Tapas are Overrated

Greetings loved ones, (haha I sound like Snoop Dogg from 'California Girls')

Today was less sunny which we were a little sad about but still, can't complain about the Barca temps! 66 degrees and cloudy, we'll take it. Tomorrow is supposed to rain, NO ME GUSTA LLUVIA, and yes, I am the weatherwoman. (My macbook widget has been surprisingly on its game in Spain - it is NEVER right in Scotland for some reason)

Rebecca and I woke up pretty late again today....it's okay, we're just moving up our siesta to the AM and not having one later in the day. So first meal of the day was lunch, the largest meal for the Spanish, and we had seafood paella again (we can't get enough!) We went to Park Guell, which is this garden/architectural complex designed by Antonio Guadi. We had to trek up this hill which reminded me a little of Glasgow, since I always feel like I'm climbing up a mountain, but it was really funny because along the way we saw all these little children! With painted faces! Red circled cheeks - like pikachu - and some little boys had mustaches drawn on them - like this guy:

So when we finally got there, I was so amazed! It was like an artsy, romantic, exotic version of Candyland. Check it out.

Here's a close up for this lil cutie:

Does this NOT look like candyland/the gingerbread house???

Then, I desperately tried to look for the mango gelato I had yesterday which was SO GOOD (there were chunks of mango in it!) but we couldn't find the same shop....it was sad so instead, Rebecca and I got a kiwi-melon-banana smoothie, a pine nut cookie thing and chocolate-covered churros!

I finally had tapas!! They were a pretty big let-down to be honest, I was expecting more after loving paellas so much. We had some fried fish - like little baby fishies, they were super spiky in my mouth!! :(, green peppers, garlic shrimp, mushrooms that tasted a lot like the escargot we had in Paris, chips. I think I'd like tapas, but the tapas we had at this restaurant weren't superb. But it was a nice second romantic dinner date with Rebecca - the place was outside, right on the street and all romantically lit!

Here we are now, back at our room in the hotel. The receptionist ordered us a pizza, because at midnight, every Dartmouth girl gets hungryface! Half a pizza later, I should be sleeping...but again my Spanish scheduled body isn't tired...

All packed up though! Tomorrow we hit Venezia! Eggplant parmigiana, here I come!!!

[addendum: omg so we still got ni haos...but today someone got creative and said "konichiwa" damn barca, you're so international!]

hi

micky and i just woke up...it's 2 pm hahahah
Barcelonans work on such a different time schedule than we are used to!
This is literally just a city of partiers. As Joe says, "It's a city on a college kid's schedule"

So this is what happens...things don't usually open til around 10, people take a siesta from 3-6, and then restaurants don't open until 8 at the earliest for dinner! so usually people don't even eat til 10!

We didn't get with dinner until pretty late and we were catching up with our FSPpl. I love them!!

Yesterday, we all went to the Pablo Picasso museum. Micky and I found our favorite part of Barcelona, La Rambla! Katie, Nora, Joie, Henry, Joe, and Jon are all staying here, but we didn't know that. We went to the area to go to the museum, and as we were looking at a street map because we were kind of lost, Joe comes up behind us!

I don't know if I've ever been happier to see someone in my whole life! Now I know what people mean when they talk about the Dartmouth family because seeing Joe was like seeing my long lost bro!

Ok, so we went to this restaurant where all of the rest of our FSP family was eating and we all happily went to the museum. I learned a lot about Picasso and have decided that I like his Rose period the best.

[Interjection by Micky: I like his Blue period! So moody.]

We all really liked this painting: La Salchichona. This pic really doesn't do it justice, it was STUNNING in real life.

Because it was beautiful yesterday, we decided we wanted to go to LA PLAYA!! We got a little lost while walking there but I don't even mind because the it was a gorgeous walk. Everything was sand-colored, it was sunny but slightly breezy, and streets were cobbled. It reminded me of a better version of Arizona.

After walking through a business district that kind of reminded me of inception, we came upon the ocean!!!

now that i've actually found a pic of it...it looks less like inception than I thought lol

Joie and I went to the shoreline, and put parts of our bodies in the Mediterranean Sea.

That awesome looking building is the Barcelonan World Trade Center

So according to World Atlas, the 7 Seas of the Discovery Age as:
Atlantic
Arctic
Indian
and Pacific Oceans
Mediterranean Sea,
the Caribbean Sea,
and the Gulf of Mexico
(I'm using the seas of the discovery age even though that time period was from 1450-1650 because it's MY discovery age right now!!)


Only have 4 more Seas to go to touch them all!

