#euroricks, fin

you guys! we have arrived at the final installment of the #euroricks adventure. i, for one, could not be happier to quit writing these. actually, that's not true. i really have enjoyed going back through my journal entries, photographs, and my murky mind bank to retrieve enough memories to turn them into stories. it's good for my brain, i guess.

i last finished writing about our wednesday in paris, complete with torrential rains and late night pizza and wine until approximately two in the morning. i pick up at seven o'clock that very next (same?) day, when our alarms were screaming at us for the first time since we had set foot into the city of love. you see, every other day had been dedicated to living like parisians, sleeping as late as we pleased and staying up late to indulge. this day, however, consisted of a trip out to see the palace of versailles. it was roughly a 45-minute pilgrimage from our door to the palace gates, and we wanted to get a jump start on the crowds (per rick's recommendation, obv).

we actually managed to shower and leave - only ten minutes late! unprecedented! - and found ourselves on the c-train headed to the quaint town of versailles. once on the train, i realized that i had forgotten my camera. also worth noting: the forecast called for sunny weather in the 70s. no need for raincoats or scarves! because weather is super predictable. fast forward to train arrival. raining and in the 50s. how. fortunately, i had stashed a blanket for a hopeful picnic (ha!) and had learned my lesson about not having an umbrella the night before. we just used it as a good excuse for snugs in the cold.

so cold. so unprepared.

we took a detour to have breakfast at a hotel recommended by jett's family (who preceded our trip to europe a few weeks before) and our pal rick steves. as we walked into hotel ibis, we found ourselves a little bit underwhelmed as far as "continental breakfast" goes, but the concept of a hearty breakfast is absolutely lost on the french. if you're not sleeping until noon, you get pastries until the rest of them begin to stir. it clearly hadn't presented itself an issue up to this point and was not an issue for the rest of the trip because sleep. nonetheless, we managed to fill up on a variety of bread, cheese, jams, yogurt, pastries, and mediocre espresso (our standards were too high at this point). also all of the nutella. we could have done worse.

i took this in an alternate universe where trustworthy brie is a part of a hotel's continental breakfast spread

it continued to rain on us as we walked from breakfast to the château. our museum passes purchased earlier in the week gave us free entry into versailles and allowed us to skip the ticket line, which was worth the cash by itself. we were extra grateful on this day because it kept us out of the rain like the rest of the chumps in line. ha! we win! nothing too exciting went down while we did the tourist shuffle through the palace. i think the experience mainly left us eager to learn more history (because some wacky things went down there) and grateful for simple living. we stopped in the in-house angelina for some famed chocolat chaud and a taste of their signature pastry, le mont-blanc. it consisted of meringue, whipped cream, and vermicelli. alternatively, it looked like a brain and tasted like old melted candy.

hall of mirrors selfie

we walked back out into the brisk and cloudy day, realized that we were half an hour from the other spots we wanted to see on the grounds, and ended up renting a ridiculously overpriced golf cart. actually, that's a loose term. it looked like a golf cart, but it topped out at 3 mph, only followed an extremely strict route which was enforced by the fact that your golf cart would shut off and loudly reprimand you, and played cheesy muzak at an uncomfortably loud volume. so, wrapped up in our blanket, we tooted (the only descriptive term i could truthfully use here) through the gardens along the predetermined route. we drove past marie antoinette's estate but were too lazy to move so we remained one large burrito in our repurposed picnic blanket, uncontrollably giggling at our circumstances.

damn grand trianon, you fancy

as we drove up to the grand trianon, the sun was starting to reveal itself, warming us up enough to get out and explore. so we parked our "golf cart" and took a look around. there were way fewer people in here, making it much more desirable in my mind, so we took our time admiring the rooms and taking lots of iphone pictures (since my camera was chilling in our apartment). i really enjoyed taking our time walking around at our own pace and took many panoramic photographs as a result, apparently. on our way out, we noticed a food cart that was stocked with some mini-bottles of wine. we truly had no choice but to imbibe.

vino rouge, s'il vous plaît

we enjoyed our wine as we drove our cart back to the château (no one was harmed in the making of this memory), stopping every now and then to do donuts in the gravel at a breakneck crawl, then decided that was enough palace for us. we wandered into town to find some grub. apparently, there is a very short window of time allotted for lunching in versailles. most lunch places were in the process of shutting down, so we saw it as the perfect opportunity to try out european fast food. we popped into a place called quick and i ended up with something called the "very sweet cheese," which was a burger topped with brie and mozzarella, a handful of fries, and a san pellegrino. and it was 100% delicious. only you, france. only you.

very sweet cheese?

