“Wake Up I Hear Loud Sex!”

My first night here I realized holy crap, we have no ac and no fan. JEEBUS, I am from Houston freaking Texas, I have to have one of the above or a gun. Just kidding, kind of. Me and William sort of panicked until the wind blew. Our room filled with cool air and we both relaxed. William passed out pretty quickly, but I stayed awake, too excited to fall asleep. I mean come on, I was in Paris!! My window looked out to another larger building with many homes. Though our lights were out early due to our long journey, Parisians’ nights were just beginning. I watched people get ready, dance, drink wine, play with their children, it was all so cool. Come three a.m. I got some Tylenol pm and tried to get some sleep and eventually the meds worked and I was out, UNTIL I heard some interesting sounds. I jerked up, and pulled my ear plugs out and immediately poked William.

I stopped and feared that this was just like the movie Hostel!!! (We aren’t even staying in a hostel) I thought it was the sound of suffering, but soon realized, the noises coming from one of my walls was not suffering at all. I immediately got grossed out and poked William again, exclaiming, “William, wake up I hear loud sex!” William’s eyes opened (he did NOT pull his ear plugs out) and as I said, “omg do you hear that? gross! what do we do?” he passed back out. I stood up and decided I would lightly knock on my wall, however the noise stopped. THANK GOD. The next day when I went down from breakfast, I saw my “friends” from next door. They were interesting.

The second night was silent.

Yesterday was our second and it was beautiful. People in Paris seem to be very happy and loving. I noticed this the most when watching the interaction between young children at the Luxembourg Gardens. They are very kind to one another, often hold hands (and YES young boys hold hands with one another without discouragement and without being called gay), and are even very sweet to their parents. Children don’t seem to have fits or cry here. It’s like I’m in some magic land. Maybe it was the park? The atmosphere did seem to enhance a lovey dovey feeling. Everyone was holding hands, riding bikes together, strolling, drinking wine, or doing what me and William did: lying under trees. Yes, Paris is for lovers.

William Speaks Francais

I must admit, getting to Paris from London was a sort of a culture shock, yes even for me! I have been to India, and I guess have never felt a total culture shock because I understand and speak Hindi. However, getting to our hotel was confusing, and trying to approach people was so intimidating that we didn’t. At this point I missed the British and their crazy English, because unlike Brit Eng., Spanish, or even some Dutch, we understood nothing. I mean not even the slightest bit. I was too shy to use French, despite my handy translator because I was aware of my horrible pronunciation. It seems like majority of French is silent letters, almost like they have too many unnecessary letters. Either way, I think it is one of the hardest languages to understand. If you look at it on paper, it is much easier than listening to it! We have met and been exposed to so many Europeans and Euro languages because we are apparently not traveling in the “high season,” meaning that most of the tourists are not from North America or Asia, but just other Europeans. But anyways, even though French sounds familiar, I seem to understand the other tourists more than the Frenchman.

Eventually, I remembered (from my extensive research!) reading that if you are in France and get confused, you should approach a young person, for they might have English education. So, we were easily able to get to the neighborhood we were staying in, but couldn’t find the street and I eventually convinced William to stop some college aged girl. William in magically perfect French, asked this girl if she spoke English because we couldn’t find the street. I was surprised and so thankful when this girl said, “Oui, a little.” She explained where we needed to go and even though William said “ok” and “yes” to everything she said, she noticed my face which basically read: OMFG. She was SUPER sweet and said, “I go this way, you can follow me and we will find it together.” SO NICE. While we walked around she told us more about the Menilmontante area, explaining that we are staying in an awesome side of town, calling it a “melting pot.”

Diversity is everywhere in Paris, you see Turkish, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arab, Jews, and of course white French people. All of this diversity leads to one very important aspect of Paris: Great food! But my favorites include: Chocolate croissants, baguettes, quiches, chicken, mushroom, tomato and Fomaggio Cheese Crepes! YUM YUM. I also really like their pork. GOOD GOD they have great pork here. Me and William have consumed more pork here than we do in a month in Houston. Also, we are staying in a place with a large Lebanese population, so we decided to try out some traditional food. It was a cute little place and our waiter came and started speaking in French. William, again in great French, told him that we didn't speak French and he smiled, brought us a menu and sent us a really pretty English speaking Lebanese waitress. She helped us pick our meals and we had some awesome food. I ordered vegetable cous cous and it came with a bowl of vegetable soup and William ordered Chicken Tadjine. Combined, it was a great meal.



So far we have not had any bad incidents, thank goodness. We have avoided large lines, due to the fact we aren’t here in high season (something you should def. try to avoid) and we’ve had beautiful weather. Paris is gorgeous and I’d definitely suggest you visit all of Paris and not just the main central city.