After frolic a little by the shore, I started to get VERY hungry because all I ate that day was coffee and ice cream (my fave things, but not really um nutritional per se)...but it was only 6 pm so there weren't any real restaurants open yet

We grabbed a cab back to the Christopher Columbus monument...it's of Christopher Columbus pointing towards the new world....but he's not pointing the right way hahah

Jon and Henry were VERY hungry...and since im a boy, i was VERY hungry too...they got food bc they had cash but i had to wait to go to Mcdonald's because not many places in Barcelona take plastic...OMG SO SAD FOR MY LIFEEEE

we wandered for a little bit and we saw a bunch of street performers. Barcelona is a city of artists! There was a guys with like a magic glass ball that he was being a baller (HAHA) with. He was making his limbs all like fluid and it looked like he was a wizard (I mean, he might have been!) Then there were all of these people who were like pretending to be statues and Jack Sparrow and stuff. And there were jugglers...this one juggler kept on messing up and then laughing at himself. And then he heckled people for money...he was so ridiculous that people actually gave him money for being bad at juggling lololol

Jen, Henry, Katie, Micky, Joie, and I all went to eat at Lez quinze nits. I had paella for the first time..OMG IT WAS SO GOOD....im just going to eat paella over and over again for the rest of my life.

love love love love

It was such cute FSP bonding time, everyone shared food and sangria and we just talked a lot...I LOVE MY FSP!!! We are cuties.

We all just hung out together for the rest of the night...it was nice, and we were a familia.

At one point we were all walking down the street holding hands in a line...it was adorbs!

omg

if one more person says ni hao to me im going to flip a lil bitch.

Im Korean.

And micky is only half chinese, half japanese....

between us, there is only one quarter of chinese....

i mean i love chinese people but really, stop saying ni hao to me

Review Time!

Micky and I went on a nice little date today!
We went to the Blau Resturant, a really nice place on Carrer del Tenor Masini, 61. That's only like a 10 min walk from the hotel we're staying at. Unfortunately, the walk was kind of scary because it was definitely NOT in a glam neighborhood.

Everything about the meal was delicious! It was a five course meal, and since we reserved on this nice website (www.restalo.com -- it lets you reserve and get discounts in Spain!) we got the meal for 60% off. Yeah we're saavy!

how cute!!

So when to reserve, you get a menu (we learned that in Spain, a "menu" is like a course meal that you choose)

We started out with Cannelloni with mushrooms in a creamy foie

(later we found out this was liver...Micky was NOT happy)

[Interjection by Micky: Literally, I was tricked into eating liver!!! When we relooked at the menu to remember the names of everything - it said, FOIE on our first appetizer. Vom. Never speaking about that again...also I called it when we were eating. R: "What's this inside?" M: "Ah, no idea, but it's a little weird. Probably some haggis-type stuff." R: "So good, though!" Foie...sigh.]

Followed by Andalusian-style fried calamari with salad

and Contrast salad, cubes of crusty bread, gorgonzola and apple

So those appetizers were shared between me and Micky.

For our main course, we could choose between Grilled Prawns, Beef burger with pepper, or Magret of duck with wild berry touch. Micky and i both got the grilled prawns.

We were very happy with these because they came with 5 and they were pretty big!

For dessert we had Profiteroles with chocolate fondant

(all of these pics I got from google because I was dumb and didn't takes pics, but these are pretty close to what the actual meal looked like)

All in all, the meal was absolutely amazing! The only downside was that we had to pay for the water...because they didn't have tap...idk.

For both of us, the meal was €32 which was a deal!

The best part was we made friends with the waiters. For some reason they thought we were really funny because we were american. They were so nice that they called us a cab afterwards because we were kind of scared to walk home.

overall, i definitely want to go back!

Chuck Norris = Chuck Bass

Micky: Blake Lively and Penn Badgley split up!!! After 3 years, what??

Rebecca: Which one is he on Gossip Girl?

Micky: Dan

Rebecca: Is that the one who says "I'm Chuck Norris?"

Micky: ?!?!?!??! You mean Chuck Bass, HAHAHHAHA

Day 5: Barca, Please Don't Say Ni Hao

This is the story of Micky Rebecca Barcelona.

After we watched the Woody Allen version of our lives, Rebecca and I were convinced that Barcelona would be exactly like that. Okay, maybe not exactly, we didn't want to mess with Maria Elena. But if somebody came up to us during dinner and asked us to go to Oviedo, we would have been on board. And obvi Juan Antonio would be Jon Kortajarena - though technically he is with us, because of all the Metro ads:

We planned to start our day at 9 am. Rebecca's blackberry alarm goes off and I mumble something like "No, cannot, too tired." She's nice and actually rationalized this and said that if were tired and exploring that would be no fun. So Rebecca and I wake up at 1:30 pm...yep. Housekeeping knocked on our door at 9 am, but this time, I decided not to get up and "greet" them. We're super pleased with our hotel this time around, and Rebecca opens our window/door to the balcony (yes!) and it's beautifully sunny out. Warmth! We love it.

First, we needed some food. So we walk down a block from our hotel and find a cute little brasserie. This is going to be easy, because we know spanish, we think. So we ask the welcoming lady if we could have a menu. The conversation goes a little something like this:

Spanish Lady: Menu??? Quires ordenar todo el menu?