after getting slightly lost, we finally made our way back to the train station where we realized that we hadn't paid for our trip out there. i should probably mention that we only bought one métro pass for the two of us, much to my own trepidation, because RULES CONTROL THE FUN. jett had been either tailing me or cooper (or sometimes a stranger, not kidding wish i was) through the turnstiles, and honestly no one cared. we looked at the line to buy a ticket home and it was wrapped around the station. jett, being the slick badass turd that he is, took one look at me and gave me some type of nuanced signal like a freaking umpire, which i clearly didn't pick up on. he tailed someone and bam! he was through the turnstile. panic. dismay. fear! so much fear! i looked at him with despair and he motioned for me to follow. as i questioned my choice in life partner/criminal fate, i worked myself into the middle of an unsuspecting asian family and tried to sneak in with of them as they pushed their ticket into the slot. i was interrupted by the barrier slamming shut on my shoulders and the sound of my own stupidity echoing throughout the station and also my head. not smooth. not one fraction of smooth within me. i gathered up the broken pieces of my pride and ran onto the train, waiting for the gestapo to arrest me (yes, i know that's the wrong country but clearly they were going to call in the big guns for me). i made it, for those keeping score. i spent the next forty five minutes telling jett off writing in my journal on the train ride home.

that night, we had a wonderful date night at a restaurant i happened upon and managed to secure reservations for just a day in advance. apparently, it books up weeks, if not months, ahead of time. don't ask me how we pulled that off. i got to dress up a little in some of the new digs i bought the day before and put on some lipstick to help me feel like a girl. dressing out of the same carry-on for two weeks made me feel a little bit dumpy, so i certainly enjoyed wearing a skirt and a different pair of shoes. we walked a short ten minutes, bumping into a little of that beloved paris rain on the way, until we found ourselves standing outside of les papilles.

it looked a little kitchy on the outside, but inside revealed itself to be packed full of closely seated patrons. the draw of this place was the fixed menu. there was a pre-determined four-course menu with a fixed price, so there was no interpretation of the menu/trying to choose which delightful french delicacy to try. just sit down and be fed. it had me at hello. we were seated next to an australian couple in their 60s who were just far enough into their bottle of wine to be very chatty. actually, she and jett were hamming it up and her husband and i were just giving each other apologetic and sympathetic eyes.

soup so good it made you weep

alright back to the important things: noms. the maître d' came to our table and helped us choose a wine from the floor-to-ceiling shelves that spanned the entire length of the restaurant. we settled on whatever it was he was telling us to get because that's his jam and not so much ours. all i know is it was a) red and b) delicious. shortly after came our first course (pictured above), which i will describe to you in delicious detail because i can: a velvety cream of celery soup with olive oil, celery and curry chutney, croutons, bacon, chives, and fried parsley. we essentially licked that tureen clean. the main course was next: braised leg of lamb served in a copper pot with vegetables, garlic confit, new onions, and thyme. there was a cheese course next: goat cheese and a black olive tapenade. the final course was, of course, dessert: strawberries served with panna cotta. there is no photographic evidence of the last two courses (gasp!) because i don't have that much self-restraint (oh okay, well we knew that).

evidence concludes that i blacked out after this was placed in front of me

filled to the brim, high on atmosphere, and warm with wine, we slothed our way back to our apartment, where we proceeded to sleep for the next twelve days.

the next day, our final day in paris, began as any other: fresh pastries from the boulangerie down the street. cooper came up to the apartment for mimosas and treats as we mapped out our itinerary for the day, ensuring that we didn't accidentally look over any of our "musts" for the city. we took off to montmarte and laid our fate in the hands of cooper that day and let him lead us around instead of keeping my nose pressed to the center of rick steves' guide to breathing. big step for me. just throwing that out there. not surprisingly, cooper was the perfect guide for our final day as #euroricks.

we hopped off the métro near moulin rouge so i could say i saw moulin rouge. i am disappointed to say there was no ewan mcgregor present performing the elephant love medley as i assumed he would be. better luck next time. dreams dashed, i gather myself enough to get a total of one lousy photo before we made our way to our next destination: café des deux moulins, the café heavily featured in audrey tatou's amélie. i am a little bit obsessed with all things celebrity/pop culture, so i found myself geeking out once inside. we were seated at a table that gave us a good people-watching (read: asian tourist-watching) view and gave me plenty of angles to gawk through my camera lens.

sippin' on cafe au lait

after we enjoyed our beverages, we began our walk to sacré-coeur. we stopped at le mur des je t'aime along the way to snap a few must-have photos and elicit a round of "awwwwws" from the surrounding patrons. *pats self on back* i didn't even know this wall existed, but it says "i love you" in 250 different languages, so i was obviously a fan. so much so that it was dangerously close to being this year's obnoxious christmas card.

it's okay if you "aww" a little bit

we continued our journey up to sacré-coeur, passing through a bohemian street market and simultaneously stuffing our faces with nutella crêpes. once we arrived, we took a quick little tour inside. we were basically shushed nonstop, but it was absolutely beautiful inside. even better was the panoramic view from the top of the steps. i hurriedly took photos because the boys told me about all the possible scam artists i would run into while there, and i am a paranoid little child. we managed to side-step these hazards and score a solid selfie instead.

