France

this will be a birthday to remember!!

Amanda and Adrien made me a special birthday cake and everything! it was so awesome!

During the day Amanda, Adrien, and I went on the Bateaux Mouches, a boat tour of the Seine. It was pretty cool, although yesterday was our first day of rain i didn't get many pictures because of that

after that we ventured out to the Eiffel Tower!

just to find out the top floor was closed for a month they should have had that on the website or something damnit! so we went to the second floor anyway. it was an awesome view!! Very spectacular!

After that we went down to the first floor to go ICE SKATING! it was awesome! i was finally better at skating than someone! haha woohoo
i had to pull amanda around

after that we ventured out for a quick bite to eat, and made our way home.

I've slept about 3.5 hours. i'm really nervous about getting on the flight!!! i'm so scared i wont. BUT there's gonna be no negative thinking like that. I managed to get on when the flight was WAY MORE oversold, i can do it this time too!

well, the next time i'll write i'll be standing on Canadian soil! YAYAYAYA

as much as it's been nice to be away, I CAN'T WAIT TO BE HOME!

WELL, today's the big day... i'm 22! woohoo
I think the "growing" i've experienced on the trip has nothing to do with actually having a birthday though

Last night was very laid back. Hell, YESTERDAY was very laid back. I was hung over as hell! I think i stayed in bed until noon! hehe
That's ok. we were going to go out ot a movie again last night, but ended up going to the video store, picked up a couple DVD's and came home. I fell asleep during the movie.... again! hehe

So that brings us today. January 11th woohoo
Haven't done much yet, Amanda brought me a birthday treat (a pain chocolat) One of those pastries with the chocolate inside. Yumyum! This afternoon we're supposed to go on the Bateaux Mouches. (hehe we've been SUPPOSED to do that for a while!) but I think we REALLy are today. haha We're going to take the little boy Amanda looks after too because he's off school this afternoon.

I don't have many pictures to share because well, i didn't really take many! Although there is one i took for Mom

It was sooooo pretty and reminded me of you Momma!

So, after our boat tour tonight we're going to go to the Eiffel Tower! We're going to go all the way to the top, and go ice skating there as well! it's going to be so awesome! After that we're going to go for dinner.
Should be a great birthday

one i'll remember forever!!!

THEN tomorrow, come 7am I'll be making my way home!
It's going to take me 20 hours to get to Vancouver!!!! :|
It's going to be ONE LONG day!
I'm so excited to see everyone! it feels like i've been gone forever! hehe

there's nothin' like a french hang over :|
after Amanda was done work yesterday we headed out with her friend Anna again. The plan was to go have fondue and see a movie. but we got sucked into this little Australian bar along the way. We sat there having your typical girl talk.
Maybe it was because i hadn't eaten much but MAN 3 beers and i was DONE.
Puking in a toilet in Paris sucks.
:|
Lets not do that again

so today i've been SUPER SUPER lazy... hell i just crawled back in bed with the lap top.

Hopefully i'll get the day going soon!

Alright, so while I've been here i've noticed SO many stereotypes that I've seen be true.... they may have been odd occurances, but i saw them happen.
So here's my list:

Stereotype: French people kiss each other on both cheeks all the time odd? for me, yes! I had some dude selling FISH come up and do the cheek kiss when Amanda and I went to the market. (Yes, Amanda had bought fish there before so he knew her). I still think it's a little strange. A kissy for each cheek, times

Stereotype: French wine is the best in the world I've only tried it once so far, but meh. I am SOOOO not a wine person so I woudln't know. I think i had one glass with dinner and pawned the rest off to Amanda! Maybe Har can be a bettter judge of this one!

Stereotype: All French people eat frogs' legs, snails and horsemeat I actually tried snails.. GROOOSSSSSSS I still can't believe it! ick ick ick! Amanda liked it. Me, not so much. realistically i'd say that ALL french people don't eat that!!!!

Stereotype: The French eat more cheese than anyone else CHEESE, for DESSERT?! They've gotta be crazy!!!!
(and this has got to be true!)

Stereotype: All Parisians are snobs Hummmm.. they might be on to something here! I couldn't believe the dirty looks you get while walking down the street! Although, we did stick out like a sore thumb with our winter ski jackets and runners!

Stereotype: French people are rude and arrogant Haven't noticed this one too much.. They're too busy being stuck up to be arrogant!