Me: No...no

SL: Lo siento, no entiendo ingles.

Rebecca:

[ insert lots of trying to figure out why she won't let us JUST order the pollo or the huevos... ]

Finally we get that the chalk-scribbled menu on the wall meant to say: 10.50 for a 3 course meal, appetizer, entree and a dessert. We manage to successfully order: I order the Catalan soup, a pollo dish and flan. Rebecca gets the same, but she chose huevos instead. The Catalan soup was delicious, and tasted really similar to the Waterzooi we had at Ghent, in Belgium! Points for being so cultured, we can cross-reference national dishes.

My first time trying flan! I think my taste buds had a heartattack from the sugar rush, haha!

Right after we finished the soup, the same Spanish lady gave us a thumbs up and asked, "Bueno?" Us: "SIIIIIIII, my bueno!"

[Interjection by Reb: So while we were eating, Micky looks out the window and goes WTF....I look and we both witness a trail of children connected by A LEASH....I DONT GET IT!!!

LOL

remind you of something?

end]

The rest of the meal was amazing, and we also successfully managed to pay for our meals separately. We were doing pretty well. But then...we walked down some shady streets full of men who kept saying "Ni Hao" to us. Like literally one right after another. Butt-grabbing is a serious no-no, but the Spanish apparently failed to get that memo...poor Rebecca!! Sadface.

Here comes the highlight of our day: both of us were craving some fruits and hit up a mercado that we ran across while we were wandering about. I grabbed a nectarine and Rebecca had a handful of fruits. So we walk up to the young, Spanish lad:

Us: Hola!

Him: Entienden espanol?

Us: Si!

Him: Regalo, tuyos, guapas*

(*This is Rebecca's version of it, I thought he said "llegalo (take it), porque ellas guapas" Either way though, we were happy campers! FREE FRUIT! Should have stocked up my entire bag full, haha! Maybe being cute isn't always a curse....yay!

We hopped the metro to Sagrada Familia, which is incredible yes, but a little anti-climactic because of all the construction surrounding it. Hilarious, because my friend Daniel says it's perpetually under construction (he visited last year)! The queue was out the wazoo, I think we noticed the queue first, the actual Sagrada second. Oh queues.

Then we got lost for a wee bit (ew, Scottishism!!) trying to find the famous Diagonal Avenue. We asked people left and right, nobody seemed to know...what we were even trying to look for. But when we finally found it - it was like hitting the high fashion jackpot! Chanel, Hermes (no swanky art exhibit like it had in Brussels though), Hugo Boss, Burberry (which was GIGANTIC), Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo...we should have known - the best looking Spaniards work in these stores. And are not the Ni Hao-ers.

Later, we wanted to go home but got a little more lost...and there were a bunch more "Ni Haos." Why are Spanish men so forward??? More metro-navigating...we almost got on the RER by accident. Barcelona's metro is far cleaner and modernized than Paris' which was kind of surprising! I am obsessed with trains so I took a picture, hehe. Other things I took photos of: the building that looks like it was a mermaid mansion on Passeig de Gracia, the Sangria corner in every souvenir shop, this cool art sculpture on Avinguda Diagonal, los calles just because the palm trees make me real happy, and more!

But long story short: we missed our blog too much and decided to come home and "siesta" aka write to you guys!

So, Recap:

- Barcelona is far warmer (literally) and friendlier (NI HAO!), but probably equally as scarie as Parie at night...

- We love Spanish cuisine, just so long as they don't make us buy the entire menu...

- Free fruits for being guapa, win!

More adventures to come - tomorrow: Pablo Picasso Museum, Park Guell for some Gaudi, and hitting up the beach! The rest of the FSP is also in Barcelona too - Dartmouth takes Spain by storm, whattup.

[Where are our nun outfits when we need them]

Day 4: Police on Rollerblades

Didn't get a chance to blog yesterday because we were frantically travelling.
Let me tell you how we travel because I don't think I wrote about that yet.
Micky is very chic and efficient so she was able to cram everything into her longchamp bag.
On the other hand, while I was packing, I was thinking about all the outfits I needed and face creams and make up and shoes (i brought 3 pairs of shoes on this trip, no judgement)....so i have a big ass backpackers bag. (Uncle Seok bum gave this to me...thankssss uncleeee!!)

yeah, you can't see my head from behind my bag, so?

We went to the Musee d'Orsay yesterday because the Louvre was closed.  It wasn't nearly as big as the Louvre but the exhibits (we heard) were far superior.

Yesterday wasn't actually that interesting, we went last minute souvenir shopping (I got presents for ppl ;]!! ) And just tried not to move around that much.  I understand why turtles move so slow now...it's hard carrying your home on your back!

Funny story- All weekend we had seen people on rollerblades all over France...and we were all what?!  