paris is somehow more beautiful when gray

we sifted through some souvenir shops on our way back down the hill, picking up some black and white prints of popular paris establishments and a music box that played a lovely portion of la valse d'amélie. two euro for one of my favorite souvenirs? i'll take it. we made our way back through the latin quarter to stop and grab some gyros (with french fries IN THE SANDWICH OH THE HUMANITY) and snagged a spot on some steps along the bank of the seine to stop and enjoy. jett also took this opportunity to throw bread at pigeons, which led to a near-disaster. let's not go back there. i haven't spent enough time talking that one through in therapy.

our next super-touristy spot was pont des arts, the pedestrian bridge covered in padlocks to signify a padlock's lifetime worth of love. while it's a precious notion, it's basically destroying the bridge's foundation because padlocks are heavy, man. as stupid americans who care nothing for parisian architecture, we decided we needed to play along and add our lock to signify our love, tossing the key into the seine. (fun fact: they added glass panels to the bridge to prevent any more locks from being added, so phew!)

black masterlock = j + m 4 ever

because it had been approximately forty minutes since our last break, we decided to step onto a small boat that doubled as a café docked along the riverbank. we drank what can only be described as coffee-flavored liquid turd and discussed our plans for the rest of the evening. we came up with the following: drink champagne until it's time to eat dinner which will be followed by an additional two bottles of champagne. best plans ever.

stopping at a hobby shop for jett (where he nerded out over some adventure time comics in french) and a jewelry shop for mal (where i nerded out over some cameo-adorned earrings from a local designer) along the way, we planted back at cooper's place to skype-meet cooper's man and, of course, have some more mimosas. 

our final meal in paris was nothing shy of everything you could want in your final meal in paris. we sat at a table in the le chant voyelles by the window, ordered essentially everything on the menu from a snobby waiter, and drank bottles of wine of while recounting our favorite moments from the week together. that evening i gorged on the following: escargots, foie gras, magret du canard, crème brûlée, and espresso. we ordered so much food that they even brought us out a complimentary, albeit shitty, bottle of champagne as an ending note. 

as previously mentioned

our trip and evening ended by staying up all night playing lords of scotland while continuing our champagne consumption in our apartment. i meeeeean, we went out and partied hard because paris. you can take the dorks out of america, but you can't take the american out of the dorks. wait what?

such beautiful and happy memories associated with this trip. thanks for letting me air it out over the interwebz, guys. remember: eat well and travel often. xo.

#euroricks, partie cinq

bet you guys already forgot i went to europe, huh? i figured it was time to finish up my trip blogs (and by that i mean cooper won't leave me alone until i write and publish these posts).

as previously mentioned (go back and read the other entries right now if you haven't. i'll wait… k i'm bored we'll go on without you for now), our first two days in paris were very busy and absolute perfection and packed full of sightseeing and wine. so busy, in fact, that we slept until about eleven the next morning. exactly none of us were upset about that. so our morning started off with our grabbing lunch at a sandwich shop that had an economically-friendly student lunch special just waiting to be taken advantage of. we each got a sandwich (a baguette stuffed full of ham and cheese, of course), a pastry (pain au lait au sucre, anyone?), and a drink (san pellegrino all day every day) for a measly five euro fifty. we carried our spoils to a nearby churchyard and sat on the benches eating/throwing bread at the pigeons. the presiding nuns thought we were 100% hoodrat-worthy.

our only real destination on tuesday was the musée d'orsay. we spent a healthy bit of time standing outside in the rain in an ungodly queue and drinking coffee that tasted only like cardboard and nothing else while various peddlers yelled "UMBRELLA?!?" once per two seconds. probably my favorite hour of the entire #euroricks adventure. (you'll get there.) once we finally made it to the promised land, we were in love.

inside musée d'orsay

the musée d'orsay is located in an old train station that was built in 1898 for the world fair. it is particularly famous for its extensive impressionist and post-impressionist collection - lots of monet, renoir, manet, cézanne, van gogh, picasso, etc. nbd. the crowds were thick so we all fanned out and squeezed through the masses at our own pace. some of the paintings i almost ran past, while others made me "that girl" that won't quit standing directly in front of a piece. i won't go on about it, because you get it, but i will say that seeing monet's "woman with a parasol" and manet's "olympia" were two moments of sheer delight.

as if telling time from the front wasn't difficult enough

the most important part of our time at musée d'orsay was undoubtedly the pseudo nap we took in the cloud-like circular couches beneath this clock. pretty sure my feet actually sang a song. after an ample amount of time with the crowds and art, we decided to take our talents to a café in the marias district to refuel and watch the rain fall. it was here that i finally got a taste of that famous french waiter attitude. he was so disinterested in our presence that we almost apologized. the café au lait that ended up in my possession was one of the best i had in paris, but jett ended up with a beer that tasted like a glass of warm cat urine so we bailed at our first chance.

cafe au lait, not the cat urine beer

we found ourselves staring down the barrel of another night in paris, and cooper had just the spot for us to visit and feel like we were actual aliens from another reality. we then proceeded to a ghetto conservation museum right in the heart of paris and it was one of the most unusual experiences of my life. we walked down an alley and into a dank hallway where we made a mandatory "donation" to receive our hand stamps, then were ushered into a large greenhouse that was bumpin' some african jams. there were little clusters of vintage couches and armchairs and coffee tables, remnants of an old barber shop, a thrifty library, a dance floor, a cafeteria-style food station, and a big wooden bar featuring a few beers on tap and a handful of signature cocktails. welcome to le comptior général, brain. don't even try to understand what's happening here. i was too awestruck (not sure if that's the right word here) to take a photo, so i found this one on the internet instead. thanks, internet!

