Paris...Mainly in Pictures

Paris the City: Was amazing, duh. Gorgeous city, rich culture, best food in the world, easy-to-use metro and public transporation, unrivaled museums, decent weather. Only con: people were rude and, in my experiences, were strongly and very obviously anti-American.

Paris the Trip: Frustrating. I learned my lesson about traveling in big groups which is: don't do it, no matter how close you are with the people. At times it was very frustrating and the trip as a whole was just kind of weird and I wasn't feeling great but oh well. I honestly wish I could just go back and enjoy the city more instead of dealing with unhappy campers/other random roadblocks. I guess the positive of being the one person in charge/able to read a map/actually in POSSESSION of a map/who knew what they were doing was that I got to see everything I wanted. Seeing my friends was great though and we had the best guides, i.e. my friends studying abroad there.

The best way to go through the itinerary is through pictures so...:

--Thursday night: Went to the hotel and met my friends, then immediately walked to the Louvre, which is where this picture was taken. Went to dinner with my good friend Molly who took me to some delicious whole-in-the-wall only she would know about. The people sitting next to us were so rude and made fun of us the entire time for reasons I don't understand. Molly is fluent in French, but even after she told them she could understand them, they continued to mock us.

--Friday morning: Louvre...

There were a lot of artists, like the one below, in the Louvre working on reproductions of other works. I'm really curious to know how they receive permission to do this.

--Friday afternoon: Notre Dame, below

...which was followed by lunch in the St. Germaine area. We found this amazing crepe place that had both meal and dessert crepes. That morning, I had read an article on the NYTimes online about breakfast tacos in Austin so I was really in the mood for a good Torchy's, but this crepe place had breakfast crepes so my craving was satiated.

--Friday late afternoon: Passed Les Invalides, where Napolean in buried, and walked to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees and Rue St. Honore, the super high-fashion area. Everyone in Paris is SO beautiful and they all look like Carine Roitfeld. If you want to be fashionable in Paris, all you need to do is wear all black. We did a LOT of walking on Friday.

--Saturday morning: Musee d'Orsay, which was my favorite museum. It was amazingly diverse and beautifully curated. The Louvre was simply too overwhelming for me. The Musee de L'Orangerie was also great, especially if you love Monet like I do.

--Saturday afternoon: Eiffel Tower...took the obligatory Hook 'Em pic.

...and then we followed that by going to Pierre Herme, the world's most famous macaron maker (not to be confused with macaroons, the Passover crap). It was simply incredible; however, this was not surprising. I had wanted to go to this place ever since it had been featured on "Gossip Girl" where Chuck flies all the way to Paris and back to bring Blair macarons from here. That's how you know it's good. There was literally a line winding all the way around the corner of the street.

--Saturday night: Was our big Texas reunion! We went to Nicole, Becca, and Lisa's apartment, which is literally the size of a shoebox (Nicole and Lisa share a bed, no joke) and then to dinner at a restaurant/club. In total, there were 9 UT Phis in Paris! Another group was in Barcelona that same weekend...so crazy.

Late Saturday night/Sunday morning: Went to the "6th Street of Paris" (forgot the name, but that's a direct quote from Nicole). Instead of the 3 am Kebabolicious or pizza, they have late-night crepe stands which we ate at...

Sunday morning: Went to bed at 3:30, had to wake up at 5:30 to catch a plane, and then had to study all day from my mid-terms. Exhausting but worth it :)

Prague: Pictures Don't do it Justice...

Prague is THE most beautiful city I've ever seen in my entire life, even though it was covered in snow, most of the time the sky was grey, and I was basically an ice cube the entire time. The saddest part was that the pictures don't even come close to doing this place justice. I'm already dying to go back again when the weather is a bit nicer.

To be honest, I don't know much at all about the history of Eastern Europe, especially anything before Communism, but after visiting, I intend to read up. Because of my lack of knowledge, I was really only able to appreciate the city from a visual standpoint, but that was definitely enough to satisfy me. Literally ever building in a work of art. The city as a whole is so clean, so beautiful, so unique, and so fundamentally intertwined with history and art. I felt like I was walking through a history textbook.

Every building was this beautiful (more pictures are at the end of this post):

Anyway, about the itinerary: my friend Becca and I left Siena on Friday morning, flew from Rome, and got to Prague on Friday afternoon. Interestingly enough, we weren't asked for our passports at any point in our journey. At first, I assumed this was becase we were still in the EU; however, I then remembered that Britain was part of the EU, yet I was asked for my passport when I traveled there. Becca explained, though, that since the Czech Republic "isn't a legit country," passports weren't necessary. Thanks, Becca.

