Part I – Spain
My best friend met me at the airport in Barcelona (I flew out the morning of Dec. 25 and arrived in Spain the morning of Dec. 26). We went straight to our hostel (where I was chided by the lady at the front desk for saying dollars not euros) and had breakfast and then I needed a nap before doing anything. It was raining, but we decided to go check out a couple places. We had a late lunch at a traditional Spanish place where the waiter fell in love with my friend and left her his email address. We came back to the hostel, tried to go to the sauna, which was closed. We got ready (you have to always look nice when you go out here) and went to a lounge called Dry Martini that has 100 different martinis. It turned out to be an old man bar! There were all these women tossing their furs and acting like we must be gold diggers! Also, we discovered that we don’t actually like dry martinis, ha. We then got dinner (the Spanish eat dinner at about 10pm) at this cool hotel. Then, I was trying to find the bathrooms and I ended up locking myself out of the restaurant and in a staircase. I eventually found my way to a parking garage and then ran back to the front door. It was quite the adventure. After that, it was pouring down rain and both our umbrellas broke and so we huddled under one semi-broken umbrella and went back to the hostel.
Sigh, it was still raining hard, so we slept in and then went to the sauna. There, an angry lady yelled at us in broken English to get out of the hotub (even though there were NO signs) because it was apparently cleaning itself. And for some reason, they have it set up to clean every 15 minutes... Who does that? I wanted to swim a few laps but they require you to wear a cap so we went back to the sauna. The showers are all push button and so it’s kind of funny to shower. My friend wanted to go to the movies, and I had a cold, so I took a long nap after we had lunch at an Egyptian place. They have a tradition in Spain to offer you drinks at the end of your meal, so they gave us this SUPER thick honey tea. Ugh. Anyway, after my nap, we met an Argentinean guy at the hostel and we decided to go to dinner. On the way, it started to POUR rain again, so we ran into the nearest place with food. It turned out to be a very weird Chinese buffet with the most bizarre collection of food options I’ve ever seen at a buffet. They don’t have Diet Coke (I know, gasp!) so I drink “Coca-Cola Light” instead, lol. We came back to the hostel to get ready to go out dancing. The first club we went to was SUPER sketchy (aka you will get robbed) so we didn’t even go in. We decided to go to a place called Club Fellini that my friend’s Italian friend recommended. It was pretty fun but I got a little bored because everyone was chatting in Spanish and all I could say was si, si... :-P
Finally, the weather was better, so we went to Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. We saw the most amazing cathedral that was build in 1328. It was pretty awe-inspiring. The main cathedral is under construction, which was a little disappointing, but the whole district was cool. We had brunch at a great restaurant called Milk that is run by British folks. We got some souvenirs and took quite a few pics. When we stopped for drinks by the Picasso museum, I managed to lock myself in a men's bathroom because I got confused by the signs. There are a lot of coed bathrooms in Europe, lol. Around midnight, we went to see the Gaudi church which is usually lit up at night (unfortunately, it wasn’t) and then had weird "beef" (aka mystery meat) hamburgers at a very small and smoky restaurant with lots of old men singing loudly to a juke box. ;) We realized at 3:30 am that we had forgotten to book a place to stay in Paris our first night here, essentially that night! So we only got 2 hours of sleep, yikes! We eventually found a place though.
In the rainy morning, we took a train through the countryside to see Montserra. It was pretty cool but we got confused and couldn't get the door to open at our stop so we ended up sitting at a lonely train stop in the middle of nowhere to wait for a train back, lol. And no, we never made it up the mountain… When we got back to the city, we saw the amazing palace and Plaza de Catalonya before we caught the bus to Girons, where we caught our flight to France. I chatted with some nice French people in line to start working up for Paris.
Part 2 – France
We arrived in Beauvais, France at 9:30ish pm. From there, we took a bus to Paris. It was SO cold when we arrived, but when we got off the metro at our hotel's stop and walked up the stairs, we were literally at the Arc of Triumph at the Champs d'Elysee!! It was amazing.
It was snowing and we were really cold, so we walked the Champs d'Elysee looking at the stores and searching for hats! We both got cute ones, mine is very French :-P We of course checked out the L’arc de Triomph in the daylight as well. We then wandered through our neighborhood so my friend could find warmer shoes and I ate at my first real French cafe. In my opinion, the baguettes are just as delicious as they say! We caught the metro to our hostel and saw the Place d'Italie. Everything is still lit for Christmas and beautiful. At the hostel (called "Oops! Hostel") we shared our room with 2 Brazillian girls who were nice, but we don't hang out. We had Italian dinner (in France, I know) and then we were so tired that we went to the movies. We saw "Australia" with subtitles in French. It was so bad that people were actually laughing at it. Oh the French. Afterward, we attempted to check out some clubs recommended by a French employee at the hostel but got lost, so we took the last metro home at 1 am. However, an hour later, we met two guys from our hostel and decided to check out a couple places. One is from Baghdad and one is from Saudi Arabia. The first club we went to was even more sketchy than the one in Barcelona (I actually felt someone try to pickpocket my empty coat pocket) and so we went to a place called 6-7. It was a ton of fun and we didn’t get back to bed until 6 am! A French guy in the club kept telling me that he “hates Americans, but loves America” wtf?