this. except with one trillion people inside.

the only thing i didn't love about this haunt was the lack of direction. after walking back and forth between this room and another room that was set up like a classroom an almost psychotic amount of times, we finally sidled up to the bar and ordered a pitcher of a ginger-rum house special: heavy on the ginger, heavy on the rum. we awkwardly leaned against the bar and assumed our role as vultures, preying for (GET IT, GUYS?) a chance to snag a place to park. the patrons were bohemian parisian to a t, so my people watching game was on. i kept thinking i looked so out of place until i realized that i was but a hazy background to the impossibly cool crowd i stood among. eventually, we managed to collect a miscellany of armchairs to accommodate two out of our three, so we took turns being comfortable and waited for the dinner announcement to be made. they serve 3-4 menu options each night, so we were hoping for something exotic to satiate.

i drink when i feel uncomfortable

unfortunately, once the menu was disclosed, everything started to look subpar and overpriced, so we ultimately decided to leave our tiny haven and seek out some five euro kebabs instead. we wandered down the street until we found an eligible place to occupy and nom on questionable meat stuffs. they swear to allah it was lamb but i have some deeply rooted doubts about the matter. we stuffed our faces and split ways, cooper heading back to meet up with friends at comptoir général and the ricks team leaving to find their way home via métro (with intensive directions from cooper, of course).

our metro stop

each day began in largely the same fashion: sleeping until late morning, waking up and throwing open our double french doors that led to the plant-covered balcony overlooking our street, making a trip to the boulangerie on the corner of rue cardinal lemoine and rue monge. we took our time getting ready, sipping on tea and chewing on the pâtesserie du jour. this particular day found us meeting cooper outside our apartment and hopping on the métro toward the opera and some shopping plazas. we stopped and had lunch on a busy street at the first cafe we found, ordering croque madames (or variations on the theme) and sipping espresso. we considered a dine and dash because we waited thirty minutes for our check, but since cooper almost had a panic attack at the mere thought, that one remains on the bucket list! (aren't you proud of me, mom?)

when in doubt, croque madame

we, and i use that term loosely, decided it was time for mal to get her shopping on. we stopped at mango and h&m before hitting the motherload at galleria lafayette, a five-story department store that i am fairly certain was modeled after a recurring dream i have. it was here that jett and cooper made a regrettable choice. they wanted to go to the fifth floor to have ice cream at mcdonalds and i was a) in a large parisian department store and therefore b) not interested in an american-fast-food-chain-lactose-induced-bellyache, however tempting. so they sent me off to explore, and that i did.

galleria lafayette

fast forward one hour. jett and cooper, after realizing they set me loose like a wild animal without a working cell phone, are frantically searching throughout two stories of mini-shops while i am skipping through kate spade, topshop, zara, etc. jett finally found me wide-eyed and loaded down with approximately forty items of clothing. we narrowed my choices down and i managed to only purchase a skirt, two tops, and a new pair of shoes. i called it a grand success, cooper called me the hide-and-seek master extraordinaire. potato, potahto.

my shopping adventure left us with little time to spare to get to musée l'orangerie before closing time.   we waited outside for our turn, then jaws dropped as we walked into the first of the two rooms featuring monet's masterpiece replication of the water lilies in his garden. up close, it looked nonsensical, but as you stepped back to take in the entire piece, you felt like you were standing in his garden at giverny. the rooms were designed specifically for the exhibit with large skylights for natural lighting and pond-shaped rooms to contain the two installations. while i drooled on myself with all the other tourists, jett and cooper's chief focus became taking contraband photos. they did nail it, in their defense.

don't tell anyone in paris that we have this photo

we had one last museum on the agenda that evening: the louvre. but first! food and espresso. we headed through the jardin de tuileries and landed in the coolest coffee spot of all time called anti-cafe. you paid an hourly rate to sit, enjoy free wifi, drink all the coffee and eat all the snacks you could physically make yourself consume. we posted up with our lattés and nutella toast (and peanuts and cake and biscotti and everything else ever) and played uno while we re-charged. i wanted to live there but alas, paris awaited.

it's true what they say: paris is somehow more beautiful in the rain

and so we headed to our final destination. the clouds were dense and the skies were gray as we made our way toward the famous pyramid. the crowd level was low since we went late at night, so we were able to cover quite a bit of ground in the few hours we were there. we checked our bags and managed to consolidate all of my shopping swag into our bags (which was a christmas miracle, for the record) so we could explore without feeling like pack mules. with our rick steves guide in hand, we set off toward the greek statues, making our way through the apollo gallery and into the medieval world before arriving at the italian-renaissance-packed grand gallery.