However, we didn't realize how serious this rollerblade epidemic was until yesterday when we were standing outside the Louvre and we saw POLICEMEN ON ROLLERBLADES...rollerblading in the street like they thought they were cars of something...idk

We took a bus to the airport (I finished the first volume of the Tenant of Wildfell Hall) and we waited for the plane in an Illy coffee shop.  Here comes the travail:  We found out our plane was delayed 35 minutes--so our plane would arrive at 12:15 instead of 11:40...which usually wouldn't be a problem but Micky looked up bus times from Girona to Barcelona earlier and she found that there was a bus that went to Barcelona that left at 11:45.

So, if everything went wrong, we'd be stuck in Girona which was 1.5 hours away, probably crying and probably in danger.

Micky was very worried.  I was not because I'm stupid and I figured that something would happen that would save us.  (I should do something about this blind optimism).

Thankfully, we got to Girona, there was a bus, and we made it to our hotel unscathed! yayyyyy

That was our boring day yesterday.

But here's a story that I thought about when we were in the museum.

Interjection inspired by Delacroix

Delacroixxxx!!!!

So Micky and I were  looking at an exhibit featuring Delacroix.  I was very happy because I am obsessed with Orientalism in 19^th century art!

In one of the pieces, there was a man smoking a hookah in a harem and this made me remember my trip to Edinburgh LOL. Since this trip to Edinburgh was technically a Travel and this story recounts a Travail, I’m going to include it.

A lot of the Glasgow Darties had met up with the Edinburgh Darties the night before and this night we wanted to go on a pub crawl, which is essentially like a frat circuit but for pubs.  I was not feeling it and was adamant about finding a hookah bar.

Everyone else was ambivalent so I was like, “If I find out where it is, we are going!!!” and because no one thought I’d actually be able to find one, they agreed.

This is how I enacted my plan: 

I went to the bartender and said, “So are there any hookah bars around here?”

He started laughing and said, “Sure there are three right in a triangle on the end of Blah Rd.”

Delighted, I replied, “Omg!  How do you get there!”

He started to laugh again and said, “Let me print you a map.”

I sat at the bar happily sipping on my gin and tonic thinking about how jolly and friendly the Edinburgh bartenders are.  Also I was feeling victorious because no one thought I was actually going to make this work.

He comes back, circles the bars and gives me the Yahoo map print out.

I come back to my Glasgow group triumphant and push all of them out of their chairs and we start to walk.

And walk.

….and walk.

The neighborhood is getting shadier and shadier, and it’s nighttime—I am glad I forced the boys to come too.

Finally, we get to a corner with red lights all around and we stop to look at the map.  This is where we are supposed to be.

We look around and see fluorescent signs that say things like “Lap dance!” “Legs!”

I say, “OMG, hahahaha wouldn’t it be funny if he thought I said ‘hooker’ instead of hookah!?”

We look around and see three hooker bars right in the places where the bars on the maps are circled….

Then I realized why the bartender was laughing at me so hard.

Fuck.

That’s how I learned that in the UK you ask for SHEESHA bars NOT hookah bars.

Anyway, we're in Barcelona and we're gonna meet up with Jon, Henry, Joie, Nora and Katie hopefully!!!!  i miss my FSPpl 

I like Barcelona MUCH better than Paris...we had a few mishaps (i think mick's going to talk about them) but the vibe here is just so much raw-er (?) and more authentic.  Plus I can speak Spanish reasonably well which makes my life x12983019283012983 easier

Things Rebecca Says

Me: My hair's so knotty...

Rebecca: My hair's nice.

XO, m

Things Micky Says

Me: Wait did you write down the budget?
Micky:  Yeah.  Hold on, imma pop my eyes out.

Day 3: Being Cute is a Curse

Today was beautiful and sunny!  But Micky and I didn't leave our hotel until around 11:30 am because it was really hard to get up this morning.

House keeping knocked for a full five minutes on our door around 9 am until Micky shuffled out of bed, opened the door, grumbled, "we're sleeping" and shut the door in the poor woman's face.

We woke up two hours later because we realized the original plan was to get out of bed by 8 am.

This is actually a true portrayal of how we sleep. (This is what our hotel room looks like...HUGE upgrade from our last hotel...HUGE)

Ok so we finally got out of bed and to are walking towards the metro!  Success!
The sun is shining, the birds are singing!  Basically I feel like Snow White but in Paris, so it's better.
Suddenly, a man who looks kind of like a weirder version of Horace Slughorn from Harry Potter 6 says, "Quelle heure est-il?"  and since I've been studying French before I go to sleep just in case i need to whip it out, I know that he is saying "What time is it?"

I am very excited that I understand him and I pull Micky's wrist and am like "Micky! This man is asking us what time it is!  What time is it!"

She says, "almost 1" so we try to kind of sign language it to him.

Then in pretty perfect English he says, "Where are you guys from?"
and we say, "The states."

