paris je t'aime

bonsoir! got back from paris yesterday.

friday.

i took the thalys (a high-speed train that goes between the netherlands, belgium, germany and france) from amsterdam centraal to gare du nord.




(train ride wasn't too bad--a little over four hours, and that's with it making a couple of stops in belgium.)

j. met me at the station. we waited in line to get some metro tickets for me, then headed back to her place, where we caught up and exchanged bday presents (i was saving hers since i knew i was going to see her soon, and she didn't want to mail mine because she doesn't trust the french mail system--it took them like 8 months to send her residency card).

my bday presents from her:


then we went out for crepes...



...and walked down the champs-élysées.




(l'arc de triomphe).

saturday.


(at the bus stop.)

we headed to the saint-michele area, which has notre dame...







...and la fontaine saint-michele.


then we hopped on the metro:


(art nouveau!)


(i love the paris metro--it's just as easy, if not more so, than the london underground.)

and hung out at this mall.


we got recaffeinated à la starbucks and headed to the eiffel tower!





the tower has three levels.

some people are crazy enough to take the stairs!


but we decided to elevator it.



(second floor gift shop--it even sells eiffel tower-shaped pasta.)







on the elevator ride down:






monsieur eiffel:



(i'm a dork.)


we passed an interesting orangina promo:


taxi parisien:


then we went back to her apartment and chilled for a while before heading out to the bastille area for dinner.



(mexican food = awesome.)

bastille tower:


opera house:


sunday.

we went out for breakfast, then dashed back to j.'s apartment, grabbed my stuff and hopped on the metro back to gare du nord... but i missed my train back to amsterdam by 10 minutes and was informed that i had to pay 62 euros to get on the next one two hours later... womp.

so we left the train station to find an atm and kill time until my train left. j. felt really bad my missing my first train and insisted on buying me crème brûlée... i tried to protest but the woman just would not take no for an answer. what else could i do?



i made the next train back to amsterdam, and all was well. minus the woman at information originally telling me the wrong time for the next train--which, if j. and i didn't double check, would have resulted in my ending up in brussels. belgium. and a sketchy train manager putting the 62 euros i gave him directly into his own wallet, then taking them out again and telling me to take them to a different manager.

later days,
b.