you win some you lose some

9/26/04

after my last post, we went out to try to find something to do at night. we looked through the listings in lonely planet, and decided to check out the Buddha Bar, since i’ve heard of it before. well, unfortunately it didn’t work out. upon arrival, the guy at the door wouldn’t let us in, probably because we weren’t dressed cool enough or whatnot. so lame. we really dont have room in our packs to have nice clothes or anything, and it sucks that we have to be turned away from stuff because of that. after the buddha bar, we just went to this other bar listed in the guide which turned out to be nothing special. *sigh*.

it’s crazy though, in this this town, famous sights pop up absolutely everywhere. just in transit to the two bars, we exited the metro and ended up next to this huge obilisk thing that was in front of an enormous greek-styled temple building. it’s amazing just how much stuff this town has. no matter which way you turn, you can’t go anywhere without running into something interesting.

9/27/04

this morning, when we went out to search for breakfast, we were greeted w/ a nice surprise… there was a huge farmer’s market going on. seriously, this market was nuts, they had so much stuff! they sold every food imagineable: various cheeses of all kinds, fresh yougurts and creams, all sorts of meats, seafood, fruit, vegetables. this place had every cool kind of french food you can imagine… and some french food that was pretty freaky: cow tongues that were literally 2 feet long, freaky chickens that still had their heads and feet on, and even brains. yes, brains for sale in little boxes. EW.

after buying some stuff at the market (no, not brains) we went back to the apt and enjoyed the food. it’s funny, in all the other times i’ve been to france, i’ve never really shopped for food at all the little shops like i’ve been doing daily here. in the past, i’ve pretty much stuck to eating crepes and paninis non-stop.

anyways, our first stop today was sacre-coeur, a church on top of a hill. this place had incredible views of paris since it was so high up, and the church itself was really cool. on the way up the hill, i got stopped by some guy who pretty much forced me to buy a bracelet off of him. he kept putting it on me and wouldn’t really take no for an answer, even when i said i didnt really have any money… “this bracelet, very good, yes? it ancient jamaican secret. it give you jiggy jiggy. you know jiggy jiggy (this was accompanied by a hand gesture, that i wont try to explain here!)? it give you good jiggy jiggy, and you make girlfriend very happy! it help your jiggy jiggy!” errr…. yeah, nice. so now, i ended up w/ this dorky bracelet which marked me as a dumb-ass tourist. heh.

so sacre-coeur was really cool, and you are allowed to climb this never-ending staircase to the top of the dome for an even better view of the city.

after sacre-coeur, we took a quick ride to the outskirts of paris to see the skyscraper area. they have this dope looking office building called the grande arche.

after trying to figure out our travel plans for the future, we hopped on the metro to go to dinner. we decided to try out yet another semi-nice restaurant. byt the time we were almost there, i was totally starving. a lady next to me on the metro had a baguette that she was holding about head height, and i started wondering just what would happen if i turned my head and took a bite out of it. would she hit me? or would she yell at me? i decided not to chance it ;). afew stops later, a lady got on w/ two rabbits in a cage. it’s funny that people here have bunnies for pets, cause the next restaurant we passed by had bunnies on the *menu*.

at the restaurant, we once again forgot our pocket translater. doh! so reading down the menu, i pretty much didn’t know what almost anything was. i ended up ordering escargots for my appetizer, and something random for the main course. i literally had no clue what i was gonna get: beef, chicken, seafood, deer? who knows!? it was pretty fun to have a mystery meal coming. in the end, it turned out to be a fish. a whole fish with what looked like really sharp teeth that could tear the hell out of me, but luckily, the fish was both dead and fried, so it didnt do much other than just lie there.

unfortunately, the dinner ended up not being all that great. the fish was so-so, the escargot was so-so, and the food caryn got was literally inedible. to end it all, a cockroach climbed up the wall and kind of hung out next to me for a while. nice. never going back there again, that’s for sure.

we cruised by notre dame, and it looked really really cool all lit up at night. the cathedral from the back had a very eerie almost sinister feel in the dark, almost like it was a castle in transylvania or something. we also, went inside it, and the really dark corners were just damn creepy, especially w/ all the candles lit up inside.

we also went to go see the eiffel tower at night. we just hung out and laid down on our backs in the park and stared up at it for a bit. it looked really cool especialy when it did it’s sparkly thing that it does every hour. laying there, i kept thinking how crazy it was that i was taking a whole year off from work, and that i was here in paris w/ my girlfriend staring up at the eiffel tower. so nice….

*v