And then he says, "I'm from Italia!  blahzie blahzie blahzie (something in Italian)"
and we're like "No speak Italiano"
ik, that was stupid and an American thing to say....but I mean it!

And then he did some like frantic hand motion pointing at us and then the sky and then prayer hands.

Micky was all "Uhhh do you need to go pray?"
and he was like "no, you two from the sky!"

and then he tried to shake our hands.  I didn't really understand what was going on...so I shook his hand.  I think Micky did too.  Later we felt pissed that we actually shook his hands and Purelled alot.

Finally, we get to the subway!  and we go to Covisart to go to Chez Gladine, the restaurant that Hilary told us to go to with the amazing duck confit.  Unfortunately, after getting off at the station, we realize that we have no idea where the restaurant is.  FAIL.

We ask a woman and she's like "oh yes! I know where to go!" and she gives us really intense directions.  And then just to make sure, we asked a man walking by and he's like "yes, follow me" and we go the opposite way the lady told us to go.  On the way there, we awkwardly pass the lady who gave us the first directions.  They start talking heatedly in French.  It seems the man has won.  The lady looks sheepish at us and carries on doing whatever we are doing and the man points us to the right area.

We get to Chez Gladine and it is just as amazing as Hilary told us it was. (Hilary is a food goddess by the way, every time she orders something at a restaurant, I am jealous of her order and I creepily scam on what she's eating the whole time that it's on her plate).

Duck confit is leg of duck in a buttery mushroom-wine sauce accompanied by lightly pan fried slices of potato and leafy greens...SO GOOD

[AWKWARD INTERJECTION:  The tables at this restaurant are kind of picnic table style, so you're sitting in close quarters with people you don't know.  When Micky and I first sat down, we started eating the bread on the table because we thought that it was like the bread that comes out on the table before the entrée like in America. Later we found out that at Chez Gladine, they bring the bread out with your meal.....which means we were unknowingly eating the bread that was set out for the ladies on a friend date next to us....Once we realized this, we stopped eating the bread and subtly pushed it away from us and more towards them so that they would think that they had actually been the ones who had eaten all of that bread.]

Micky and I talk about French men and how their allure lies in their striped boat shirts and low BMI. (As well as their gently tousled hair and great sense of accessorizing.) (At this point men in white scarfs count has risen to 10).

Finally, we were very full and happy--we walked around Covisart a bit because it was very beautiful and then decided to get on the metro for some very important business:  Shopping on Champs-Élysées.

It took kind of a long time to find after getting off the Champs-Élysées metro station because we accidentally walked the wrong way, but we finally made it!  We saw a HUGE Louis Vutton store.

I don't even like LV that much, but I had hearts in my eyes when I saw this guy.

Micky and I took a picture inside the Swarovski store because it was just so beautiful and SPARKLY.

We went to H and M (of course) and went to Zara...

By that time, we were a little bit ty-ty, so we went to this petit cafe where we ordered cafe americanos.  So...idk what they gave us, but it DEFINITELY wasn't a coffee....you know those little cups you get at the dentist to squirt mouthwash into to gargle with?  Our coffees were smaller than that.  I compensated by putting like three sugar cubes into it.  Which made it tastier and made me feel like there was more of it.

At least we got to sit outside in the sun!

After we refueled, we realized that we were meeting Sujin and one of her high school friends in Monmarte for dinner.  (Q: Do we do anything other than eat? A: No.)

We went to the resturant called Un Zebra and the food was very good!  Micky got salmon and I got roasted Camembert.

After we were full, we decided to go to the Eiffel tower because it is beautiful and lit at night!  So we walk there and as we get closer and closer to the tower, more and more peddlers keep on getting up in our grills being like "1 euro!  Light up eiffel tower!  5 rainbow eiffel tower key chains for 1 euro!"  I tried to ignore them alot or else say no really loudly. 

Because 1)  Those light up Eiffel towers were tacky as shit.  If you bought one, the next day you'd be like looking at it and wondering....what was I thinking.  2) I'm trying to appreciate a modern marvel, why are you standing so close to me.

Micky and I considered climbing up the tower, but it was SUPER cold, and since we didn't have pants, we decided so save the climb for another day.  (Every time I see "The Climb" I think of Miley Cyrus...I'm embarrassing.)

Instead we decide to try out the bars that Hilary told us were good.  so we're walking to the bars and we're going through these REALLY SKETCHY parts of town.  Like really uncute.  We were going to try and be troopers but we were starting to get freaked out, so we catch the metro.  Upon further discussion, we realize that we have alot of packing and planning to do before tomorrow because we're leaving for Barcelona (woooo!!)

So we skip the bars and decide to go home.

