Alana does Paris Part I

So the eagerly awaited day had finally arrived! Alana was going to get into Paris last Thursday at around 7pm, and I was dying to see her! Thursday dragged on rather long… Although I had lunch with Tati at a Japanese restaurant which was really nice and fun and yummy! Tati is a great person, who is just generally excited to be alive, and I really like spending time with her. She makes everyone around her feel welcome which I really like about a person, particularly her. She is also always looking to have a good time and a good laugh about anything, and so am I! She has been witness to the Moberg disease many times here in Paris, and continues to hang out with me which I think is a good sign!

But finally it was a little after 6 when I left work, and I headed over to Chatelet to collect her from the RER which se was taking to the city from the airport. Just a point to anyone who ever is going to come to Paris… Don’t EVER choose to meet anyone at Chatelet. It is enormous, practically a city under the city, where five metro lines and four RER lines come together in the center of the city… so meeting someone there is like trying to find a needle in a haystack… but don’t worry, Matt and I split up to cover more ground and found Alana… and puppy kisses where exchanged galore! And we headed up out of the Metro so that Alana could breathe her first breath of Parisian air!

One thing that all of us miss about the US… Mexican food. When you spend nine months out of the year in Greencastle, Indiana where one of the three sit down restaurants is Casa Grande, you come to love and almost be addicted to Mexican food. And anyone who knows me knows that I have been having Chipotle withdrawal from the minute I left the states… so we headed out to find La Perla, which is a Mexican restaurant we found with relatively inexpensive food, and really expensive margaritas to make up for it.
We took a little tour on the way down to the restaurant, down Rue de Rivoli, until we came to the restaurant. Tati met us as well for dinner which was really fun… and the entire experience was rather funny because when we ordered our dinners the waiter kept asking us if we knew what the things on the menu were. “Pico de Gallo, do you know what that is?” YES we know what that is! We are Americans… we live in the states where we have plenty of real live Mexicans and plenty of Mexican food! It was very funny… considering Mexicans and Mexican culture is rather foreign to the French, but practically second nature to us. Dinner was delicious, but at that point, Alana and I headed back to my apartment, happy, tired, and ready plan out the adventures for the weekend!

So Friday morning we headed over the Institute du Monde Arabe… Where Alana joined me for my morning ritual of coffee at the café across the street and equipped with my Paris Practique map and my Navigo pass Alana set out to see the Palace of Versailles, and I set off to work for the day. You will have to read her blog to see what she saw and what she thought of her day spent tromping around the grounds of Versailles… but Friday was a good day for me since I got paid! And I got five free tickets for people who are coming to visit me to be able to go and see the exhibit here at the institute which I think is cool. Then Madame Findakly and I planned for her impending absence. She is going on vacation for two weeks, so I will be here in the office holding down the fort by myself for a while. I am a little nervous about it, but here it is Tuesday and nothing terrible has gone wrong yet… so far so good. But as 5:30 rolled around I was ready to burst out the door and go collect Alana so my weekend could begin!

We headed up the street to meet Matt for a cocktail (so grown up!) and then we headed out to buy some bread and cheese and saucisson sec for dinner. We ate our little French dinner in Matt’s room (up all six flights of stairs) and then we headed out to go and find a show that we had heard about and was recommend by a friend. It was called a cabaret, and was taking place at a place called le Lapin Agile. Courtney, another friend from IFE had her boyfriend in for the weekend, so we met up with them in Montmartre and went to see this very interesting show. What it turned out to be was a collection of random singers singing French songs, drinking and other songs as well, for 5 hours. Each singer had a different set of songs and a different personality. They also served us some wine with cherries in it which was really yummy! We stayed and sang along as best we could, until around midnight when we were all dying of sleepiness and Alana thought her legs might fall off from her long day of trekking, so we headed back to Sainte-Mandé to collapse in our bed.

Saturday morning the sky loomed heavy with clouds and it threatened to rain as we left Sainte-Mandé for our first stop of the day: Le tour Eiffel. I have been in Paris for almost three months, and while I have had many sightings and admired it from a distance, I have not yet climbed the tower during this séjour in Paris.
So Paris, which was trying so hard for Alana’s sake, let the blue sky show for just a little bit… and we took some fun and lovely pics from the bottom of the tower (as you see here) before we started our 702 stair trek up to the second level. It is way cheaper, and way faster to climb the stairs, and since we are all young and cheap, we took the stairs. It was a little bit of a trek, but the view was worth it, as well as the gift shop (even though we didn’t buy anything.)
At that point, you have to take the elevator all the way to the top… and it costs an additional 7 euro, and since I have been up there before, and Matt didn’t care and Alana has a slight fear of heights, we decided to descend and go find some lunch at a yummy yummy Breton crepe restaurant that is one of my favourite places in Paris (don’t worry mom, I will take you guys there too!)

At this point we also met up with my friend Kira from high school who is studying in Madrid for the semester and was in Paris for the weekend. She joined us for our yummy yummy lunch and then the four of us all headed out to find the Musée de Moyen Age (medieval museum) for Alana to see the tapestry of the woman and the unicorn. This was a very interesting museum for all of us, since we are all sort of art history nerds, and any one who has ever even met Anne Harris falls in love with the Middle Ages. And look, I even found an Ethiopian! So after the museum, we bid Kira farewell, and Matt and Alana and I set out on a bit of a walk to head up to place de la concorde and then up the Champs Elysees to see the Arc de Triomphe. No visit would be complete without a stop for some ice cream along the way… and it was really a wonderful way to spend the afternoon, with two of my favourite people in the world, eating yummy things and exploring and enjoying the amazing city that I have come to call my home in the past few weeks.
We have dreamed of when we would be together, both in Rome and in Paris, and Alana and I loved every minute of her visit.

We then set out to find out cheap dinner at our favourite kebab place, where I have befriended the guys who work there, and Alana got to experience the glory of the pita grec which I have come to love, and eat every Tuesday after class. So after a delicious dinner, we set out once again to complete our plans for the evening: We went to go see the French rendition of a showing of the infamous Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was… interesting to say the least. Anyone who has gone and seen one in the US knows how overtly sexual and kind of crazy it is… but then add in a strange mix between French and English with jokes and innuendo flying in both directions at all times, plus just some random stuff too… then getting soaked in water (expect nothing less! And I am still picking rice out of my shoes and off my scarf) and you might be able to begin to be able to think about what it was like… It really can’t be contained in this little blog post, but trust me… it was weird and wonderful. Then when it was over, Alana and I got trapped in the group who were the last ones out and they tried to tell us that we had to clean up all the rice… a job I would not wish on anyone! But they asked us if we were all French and I shouted non! But then they shouted back at me (in French) that I must be lying just trying to get out of cleaning up… and I had a moment where all that was running through my head was “how do I prove to them I am not French?” and the worlds most obvious answer finally came to me… Speak in English. So I started speaking in English, and then they believed me… but gave me the ultimate compliment and told me I spoke French very well! I was so excited! But they were kidding the whole time about having to clean up the rice, so after a simple tax of two kisses to each of the actors (transvestites?) We left happy, and only a little weirded out. So that was the end of our Saturday. Alana and I made the trek back to Sainte-Mandé then, and literally fell into bed after out really long, fun, and eventful day.

Now you will have to read about Sunday and Monday in the next post…