Stereotype: The French take far too much time off work Could be true! There's always adults walkikng all over the place by Amanda's house! And i couldn't believe the parents bringing their kids to Adrien's karate class at 1pm in the afternoon on a wednesday. I donno. It just seems like a ton of people are just sitting in cafes drinking coffee and not working! Apparently France's work week is 38.3 hours compared to the UK's which is 43.5 (the highest in europe)

Stereotype: The French are chic ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!! Everybody always looks dressed up. you would NEVER catch a Parisian walking around in sweat pants!

Stereotype: French women have hairy armpits and legs hahaha Probably true, although I haven't asked around! hehe the Shower at Amanda's place is just so small i couldn't imagine trying to shave your legs in it every day! So yeah, i'd have to agree! :P

Stereotype: The French are great lovers Probably true. At every corner you can see people goin' at it! Old couples, young couples, it just doesn't matter!

Stereotype: The Good Ol' Baguette YOu can't walk down a busy street without seeing SOMEBODY holding one. I think the cutest thing i saw was a little boy running down the road carying a few baguettes! It was just SOOOOOOOOO stereotypical, i wish i had got a picture!!!

Stereotype: The Poop It's true. THERE'S DOG SHIT EVERYWHERE! All over the place. And yes, i managed to step in it at least once

Stereotype: The Garbage Everybody told me Paris was a dirty city with garbage everywhere. IT'S THE OPPOSITE! There may be garbage on the sidewalk but that's cause there's nowhere else for people to put it. But the little men in green suits come ALL THE TIME and clean everything up. They even pressure wash the sidewalk constantly (probably to clean up that nasty dog shit) but still. I was impressed with how clean it was!

Stereotype: All French People Speak English, They Just Choose Not To I wouldn't say ALL but a big portion seem to. And it's way better to make them pitty you with your awful french, rather than asking if they speak english right away.

maybe it's just because i'm bored sitting here waiting for my hair to dry, but i was thinking..

January 11th is my birthday.
I was born at 3:47pm January 11th, 1984 in New West.

But does that mean when I'm in Paris, my birthday's January 12th?
Because when it's 3:47pm in Vancouver, it will already be 12:47am January 12th in Paris, France. hummmmmmm

NOW, for some more entertainment:

DONKEY DOES PARIS!
a Li'l Stinker Production

One day a little Stinky donkey decided she should travel the world. Everybody always told her it was a good idea but she wasn't so sure. The only way she would find out if it was a good idea was to try it on her own. So the little donkey gathered up ALL her courage and decided to fly half way around the world, to Paris, France.
She grabbed her backpack and headed out to conqueor the world.

Little did she know, it was going to be a scary, but amazing adventure!
The Li'l Donkey visted so many things while she ventured throughout Paris. Here she is as the Louvre!

Donkey got alarmed at the guardsmen and women walking around with FRICKIN HUGE ASSAULT RIFLES outside of the museum. She figured there must be a very important painting in there or something.
After she traveled to the Louvre, Donkey set out to see the Eiffel Tower! It made the little donkey feel EVEN SMALLER!

After that she walked and walked and walked and walked! You would have thought her poor donkey feet would get sore, but she was a sure footed MOUNTAIN gonkey (a special type of donkey). This also made the little donkey lose 10 lbs in 2 weeks. (thanks to the walking and jet lag). That made the li'l donkey even happier! From there donkey managed to find the CENTER OF PARIS!

It sure did feel neat standing in the middle of Paris!
The little donkey was amazed that the center of Paris was also the Notre Dame Cathedral. Donkey took a tour inside and was in awe of the beautiful stained glass windows.

Donkey and her big friend Sissy were having a great time adventuring paris together!

although donkey was feeling quite homesick during it all. She put on her "big girl panties" and decided to "Suck it up Princess!"
(donkey's are princesses too you know!)
And who would have thunk it, the Li'l Donkey found her VERY OWN CASTLE!

Near this castle the little donkey felt RIGHT at home.
There were "la roosters" to play with and everything!

EVEN 4x4's!! Donkey can't wait to go home and go 4x4-ing again! Donkeys are always the best co-pilots!

There's so much more for Donkey to see and do she better get on it! There's only a few more days for her to see the beautiful city of Paris.
Donkey can't wait to come home and share all of her adventures with you!

Wow, it's been such a long time since i wrote, i had to check back what the last thing was!!

So, the other night we ended up taking the metro down to a restraunt that Amanda really liked. It was called something-or-other Ferdinand.. i can't remember. it was super good though. had some wine, tgried ESCARGOT! (grosssssss) and had a lovely salmon dish for my main course. THEN a really really yummmy apple crumble for dessert! It was very nice!