We got to our hotel, which, by the way, was SO cool. We stayed at this place called The Hotel Sax, a "vintage design hotel" -- meaning that all of the furniture and decor was from the '50s, '60s, and 70's and all of the rooms were unique. There was furniture and art by famous designers from all over Europe For some reason, the hotel was also extremely cheap...tripadvisor.com is amazing.

So after we settled into the hotel, it was time for dinner. We walked to a place called The David nearby. This walk was scary because NOBODY in Prague is on the streets after 7 pm. And I don't know where everyone goes because nobody was in any of the restaurants either. Well, this place was mediocre but definitely better than the food I was expecting in Eastern Europe.

We then passed out at around 10:30 (getting from Siena to ANY airport adds at LEAST an additional 5 hours of travel time sooo at this point we were pretty tired) and woke up early the next morning to the sight of snow.

I can count the amount of times I've seen real snow on one hand, so up to this point, the novelty of there being snow hadn't yet worn away so I was pretty excited and Becca, being from NJ, kept telling me to shutup, get over it, and that my enthusiasm towards the snow wouldn't last past the end of the day. She was so right. After walking uphill, ruining my "weather-proof" boots, subsequently slipping about 984983475 times, getting frostbitten fingers, toes, and ears, and walking around in all of this for several miles, I can officially say that I'm OVER snow.

But I digress. We first went to Prague Castle, which contained several "must-sees" in Prague: St. Vitus' Cathedral; the Loreto; the Castle itself; Golden Lane, which is where all of the alchemists (who I assume must've also been dwarves considering the size of the buildings and doors) lived and practiced alchemy; and the royal gardens, which we obviously couldn't appreciate because of the weather.

We then crossed the Charles Bridge -- probably my favorite sight in Prague. It sucked that it was under construction, but it was still stuninng. Words can't describe how beautful it was, and like I said before, pictures don't do it justice.

The Jewish Quarter: got to walk around it, but couldn't go to the "main" sight: the Old Jewish Cemetery because it was Shabbat and was therefore closed. You'd think that a place like that would be pretty much open to the public and easy to gain entrance to, but unfortunately, huge walls surround all sides of the cemetery due to attempts at defacement...sad sight.

From the Jewish Quarter, we walked down the main street and just got to look at all of the beautiful buildings. We eventually hit the Old Town Square, which was just another beautiful thing to look at. The main thing to do here is look at the Astronomical Clock and ride the glass elevator to the top, which offered a great view of the entire city.

We walked around some more, headed back to the hotel in time for 5 PM tea, and then relaxed/got ready for dinner. My friend who had been to Prague before had told me, and this is a direct quote, "If you don't go to Radost FX (this restaurant) then you are an idiot. This was the greatest meal I had in Europe and you need to make this place a priority." So I did....and it was decent at best. Shoutout to Zach Silverman for that one. Moving on....

Scary story: after dinner, we called a cab to pick us up. A little background on cabs here: a lot of them are fake. We were warned of this by several people, and since neither Becca nor I wanted _____ to happen to us (I'll let you use your imagination there), we refused to get into a cab that didn't have the number that was supposed to match up with the one that the operator at the cab company had given us. So when we refused to get into this guy's cab, and then decided it'd be a good idea to get into another cab right in front of the first driver's face, he got out of his car and proceeded to yell at us and at the cab driver whose cab we actually did get into. After yelling in Czech at the other driver for 5 minutes, he opened the passenger door and MADE us get into his cab. Turns out, the number of the cab was put on in the REVERSE order on the side of the cab, so that had been the right cab all along. Needless to say, this dude was angry and we were FREAKING out. I was trying to figure out escape strategies in my head and I kept bbming Becca right next to me about my strategies. But thankfully we were fine.

Oh, and also, the flight home consisted of every single study abroad student from Rome or Florence. Every single kid was so visibly hungover from the previous night, the airplane wreaked of alcohol, and every girl was wearing huge bug-eyed sunglasses to mask the fact that she was still wearing last night's makeup because she had gone straight from the club to the airport. It was a hilarious sight.

And thaaat rounded out my weekend in Prague!

Pictures:

The building above is where Franz Kafka grew up. The paintings on it all have to do with alchemy...apparently that was a huge deal in Prague way back when.
Mala Strana, the part of town our hotel was in, from the Charles Bridge
Our sweet hotel, above and below
Old Town Square, below
Another view from the Charles Bridge...I was obsessed with it

The Astronomical Clock (above) in the Old Town Square and Becca and me in front of St. Vitus' Cathedral at Prague Castle (below)

Below is Prague Castle

My Luck is Turning Around!!!