Reasons I am glad we did this:

1) After night fall, Parie is scarie.  French men are so freaking forward it is not even funny.  Micky and I were sitting next to each other in a pretty empty subway car and suddenly this really sketchy looking man wearing a tracksuit (EW) and with only one front tooth (EW EW) sits down next to us and he TOUCHES MY LEG (EW EW EW EW EW ) and he points to his friend who is standing away from us and holding the subway bar.  I am trying to ignore him/having a heart attack/scrunching as close to Micky as I can.  But he keeps on trying to talk to us and Micky and I are hyperventilating because we are scared that they are planning to follow us home.  THANK GOD they get off at the next stop.

2) Micky and I RUN the 7 minutes back from the metro to our hotel because it is dark, we are girls, and we are scared.

Now:
We are sitting in our bed in our jim jams eating kiwis and packing for Barcelona.  I just poured out the 2.80 euro wine that we bought yesterday. I kept it as a weapon to throw in someone's eyes if they tried to attack us.

So like the post i made before was totally true....just with some omissions, lol.

BARCA TOMORROW!!!
we're going to the Musee d'Orly and maybe Oscar Wilde's tomb in the daytime and then it's PEACE FRANCE.  YOU'RE SCARY!

Day 3: Paris is Heavenly

Paris is a dream...duck confit in a buttery mushroom garlic sauce then a leisurely walk around Covisart. A quick train to the Champs-Élysées where Micky and I popped into the Swarovski store and had to walk up and down the bejeweled staircase, marveled at the Louis Vuitton that was larger than most city halls and ended our shopping spree with a petit espresso and sugar cubes at a chic Parisian cafe.  Lovely day was followed by an even lovelier night under the sparkling lights of a gold-lit Eiffel tower.

//RECORD SCRATCH// wait a minute....we WISH this was exactly what happened....but I'll keep this romantic little description up to make ourselves feel better

Day 2: "Please let me know if you are alive"-Mom

In case you were on the edges of your seats and very worried whether Micky and I were dead after  this very horrid encounter, I'll tell you right now that we're not.  In fact we are tres alive.

It felt VERY good to finally shower.

Things we've learned:

1. We love Paris but not France.
2. Every man from France wears the same white scarf
3. People in Paris take the "City of Love" part very seriously
4. Do not make eye contact with men in Paris.  This is equivalent to saying "I am very single and ready to mingle.

I used to really hate france because i only saw clinchy, but actually it's very beautiful and I'm starting to love it.  It was like we had a rocky relationship in the beginning but it's starting grow on me...ALOT.

Today we went to get the BEST falafel ever and I ate escargot!

We went to the Arc de Triomphe, saw the Louvre (we're going into it on Tuesday),Norte Dame,  and walked up and down the Rue Royale which is like a row of shops and sight seeing attractions.

We also saw a man blowing HUGE bubbles in the square outside the Jardin de Tullieries...Like literally bubbles as big as my body.  When I first saw them, I thought they were UFOS.

Men in white scarves count- 7

Couples who start making out randomly and viciously right in front of us- 5.

Day 2: Por Quoi?

My hunch is that you all are keeling over, on the edge of your seat from the last post, wondering if we were still alive, so rest assured, we're here. So alive, nbd.

Rebecca and I woke up at 11:15 am with a vengeance. After freaking out about whether we had missed the 11 o'clock checkout time, we packed our things and bid our box of a room farewell. Forever. We were hoping to get the friendly lady receptionist we had yesterday so we could play the female card, if shit got real. And we did. So after rambling and rambling about how freaked out we were last night, she says "Okay, I have to call." She called the receptionist who probably confessed to acting shady and then she called the hotel boss. Meanwhile, the old French man who played with the dog from yesterday (who now appears to be someone associated to this Grand Hotel) is jabbering about how it was "normal" that our receptionist was forcing himself into our room at wee hours. No bueno. Why was he against us. Por quoi?

But then I remembered how the guy hollered "You are so beautiful. You should come to the bar" to Rebecca at 1 am. And then she gave us our money back.

Nice French Lady Receptionist: I understand...you are women.

Micky & Rebecca: I know! We were scared.

NFLR: This is not normal. (of the hotel, not us being scurrdycats)

Then we booked it to our new and mod-styled hotel in Bobigny. Such a kind lady, but what a bootleg hotel.

Smooth sailing on the metro for a good run, then we got lost in Bobigny. We walked in circles in an odd residential arae for a while. Realized everything is closed on Sunday. Realized we didn't have the address to our hotel. So it didn't matter that there was no one to ask for directions...but then thankfully Rebecca saved the day with her Blackberry and looked it up (great feat, considering her phone screen is the darkest thing ever). Then we finally flag down a Taxi stop, we spot a man standing next to the parked cab.

Rebecca: Hi! Are you the taxi driver?

Taxi Driver: Oui.

Micky: Can you please take us to here (points to hotel address)?

TD: Non, [it's right over there, in French].

M: Sorry, what?

TD: 5 MINUTES. A PIED. (does the little walking hand gesture with his fingers)

R: Ohhhh, over there? K, merci!

M: Wait I don't understand...doesn't he want money.

