Paris Day 2

Z’Seconde Daye En France

We woke up on our second day in France still absolutely zonked with fatigue. We had clothes hanging everywhere because of the various loads of laundry that had to be hand washed and hung to dry. I was taking full advantage of the lovely weather and our mini balcony. The weather was really gorgeous and once we got the blackout blinds up, it was much easier to get out of bed. (We made sure to leave them semi-open every day thereafter. Not seeing a hint of daylight can really kill your bed exiting morale!)

The Hotel Comete was conveniently located next to the Metro, so we hopped on and headed to the Champs-Elysees. It’s a huge street lined with a bunch of nice/cool/”hip shops and eateries and located close to a bunch of Paris landmarks. We walked down the Champs-Elysees in search of food; it was like hunting for elk in a jewelry store, people. Everything was super marked-up, far too expensive for an easy breezy lunch meal on our first day in Paris.

Just as we had given up all hope for food and were about to hold out for a less touristy (therefore less expensive) area in which to dine, we found this dine-and-go sort of minimart that was really cute and seemed to be ‘in’ with the late-twenties white collar lunchers. We each grabbed a sandwich and a drink, and I got a yogurt and a dessert. The guy at the counter was oober nice and we exited the miniestablishment having spent less than fifteen euro. Now that’s what I call “Yum!” We found an adorable park where I was able to watch the people and their dogs (missing Dewey and Kramer the whole time, of course).

We walked back up the Champs-Elysees toward the Sine. We passed by the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais which had gorgeous statue ornamentation, and gold embellishments, and were just really cool. Jen retied her shoes while I took a few snapshots. Then we headed toward the Pont du Alexandre III (a really sweet bridge) that had a stretches of grass on the other side of the Sine.

Some cheerleaders were practicing a routine on the grass, so we sat down and rested. Jen laid down to nap for a little while and I took out my various books (but ended up mostly watching the cheerleaders…who were HORRIBLE, btw. I don’t even know if they were serious.) One of the girls fell on her head during a throw at one point during the practice, but she was fine. From where we were sitting we had a view of the top of the Place de les Inhabitantes, the Eiffel Tower, the Pont Alexander III, and both the Grand and Petite Palais.

We walked down the Seine to the Musee d’Orsay, and then crossed the river again toward the Louvre. We walked through a portion of the gardens in front of the Louvre, called the Tuleries, and then made our way up toward the grand structure of the great museum. We sat around the big glass pyramid and its fountains and looked around a bit. The line to buy tickets was super long and we were still thinking about buying the Paris Museum Pass (to get into over 50 different museums and sites around Paris), so we weren’t going to commit to the time investment of the line and it was too late in the day to go into the Louvre anyway. The sun was setting and it was too pretty to go inside.

We were pretty beat by this time, so we headed back to the area around our hotel for dinner. We bought a loaf of bread, Nutella, cheese, and strawberry jam along with a container of crepes from a local market. We had a lovely picnic in our room and watched a show with Christian Slater solving mysteries. And there were French subtitles so we learned a lot (about the human condition, solving a murder, acting philosophy, and the French language. It was a very fulfilling evening.) We called Lisa on Skype and had a very nice conversation letting her know how our day had gone. My mouth was full so she couldn’t understand me, but it was okay because I think she understood that it was DELICIOUS.

Then we went to sleep.

From, Mallory

Ciao Bella!

Hey All!

First let me just say, thanks for the comments!  Mal and I love reading them J keep them coming people!

Greetings from Rome, or Rrrroma as they say here (make sure to roll that R people).  Today is technically our second day in the Italian city, but really our first of actual sightseeing.  Yesterday we took a train from Venice to Rome.  It was a Eurostar and only took about 3 ½ hours.  It was a very pleasant trip, we made a friend!  Actually, Mallory made a friend but I chimed in every now and then.  Anyways, her name was Natasha and she was from England (so we could actually understand her…yay!).  She is studying Art History in University and she was headed to Rome on a 5 week class trip (two weeks in Rome and two weeks in Florence).  I wish I had to take a 5 week European vacation for my major!  So as I was saying, between Natasha and Mallory there was never a silent moment during the entire train ride J.  We got into Rome about 3:15pm and found our hotel rather easily.  Although I should mention that it wouldn’t have been that easy if the owner of the hotel hadn’t been standing outside.  Luckily, he caught us just as he was leaving to get food (apparently he thought we were arriving at noon and had been waiting three hours for us to arrive).  So he showed us up and got us checked in.  Mallory and I got settled into our room and I promptly conked out for a nap.  I was in a funky mood because I was kind of depressed about leaving Venice.