Au revoir!!
<3 np

Cheers

Yesterday was my last day in London and it was a wonderful one. I never would have thought that I’d like London. When me and William were planning this trip I told him that I’d love to avoid London since it was much like the states. Little did I know I would love it.
London has a unique flavor of its own. It’s like New York in that the railways connect everything (ok not everything) and everyone and it is diverse. It is different in that New York is sort of a melting pot, people from everywhere come and mix– mostly on subways. One thing I found strange and didn’t like was the lack of communication on subways. People don’t talk! In fact, they almost find it rude to talk. The only people who I ever heard talk were Spaniards that were visiting. The Brits seemed to whisper, but the main thing you’d notice is that they enter the sub, get a seat (or find a pole to hold) and get a book out. They are total bookworms! I wish I had gotten to talk to some, and I did, just not on the subways.
Okay, so every girl in the world (or at least in Texas) finds the British accent sexy. Seriously, tell me if I’m wrong. So yes, naturally I loved hearing their accents. In fact, I’m sure they thought something was wrong with me wondering why I was staring, but really I was just entranced and trying to record it in my memory so when I return to Texas, I can replay it in my head, instead of watching Bridget Jones Diary. However, a few days into the London portion of the trip, I realized one guy = sexy, but two+ guys = annoying. On Sunday we were there during the World Cup game between England and Doucheland (Germany) and the British (guys) accents were obnoxious. I could not understand them all at once (I’m sure they think the same of us). Dudes our age were running around with English flags tied around their necks like capes and singing something in English, their English that is. From far it can sound rather scary, like there was an invasion going on, but as you got closer you saw a bunch of harmless guys running through the streets with face paint saying something I still don’t know (but I realize it is a show of pride for their country). Packs of British are impossible to understand, but I’m sure if you pulled one aside, you’d get your fix.
Seriously, I had NO flipping clue what some of them were saying. It sounds like this, (say in British accent) “blah, blah, blah, bloity, toity, blah, blah, blah, bananas, blah.” It got to the point where William was having to translate British English for me. Waiters thought I was either mute, or mentally challenged, regular people thought I was having a heart attack and William realized that I truly had no idea what they were saying. I mean wtf is wrong with me, they speak English, but for some strange reason, I don’t understand until after a few, “huhs?:, “excuse me’s”, and “pardon(s)?”. I have no idea when I started saying “pardon” but I did.
Food: Awesome!!!!! Seriously though, the best Thai I’ve had, so I had it a few times. Awesome croissants and I wasn’t even in France yet, delicious tea and I never drink chai, and amazing pastries. I also enjoyed lots of English style sandwiches, paninis, meats and their delicious world famous Fish and Chips. I love fried cod. Their food is clean, but not very light. The people are much thinner than Americans and I’m assuming it’s because they walk everywhere? Who knows? They also had incredible Indian food and I loved that the Indian restaurants were filled with white people. Indian food seems to be a staple and very mainstream. I even saw Indian restaurants without Indian staff. Cool. The Indian people from India seem to be chain smokers. It’s sad that while America’s programs like DARE and stuff really did work on us, people from developing countries didn’t seem to have that education. I swear, every Indian person under the age of 35 from India smokes, and in a proud way. Industrialization is good and bad, sad. I have non-indian friends who smoke that immediately cover it up, but these Indians seemed to think it looked cool. In fact we sat next to a guy who mentioned his smoking habit a few times, right before mentioning he was on his way to India to get married in a few days. I saw no white people smoking, just Indian immigrants. Sad.
Overall, I could go on and on about London, but I need to cut this thing off and am near being delusional from lack of sleep. The Brits were splendid, the city was awesome, the food was FANTASTIC, my bank account was raped, but it was a wonderful trip and I will definitely return to this city. Paris is next, I’m actually already here, but don’t have time to write any more! That’s all for now.

<3 np

too many panties not enough bras

Yeah, exactly what my title says. I decided to make my first blog entry about the initial, most important part of any vacay: packing the essentials.

If you know me, you know that I like being prepared. Two weeks ago I made my initial list of things to take on this trip. One week ago I edited the first draft, and two days ago I edited that and ta daa! I had my 3rd (near) perfect draft! Today I started packing the most important necessities: underwear. I realized I had enough panties to last me 3 months without doing laundry! However, I don't have nearly enough bras to last me a month. At this point I could not go to the mall and didn't have room for more anyways. Looks like I'm going to have to 1. wash my bras in the sink (ugh) 2. spend my precious Euros on "fancy lingerie" like Amanda Knox (eh) or 3. Re-wear them (gross! unless I don't sweat). Yeah we totally take for granted the luxuries of having a washer/dryer (and a lovely mother!) to do our laundry. I hope no one smells my boobs!


Nonetheless, I am very excited about my first Eurotrip! I hope that everything goes smoothly and cannot wait to experience the culture shock that is Europe (jk). I am interested to see what the overnight flight feeds me. hmph. Yay for vacays!!!
<3 neeti