{"id":302,"date":"2004-10-02T08:05:11","date_gmt":"2004-10-02T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/archives\/2004\/10\/02\/end-of-france\/index.php"},"modified":"2004-10-02T08:05:11","modified_gmt":"2004-10-02T15:05:11","slug":"end-of-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/archives\/2004\/10\/02\/end-of-france\/index.php","title":{"rendered":"end of france…"},"content":{"rendered":"

sheez, it\u00c2\u00b4s been a couple of days since i posted. i dont have hellza time to
\npost now either.. but i\u00c2\u00b4ll try to throw some stuff together..<\/p>\n

9\/29\/04<\/p>\n

i was still a little sick that day, but since i was feeling at least somewhat
\nbetter, i decided to try to go out anyways. we didnt go see a bunch of stuff,
\nbut just kind of walked around near the latin quarter. for dinner that night,
\nwe finally went to the “on the back of the whale” restauarnt. it\u00c2\u00b4s the
\nrestaurant that natasha lived over when she lived in paris back in the day, and
\nit was hella good. the place was kinda fancy, and luckily dinner was paid for
\nas a birthday present from natasha (thanks!). the food was really super good,
\nalthough being a bit sick, i wasn\u00c2\u00b4t able to taste it as well as i would have
\nliked to.<\/p>\n

9\/30\/04<\/p>\n

i had really wanted to go to the loire, and even though we had bought train tix
\nto go, \u00c2\u00b4we had to not use the tix since i got sick… *sigh*… but i came up
\nw\/ a new idea. this morning we got up early and rented a car to get to the
\nloire. having our own little car was such a blast! but really scary too!
\ndriving around paris isn\u00c2\u00b4t easy… it\u00c2\u00b4s totally crazy here. first off, there
\nare no lanes. cars just squich into the road as much as they can and you never
\nknow how many cras across it\u00c2\u00b4ll be. second, the street signs are not any place
\nwhere they would ever be able to be seen by the people driving. they are tiny
\nlittle blue signs on the sides of buildings, and they definitely make the city
\nlook nice…. but they are absolutely impracticasl and worthless when driving.
\nthank god i had caryn navigating or else i would have never mad it out of
\nparis.<\/p>\n

but soon we were on the road, and it was such a rush! we have our own car! and
\nwe\u00c2\u00b4re driving it through the french countryside at a 130 km per hour (whatever
\nthat is)!! we have no idea what a lot of the traffic signs mean! it was like
\nthrowing all caution to the wind and playing a new video game where you didnt
\nread the instruction booklet before. so fun!<\/p>\n

in the loire valley, we checked out two cities: blois and chambord. blois was
\nok, but really nothing spectacular. a town that was… i dunno… just too
\ncity-like for me…. i had come with the vision of a castle in the middle of
\nnowhere with maybe a few small picturesque homes near it, but instead it was a
\nsmall city like any other. the chateau itself was nothing to write home about
\neither. but chambord… was a different story entirely. the town (described
\nas a “tiny pin-prick sized village” in LP) was really quaint and had tiny
\nnarrow streets w\/ cute houses.<\/p>\n

the chateau itself was absoilutely incredible. just like the castles you see in
\nthe movies… except maybe even *more* impressive. the cahteau was based on
\nitalian architecture that the king of france had admired, and thus was really
\nintricate and crazy. walking around inside, all the rooms were decorated
\nreally cool, and there was this insane “double helix” staircase designed by
\nleonardo da vinci in the middle of it. it\u00c2\u00b4s basically two staircases that wind
\naround a central axis for 4 sories, but never meet at any point. sooo cool!!<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

after that, we drove some more to the town of orleans for dinner. we went to this small restaurant where they served “regional” food. caryn got a cock in a pot (coque a vin), which ended up being super good. i got some french oninon soup which rocked, but my main course was only so-so. afterwards, the place served us a “magic potion” (this raspberry liquer w\/ a respberry in it) that was hella good. <\/p>\n

getting back through france was hella difficult. we barely were able to find our place, and then… we had no idea how to figurte out if where we parked the car was ok. we ended up walking to a police station and trying to ask them if we had to pay for parkinbg where we parked. they barely understood english, but luckily, i was able to get my point across in borken-ass french. next thing we know, the cops motion us to get in the back of their police car…. WHAT?? we were a bit nervous now… were we in trouble?? were they gonna try to get a bribe from us? in the end, it ended up nothing bad… they just drove us to the place where we were parked and then told us that we probably didnt have to pay for parking. phew!! it\u00c2\u00b4s pretty crazy that we got to drive in the back of a police car though!!<\/p>\n

the police were really nice to us… and really, so was everyone else. it\u00c2\u00b4s odd to me that people in the US think that the french are rude, or mean, or hate americans… cause everyone that we ever asked *anything* was super nice to us. in fact, practically everyone that we interacted w\/ in france was very friendly and helpful.<\/p>\n

when we finally got back to the apt that night, it was kinda sad that it was our last night in paris. we happened to getb in right around 1am-ish, which is right about when the l\u00c3\u00b1ast sparkly thing happens at the eiffel tower. i dont think i mentioned this before, but at 1am, it\u00c2\u00b4s the best sparkle show at the eiffel ever. they turn off all the regular eiffel tower lights, and all there is left is the sparkles. it\u00c2\u00b4s extra nice, and only happens once a night. for the next 10 minutes, caryn and i just chilled in the apartment viewing the best, and last, sparklevision ever…<\/p>\n

*v<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

sheez, it\u00c2\u00b4s been a couple of days since i posted. i dont have hellza time to post now either.. but i\u00c2\u00b4ll try to throw some stuff together.. 9\/29\/04 i was still a little sick that day, but since i was feeling at least somewhat better, i decided to try to go out anyways. we didnt … Continue reading “end of france…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thisisvlad.com\/werd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}