at last, it was time to see the mona lisa! i have heard several times how unimpressive she was in real life. maybe part of it was due to the fact that the room was essentially empty compared to what it normally contains (i.e. ten thousand asians), but i was neither disappointed nor underwhelmed. i was able to stand right up in front and found myself pretty amazed. though i will say we were equally entertained by the enormous veronese painting on the opposite wall depicting their adaptation of the wedding at which jesus turned water to wine. it was like a where's waldo painting. we took some photos, including this three man selfie (four including mona), then moved onward to check out the da vinci, raphael, and michaelangelo masterpieces back out in the grand gallery. swoon.

very flattering shot

we wandered a little while longer before ending up in cooper's favorite area packed full of marble statues and such. it was here that the "guards" started corralling us out of exhibits and back toward the glass pyramid so they could, presumably, get their asses home. here's the deal: there was a torrential downpour happening outside. these were not ideal times to be leaving an area with a roof over your head. we held on as long as we could inside, but the attendants were actually starting to physically push people through the revolving doors.

i felt like i was in that scene in titanic where jack and rose are posted up on the front of the ship, its highest point as it was sinking into the atlantic, holding on to one another and talking strategy on how to not drown. we stood there, pressed into the glass walls of the pyramid, until woosh! out the revolving door and into the arms of the mighty atlantic! (okay, so it was just rain… work with me) what was once the majestic courtyard of the louvre became the expansive divide we had to survive to get to our lifeboat: the métro. the wind and rain were sweeping sideways so intensely that we had to run diagonally to be able to propel ourselves forward. that part is not an exaggeration.

after what felt like seventeen solid minutes of running, we found brief shelter in a tunnel shared by many fellow pedestrians and passing cars alike. the tunnel was beginning to flood and the tidal waves created by the vehicular passersby were hardly a solace, so we broke free and sprinted the few blocks to our métro stop, finally safe from the mother of all storms. amazingly enough, the three of us seemed to be the only ones in the entire public transit system that looked like we'd been thrown into a pool. stupid americans. i think there is something magical about the nondescript black umbrella carried by every parisian. could've sworn i saw one girl pull it out of her bra. i digress.

so much fly

once we were back in our neighborhood, we were searching for food when we realized we were slowly growing the we-are-lost-so-you-should-probably-offer-to-help-us-then-really-rob-and-probably-kill-us bulls eyes on our backs. we quickly ducked into a sweet little pizza place out of hanger and desperation and were pleasantly surprised to find a friendly couple making delicious pies. we shotgunned both a pizza and a bottle of wine in record time before returning back home to play cards and maybe have more wine...

home turf (view from our balcony)

just one final entry to go! thanks for following along, mom and cooper. 

#euroricks, partie quatre

bonjour! i am doing my best to round up the memories of the final leg of our european adventure. my last entry left us waiting for the eurostar train that would take us into paris, so i suppose i'll just pick up right there.

after a sweaty two hour endeavor across the border, we pulled into gare du nord in just enough time to realize that we had miscommunicated with cooper, leaving him with the wrong time to meet us, while simultaneously losing our portable wi-fi signal (little did we know it would never return). we gathered our teeny little suitcases and disembarked onto the platform with an unsure idea about what would happen next. also available only by wi-fi signal: the address of our next home. good times.

wouldn't you know that cooper had re-read old messages i had sent in a not-so-rare fit of ocd to find our train number and the correct arrival time. so he was there to greet us when we arrived, which was a beautiful change from the past several days. no sight in the entirety of the universe is sweeter than that of a familiar face. especially a face that speaks the native language of the country you're visiting. coop led us onto a creaky old train, profusely apologizing as though he alone were responsible for this RER train, that led us into the 5th arrondissement where our apartment was located. we met up with our host's mom (who's name translates into "small potato" so i think her parents hate her) at our place at 61 rue du cardinal. once inside the entry, there was a small spiral staircase leading up to the fourth floor and also one tiny and super-claustrophobic elevator. i was, non-consensually if i may, nominated to ride up four flights with all of the suitcases in all of the tiniest of spaces ever in all of the history of all elevators ever. thinking wistfully upon benzodiazepines, i totally nailed those traumatic thirty seconds of my life.

courtesy of airbnb

pomme (aka the potato woman) showed us into our newest home. the perfect little parisian apartment, it consisted of a kitchen/entry/dining area/bathroom and one bedroom where the walls were lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves and dotted with quirky pieces of art. i will never forget the blissful breeze that streamed through the open kitchen window from the double doors in the bedroom that opened onto a balcony overlooking the street. some days it was an enabler of naps, some days it dried our freshly laundered clothes, and some days it served as a gentle reminder that we were living the dream in iconic paris.

doing laundry is cooler in paris

woof. i just got lost for a second. where were we? after we checked in to our place, we walked along the rue mouffetard until we ducked into a coffee shop for une noisette or deux and settled into a corner booth for some overdue conversation. also, they served us an entire bottle of water and i almost cried. remember how i said europeans are chronically dehydrated thus making simple tap water the nectar of the gods? still true. we talked and laughed and got to be annoying americans while we planned the rest of our day. we made dinner reservations. for 8:30. which was so late for us. and so early for cooper. 8:30 WAS AN EARLY DINNER, YOU GUYS. DO YOU HEAR ME? i swear. anyway, we went off for a walk and explored the fifth and sixth arrondissements and through the beautiful luxembourg gardens. we crossed the pont neuf ("the new bridge") which is, of course, the oldest bridge in paris. we walked down the steps to the river seine and took in the scenery. the seine! what!

