(Enter Fauz, stage left) It was hard parting with the gorgeous Lagos' beaches. We (Sana, myself, Dwayne and Michelle) had decided to take the 15:30 bus from Lagos to Lisbon, but once we got to the beach, Lisbon got shafted and we missed that bus. We ended up taking the 17:00 bus after grabbing some lunch materials at Spar. We took a cab with yet another edgy cab driver who got all defensive when D-Wayne asked why he didn't take the shorter route to the station. We made it with 10 minutes to buy our tickets and get on the bus. After making and eating turkey wraps loaded with yummy and super cheap green olives (0.45 euros for a whole bag), we passed out on the bus and woke up about five minutes before we got to Lisbon. I'm glad I was able to sleep for most of the 4 hour bus ride, because the seats were not treating my cliff diving injury well.
Since it was already pretty late, we only had time to eat dinner. We ate some pasta at Barro Alto, an area of Lisbon that is well-known for it's bars and fado houses. There were hundreds of people crowding around the streets and people were sitting on the window ledges of bars drinking and socializing. During our stroll through the crowds, Dwayne was approached by sketchy drug dealers at least four times. It was amusing. We found out later that the drugs sold on open streets like that are fake... we didn't buy the drugs; we read a note on the bulletin board in our hostel. Just to clarify.
Wednesday, August 17th 2011
The next morning, we checked out the Belém tower, monastery, and one of many 'miraduoros' of Lisbon. After a quick lunch, Sana and I had to head to the airport and say goodbye to our new friends. I'm really glad we met Dwayne and Michelle, a crazy and cute couple who met in Venice a year ago. It was awesome partying with them (in my @ss) hearing their travel stories (they have countless) and learning to "live in the moment". We miss D-Wayne's strong Aussie accent and listening intently when trying to understand it.
Our ride to the airport was entertaining. We had a sweet cabby from Brazil who turned the music up for us when "Beautiful People" came on the radio. We fist-pumped as we passed the SanaLisboa Hotel (S, can't believe you forgot to mention that there's a hotel named after you in Lisboa). We got out of the cab at Terminal 2 and went in but didn't see our flight on the departures screen so we thought we were in the wrong terminal. We ran back out hoping our cabby was still there and he was. We jumped in the cab without taking our backpacks off (awkward positions) and he was nice enough to take us to the other terminal without running the meter. After all that, turns out our flight was in terminal 2. Fail. We took the airport shuttle back. Good waste of 20 minutes. That's how we roll. We cut it close but we made it and all was merry.
After landing at CDG airport and grabbing our bags, we had to find our way to our hotel. Without me asking for assistance, some guy told me to take a 20 euro bus into town and then take the metro to our hotel's location. Scrap that. We are so smart, we took the metro straight from the airport right to our hotel for a grand total of 9 euros. Beat that, random fellow. We ate large expensive salads for dinner that night and I spent 6 euros on a dipshit iced tea. Why do my smart decisions always get canceled out by stupid ones? Who cares, we were in Paris and I was ecstatic.
Thursday, August 18th 2011
No alarms were set that morning, thus leading to a late start. We needed that sleep. The maid came into the room maybe 3 times before we were ready to leave. Crêpes for breakfast (obviously) followed by a visit to the post office to send some mad delayed postcards (bought in Italy...oops). I wanted to see the Jardin de Luxembourg so we walked down St.Michel to find it. Along the way, we came across a university building so we took a little tour. "Mlle Moosa était ici!" We found the Jardin and hung around the pretty flowers and Palais for a bit. Next, we wanted to see Notre Dame, however, we crossed the pont des arts and we ended up at the Louvre. We are good. We didn't go inside because we wanted to save that for Friday. It was already early evening, and we could see the Eiffel tower in the distance so we figured we should just walk in its direction. But first we chilled out for a few minutes with the naked statues in Jardin des Tuilleries, and I ate a croissant. We met a cute little kid who told us not to eat the little cherries in the garden and showed us his awesome Eiffel tower toy.
It took about an hour to reach the tower. I had seen it before but was in awe all over again. It was still light so we lay down on the grass and enjoyed the view until dark. While waiting for the tower to light up, we met a father and son from Los Angeles (if you're reading this, it was nice meeting you and trying to hustle Mr.Sarcastic). All of the men selling wine/champagne were Indian and some would walk by us and say "Hey hey, India! Want to buy?" These encounters happened in various locations of Paris. "It's Canada, and no thanks." Top of the hour, 10pm, the Eiffel started to sparkle and it was amazing. And it was just as amazing every time it happened after that. We took the elevator to the second level of the tower and right when we got off, it sparkled again. And again. Yes, we stayed up there for an hour. Good times. While up there, we heard music coming from a party on the river. A far l'amore. We then clued in that it was past midnight (metro closes at 12:30) so we had to book it to the nearest station to go home. Once in our area, we ate a nutella banana crêpe. Had to be done.
