Sunday, May 23, 2004
Introducing Guest Blogger: MizMaya
My favorite Washingtonian-cum-Londoner MizMaya has spent an action-packed weekend here in Saint-Mande. She is going to share some of her observations and then we will chat about some of the weekend's wackier highlights. And now, the M&M trilogy. Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Maya!
Bonjour, tout le monde! It's been quite an adventurous weekend. I arrived here via the Eurostar, which is the high-speed train from London to Paris, only 2 ½ hours. Very cool. Unfortunately, I slept through the Chunnel, but I'm told I didn't miss much anyway. The first difference I noticed in France as opposed to England was that the clouds are much lower here. (I'm kind of obsessed with clouds, so I notice things like that.) They were incredibly well-contoured, and they looked like they were all flying in flocks. I kept expecting to hear the "Ride of the Valkyries" as they flew by. (That could also be from having a friend with a Mac in high school, which had the Flying Toasters screensaver.)
The next thing I noticed was all the cows in pastures. England also has lots of green fields, but it's much more sheep country than cow country. There were A LOT of cows. I think this explains why France has such great cheese (well duh), and that the word for cow (vache) is now used as hyperbole (i.e. "oh la vache" or "c'etait vachement bien", which means it was really good, or more precisely "that was totally awesome"). Then I noticed that almost all of the cows were sitting down on the ground. Lazy Frenchies!
So I arrived in Paris at Gare du Nord at about 6pm on Friday. (The great thing about the Eurostar is that you leave from the middle of London and arrive in the middle of Paris, rather than arriving at Charles de Gaulle and being an hour away from downtown Paris.) Mandy and I took the metro back here to her village, which is absolutely charming. We bought a baguette and came back to her flat, where we began our adventures Ab Fab style with a bottle of champagne. Ah, France. It doesn't get much better. When Stephane returned from work (looking very chic, I might add), we went to dinner at their local creperie. (Ah, France.) A mediocre night of bar hopping followed, characterized by the funk/disco revival that is unfortunately taking Paris by storm (Quoth Stephane: "And that…is EuroTrash.") So by the time everyone was getting there buzz on (finally) until one of the pack discovered that her purse had been nicked, with her keys, phone, and all her identification in it. Total buzz kill. So as we waited for over an hour for Carolin to file a report, we got to witness Paris' finest in action, chasing down passing cars because they were bored and then going to get munchies for the team.
Saturday was a bit more of a traditional Parisian day. We walked up Boulevard St.-Michel to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we went to a cool exhibit about self-portraiture, ate baguette sandwiches in the park, and smoked hookah in our favorite place off Rue Mouffetard. (Ah, France.) Then we headed back here for dinner, where we ate and watched the finale of the Cannes Film Festival…
Bonjour, tout le monde! It's been quite an adventurous weekend. I arrived here via the Eurostar, which is the high-speed train from London to Paris, only 2 ½ hours. Very cool. Unfortunately, I slept through the Chunnel, but I'm told I didn't miss much anyway. The first difference I noticed in France as opposed to England was that the clouds are much lower here. (I'm kind of obsessed with clouds, so I notice things like that.) They were incredibly well-contoured, and they looked like they were all flying in flocks. I kept expecting to hear the "Ride of the Valkyries" as they flew by. (That could also be from having a friend with a Mac in high school, which had the Flying Toasters screensaver.)
The next thing I noticed was all the cows in pastures. England also has lots of green fields, but it's much more sheep country than cow country. There were A LOT of cows. I think this explains why France has such great cheese (well duh), and that the word for cow (vache) is now used as hyperbole (i.e. "oh la vache" or "c'etait vachement bien", which means it was really good, or more precisely "that was totally awesome"). Then I noticed that almost all of the cows were sitting down on the ground. Lazy Frenchies!
So I arrived in Paris at Gare du Nord at about 6pm on Friday. (The great thing about the Eurostar is that you leave from the middle of London and arrive in the middle of Paris, rather than arriving at Charles de Gaulle and being an hour away from downtown Paris.) Mandy and I took the metro back here to her village, which is absolutely charming. We bought a baguette and came back to her flat, where we began our adventures Ab Fab style with a bottle of champagne. Ah, France. It doesn't get much better. When Stephane returned from work (looking very chic, I might add), we went to dinner at their local creperie. (Ah, France.) A mediocre night of bar hopping followed, characterized by the funk/disco revival that is unfortunately taking Paris by storm (Quoth Stephane: "And that…is EuroTrash.") So by the time everyone was getting there buzz on (finally) until one of the pack discovered that her purse had been nicked, with her keys, phone, and all her identification in it. Total buzz kill. So as we waited for over an hour for Carolin to file a report, we got to witness Paris' finest in action, chasing down passing cars because they were bored and then going to get munchies for the team.
Saturday was a bit more of a traditional Parisian day. We walked up Boulevard St.-Michel to the Luxembourg Gardens, where we went to a cool exhibit about self-portraiture, ate baguette sandwiches in the park, and smoked hookah in our favorite place off Rue Mouffetard. (Ah, France.) Then we headed back here for dinner, where we ate and watched the finale of the Cannes Film Festival…
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