After that we walked around the Latin Quarter visiting shops, and everything. It was a really neat atmosphere there!

We saw the Notre Dame at night too. it was BEAUTIFUL!!

Very breathtaking!

After that we came home to get some rest for a nice long day at EURODISNEY that was ahead of us for Sunday!

Before we headed off we went to the bakery by Amanda's house to get some sort of special pastry. It only is made on January 8th, and it's something like "King's Cake" Although we coudln't figure out what it was so I ended up getting what Laura reccomended, a pastry with Chocolate inside. For the life of me i can't remember what it was called right now, but OOOHHHH it was sooooooooooooooooo good!

We ended up getting to Eurodisney around 12pm on Sunday afternoon.
The weather wasn't so great, but we made do. It was FREEZING and rainy, but we had layers upon layers on!
I swear it was like walking through the gates, and feeling like a little kid!

The castle was soooooooo pretty

ANNNNND it was even prettier at NIGHT!

Frontier land was cool, i was at home! hehe Cowboys and such

we went on "it's a small world" too! damn song! hehe
But they had 2 guys playing hockey, a mountie, and a moose for Canada
hahaha (I blocked out the igloo they had)

The way home was interesting too. we actually managed to find a guy from Vancouver! It was too weird!!! he was from Langley too (and that's where Amanda grew up!) It truly is... a small world

Greetings My Fans (hahaha I miss you Suddy..er...BJ....errr... Bryan!)

Well i have lots to talk about!
Last night Amanda and I went out on the town with her friend Anna. Anna has been ALL OVER the world! I couldn't believe it! I felt so sheltered! hehe Anywho, Anna came over to Amandas and we got ready to go out (which of course took us a LOT longer than we had expected!) We headed out on the Metro to go to some club Anna's friend Fiona wanted to go to. Before going to the club we stopped off at some little cafe thing for a beer...
I had a Heineken for you Tyler!!! (pictures to follow)
We got a beer for the road and headed down to the bar, which was RIGHT BESIDE THE MOULIN ROUGE! I was sooo excited!
It was pretty damn cool to be RIGHT there, with a beer in hand! hehe
as you can see it was DAMN COLD TOO!!! brrrrr
You could definately tell we were from Canada, eh?

after a quick glance at the enterance of the Moulin Rouge we headed on in to this club. It was... a club. heh, pretty typical. Although they dance funny and wear weird clothes. hehe I probably wont think it's weird next spring when it's in fashion at home though. hehe I've only ever seen one other person in Paris wear cowboy boots, and they were just the trendy ones, not real ones Oh well, it's like that in Richmond anyway! :P
So yeah, we went to the club called Locomotive. Apparently it's pretty trendy. Ps. they have cougars in Paris too

We headed out of there around midnight to make sure we could take the metro home. At hte metro station we saw some guy being beaten by the transit police!! It was pretty crazy! It was one of htose "woah! Wait a minute, what the hell's going on?!?!" Moments! hehe We got home and ended up putting on a movie and falling asleep.

Today, like clockwork, i was up at 7:30. I have NO IDEA why i keep waking up so damn early. I'll be happy when i'm back at home and I can lounge in bed until noon! We didn't really get going until noon today anyway. Amanda had to work at 1 for another family, so i tagged along for the journey to pick the kid up from tennis. After we got there I ventured out into the Latin Quarter on my own. I found tons of cool little shops and such. I EVEN ORDERED A CHOCOLATE CREPE ON MY OWN! woohoo i was so proud of myself. I think they guy selling it to me could tell, and he thought i was a little wacko. After that I continued shopping. There were some cool comic book stores BJ would probably like. All sorts of weird stuff, but it was pretty neat.

During my travels i also saw the Panthéon. I had no clue what it was, but it looked important so i stopped and took pictures. hahaha God am i lame!
Here's a little info about it:
The Panthéon is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve, but after many vicissitudes now combines liturgical functions with its role as a famous burial place. It is an early example of Neoclassicism, with a façade modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a small dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto." Located in the Ve arrondissement on the top of Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris.
So there, now we all know what the heck it is. It looked really cool though.

That's looking up one of the columns at the front of hte building

That's what it looked like from a distance.
Eye catching for sure.
Wow, i just read a list of all the dead people there. That's quite a list! ok, so maybe i don't know who they all are, but they sound important.

After that i made my way back to the Notre Dame on a mission. My Mission: FIND THE CENTER OF PARIS! (since i thought it was at the Louvre for some reason... Thanks Shaun for telling me the RIGHT location!!) At last, I found it, right beside their big ol' Christmas tree.

