Year 2010!

I had to completely prepare myself for this blog entry. I made coffee, got my blanket, and came down stairs to get all comfy cozy on the futon in the den (soon to be MY bedroom... since we are switching halfway through.... and halfway through will be in about two more weeks). I had to prepare myself cause I imagine this blog entry may take a while. Besides, I'm all alone for the first time ... in like 3 months ... and I need something to busy myself so I won't be so lonely. So, ... give yourself plenty of time to read this one. It'll be a doozy =)

OK , so......I don't want to be one of those annoying people in a relationship who like to broadcast (on Facebook, for example) how much they LOOOOOVVVVEEE their significant other, or how PERFECT their life is.. BUT =) ... allow me just to say that I seriously think I just had the best 3 weeks of my entire life. I can't imagine ever being more happy than I have been the past three weeks. And....like you know how sometimes when things are actually happening, you may not realize what a great time you are having.. but then when it's all said and done, you look back on it and and realize, "wow... that was actually a very significant moment in my life"? Well, this morning at 7 am, when i left Erin at the airport and rode off on the metro to come back home, i had one of those moments. I realized that Erin and I will probably never have that much free time/ money/ no children to do what we just did until AFTER retirement. We will certainly be back but just not for as long..... Three weeks with hardly no obligations, an apt on the French Riviera? and getting awesome discounts for being under 25 ( and sometimes full discounts for me being a "french citizen").... can't beat that, ya know? =)

Paris was great... alittle overcrowded and a lot colder than Rome... we took it a little easier while we were there. No getting up early to beat the crowds... so we ended up seeing less than we had planned... but i think in the long run, enjoyed it more than if we had rushed around. I almost felt like I was at Disneyworld.. everything came with at least an hour wait. And in Paris in Dec/Jan, it comes with the freezing cold. When i finally post my pictures on Facebook, youll see Erin and I are certainly bundled up. You can barely see our faces in some of them. (Erin let me wear his super warm face mask thing that covered my mouth and nose.. it was a life saver. ) We waited for like FIVE hours to go up the Eiffel Tower. One hour roughly for the Louvre, one hour for the Centre Pompidou ( which I FINALLY got to do) and almost 2 hours for Sainte Chapelle. We at one point took a 45 minute train ride out to Versailles so I could finally see that as well.... There, we waited for about an hour again. But, honestly, other than it being cold, it all passed fairly quickly.

Our train ride there obviously went WAY more smoothly than our train ride to Rome. We got in around 2:00 and found our hotel by 3ish. We just dropped our stuff off, and headed back out to see the Arc de Triumph (Erin really liked the Unknown Soldier grave) , to walk down the Champs-Elysees (where i sang the lovely AUX CHAMPS ELYSEES song- i think only Catherine will appreciate that), and we stood in line to see the Louvre. I actually took the time to try to see as much of the Louvre as my attention span allowed me... its just so big tho. I wanted Erin to of course see the Mona Lisa, and then I just headed to the wing with the French and Italian Paintings. After that, i think we just came home. First we saw the inverted pyramid ( where Dan Brown alludes that Mary Magdalene "the Holy Grail" is buried- AND NO, i dont believe that)

The next day, New Year's Eve, we woke up later than we intended. But we rallied, and we went to the Pantheon to see the tombs of some pretty notable French figures including the Curies, Victor Hugo, Rousseau, and Voltaire. (Afterwards, we enjoyed a yummy lunch at SUBWAY who whoo), went to Notre Dame ( did you know that relics of the Crown of Thorns are displayed there the first Friday of every month?) When we found out it was too late and we couldn't climb the towers of Notre Dame, we went to Sainte Chapelle.. but THEY were closing soon so we abandoned that idea, and went to the Pompidou Center instead. There, the building itself is a piece of modern art... it looks like the insides of the building are on the OUTSIDE. Inside the museum itself, one will find the oddest collection of "modern art"... which i got to see for FREE. I love being under 25 and a French "citizen". One "art exhibition" was a bookcase with trash all around it and books and such all strewn about on the shelves. Another was a HUGE cube of toothpicks. Another was a rotating lamp. So odd. Afterwards, we passed some time in a cafe drinking some hot chocolate, and asked around about any "New Year's Eve Festivities" and everyone told us to go to the Eiffel Tower. So, we went back home ( i bought some new flats/boots on the way cause the ones i brought over here with me had holes in the soles from walking so much and water was leaking into my shoes when it rained. ) to get ready for the festivities that night.

That night was crazy. The metro was FREE from 5pm on the 31st until noon on the 1st of January ( to limit the number of people driving drunk i suppose) Needless to say, the metro was crazy that night. We got to the Eiffel Tower at 1030... made friends with a nice family from Connecticut and watched the "light show" at midnight set to music. Because there was so "official" fireworks show, the citizens of PARIS took it upon themselves to set off their own fireworks in the middle of crowded sworms of people. On the way home, it was so crammed at the metro station ( Erin got yelled at in French- and I was so squished, i could barely breathe, so we opted to walk until we found a metro station further out. On the way, we saw the French's Statue of Liberty ( which appears in National Treasure 2 ) lol. Finally got home, and watched Sarkozy's "New Year's Address" to the people of France, so that was definately something cultural!