An hour later, Mal woke me up and we took a stroll down the street in search for some food.  Eventually we came across this cute place where we were the only ones in the restaurant.  We dined on bruschette, a pizza with hot dogs and potatoes on it, pasta with meat sauce, and for dessert pana cotta.  The bruschette was amazing but the rest was a bit bland.  However, this is the second time we have had pizza with hot dogs on it and I really think this should catch on in the States.  It is awesome!  Lemme tell ya, these Italians, they are brilliant when it comes to putting things on pizzas.

Once we were done with dinner we headed back to the hotel.  When we got back we watched some Italian TV.  As far as our hotel room goes, it’s ok, but not great.  The real problem arises when there is no hot water for us to shower and no internet that was advertised.  (The hot water issue was better today, Mal and I both got showers in the middle of the day with hot water).  So we were both frustrated and decided to sleep it off.

Today we got up at a reasonable hour and started our tour of Rome in the Ancient City.  We walked from our hotel to the Roman Forum.  The Ancient Ruins were stunning to see.  It was amazing to be walking on stones that were placed there over 1000 years ago.  We walked around for a good 2 hours, awed by the architecture that was still standing.  It must have been “school tour day” because the amount of children at this place was insane.  Anyways, after our tour of the Forum we headed down the street to grab lunch.  We ate at this little pizza stand.  Mallory got a beer and a slice of pizza with eggplant on it and I got just a slice of cheese (or margarita pizza as they call it here).  We also shared this other sandwich thingy that had cheese and salami on this bun like thing (it kinda looked like a slider/mini burger thing). By the way, did I use the term “thing” enough in that sentence?  So the food was awesome!  No surprise, we’re in Italy.  But that cheese and salami burger was super good.  The bun wasn’t like anything I expected.  It was like couscous packed together…I don’t know it was just good.  Hold on, I’ll get Mallory to describe it for you better… okay, so it was like soft corn-mealish stuff that was seasoned with oregano and infused with a bunch of flavors. I have no idea. It was fried on the outside, but the inside “bun” was just soft deliciousness. Then the slice of provolone and sausage stuck inside was just the extra hint of savorysweetness. Love.

So after we ate, we sat outside the Colosseum for a bit while Mal made me a garland of dandelions.  I wore it the rest of the day J.  Once the person sitting next to us started to smoke, we decided to head into the arena.

What can I say, the Colosseum was MASSIVE.  It was really cool though.  We learned about the gladiators and all the underground passageways.  They used trap doors under the “stage” to rise up animals and gladiators.  Sometimes they even flooded the arena so that they could perform naval battles.  I can’t really think of much else to say about it.  It was really old, really big, and really cool.  That about sums it up.

 So after the Colosseum, Mallory and I headed back to our hotel where luckily, we now had hot water.  So we both showered as quickly as possible to make sure it didn’t run out on us.  After our showers, we met with the owner of the hotel, she is very nice, and told her about our internet problem.  She went to great lengths to figure out the problem and eventually called what I assume was tech support and got it all worked out.  Ok well mostly worked out…I mean we don’t have internet in our room but we do in the hallway and that is good enough for us.

Once that was all settled, Mal and I walked around for a place to eat.  We ended up at a little place where the staff was amazing and the food was ok.  We went their mainly because their prices were amazing.  We had a lovely dinner though together aside from the group of zombies that passed us about halfway through our meal (people dressed and painted like zombies, not actual zombies…come on people!)

After dinner and dessert, we headed back to our room, cuddled up on the hallway floor, and watched Gladiator.  After seeing the actual Colosseum it was cool seeing Russell Crow duke it out in a CG Colosseum.  Anyways, we felt that it fit the mood of the day J.