Bonjour tout le monde! i am at my desk, about to drink some of the lovely cheap alcohol an and i bought at the "supermarché" which is actually a "hypermarché" but the name is "hyperchampion!".
I also bought a packet of "kit kat balls" - and am sorry to say i ate the entire thing. In the space of a bus ride home :$ Am feeling it now, but i needed the chocolate!!! i swear. it's the most important food group.
Although i had a hot chocolate with caramel and whipped cream from the French Starbucks at lunch today. Hmmm... maybe i've overdosed on chocolate today :S
ANYWAY, today started off very cold! i decided to put on four layers (usually i only have three - top, long-sleeved top, big fat jacket). Anyway, i woke up earlier than needed (ah!) and we went to Notre-Dame. Of course, i decide what i'm going to wear in the mornings by opening my window and letting the cold air in. An my love was a smarty-pants and checked the forecast. who was less cold? c'était moi! ah... technology will never beat sticking your head outside :P
Anyway, Notre-Dame was HUGE, very large. I didn't take any notes from what Sylvia said (tut tut!) so i'm going to write briefly what i can remember here otherwise i will forget:
- used to be jowl-and-cheek with other buildings/houses, so not really a "monument" in the true sense of the word
- On the "spiritual" side of the ile de paris - other side was commercial (hotel de ville) and students/brothels (because they go side-by-side in france ;)) on the left bank
- Um... was built bit-by-bit from 12th century to 14th Century... Viollet-le-Duc decided when he was "restoring" it (read: re doing the entire thing) to build it in 13th Century style... except for four columns on the inside (not very historically correct! tut tut).
- Something was said about the gargoyles...
- Quasimodo in Notre Dame by Hugo represents the "soul" of the Cathedral
- there was once 22 churches on the ile... now there is one.
- Saint-Anne is one of the people depicted on the church. Christ is in the middle door.
- The church is decorated in 2 (god vs devil; good vs evil), 3s (the holy trinity) and 4s (oo! hot boy just passed).
- People used to learn bible stories from the walls, once upon a time
- the coloured glass shone pretty light which people honestly believed was the actual god - not merely a representation.
That's all i can remember now. It was FREEZING cold outside Notre-Dame. Absolutely freezing. There was also a large christmas tree - yey for christmas! last night in the latin quartier we saw a lot of christmas trees on sale.. i'm tempted to buy an advent calendar for an and i to use to count down the days for christmas.. even if we're away from home, why should we miss out on the holiday? i love christmas.. it's my favourite time of year, the way the anticipation grows and grows (and now that i'm old, usually ends in a spectacularly anti-climatic way :()
ps: mum and yiayia: special request for christmas food from your long-lost daughter / grandaughter: sphaggetti bolognaise, keftethas. (nb for non-greeks: keftethas are a greek hamburger-type thing).
We walked all the way to the top of Notre-Dame. By walk, i mean climbed. By climbed, i mean dragged ourselves up 422 steps. On a very small, very tiny, spiral staircase. And the steps weren't even - having been worn in my centuries of visitors. I got both travlel sickness - dizzy from going around and around in circles with no different appearance in the stairs - and also really, really claustrophobic. I hated those stairs. I still hate those stairs. I am never going back again, just because of those stairs. At least the ones in the Arc de Triomphe were even, and lighter. The views were absolutely amazing from the top - an and i patted the gargoyles - and we took good photos, saw the Seine split in two to go around the ile - but once we got to the ground, my legs were shaking, i couldn't stand any longer, i was wrecked (it didn't help that i felt travel sick on the way over and was tired and feeling sick already).
Then we went inside the actual church - very religious, etc. Um... an and i started to wander through it, didn't realise Sylvia had stopped to give a lecture, waited by the exit for a while, then started to panick because no one we knew was anywhere! oh no! we're lost! we were about to go shopping and stuff the study, but then i thought to look for Sylvia. We found her. oh no! was very annoyed at self... she called us her "lost lambs." he he
Then we went to another Medieval-built church, forgotten it's name, and then we went to lunch - we brought bread from home, and had starbucks hot chocolates (miam miam!). I got two lovely smses from melbourne - yay! At starbucks, to prevent random people from the street walking in to use their toilet, they lock the toilets and you have to enter a special code in order to get in - they print the code on your receipt. Today's code was 35255 - we had a few people ask for the code, we pretended we couldn't speak french. There was a big group of blonde girls near us (blondes in paris! i know, i get a shock each time i see a blonde in paris too - but they were germans, which explains it). I really didn't realise how odd it is to see blondes in paris until i noticed that they stood out like a sore thumb. Interessant, non?