R: Why didn't he just drive us there?

M: Por qoui??

So we continue on walking with our homes on our backs. We run across a little lady and ask her for the way to Hotel Balladins. More French. Then all of a sudden a taxi cab stops for her and they are chatting it up through the window. She motions that we should get in, and we take it the driver will escort us to our destination. Desperate, we open the door. Rebecca opens the door and low and behold, there is a baby strapped in the middle back seat. We are both confused. Then the taxi driver says to sit on both sides of the baby. So we do. He drives us to our front door, and refuses to accept our money. Por quoi?!

So Things we learned:

#1: We like Paris, but not France. (Clichy is the French people's word for SketchTown)

#2: Sometimes Taxi drivers will refuse you.

#3: Sometimes Taxi drivers will offer free rides.

After resuming normal lives and being our happy showered selves, we venture out to Paris, the real city centre, aka the place we've tried to see for the past 32 hours. First, we went to the Marais Quarter for some lunch, at this falafel place our friend Hilary (also from Dartmouth, on the Glasgow FSP) recommended to us, called L'As du Falafel. The lines were super long, and we over hear a lot of Frenchmen saying how much of a tourist hotspot this place is. The guy takes our order on the sidewalk, outside of the restaurant, and takes our 5 euros for our "falafel, our specialty" and hands us a ticket. Fast forward to us eating: imagine Rebecca and I, stuffing our faces, in heaven. Yep.

M: So many flavors!

R: And so many textures!

K, we're not always this into food. Only sometimes.

Then we decide we needed some caffeine to cure our headaches, because we are caffeine-dependent Americans. Slip into a coffee shop. First croissant of the trip - pain au chocolate, of course. I think I enjoyed plopping in my piece of chocolate into my vanilla latte and watching it melt a little too much. But that's okay.

Insert lots of strolling around the beautiful squares of Paris, walking alongside Le Seine, getting-people-to-take-our-pictures, and then we find some unplanned surprises! Notre Dame, the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Jardin des Tuileries, and then some!

I forget what the name of the restaurant we had dinner at was, but it was an authentic French spot. Rebecca has escargot for the first time! More highlights but most of them were just of us trying to learn as much French as we could from the menu.

Epic day planned for tomorrow! We love our new hotel.

Clocking out at 3:36 AM - Bonne nuit!

Day 0 and 1: Why is there a dog in here?

Ok, I could not post of day one because day was was too hectic for me to even think about blogging.

So even though this say Day 2 of Eurotrip, I'm going to start on Day 0, Oct 22, the day before we came to France.

Micky and I left Glasgow at 11:45 on the 22nd because our flight out of Edinburgh was at 6:40 am and this was the only way we that we would be able to make it to our flight.

So we got dinner at Wudon, this nice little Japanese fusion restaurant on Great Western Rd. Then we went to Buchannan St. to see The Social Network (which I didn't like because Eduardo--thehotone!!--gets fucked over).  We have to leave the movie theatre 45 seconds before the movie ends because our bus is about to leave.

On the bus Micky reads the Tenant of Wildfell Hall like the good Victorian student she is.  I email Saagar and look at people on the bus.

We get off the bus and stand under a slightly leaking bus stop box for half an hour before we realize that the bus isn't coming and split a taxi with a nice Polish woman to the airport.  Neither of us packed any pants.  This was the first sign that things might not go as planned on our trip.

So we get to the airport at 2:00 am and camp out in the Costa Coffee...a surprising amount of other people are hobo-ing it up as well.  After about two hours of freezing to death, Micky and I put on a second pair of leggings because we got it like that.

I fall asleep for two hours, Micky does not.  She is still engrossed in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall....no judgement.

So at 4 am we check in. (The guy who checked us in was the same guy who checked us in for Brussels!  He didn't recognize us.  Oh well.)

Finally, we are inside the airport, and we board the plane to go to Paris!

--
Day 1 of Eurotrip

Now begins actual day 1. Paris Beauvais airport is this tiny airport that specifically caters to Ryanair, the budget cheap-o airline that Micky and I planned our Europe trip around.  This means it was one hour away from Paris city center and we had to take an hour and a half long bus ride to the city center.

Micky and I sat next to each other.  But in front of, in back of, and generally surrounding us, were the forefathers of the cast of the Jersey Shore.  A whole family of Italians decided to phagocytosize (sp?) our little party and they were talking very loudly and being very tan all around us.  We planned our trip while we sat on the bus listening to Italian and trying not to think about how much we needed to shower and sleep.

We finally got to the metro station in Paris city center, which was inside a mall, and after buying some breakfast, we hopped on to Clichy where our hotel was!

At this point, it was raining, I was carrying a big backpackers bag with plastic bags full of fruit tied to it, Micky was carrying lots of bags, and we were both very sleep deprived. Cuteness factor was zero.

What happened then was that we were sitting on the metro, it stopped, and then all the lights went off.  We started to laugh really hard because we didn't know what else to do.

