Day 30: The Day with all the Flowers

Having explored the Latin Quarter and Montmartre night life in celebration of a friend's birthday the night before (I also taught a couple of Parisian DJ's Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop") today was not going to be a very action packed. Instead we opted for checking out a park that we actually first saw in the movie Before Sunset which takes place in Paris. The park is called Promenade Plantee and it used to be train tracks. After being abandoned they were restored and made into this trail that goes from the Bastille to Bercy in the 12th arrondisement (where I live). The whole trail is filled with beautiful blooming flowers and views that are breathtaking. When the trail starts the area is more traditional Paris with beautiful details in the architecture and it transitions into the Bercy area which is newer and has more modern architecture. We ate a little picnic lunch in the middle of the trail at a bench under which street musicians were playing a cute Parisian song. The whole thing was perfect and everything looked like a picture. I literally could have taken a picture of anything and it would have been beautiful. 

The trail was a little under 3 miles long and it let out near Bercy so we walked through Bercy Park and checked out the rose garden. The roses were all so beautiful and colorful. I am always amazed by Bercy Park because its so diverse. There are peaceful ponds, eclectic gardens, lush rose gardens, ruins, modern art, and so many more hidden gems that I have yet to explore. I was so glad to be able to appreciate the wonderful day and the amazing parks that are right in my neighborhood.

Tonight we are going to revisit the movie theater in Bercy village where we will watch Before Midnight for only 5 euros which is one of the cheapest movie tickets in Paris and is far cheaper than any movie ticket back home.

Tomorrow I start classes for my next session so I will probably just get an early night's sleep.

Day 29: Marche des Fiertes in Paris

Today was the first day that I have been in Paris during the big sales. We went to Printemps (prin-tomp) which is a huge department store like Harrods in London where every store is way out of my price range but it was beautiful to see and the sales were actually pretty good (sidenote: anyone who wants a longchamp and will pay me back for it once I'm in the states should facebook me or something because they're cheaper here, small ones are 50 euro). We also hit up la rue de commerce which is a nice street with slightly expensive clothes that are reasonably priced during the sales because most things are 50% off.
We then rushed back to change into more colorful clothes because today was la marche des fiertes which is one of the biggest gay pride parades in the world. Something like 700,000 people were expected to be at the parade so we were excited to see it. Once we got to the Bastille which was the final destination of the parade there were these two older guys on a stage DJ'ing and there were rainbow flags everywhere as well as cops in these crazy riot outfits with armor all over them like armadillos. It was such a crazy scene but what surprised me most was that there were no anti-gay marriage protestors which was a nice sign but surprising because this was the first pride parade since gay marriage was made legal in France. Once we heard the noise coming from on of the streets we went down to see the parade and walked with them the last few yards back to the Bastille and enjoyed the music after. People were in all sorts of crazy outfits and with all different body paint. I didn't get many pictures because I didn't want to be out taking pictures of everyone with my phone. It was a crazy experience though and it was really great because it was just a happy event and everyone was just simply happy.

Day 28: Bye Bye Barcelona

On our last day of Barcelona we decided to check out Park Guell which we had heard so much about. It was a complicated journey as we had to take a metro to a bus and that's never fun. However when we got there we realized that it was all worth it. Park Guell is basically Barcelona's Montmartre. You can see all of Barcelona from up on that hill and where in Paris Montmartre is cute little shops, Park Guell is like a step back in time. I kept feeling like I was in Disney World or at some resort because this is what all of those resorts are trying to evoke. It was just so weird for it to be real. There were flowers and ruins and little paths up hills and cute houses. The best was all of the mosaic artwork that was all over walls and ceilings. We even saw this never ending tunnel ruin which models walked down on an America's Next Top Model finale (with Caridee for those die hard fans).
After checking out the park for a couple of hours and eating home made nutella and jelly (no peanut butter in europe) sandwiches, we decided to go to the beach.
At 4 we had to leave the beach to start our travel back to Paris. We took a metro to a train to a plane to a bus to a metro and I was terrified that something would go wrong and I would end up stuck somewhere but we made it to Paris in one (very tired) piece. All in all Barcelona exceeded my expectations and I have returned a still equally pale world traveler (kind of).

