Montmartre

Thursday we went to Montmatre, which is an artsy neighborhood in Paris.

On the way there on the metro, we heard an amazing violinist. I also saw this bizarre tall bicycle.

Non sequitur: Other tall skinny things around the house. The fridge almost reaches the ceiling

This teapot makes me laugh everytime I see it on the stove

In the streets of Montmatre, my cousin got a portrait done by one of the street artists. She seems displeased

There were a lot of interesting stores like le petit musee du chocolat

Chocolate Eiffel Tower!

For Neel

A rainbow of macaroons

Chocolate shoes...what more could a girl ask for?

and a store full of paintings

my fav

pinkkk

Montmatre is where the Sacre Coeur is, one of Paris’s most famous churches. The view was tres magnifique, with the clear blue sky in the background and the turquoise carousel in front of it. I think I liked this one better than the Notre Dame...Remember to enlarge the pictures!

Is this real life?

Sigh imagine sunbathing here on the weekends

Moi!

On the steps

The view

zoomed in on some weird graffiti

Afterwards we went to the smaller Chinatown (there are two in Paris) and got food. It was delicious!!

My excited cousin and her food

Damn...I should have ordered this

And finally, these are the shoes that I bought from today's trip!

My 16 year old cousin assures me these heels are very Parisian

The latest fad in Paris that has not yet made its way overseas...high heeled sneakers! I am obsessed with them

Versailles

Wednesday I woke up really late because I had the strangest “Inception”-esque dream(s). First I dreamt that Christian Bale was promoting the Dark Knight Rises by riding the Batman roller coaster in Six Flags in his Batsuit a lot of times. So many times that he eventually collapsed from exhaustion and died. I was really upset at this news. Then I “woke up” and realized it was only a dream, and felt so relieved. Then I “woke up” again and learned that he actually did die, and pondered whether I would be more upset if my parents were dead, and decided I would be more upset if my parents had died (logical Dream Kristin). Then I “woke up” again and realized he did not actually die, because it wasn’t on the internet anywhere. Then when I “woke up” and learned that he was dead, I explained to my aunt and uncle that I thought these movies were cursed because Heath Ledger died after acting in Dark Knight. Finally I woke up for realsies and felt really disoriented.

For those who are concerned about Christian Bale’s health, he seems to be doing just fine. Here is a dreamy photo of him:

Moving on from my obvious obsession with Batman, my family decided to take me to Versailles today! The castle was gorgeous. At first I was bit underwhelmed by what I thought was the main garden, but then I realized Versailles is actually a BIGASS estate. When I visited my family in France when I was 8, I apparently got lost in the gardens of Versailles. My parents must have been panicking because Versailles is huge. Here are some pics (Remember you can click on the pictures to make them larger!)

The front gate

A bunch of Asians who are afraid of the sun haha

Voila! Le Chateau de Versailles

Chillinnn

Part of the garden

Serene

Me and a rather large teapot

Starting to realize that the grounds are bigger than I thought...

Some statue heads

Sunny

Gloomy boobies

It's like a maze here

Marble statues of people like Hercules and Pandora

Pretty!

My cousin and I enjoying some soft serve in Versailles

Swans in the lake

GORGEOUS! Can I get married here?

Oooh Marie Antoinette! Let them eat cake!

Lake. My cousins were très disappointed they were not allowed to rent a boat.

Sigh so pretty. Statues in the background.

More statues chillin

Interesting blue monument!

So of course I thought everything was pretty like the castles in the background, the lake full of canoes, the fountains, the marble statues of famous Greek gods and goddesses, and the flowers, but as I was leaving, I turned around and saw everything as a whole…and I was speechless. I always thought I understood what people meant when they say “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” but now I could really visualize it. I felt like weeping when I looked at the grounds altogether. I have never been in the presence of such beauty! Imagine being one of the kings or queens of Versailles and knowing all this is yours! Of course, the following pictures do not do the grounds justice. I definitely want to come back here.

Some attempts I made to capture the incredible grounds

That night we had chien-chauds, or hot dogs, for dinner. The French do it differently than the Americans. They eat them with baguettes for the bread, fromage (cheese), and Benjamin sauce, which reminded me of mayonnaise. It was a bit weird; I had to put ketchup on it!

À toute à l'heure!

Today we went to the pool. In order to get there, we had to ride bikes. Little did I know, it would be the one of the most frightening experiences of my life (just so you know, I’ve been a very sheltered kind of girl). So first of all, I’m not that experienced with riding bikes. I learned how to and that was pretty much it. My darling petit ami (Neel here’s your shoutout finally!) even gave me a bike for my birthday and I tried to ride it around campus once before I gave up because there were too many people I could potentially crash into.

Me on the bike with a baby attachment, blissfully unaware of the horror that was about to commence

So we started riding the bikes…IN THE ROAD! WITHOUT HELMETS. I could not stop thinking about how in one of my favorite books (I won’t say the name of it in case I spoil it for anyone) the main character gets hit by a car while riding her bike and DIES. Yeah, after you go through about 200 pages with this heroine, that’s how the book ends. Also, in France, the roads are not as spacious. We were riding our bikes in cramped little streets with aggressive French drivers. And my cousins were hopping curbs every few minutes because the bike lane kept changing places, and I have NEVER gone on or off a curb on a bike in my life. It seems physically impossible. But I had to do it in order to avoid being run over by an incoming car, and it wasn’t that bad! After I got over the initial fear of one wrong move resulting in me being squashed by a vehicle, I began to enjoy myself. I felt the wind in my hair and the sun on my back and saw so many cute buildings and stores and rode along the Seine river and next to the railroad tracks.

Finally, the pool! Going swimming here is double the exercise for my cousins because they have to ride bikes there, sometimes even UPHILL, oh mon dieu. The pool was cool.

People don’t sunbathe around the pool, they tan on the grass next to the pool.

Later that evening, we roasted some chamallows. AKA the kids got to make MORE FIRE WOOHOO. We played random games outside like limbo (with a rake), Hide and Seek with teams, Chromino (which is like dominoes but you have to match two colors), and various other French games. Finally we turned off the lights, lay back, and just looked at the stars. I could see the Big Dipper just like I can at home :).

As we all snuggled together contentedly under one blanket, someone FARTED! That ended the peaceful evening and everyone ran into the house haha. When she realized it was 1 am, my cute 8 year old cousin asked me if I have ever been up this late. OH, KIDS.

Bonne nuit!