The 1st, we were afraid that most things would be closed ( which they were)... so we went on a "river cruise" on the Seine River and saw all the big monuments and bridges of France from a boat. We got off at the Eiffel Tower and, although we had originally decided NOT to go up, we decided to stand in line to go ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP because, well, nothing else in Paris was open that we wanted to see. That day was probably the coldest day of my life. We spent like 4 or 5 hours in line, each ate a baguette hot dog and cup of hot chocolate, and took random pictures of things while waiting in line. We then spent another hour or so INSIDE the Eiffel Tower waiting to get up to the very tip top. It's so cram packed in there. Almost unenjoyable until you get to the very top and get the best view in town! 6 hours later, Erin and I were exhausted and frozen solid. The wind from the very top of the Eiffel Tower is ten times colder than the air at the BOTTOM of the Eiffel Tower. So, we went home to thaw out, both took super hot showers, and relaxed until about 9:45 when we got back out to go to the SACRE COEUR- the place i went while I was in Paris a couple of months ago. It's so beautiful. Easily my favorite building in Paris. It was so late that the actual Basilica was closed, but we still got yet another great view of the city and took pictures of the outside ( which is really the best part anyways). WE had at one point comtemplated splurging and going to a Moulin Rouge show ( which is very near the SACRE COEUR).. but when i called the hot line to buy tickets, they were sold out for all the evenings we would be in Paris. (on a side note, i learned the french word for "sold out" that evening) Made me sad, but i guess we saved a bunch of money that way. Before we came home that night, Erin and I bought 12 postcards.... lol we bought alot of postcards while we were here: In Nice, Paris, and Rome. Probably, in the end, we each bought 20. =)

FINALLY, yesterday, we went BACK to Sainte Chapelle ( which is known for its stained glass windows - each section recounts a different book of the Old Testament)... ate lunch at (I'm almost ashamed to say it) Mc Donalds.. and headed out to VERSAILLES!!! we BARELY made it in time to buy tickets, so our visit may have beena little bit rushed... but its better than nothing =) Once the actualy palace closed ( BTW- Versailles was where Louis XIV lived and moved the French Monarchy -which had previously been in Paris- and it remained there briefly until the French Revolution in 1789) we walked around the beatiful gardens and took pictures for about 30 minutes. Instead of fighting the crowds to get back on the metro to return to Paris, we decided to hide out in a cafe.. and that "cafe" just so happened to be a STARBUCKS!!! The first Starbucks I've seen or had since I've arrived in France. I don't know what it was about Erin being here that made me crave comfort food. By confort food, I mean food that is familiar and typical "American" food. Needless to say, I was in heaven. I almost ordered a second drink to take with me on the road cause i wasn't sure WHEN i would get starbucks again. But i Didn't.

Erin and I became PROS at the metro this week. He did better at remembering all the lines and correspondances than i was. For any one traveling to Paris, if you know you are going to be taking the metro alot, i advise you buy a "carnet" up front. It's a packet of 10 metro tickets that , in the end , saves you at least 2 euros, depending on which train/metro you take. Erin and I did not end up deciding to buy the carnet til New Years Day.. and so we just split one and took five each. Came in very handy cause that way, you dont have to stop and buy a ticket every time you want to hop on the metro. I was very pleased with our hotel as well. The staff was exceptionally friendly and it was right next to the Arc de Triumph. So anytime we ever went anywhere, we had a beautiful backdrop leaving and coming back to our hotel. (OH CATHERINE, i found our hotel we stayed at when we were in Paris. Hotel Gay Lusaac... kinda just stumbled upon it when we went to go see the Pantheon- i took pictures so look for those on Facebook sometime soon!)

Ok so like last time:
Becca's favorite spots in Paris:
1) Eiffel Tower at New Years
2) Sacre Coeur
3) Versailles (Hall of Mirrors)

Erin's favorite spots in Paris:
1) Eiffel Tower at New Years
2) Louvre ( especially the pyramids)
3) Notre Dame/ Sacre Coeur (i can't remember which of those two got the third place spot)


I feel like i am leaving out some pretty important details. I just got a text from Erin and his flight has safely landed in Memphis, so he is back home safe and sound, bout to go eat dinner with his family. Clearly, it is very late here in France, almost 2 am. I think I am just super antsy being here by myself for the first time..without Erin for the first time in almost a month,... and I still have no word from Linda on when exactly she will be coming home. She probably won't be back til next weekend i am assuming. I start work on Tuesday. ( not tomorrow, but the next day) Tomorrow I am going to go "into town" to finally complete my application for financial aid from the government. So hopefully i can get that starting in February/ Maybe March. But i think it back -pays for up to three months, so maybe I'll receive money for the months of December, January, and February. Tomorrow, i definately have to go to the grocery store too. Erin and Imade it a point to try to eat all of the perishible food items in the fridge before we left.. and we also ended up eating most of the non perishibles too, so i literally have nothing in my cupboards. Luckily, I have found a very very very small grocery store ( the size of the inside of a gas station in the US) that does open on Sundays ( miracle of all miracles) so today on my way back home, i stopped in and bought turkey, bread, and milk for my dinner for tonight.

Today while I was in the train station waiting for my bus to take me back home to Ste. Maxime, I caved and also bought the "Lost Symbol/ Le Symbole Perdu", the latest book by Dan Brown ( guy who wrote Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons- which btw, we watched the latter in order to get ready for Rome a couple of weeks ago). . I'm excited to read it (in French!!). I still have the fourth Twilight book to read in French, but I've kinda hit my vampire limit for a while, so Lost Symbol will be a good break for me.

Erin took home some clothes for me that i have not been wearing, so that should help me some when i am ready to come home in May. Of course, he also brought me things too.... Peanut Butter, for one =) a sweater, some of his smell-good stuff like his shaving cream and body spray. This morning, I even stole his hanky lol so i can have it on me at all times! I love love love that he carries a hanky lol... I'll take very good care of it, Erin. I promise. Thanks for letting me have it! =)

Ok well i guess I am done. I have wasted enough time writing this and I think I am officially tired enough to go on to bed. I warned you it would be a doozy. I love you all . really and truly i do! I wish you all a very happy new year! Gros bisous!