Finally a woman came into our car and in French she said "Get out." in English we said "What?"

With lots of hand gestures, we figured out that this metro line was BROKEN and we needed to find our way to the hotel we had no idea how to get to...ON FOOT.

Pissed, we left the metro station and walked into the first shop we saw.  We thought it was a cafe but actually it was a shop that looked like a cafe but really sold kitchens.  Really.  I don't know.

So we asked them how to get to The Grand Hotel and the man tried to explain it to us.  But his woman counterpart glared at us alot and was holding a mop to mop up our puddly footprints. So we decided to leave pretty quick.

We decide to call a taxi and when we get in the taxi we have a conversation that goes like this:
R: Hi!
Taxi Driver:...
R: Do you speak English?
Taxi Driver: (In English) In France we speak in French!

So we end up just shoving him our hotel booking receipt and hoping he knows where this shit is.

We finally get to the hotel at 1 pm but we can't check in until 3!  So we take off our bags, spread out in the lobby and start to read.  This hotel is a one star hotel so we are very surprised when it actually looks like a nice place!  I decide to go to the bathroom to check it out.

Doesn't look that bad, eh?  just wait.

I come back and Micky is cringing, an old man sitting at the table eating steak is yelling, and a dog is skittering around the lobby floor.  WHAT.

A woman comes and starts yelling at the dog in French, chases it behind the reception desk, and tells it to be quiet.  It won't be quiet.

Another lady asks us if we have our room yet and we say no, thank god she asks us if we can check in so we can leave this little hotel shitshow.

At this point Micky and I are feeling pretty freaking swampy and really want to shower.  Unfortunately, we find out that not only do we have to share the bathrooms here, our room is little more than a box with a window, and towels seem to be hoarded jealously.

We tried to console ourselves by saying things like:

"Ernest Hemingway probably slept in places like this"

"If you put this towel over all these stains, it looks a lot cleaner!"

"That's not barbed wire around our hotel, that's just a spiky gate."

"Oh look one big bed...more cuddle time!"

But in our hearts, we were scared.

And I guess we had right to be because after passing out for 4 hours and getting a very authentic French dinner of Chef's crispy chicken and beef with peppers at Jardin de Chinois, we came back to our room to plan our next day.

Side note:  Micky and I recently have become obsessed with this man:

Jon K

So we decided to take a little break and watch some youtube videos on him.  Suddenly we hear loud knocking.  We are a little frightened because it is one o'clock.

Us: Hello?

Mysterious Person: You have to be quiet.

Us:  Who is this?

M. P.: Reception

Us: K, sorry

MP: Make sure to be quiet

Us: K SORRY.

Okay, so that was a little weird.

but then, at 2:30, we heard knocking again, at this point we are basically asleep.

MP: Im coming in *keys jingle*

Us: WAIT WHAT WHO ARE YOU WHAT IS THIS

MP: Reception

Us: DONT COME IN WHY DO YOU HAVE TO COME IN

MP: because.

Us: Wait why!!  Don't come in!!

*keys jingle some more*

Us: DONT COME IN

MP; You guys have to be quiet

Us:  Yes , yes!  We'll be quiet, we're going to sleep right now.

footsteps walk away.

Needless to say, we were VERY freaked out.  We stayed up booking another hotel and packing our things.

There was nothing else to do except put a chair in front of the door, put some heavy things that could be used as weapons next to our beds, think really strong thoughts, and go to bed.

I don't think Micky slept very much, but I fell asleep because for some reason I can fall asleep under all circumstances.

To be cont. on Day 2

Things to know about us

We're two Dartmouth students studying English at University of Glasgow.

Glasgow is nice, but we finished that in one month, on to the world!

A little bit about us:

I'm Rebecca, I'm 20, and I hate cows. (I'm really scared of them)
Micky is an Econ major, English minor, and she knows alot about fashion.
Sometimes we win Contact because we make obscure references to fashion that only we understand.

This is us at this Scottish Neo-Victorian house that we stayed at once.  We sat out on the croquet because we're not athletically inclined.

This is us in Luxembourg last weekend doing our Silent Fox sign.  I don't why we thought that was cool.

Self-Introduction...

Hi. We're Micky and Rebecca. We're on a eurotrip. This is our story. We begin in Paris, and we'll end in Venice. Pleased to have you all here to accompany us on our travels!

So far the trip has been horizon-broadening, but mostly eye-opening. For one, don't ever book a 1-star (no-star) hotel. Because the sketchy french receptionist will come beating down your room door at 1 am (and 2:30 am) and beg you to open your door. Secondly, learn your French before visiting France. It will come in handy, especially when you're forced to scrape up all the change you have to pay for your Metro ticket because the lady is judging you, in French. Most of all though, we learned that our moods exponentially improve with: showers, sleep and food.

Stay tuned for more from just your average wayfarers.

Bisous!