment.

I loved the Artists’ square though. You can get a sketch of yourself done, and you can also buy some of the artists’ work. I wanted to

Notre Dame

buy one, but I wouldn’t know where to put it. One day though, when I have my own living space, Imma go back and buy one. :)

Notre Dame is also beautiful. Granted, I didn’t go inside (the line was freaking long), but the outside felt like a disney movie. ;) I literally started singing “Out There” when it came into view.

Moulin Rouge and the red light district. Well… nothing to say about that really. But when they say the every store on the street is a sex shop, they mean it.

And last, but definitely not least, the wonderful Eiffel Tower. It looks exactly like in the pictures, let me tell you. :P And after seeing the pictures so many times, well, it loses a bit of it’s amazingness. But, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t look great. It looks better at night time, when it’s

all lit up. And every hour after sunset, for about 5 minutes, it sparkles like a vampire from Twilight. It’s great actually. :P

And that’s where my Paris adventures ended, and I was sad to be leaving. All in all, Paris is a beautiful city. Not for the faint-hearted, mind you, especially on New Year’s, but beautiful nonetheless. I hope to come back one day. (Well, I stepped on point zero, so I should be coming back)

Paris looks better in black and white, by the way. I don’t know why. It just does.

And now back in Germany, I’ve been going to school again, which is better, I guess? I actually have to start doing things in school now, which I don’t know is a good thing. :P I was actually sick this weekend though, and I missed 2 days of school. How ’bout that.

A big thanks to my parents who helped make this happen, and Tita Heide and her family, and Steph too, for showing me around. :) Many many thaaank youuuuus. :D

Here’s where I end my blog. Hope you all had a great start to the new year. :)

Thanks for sticking with me. :)