Paris it's been fun.

The last week has been super interesting and busy. I left for Paris on Thursday, but Wednesday Mal and I explored Amsterdam for the day. We took the metro in and wandered around towards museumplein (where all the museums are, go figure) and went to a cute lil cafe that has a view of the city. Then we went to this thing called house of bols. It's a liquor made in Amsterdam originally that's like gin, but the OG of gin, not like the English version. We toured around the place learning about the flavors and how's it's made. It was super cool. I enjoyed it a looot! Since the euro cup was still on since Sunday, Spain played Portugal in the semi finals. All of Europe has been nuts watching the games, so it's been an experience also being here and watching them even though I'm not in a country participating anymore. We went to a bar Mallory likes to watch the game and have some drinks. Man does Europe loooooveee their beer. It was so fun to watch and see Spain win. There was a bunch of spanish people we were sitting next to so we kinda had to root for espanaaaa.

The next day I had to catch a flight to Paris! I met my aunt Lisa there since he was only in London it was a perfect meet up. I got there earlier than she did so I took the train to our hotel which incidentally was right next to the moulin rouge. The train was miserable getting to the hotel too. It was hot and crowded and ew. Luckily I made friends with an aussi girl who was just traveling to Paris for a few days by herself so we hung out being lost together. When I finally got to the hotel I decided to wander a bit and figure ou where I was. To watch the football game I stumbled into this Australian themed bar, which I didn't realize when I got there, and was going to watch the game by myself. LUCKILY, some random girl came up to me and asked me where I was from and all that. She was from southern California too so strange to find another one. She was traveling by herself and met a group of aussi's and they let her travel with them. She asked them if I could sit with them and stuff and so I went over there and met all of um. I OFFICALLY love Australians by the way, amazing accidents..and stuff. It was so cool I was able to not be a loner and hang out with them for the rest of the night ! Oh and Germany lost against Italy which sucked but whatever. It'll be interesting to see whether I see any of them again...
Friday was such a busy day filled with museums and museums. When we woke up we headed to get food and I finally had a croque Madame, 'twas ok. And after we headed over towards the Louvre to seee all those famous paintings. Just to add, that museum takes about a day to see everything. We did alll of it basically, except for the stuff we didn't care too much about. I We saw the Mona Lisa of course and took silly pictures with it. There were loads of people seein that thing. Afterwards we went towards the Le Centre Pompidou, which is the modern art museum and has a bunch of artists and cool statues everywhere. It's more like a hang out spot rather than a tourist thing. There were a bunch of crazy kids too running around. Me and the aunt had some happy hour and dinner over there it was really nice and the weather was awesome. It was such a tiring day of walking, especially through the miles of museum. And we needed rest to go seee Versailles the next day!!!! Saturday was the big day to head out to Versailles and see the great chateau, but it was dusty I sneezed a lot. But getting to the chateau was an experience all on its own. We had to take 2 trains to get out there and walk to the palace. The line to get in was ridiculous, so we pulled an American and cut the line, about an hour off our wait :) woops. The place is huge and beautiful with gold everything. Those kings didn't need that much space lemme tell ya! And the gardens was a completely different scene. They're so clean and proper and so many fountains every where. I loved it, so tranquil. Since it was my aunts anniversary, I was her mock husband for the day, we decided to rent a golf cart and drive around Marie-Antoinette's estate, which is gigantic. The estate of Versailles in general is massive anyway and actually includes a public park.
After Versailles we headed back into Paris city and went to the Eiffel Tower. I saw it last year and went up the massive stair case, so this time we just looked at it and gazed at it from a cafe. Some nice waiter gave my aunt a free lil dessert for it being her anniversary, some french are nice :). After we went to find a restaurant for dinner to celebrate. We went to somewhere near the champs-élysées and had a wonderful, filling meal with escargot and salad and veal and floating meruigue on some custard. Super yummy. That could've fed a 3rd world country probably. But hey, when in Paris. Later we went back to the hotel and crashed. It was such a long day and I couldn't be awake anymore!! Luckily it was Sunday the next day.

Sunday was different. It was something I don't do all the time: go to mass. But it wasnt like any other american mass but at Le Sacre Coeur en Français. I could only understand a bit of it but the songs were beautiful. I really enjoyed it. Before we even sat down though, someone told me I had to get out because my shorts were too short... I forgot to put my longer pants on, oops. But luckily I had my scarf so I could wrap it around my legs. No one even knew... Muahahah. After mass we headed down montmartre to find a place to eat and lil souvenirs. But we first had to stop and get macarons, duh. We ended up watching the finals game in an American themed place(go figure) called Indiana bar. And did some happy hour'n there. Then ended up a cute lil place and made friends with the bar tender. We all went back n forth with English and French.

Lastly, Monday was an easy day as well. We did our pit stop to the galeries lafayette which is an enormous department store, kinda like Macy's or nordstroms. I got another longchamp bag for cheaaaaaap and gorgeous :) there were soo many asian people it was ridiculous!! Like all of Asia was there. It wasn't that great of an experience there. Anywho, our las tonight out we decided to do mussels and frites which is more of a Belgian thing but still good anyway. It was a goood night too to end in Paris. After all of it I was glad to be leaving yet I had a fabulous time with my aunt and love her to death. She did so much for me in the last 5 days it was nuts. Good thing I was able to use my French a little bit too.
I left for Amsterdam today too and that was a long day of traveling and I'm really glad to be back in Amsterdam with Mal!!

More later!
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