I've made some pretty stupid and costly travel mistakes since I've been here, but something amazing just happened:

I'm going to Paris the weekend of March 11th and I'm meeting a lot of friends there. I stupidly assumed responsibility for finding accomodations. I was getting really stressed out, though, because between so many different people were THAT many different budgets, THAT many different itineraries, etc. etc, it was nearly impossible to satisfy everyone and almost all of the hostels and cheaper hotels were booked. But I miraculously found this place called the Hotel Louvre-Richelieu, a 4-star hotel at 90 euro a night with basically the most superb location in all of Paris...literally 2 blocks walk-distance from the Ritz Carlton, right in front of the Louvre, and for 90 euro/room/night.

A 4-star hotel in THAT location for THAT cheap? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it was...

I got an e-mail confirming my reservation stating that it would cost 200 euro/night -- about double what I had been told over the phone -- and my credit card had already been charged for the first night (that was their booking policy). I was livid. I called them, bitched them out, and guess what?? They gave me the room for the original price of 90 euro/night!!!!!! So turns out I'm going to be paying half-price for this room, which I will be splitting amongst 3 other people. What does this mean? I will be paying about 23 euro/night (price of a cheap hostel) to stay in a 4-star hotel, in a location that could only be beat if I were to stay at the actual Louvre itself...and all because I was an assertive bitch to the receptionist.

This marks the first time I've managed to actually SAVE money on this trip and thus merits a blog post :) Not to mention, I'm going to Prague this weekend where the current exchange rate is 1 Czech Koruna = .052 USD. Becca and I will be living like queens.......I guess "Eurotrip" was more accurate than I thought!

Ciao!

Milano

I went on a class trip to Milan this past weekend, which conveniently coincided with Milan Fashion Week. I wasn't expecting much from Milan...I had heard it was just an industrial city with nothing really special, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was really nice and I like how there was a really cool mix of old art (e.g. the Duomo, "Last Supper") with new art (trendy fashion and modern art everywhere). The food was also excellent and the gelato topped any gelato I've had in Italy BY FAR. Actually, the best gelato place happened to actually be a place that just opened up in NYC and LA called Grom (http://www.grom.it/). Besides the fact that I'm pretty sure our tour guide was a vampire who wore reflective sunglasses so we couldn't see into her soul, and the amount of pigeons at the Duomo made me want to vom (I know, I know...I have a bird...pigeons aren't birds. They're rats of the sky), a good time was had by all.

Basically the only interesting historical things were saw were the Duomo (to the left) and da Vinci's "The Last Supper" which, by the way, you need to make an appointment in advance to see...I definitely would've screwed that one up had I done the planning for this trip instead of my school. But it was amazing. However, it is deteriorating SO quickly...that tends to happen to frescoes. Especially ones that were bombed during WWII.

More cool stuff we saw/did....

To the left is Michelangelo's last sculpture, which he died working on and was thus left incomplete. It's called "Rondanini Pieta" and is supposed to be of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus's dead body. Seeing Michel

angelo's incomplete work was really special....it was as if he was still working on it. I've realized that I have an affinity for sculptures. Something about the way they are preserved is incredible. They don't deteriorate like paintings do, so it's just interesting to know that you're viewing something the exact way the artist saw it.

To the left are beautiful MARZIPAN! Not fruit. I wanted to send some home. These would make the perfect gift.

The picture taken below captures the greatest moment in time of this trip. This sushi restaurant was on the top floor of what was quite possibly the most amazing department store of all time (called La Rinascente). This top floor consisted of several boutiquey food places...including: a mozzarella bar, wine and cheese bar, juice bar, specialty sandwich shop, a place where you could basically make your own gelato, a really high-end restaurant, oyster bar, you get the point...HEAVEN. Anyway, the sushi was served on a conveyor belt and you just got to take whatever you wanted off of the belt and eat it. This is the way all meals should be served. And the sushi was sooo good, too.

To the right is a really cool car we saw at the Triennale, the modern art museum in Milan. There was also a collection of vintage Ferraris, Aston Martins, and boats that were used in James Bond movies. Going to a modern art museum was definitely a nice change from all of the old paintings that I've become all-but-desensitized too. I was really ready for a change of scenery. There were also a lot of cool pieces of furniture and an exhibit about Greta Garbo's relationship with the designer, Salvatore Ferragamo...the shoes in that exhibit were ridiculous. I'd post more pictures, but evidently the people at the museum were convinced that I was going to try to make my own copies of Ferraris and Ferragamo shoes that have been in mass production for years and years, so I was yelled at after taking the picture above...my one souvenir from this place. The guard made me give him my camera and wouldn't give it back to me until I left.

***honorable mention: Milan = city with the cutest dogs (besides Siena). LOOK AT THAT FACE!!!!!!! In the words of Rachel Zoe: "I die."