Paris...je t'aime

*sob* Aussies are out of the cup! wtf?!?! who calls a penalty in the last minute?!

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/060626/1/8am4.html

48 hours....in Paris!

Friday 4pm... "This is NOT the way to do business"
After some frantic calling (the car rental place cancelled our reservations...at 4pm!?!? we were leaving at 5...) and harsh words ...we got in our guzzling suv's and raced to the city of love.

Friday 12pm...
After a 5 hour hoppin disco party in the car (bee gees, shakira, you can't go wrong) and the best introduction to French fast food ever (ick!), we made it into Paris. What a sight! Thousands of rollerbladers skating on the road near Place de la Concorde?!?!? Apparently, this is a wednesday + friday tradition... the friday night rookies were holding up the traffic for a good 15 mins...ahh...only in France! It took poor Marc 1 HOUR to find a parking spot for the suv...je suis desolee!

Saturday 9am...
Woke up to a nice pastry breakfast and headed out to Tour d'Eiffel... we went up to the Palais de Challoit to take photos and ended up being in a music video! what!!!?!! ha ha, but don't worry, as Beth noted, based on the quality of the rapping, there is no way we're gonna see these guys on MTV. good thing Mae + I were practicing those moves in the car.


Saturday 2pm...
Induction into Paris street cafe culture... there must be at least one per capita in St Germain de pres! In the tradition of "French Women dont' get Fat"... our Marc says French people stay thin because the tables at the cafes just can't fit that many plates!

Saturday 4pm...
Kendra and I did the tourist round and visited St Sulplice (nope, no broken tiles), le Pantheon, and les jardins de luxembourg. Based on the quick stroll in the park, I thought...wow! There are a whole lot more gay couples in Paris than I remember! The rainbows gave it away...apparently, it was the gay pride parade day!

Saturday 8pm...
With the gorgeous weather over our heads, we decided to be ambitious and metro it up to Sacre Coeur. Wow, Paris is gorgeous, but so much dirtier than the Netherlands! Montemartre was bustling with musicians and tired tourists. We bought our obligatory overpriced postcards and met up with the gang for dinner

Saturday 10pm...
MMMmm...A traditional Creperie! The crepe provencal had tasty ham, camembert and a fried egg on top.

Midnight...
The group split up, and we trusted the lead of Marc's Venezulan friends...we landed a HOT underground club (literally). Underground dungeons converted into hip bars are so european! LOL...a couple of 90 euro bottles of havana club rum later, we were "salsa dancing". Note the quotation marks. Matt talked to Miss Venezeula about Diesel engines...she studied Mech eng. LOL

Sunday 5:30am...
Ah ha! so this is when the metro opens. You know those little photo booths?! Ya, they were designed for drunk people. The card may say Je t'aime, maman...but this one's not getting posted!

Koln Krazy

Fussball.... world cup fever in Cologne! After an intense weekend of team-building and 3 days of classroom work, I was ready for a break... and right now, there is nothing else better than a quick jaunt to football central. Everything revolved around the World Cup. People walking around with painted faces, flags, annoying horns... food shaped in the shape of footballs... contrary to popular belief, beer isn't always served in huge steins in Germany. In Cologne, 0.2l delicate glasses (they break easily!) were the norm. Ha ha, and you can have A LOT of those. Our group consisted of 1 Irishman, 1 Spaniard, 1 Frenchman, 1 Russian, 1 Azerbajanian (?), 1 Filipino, 2 Americans + 1 Canadian = 1 shell family. It was pretty hectic sometimes, between multiple languages, two rented cars, cell phones and one road map!

Good things:
- menus that are only in German...mmm...savoury pancakes!
- cars that drive on the right. phew!
- easily climbing 509 steps to the top of the Dom cathedral...gorgeous!
- super patriotic fans that like to sing
- crazy british people that swim in the rhine to recover a lost football. man, the rhine?!?

The not-so-good things:
- getting the shaft bed (ie, cot) in a 4 person room
- 0.2l bottle of coke that costs 2.6 euros
- the stinky people that are also climbing the narrow steps to the top of the Dom
- not knowing how to get out of Cologne
- trying to split one bill between 9 people...argh



Cologne's Dom Cathdral...took over 800 years to finish!