sunny seine

after walking around the outside of notre-dame, we finally made our way over to le petit leon for our first taste of parisian cuisine! it was a quiet, empty bistro with large, open windows and a friendly waiter. "que voulez-vous pour le dîner?" he said. i looked at him, bewildered, as if he had asked me the meaning of life. jett didn't miss a beat, so he and cooper took the reigns and helped me order a three-course meal. i won't describe every meal in detail (yes i probably will), but this one had me at hello. it opened with briques de chèvre au miel, followed strongly by boeuf avec pomme de terre en purée à l'échalote, and complete, and completed by moelleux au chocolat coeur caramel. all accompanied by one to two bottles of vin rouge. man, my life sure is rough!

i think i will go back and re-read that paragraph next time i am feeling sorry for myself. after dinner we waddled back to cooper's home to drink more wine and check out his living quarters. though assuredly compact, cooper's place was happy and bright and cozy. you could see the eiffel tower from his window! plus he had some lovely japanese décor that stirred up just the right amount of nostalgia for the last time he opened up his home to us in a foreign land. after a long day of travel, exploration, and gluttony, cooper walked us back home like a proper gentleman so we could sleep it off and do it all again tomorrow.

don't stop reading now. these are about to make their way into the story.

monday began our first full day in paris and it was a) perfect and b) the busiest day in history. we wanted to get an early start on the day, so naturally we overslept. when in paris, sleep as the parisians do. seeing as this was day ten of our trip and we had only enough clothes to fit into a carryon, the stink factor was winning. we put our worst outfits on, shoved everything else into tote bags, and trekked down the street to get some laundry done. we accidentally chose the largest, most expensive washers and ended up paying about three times more than we should have, but i would have paid eight million euro for a clean pair of pants, man.

once we were clean human beings and our pigpen-esque cloud had lifted, we met up with cooper and headed to his favorite crêpe place for lunch. both delicious and a bargain, we ate our jambon et fromage crêpes, followed by nutella crêpes, and sipped on coca-cola light for only five euro a piece. don't tell me you can't eat cheap in europe. don't do it. i will send you endless photos of crêpes.

be in my life forever, nutella crêpe

we walked over to notre-dame to tour the cathedral. it was unbelievably vast and ornate. such a breath-taking experience! once outside, we ran into a construction zone to tap our toes onto zero point (like i was just going to stare at it from a distance?), ensuring our return to the city of love. then we circled the building and looked at the gargoyles and the gaggles of tourists trying to find the front entrance. much beauty. so wow. very paris.

no justice done with this photo

as we headed to our next destination, we strolled along and weaved in and out of pet shops to see puppies and kittens and BUNNIES SNUGGLING WITH GUINEA PIGS (that was a real thing). since it had been about an hour since our last indulgence, we decided it was time to re-fuel at a café along the seine, embarrass cooper by ordering iced coffees, and enjoy the people-watching for a bit. we made it over to sainte-chapelle and waited in line for a bit before they announced that the doors were closing because the wind was kicking up too much dust. they didn't want it getting to the stained glass. womp womp. we did get to witness an angry parisian yelling into nothingness about her disdain for the situation. travel tip #482: always have a translator for angry parisians yelling into nothingness.

the cafe frappé and the creeper

our next place of interest was the louvre, though today's itinerary only included a look around the outside. we walked up to the pyramid and took a few must-haves before strolling through the jardin du tuilleries on our way to champs-elysées. it was essentially a straight shot from the louvre to the arc de triomphe, so we took our time taking in the sights and sounds of the gardens and the lazy parisians hanging about in them.

jardin du tuilleries

i went from sophisticated (alright that's a stretch) adult to giddy little school girl in 0.3 seconds as we hit the beginning of champs-elysées. we walked paris' grand avenue, peering into shop windows of little boutiques and straight up gawking at the five-story louis vuitton mothership. i audibly squealed when i spotted ladurée. the boys let me go inside and pick out eight lovely macarons to put in a pretty little box and skip away with: pistachio, orange blossom, salted caramel, coffee, red fruit, rose, strawberry mint, and framboise. a moment of silence for the macarons, s'il vous plaît. 

where you at, blair waldorf?

since ladurée emptied our shallow pockets, we decided to head to our final destination of the evening: la tour eiffel. we took the metro to trocadéro and walked up by the opera to catch a picture perfect view of her majesty. seeing something that iconic standing in front of you is oddly humbling and difficult to explain (which is why you should go see things for yourself!). we took lots of pictures and then back tracked a bit in search of a grocery store to supply our perfect picnic.

isn't she lovely?

most of our time in paris was undecided. we really wanted to play as the parisians do and see where the wind (and cooper) blew us each day. but this eiffel tower picnic has been in the works since day one, my friends. players: jett, cooper, mal. supplies: fresh chèvre and brie, salami and other unidentified sliced meats, a bottle of wine (okay this time there were three), yummy blueberries and juicy peaches, a box of ladurée macarons, and a freshly baked baguette. oh! how perfect you were, picnic. also in the game plan was to find the perfect picnic blanket in london as a souvenir to use under the eiffel tower so it could brag to all the other throw blankets when it got home. we gathered our bounty and took it to the lawn facing the tower and posted up in the shade. i pulled the aforementioned blanket out of the backpack in which it had been hauled and stuffed ALL DAY.

perfection, n'est pas?