Day 27: The Day My Feet Almost Mutinied

On our second day in Barcelona we decided to hit up some tourist traps while we were in the city. We started by walking to a very famous Gaudi house (to fully understand the title you have to know every time I say we walked somewhere I mean we got pretty hopelessly lost and walked a lot of extra blocks). Gaudi was a spanish architect who built a lot of buildings in Barcelona and they're all crazy. We decided that they look like things that would have come from Floop from Spy Kids.
After Gaudi we took the metro to La Ramblas which is the major thoroughfare in Barcelona. There were street artists and men selling obnoxious high pitched whistle things. It was all pretty overwhelming and cool. In the middle of La Ramblas is a mural on the ground which was done by a modern artist named Juan Miro, it's kind of cool because most tourists walk over it without even knowing its a pretty major piece of artwork (I only knew because of some tourist website). There was also a huge fresh market on La Ramblas which had literally any fresh food you could think of. There was so much fruit, meat, cheese, fish, and candy and it was all so fresh. I was so overwhelmed but it might have been one of my favorite lunches so far; nachos with fresh guacamole, strawberry coconut juice, fresh strawberries, and homemade chocolate truffles.
After La Ramblas we decided we had walked enough and that we should go to the beach. However we got off at la Sagrada Familia metro stop and decided to walk from there which meant, you guessed it, that we got horribly lost and ended up walking until our feet were crying. And then we realized that there was a 30 minute walk to get to the beach so we took a little break in the flat.
Once we got to the beach we encountered the weirdest weirdos. I was in stitches laughing about a man down the beach who was wearing a thong bathing suit and a t shirt until he took off his shirt and I realized that it was a woman who was now only wearing said thong. We discovered that the beach in Barcelona was some of the best people watching we had encountered.
That night we decided to go out on the town and ended up at this Irish pub and watched the Italy vs. Spain confederation cup game which was awesome because it went to penalty kicks and Spain won so the whole club was going wild. We then decided to walk home and just when we decided our feet might fall off we just hailed a taxi and called it a night.

Day 26: Barcelona Bound

So I didn't have my laptop all trip so I'll do each day separately because otherwise each post will be long winded and I know some of you don't have the attention span for that (namely my siblings). The first day began early with some real stress. We left the hotel at 7 am and took a train to the airport except we realized like 30-45 minutes in that we had missed our stop and that we couldn't make it to the airport if we backtracked. So we had to talk some french taxi drivers into missing some appointment they had in order to drive us to the airport. When we finally got to the airport we were just thankful we had made it and then it sunk in that we were actually going to Barcelona!!
We arrived in barcelona at around 11:30 and we took a taxi to our flat and hung around the neighborhood for a couple of hours until it was time to check in. Our flat was in a great part of the city even though when we pulled up it looked like the sketchiest place in the whole world. It was also beautiful inside with so much room and an oven, filled with amenities we can't find in our apartments in Paris.
We then walked the 30 minute walk to the beach and spent the rest of the day lounging at the beach which to our surprise was bikini top optional. There were also some jellyfish in the water which scared me because I have always been a lake girl and not an ocean girl. However after being convinced that I wouldn't get stung I decided to wade in the water and get my hair wet since I miss swimming too much in the city when it's hot. After no more than five minutes I was swimming around and like a quick bee sting I felt a jellyfish sting my thumb. Needless to say I yelped like a little sissy girl and got right out of the water. I was happy to spend the rest of the day just napping on the beach.
For dinner we all pitched in and cooked a great fajita meal in our kitchen to save money. We then decided to walk around the city and check out where we were. We walked all the way to La Sagrada Familia which was one block from where we stayed. La Sagrada Familia is a church which began construction in 1909 and is still unfinished. It's this huge monstrosity in the middle of Barcelona and it's so crazy looking. Lucy said that most people are very dissatisfied with it and consider it something of an eyesore but that it's likely that its ahead of its time and will be viewed like the Notre Dame when it is much older. It's still crazy to look at because of how huge and detailed it is and it looked beautiful lit up at night. We tucked in early that night because we wanted to get an early start the next day.