Sparkling Eiffel:
Friday, August 19th 2011
Another late start. Maid hated us. We got some lunch to go and got on the metro to get to the Louvre. When we were exiting the metro, we were approached by a few girls who were apparently deaf/mute. One went to Sana and another to me. They had clipboards that said something about donations to aid the community of the "deaf and dumb". Clue 1. All of the donations listed on the sheet were round numbers above 10 euros. Clue 2. Since I knew nothing about this community or association or whatever, I didn't really know what to do. I thought maybe a euro would suffice. The girls were so sweet and smiley. I didn't want to write my real name or contact information, so I wrote random stuff down. The girl held my sandwich as I wrote. Before I could even pull a euro out of my bag, someone approached the group that was near us and the girl grabbed the clipboard and pen from me and all of them ran down the stairs into the metro. I was surprised and confused, but most of all, I was pissed that she took off with my sandwich. At least I didn't get scammed out of any money. Sana lost 2 euro in the process but it could have been worse. We are suckers. "It's the principle!"
The Louvre was okay. It was too much history for me. I like pretty landscape and scenic paintings and modern art. So it wasn't really my cup of tea. Sana felt the same way. We had also had our fair share of history and Christian art in Italy. We did get to see the Mona Lisa though, and that was pretty cool. Before heading to Palace JK, we stopped for some mochaccinos at the café where we saw some cute French waiters.
Palace JK was pretty small and very few people were there. We met one of Sana's dad's friends, Férid, and some people around our age who gave us tips on what to see and where to eat, etc. I was hoping to hear a Firman in French but they read it in English! C'est dommage. As we were leaving, Férid and his wife and daughter offered to drive us around the city for a bit and then drop us off at Champs d'Elysées. Of course we accepted. They were really nice to us and Férid pointed out so many sights during our drive that we hadn't seen yet. One pretty cool area was around Rivoli; lots of fancy stores. We also checked out Place Vendôme, which has a bunch of super expensive jewelry places.
After being dropped off at Champs, we began a search for a certain restaurant that served entrecôte (a type of steak),Le relais d'entrecôte. We found it, and it just happened to be closed until the 23rd. Fantastique. We found another restaurant with entrecôte and ate there. At midnight, I turned 24 and Sana bought me a rose from a man outside the restaurant. What a darling, eh? We had plans to party at a club later that night so she also made me a sign to wear: Kiss me, it's my B-DAY. That got a lot of attention. When we were passing the restaurant next-door, Pino Pizza, all of the waiters were discussing it. Awkward. We had some club options on Champs (suggestions from a cute waiter and people from JK), and we were looking for one in particular, called Duplexe. We asked a group of young people walked passed us on the street and they told us it was a bad choice! We were confused and they told us to just join them on their outing. Hang out with some Paris locals? Pourquoi pas? They were great and spoke both French and English so we all got some practice with our second languages. First we walked to a club privé, Les planches, even though they knew from the beginning we would all be rejected. After being rejected, we took a cab to another club near the Concorde, Palais Maillot. Apparently the guys of the group were ballers and we bypassed the line and were led straight to the VIP. It was bumpin'. First song we heard was A Far l'Amore; parfait. We partied till almost 6am and slept at 7. Les parisiens connaissent comment fêter!
Bob Sinclar - A Far l'Amore
Sleeping after sunrise pretty much means the day is shot, but I was okay with that. We started our day in the late afternoon with some complimentary, and what we deemed to be stereotypical, coconut ice cream and then ShOpPiNg. We went to Galeries Lafayette in search of a particular store we had seen earlier, Naf Naf. It reminded us of our friend at home. Nafcakes. The clothes also looked awesome. We spent pretty much all our time trying on the whole store, and I was happy to buy myself a birthday present from there.
In the evening we took a ride with Bateaux Mouches and got a view of the city from the River Seine. The wait to get on the boat was brutal. There was no line, just a mob of pushy people. I couldn't comprehend the animal-like behaviour. Like, we are all going to get on the boat. Chill. Out. My favourite part of the ride was waving at all the people chilling out alongside the river and on the bridges above. I don't know if it's weird, but I liked that when two random people are waving at each other it's like they are communicating just for those few seconds and it's special. Yeah, fine, I'm weird. I must mention that one guy threw garbage at our boat and two girls flashed us. Good times.
Sana and I also wanted to chill out by the river so we planned to go back there after dinner. It didn't happen. We realized we were pretty close to Champs so we decided to eat there. Once on Champs, it is hard to leave. We ate at Pino Pizza because we were craving pizza. Of course the waiters remembered me from the night before and referred to me as Kiss Me. Lovely. We spent the duration of our meal people-watching (we had seats facing Champs) and chatting up two particular waiters whom we referred to as Ronaldo and Bubblebutt. They were great and sang Joyeux Anniversaire for me. We chilled out at a bar, Charlie Birdy, enjoyed the good music, and dashed out. After a great triple-take on the street and small talk with some more Frenchies ("Vous avez des beaux pieds", "C'est dommage qu'elles partent demain"), we got into a cab to go back to the hotel. During the ride, we saw some police cars pull over near a park to stop a fight. Sana opened her window to get a better view and she definitely got some remnants of pepper spray in her eyes. Curiosity killed the cat. She had to keep her eyes closed the rest of the way home and couldn't open them until we got into our room.
We are currently on a train to our last stop: Amsterdam. I'm really going to miss Paris and I hope to go back soon. I loved everything about it, no AC on the subway being the exception.
A+
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