We slept super late, and decided to take it easy. We had traditional French food at a brasserie across the street and got a GIANT crème brulee. We bought real French champagne, got ready, and went off the Eiffel Tower for the countdown. The two Arab guys we met and some of their friends came along, which was SO fun. All the guys are studying in Britain and have adorable British accents. The Eiffel Tower was just amazing. The Metro was PACKED with people. Everyone was singing and drinking on the way to the tower (not our group) and these Spaniards kept yelling “are you tired?!” and then responding “no!” It was like camp, haha. The Tower is all lit up and sparkly but they don’t do a big fireworks show. When we popped our champagne bottles, it was kind of a mess, but totally worth it. We eventually walked to the nearest not-completely-packed Metro, got food, and then realized we were 2 stops away from our hostel, but were on the very last train running. Oops! We got off as close to our hostel as we could and then navigated the streets with my little map of Paris. Overall, a VERY fun night!
The city was pretty quiet on New Years Day, but we had to be up before 11 am to move to our last hostel, close to Place de la Republique. We dropped off our bags, and had lunch before taking photos of the statue there, then headed to Place de la Bastille. It’s pretty interesting to think about that prison once being there when it’s now just a statue. Let me tell you, Paris is FREEZING this time of year, so all our sightseeing was COLD! :-P We then took the metro (where a drunken French man took offense to the fact that he tripped me and started yelling. The entire car was cracking up as he was swearing all over the place, and then he took out a bottle of wine to swig) out to the Ile-de-France to see Notre Dame. It was my favorite experience in Paris. When you walk in, it’s so overwhelming I was just silent. It’s such a moving experience to finally be somewhere that you’ve wanted to see with your own eyes for the first time. We also took our pictures with a man dressed up like Quasimodo out front, lol. At this point, completely frozen into ice cubes, we had to head back to our hostel.
We did the Louvre. It’s hard to put into words what this museum is like. It’s so immense, you can’t imagine until you arrive. I particularly enjoyed the sculpture section and the Objects d’Art, which includes Napoleon’s rooms… Unbelievable. That night, my coworker was in Paris (random I know) so we all went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant, lol. The margaritas were excellent as was the food, but (not gonna lie) it was not quite the same as American-Mexican food. :-P We decided to go out and had a “cultural confusion” experience. We went back to 6-7 and discovered it was Ladies Night. Now, in the US, this means you get in free and there are probably good drink deals. In France, it means there are male strippers! A stripper actually stripped down to his jock strap, then draped himself in the American flag before pulling a girl FROM THE CROWD who he wrapped into the flag while she went down on him! AAAAAH! We left shortly after, mahah. By the way, I never knew girls would go so crazy over strippers... That night, I don't know what struck me (the drinks? the city?) but I decided to sleep with my coworker! It was probably not the best idea, but he does have a GREAT body, so oh well! It's Paris, you know...
Our last full day in Paris, we decided to go to the Moulin Rouge. First though, we had crepes from a stand because we realized we hadn’t eaten them in France! Yum. We had really wanted to see a show at the Moulin, but they were completely sold out the entire time we were there. After getting food in a little café, we went down and wandered around Montmartre picking out gifts for family and trying to avoid being robbed. We also saw Sacre Coeur, which is really as beautiful as you’ve been told. That night, we decided to go back to the Mexican restaurant because the people were super nice and the food was good. They brought us shots on the house to say “au revoir” which was funny.
At 4 am, we got up to head to Charles de Gaulle, and the whole thing was kind of a fiasco. It drives me a little crazy that customer service doesn’t open until 8 am in the Metro, but we managed to get there in time and my friend just barely caught her flight out to Madrid. I had a little problem at security when I was stopped because I had forgotten that I packed a gift for my brother – a pocketknife – which they made me throw away. :-( Sad times. My 11 hour flight home was directly to Seattle, and wasn’t too bad except the SCREAMING baby for much of it (thank goodness for earplugs and head phones). All in all, it was a great trip and I cannot WAIT to go back to Paris in the summertime. ;-)