(this would be the perfect time to ask jett about his bathroom story. spoiler alert: he suffered greatly while cooper and i finished off the first bottle of wine. you'll have to ask him.)

wine teef

this night was my very favorite part of our entire trip to europe. we sat for hours eating and drinking and hunting for more wine and buying tacky touristy scarves for warmth. we watched the sun go down and the darkness take over the city while we waited for her to light up and sparkle at ten o'clock. bliss, i tell you. pure bliss. we walked up underneath the tower after a few hours had passed, sneaked a kiss or two (we left cooper out of that, don't worry), then were off to find more wine to pass the rest of the night away at the apartment. 

bonne nuit!

since our first two days in paris were so lovely and eventful, i think i will take a break here and finish the rest of the adventure soon. hope you are enjoying reading these at least a fraction of how much i am loving revisiting the stories.

#euroricks, part three

today i will share the second half of our london experience with you. part of it is pretty dorky, so if you're going to judge me on that a) quit reading and b) quit judging people that's a bad habit.

i left off just before telling you about my favorite day of our trip. this is the day we took a train from euston to watford junction, hopped on the tackiest double decker of all time, and arrived at the warner bros. studio tour of the harry potter dynasty. can i just? if you don't know this already (and you do, i know you do), jett and i are potterheads. jett read them as they came out because he's a cool kid, and i read them during a dark season of my life and they ripped me out of the depths and into a whole new world. we have taken a couple of trips to the wizarding world of harry potter - and most certainly are ready to go back since diagon alley is about to open woop woop - but this was the real deal. warner bros. has seized the money-making opportunity to turn the studios where the majority of the harry potter films were created. that was absolutely the first part of our trip that we planned, so the excitement was strong, man.

excited enough to precariously balance my camera on a rounded pole

out of respect for you and your loved ones, i will limit myself here. but i am still going to show off a few pictures and relive it while i document. the tour began in the great hall. THE GREAT HALL. the actual great hall. i was totally composed. did not tear up like at all. they had all sorts of props set up around the room and the costumes worn by the hogwarts professors were lined up at the top of the room. i took 27,000 photos and pushed one or twelve children. like physically pushed them. after we nerded out in there for a bit, they pried our fingers off the door jambs and moved us into the next area. from here, the rest of the tour was self-guided so we got to take our time checking everything out. there were almost thirty different "stations" set up that you could wander to. some were the actually sets and some were highlighting things like costume design and special effects. i could go on for days about this so i will show you pictures of my top three things i was most excited to see. okay top five.

so there was dumbledore's office including the pensieve (which is my favorite literary creation of all time) and the sorting hat and the sword of gryffindor.

dumbledore's office

then all of the character's wands were in one shiny display case. i decided that i would be super pissed if i were harry potter and then they took my wand from me for a studio tour. i digress.

all of the wands in one place

next was the gryffindor common room. this is a picture of the fireplace that sirius used to talk to harry in the goblet of fire. alas, no face in the coals.

GRRRRRRYFFINDOR!

they had a few of the walls from the ministry of magic's lobby. this was probably my favorite set in the films and it was cool to see how huge the walls were! they also had the spooky "magic is might" statue that stood in the middle of the fountain in the seventh film. i would like to add that jett is standing over my shoulder drinking from a ministry of magic mug right now. carry on.

ministry of magic

last and probably the coolest was seeing the potions classroom. it was changed a lot throughout the series based on how much action was going down in there, but this was the final set that they created for the half-blood prince. it was eerie!

potions classroom, photobomb by severus snape

the tour took us outside to see the knight bus, #4 privet drive, james and lily's house in godric's hollow, and a part of the bridge to hogwarts that we got to walk through. then we went back inside to see all kinds of props and drawings and finally to see the giant hogwarts model that was used to film all of the aerial shots. all in all, i think the nerd factor was off the charts, but we are equally ridiculous about this particular thing so it was amazing. we also picked up a copy of harry potter and the philosopher's stone from the gift shop and it might be my favorite souvenir. and now i want to re-read all the books.