It looks the same as when Shaun took the exact picture many many moons ago But mine's special.

After that I ventured through the little "open air market" they have on Saturday's by the Notre Dame. It's pretty cool, all these people set up along the river with books, post cards, paintings, anything! It's neat to walk along and browse. They've got SOOO many vintage things! It was neat to look at the old post cards, posters, books, etc.

Mom and Nanny, you'd LOVE tlk walk and see all these things! too bad 99% of hte books were in french though. I even think they have some sort of antique thing going on by the eiffel tower this week. the word antique is pretty similar in french so i'm assuming that's what the sign said I'm not too good at this french stuff!

After that i got lost.
like super lost.
I was trying ot find a metro station that would take me back to Amanda's house.
EVENTUALLY (err.. 45 minutes of wandering later) I found one and TOOK THE METRO ON MY OWWWNNNNNNNNN.
I'm even surprising myself.

SO now i'm back at Amanda's waiting for her to get off work at 7pm. After that i think we're going to head out, grab a bite to eat, and take a boat tour along the Seine. It should be a nice evening.

Tomorrow we may go to EURODISNEY! We'll have to see.

I hope everyone's doing well back at home. I miss you all!! I can't wait to get back and see you!!!!!!!
I'm so glad i can share my adventures with everyone while i'm here

More to come soon,
Love Sissy

Dressed up PARIS STYLE!
hahaha

IT'S SNOWING IN PARIS!
how cool is this?!!?

We woke up this morning with some flurries. nothing has stuck, but it's just so neat to walk around with the snow falling!

Today was a busy day for me. Like clockwork i woke up again at 5 am But that's probably because i passed out before 9pm again last night. I think I've finally beaten the jet lag though. I hope!!! No naps today, and I have to go to bed at an "adult" hour!!!

Today's been fun. I went with Amanda down to the market they set up every Thursday by the house she works at. we walked through there and saw everything. There was everything from fresh fish, to books and DVD's to clothes, and rugs! It was neat! Everything's so expensive though! we even met another Canadian girl living here in Paris.

After that we went to pick up Adrien, the boy Amanda nanny's. He's a cute little bugger! We went back to their place and had lunch, then i was off on my way. I decided it was time to adventure!

So I headed off armed with Amanda's map to adventure. First stop on my list: Cimetiere du Montparnasse. Cemetaries are soooooo cool. It was creepy walking through it all alone though! I got some really neat pictures.

The last picture is something I'll TOTALLY remember. I noticed the flowers and walked closer to them. It was a total memorable experience. The smell was overwhelming! It was like you didn't even have to LOOK at the flowers to experience it all! Bah, I donno how to describe it. It was pretty damn cool.

here's a little bit about the cemetary:
The Cimetière du Montparnasse is a famous cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, France. It is in the 14 th arrondissement.

Montparnasse cemeteryCreated from three farms in 1824, the Montparnasse cemetery was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud. Cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the shutting down of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786 due to health concerns. Several new cemeteries outside of the precincts of the capital replaced all the internal Parisian ones in the early 19th century, Cimetière de Montmartre in the north, Le Cimetière Père-Lachaise in the east and Cimetière du Montparnasse in the south. At the heart of the city, and today, sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is Cimetière de Passy.

Montparnasse Cemetery is the eternal home of many of France's intellectual and artistic elite as well as publishers and others who promoted the works of authors and artists. There are also monuments to police and firefighters killed in the line of duty in the city of Paris.

Because of the many notable people buried there, it is a highly popular tourist attraction.

From there i went to "Jardin du Luxembourg"

now THAT'S a water fountain mom would love to have!
I was walking through there thinking, "Carol-Ann, you won't even walk downtown Vancouver on your own, and here you are walking through PARIS!" I was pretty proud of myself! :D :D :D

here's some info on it:
The Luxembourg Garden (Jardin du Luxembourg, familiar nickname Luco) is a 224,500 m² public park and the largest in the city located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. Luxembourg is the garden of the French Senate, which is itself housed in the Luxembourg Palace.

The garden is enjoyable for its calm. On the little pond children play with miniature boats. The garden contains various statues and sculptures. Surrounding the pond are a series of statues of former French queens.

I explored all of that and managed to make my way home without getting too terribly lost

Tonight Amanda has to babysit late so i'm invited over there for dinner and a movie, although I haven't had much of an appetite. Hopefully that will pick up!