There was also a french boy sitting doing his homework next to us. An said in english he was cute - and then when he went to the toilet, we realised he was reading a political science book - in english. doh! he eventually asked us to explain a few words in english, we started talking for about 15 mins but then we had to leave to meet Sylvia at L'Hotel de Ville, and an didn't indicated to us she wanted his number so we didn't realise that we should stall! we didn't get it, but he recommended a few night clubs / bars to go to on saturday night, so maybe an we'll see him there!
Then we met Sylvia, and we had some trouble with l'hotel de ville. You see, it turns out that they put the wrong day in for the booking - now we have to come back on one of our supposedly free days - grr very annoyed. We also waited a long time for them to figure out that it was on the wrong day. Then Sylvia told us about how the Grands Magasins (big shopping centres) were a form of female liberation, and then an amanda and i went shopping. An fell madly in love with this beautiful jacket which is so totally her it screams "ana" from a distance. She loves it so much - it's so cute seeing the excitement and happiness in her eyes. But even after all of the discounts possible, it's going to cost around $350+ aussie dollars - ah! but she loves it, and for love, you can pay (i think she's going to starve for a few weeks in recompense ;))
I also bought some leather gloves that are a bluey-black colour with silver edges for 30 euro - which, i know, it's about $45 and so expensive, but it was the cheapest there and now i have 'classy' gloves to wear in paris. was also going to buy this parapluie (umbrella) that i really liked (to replace my shitty $5 one) but then it was also 20 euro, and that's a bit expensive for a parapluie, non? i don't know - i might go back and buy it. This was all at BHV (B-somthing, Hotel de Ville).
Then we caught the metro home - Amanda went to meet her friend from Jakarta to buy Marc Jacobs shoes - and we bought some alcohol from Hyperchampion! and for the first time i've gone there my check out chick was nice. An's going to write that i have a theory why it takes a long time - i assure you, not a theory, but a reality. I am faster at packing bags than you (the customer) are.
Um so yeah ate some chocolate, going to go to din dins soon.. what else?
Plans for tomorrow include going to the laveries (laundromat) to wash all my clothes... mum you need to reply and tell me exactly what settings i need to put on both the washing machine and the dryer for:
a) my jeans / black pants
b) my long-sleeved tops, thermals, singlet tops etc - i think they all are the same wash, non?
c) bras, undies, and socks - same wash as the others, or separate?
ah, this washing it going to cost me HEAPS of euros. Oh well, i'm on holiday, right?
Then we'll go for a fancy, crepe-lunch, go iceskating, then shop or maybe meet some french boys, then go drinking / clubbing at night. Sunday is a rest-day, drinking-in-our-rooms day. Yey for bumming around!
Check out pictures of my gloves/notre dame, etc.
By the way, there is an ice-skating rink outside l'hotel de ville. We're going there tomorrow after brunch - first time ice-skating! whoo!
Um and dad: any photos will do. Could you take the time to upload them as larger files? i struggle to see my baby when the photos are so small! thanks for looking after him. You might want to bring a towel to wrap him up when he gets his injections. Also remember to cover his carry-case in really thick newspaper.
oh, and at notre-dame i light a candle for yiayia, even though she's not catholic, because she believes in god (unlike the rest of our heathen-family ;)).
post POST: 7.24PMJust came back from dinner - ate too much - ahhhh! we drank a bit before dinner... have class at 8pm, gonna have a bit more before class.. makes it interesting!
Also, the alcohol here... fabulous. An and i have been buying weird types of liquor - all the flavours in the world! - and mixing them with all these exotic flavoured softdrinks - and they come in light! yey!
xx