THIS IS THE PLACE TO START READING AGAIN IF YOU ARE SCROLLING THROUGH THE THICKNESS OF THE HARRY POTTER FANDOM.

fast forwarding back to london, we took the tube to mansion house and crossed the very cool millennium bridge with a great view of st. paul's cathedral behind us and the majesty of the tate modern before us. this was the museum i was most looking forward to for some reason (gasp, not the louvre?!) so this was shaping up to be the best day of my life so far. we headed straight to the top floor's restaurant that boasts some beautiful views of the thames. they were offering an afternoon tea service so we decided to have a seat and partake. this was something that i was really wanting to do while in london and i was happy to check it from my bucket list. we each had our own pot of tea along with a three-tiered tea stand full of sweet and savory treats including macarons, tiny cakes, scones, and inexplicably delightful finger sandwiches.

why are these little sandwiches so appealing?

we quickly demolished (i wish i could use daintier verbiage here. alas.) everything on our table, teacups and all, and then headed down to the lower levels to check out some artwork. there is only so much one can say about a visit to an art museum, but it was my first time seeing a picasso in real life (that i remember at least) and i cried a little bit. there was also quite a bit of salvador dali's work that was so intriguing. jett was eating it up.

after a couple of hours of "mm yes" and "how interesting" and "this one makes me feel like springtime on the inside" and other things that curators mutter, we bowed out of the tate and headed toward our dinner reservation at the electric diner. we were a bit late for our reservation, so they seated us at a bar overlooking the grill so we could watch the cooks sneeze into our food while we were waiting on it. just kidding. they sneezed in the back. we ordered some delightfully delicious food - a roast beef sandwich with a horseradish sauce that was everything i want in life ever for me and a larger than life double cheeseburger for jett - and tried a few local beers and ciders in the mean time. i got to try a beer that was brewed a block or two away from the house we stayed in! we had a blast talking to the cooks and our waitress and just enjoyed the humming sound of drunk brits yelling over fellow drunk brits. brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

behold: brilliance on a plate

after dinner, we walked all of eight feet to our next destination: the electric cinema. you guys. this is what heaven is like. i promise you that. we walked into a vintage-esque cinema complete with fresh cakes and adult beverages served from a bar at the back of the room and a charmingly lamplit seating area filled with high quality leather armchairs for each guest. there were tables in between each chair and a personal ottoman for you to rest your stinky feet on. a cashmere blanket was provided for each guest. i have no idea why i am not still there right now. we bought our tickets to see godzilla several months in advance and what a good idea it turned out to be! you know it's a good sign when the locals are asking you how you heard about this place.

absolutely living the life

for those wondering, seeing godzilla in 3D was shockingly good. we ended that night with a much recommended ride home with one of london's famous cabbies. these guys know their stuff! we were about a thirty minute drive away from our flat, so we were pretty grateful to not be on a night bus. our cabbie gave us history on everything we drove past and told us some fun stories about other people he had hauled around. after that exhaustingly satisfying day, we crashed hard once we got back home.

our final day in london found us exploring the portobello road market on a saturday morning. there were blocks and blocks of street vendors selling everything from antiques to leather purses to tacky tourist uniforms to falafel. we slowly wandered along the street, weaving in and out of shops and thumbing through racks of crap hoping to find some treasures. once we got tired/ran out of money, we stopped for some tapas at la bodega right on portobello.  we snacked on calamari rings and prawn croquettes and chorizo and meatballs and all kinds of things until we became too full to keep our eyes open.

fruit stand at portobello market

after a long morning of shopping on portobello, the natural choice was to move to oxford street and do some more shopping. we stopped at selfridge's, an enormous department store, and checked out five levels of electronics, make up, clothes, home goods, and everything in between. i found a cath kitson booth out of which jett had to physically remove my body. but not before i snagged a really cute blanket (that will later make an appearance at the eiffel tower). nailed it. we went up to the top floor and geeked out over all the cool food stuffs they had to offer then got a little sad when we saw the "american" aisle full of teddy grahams and boxed mac and cheese. pity.

we headed back to the flat to freshen up aka nap before heading out for dinner. we decided to spend our final evening exploring bermondsey. per our host's recommendation, we walked a short ten minutes to a neat little pub called the woolpack that was full of twenty somethings watching rugby. we headed up a tight spiral staircase to an empty-ish room and cozied up in the corner with a couple of pints and some fish and chips to end the trip correctly.

look! locals! watching rugby! drinking pints!

after dinner we took the long way home and came across a block party/neighborhood market that was happening. there were several rows of booths filled with freshly cooked food, tempting sweets, and homemade crafts. of course i was starting to feel nostalgic so i snagged a few postcards and trinkets while jett drooled over all the food offerings. we were drawn like moths to a flame to a liquid nitrogen ice cream bar. you could pick your flavors in liquid form, then they would use liquid nitrogen to turn it into ice cream. IT WAS SO COOL. probably not great for me but whatev. i got a peanut butter popcorn nutella concoction that was just as good as it sounds.

notice the "please do not remove from pub" shirt

after the scientifically advanced frozen treat, we decided london could offer us nothing more. after one more night in our blissful little flat, we headed back to st. pancras international, taking a brief detour to king's cross for a few platform 9 and 3/4 pictures, and waited for the eurostar that would take us to our final destination: paris.

that leaves us at our stopping point. stay tuned if you want to hear about how much wine we drank with cooper in paris!