Theresa and My World-Wind Tour: Paris!

So, when I decided that I was going to be an au pair back in June/July, one of my best friends, Theresa, decided that she couldn't live without me for a whole year and that she would just have to come visit! As soon as I got here and had my info about vacation times, she bought a ticket to come at right about the six month mark in February. From there, we planned a trip packing in quite a bit into the little time we had. Our first big thing to do was Paris. If you've never been to Europe before, as Theresa had not, what is always on the list? Obviously Paris! So we did just that.

We stayed in the same hostel that I stayed in and had liked so much in August 2007. Well, this time it left a little more to be desired than last time. Let's just say that it wasn't probably the cleanest place you've ever seen, we were a bit scared to use, well, everything in the kitchen, and there was NO hot water to be had. Yeah. That pretty much sums that up! Haha. Oh, and, being February, it was cold as all get out when we were there....but hey, we got to see Paris together! After three days of walking around by foot for 9 hours a day in the freezing cold and no showers, I'll admit, we were pretty happy to be heading on to our next adventure! Although, when we were there, we saw all the things that I saw last time and even squeeze in some things that I didn't have time for last time. So that was really neat. Some new things for me were Sacré-Cœur Basilica, the Opera house, Moulin Rouge and Montmarte district, and eating at a real French café! Oh, and I got to see some things in the Louvre that I had missed last time too!


The most outrageous thing was the French café...let's just say, we lived through it, but I'm not exactly sure how. Haha. Here's the story: We had decided that we would save money by cooking and eating things like pasta in the hostel for every meal....except one. For one meal, we were going to really splurge and eat at a REAL French café! We had heard that a good part of town for "going out" was the Latin district across the river from Notre Dam. We walked around this very cool area for a while and looked at the different cafés; each of which had a different theme, all of which had exactly the same menu...only at different prices. I guess we should have turned back then, but alas, we didn't. We took a while deciding where to eat until we saw one with Escargot on the menu. That was the deciding factor. We were in Paris, we had to try Escargot right? So we went inside. We ordered one meal selection from the 15€ menu to get the Escargot as appetizer and one from the 10€ menu to save a bit of money. As usual, we were going to share everything. On the 15€ menu there was a choice of something that we had never heard of before and we decided, what the heck, let's go for it. We asked the waiter what it was and he just pointed at a picture of it that was indeed to small to actually see, but we went for it anyway. On the other menu we ordered something safe like steak and fries.

After we ordered, I asked where the bathroom was and follwed the directions down this little staircase. I then passed an open room stacked with chairs, crates, and a very strange assortment of other things, turned the corner and passed what look like part of a kitchen, and got to the bathroom that had a table in the hallway where an apple torte was sitting. When I was leaving the bathroom, which had no toilet seat, our first waiter came out at the same time, zipping up his fly and started talking to me. Creepy. Anyway, I went back upstairs as quickly as possible and said to Theresa: "When we get to choosing the desserts, whatever you do, do NOT choose the apple torte!" Haha. Then we had Escargot! It was actually good. Floating in their shells with melted butter and herbs, they tasted much like seafood. A little chewy, but rather yummy! Once again, we should have stopped there. Then the main course was delivered. Theresa was lucky and had a steak sitting in front of her, I on the other hand, at this point said, "Dear Lord Theresa, dinner is staring at me!" Yes, yes it truly was. Whole shrimp including eyeballs and tiny little feet were laying atop a very interesting rice mixture with, literally, hunks of octopus and God only knows what else. But, being the good sport I am, I started eating it anyway. Shrimp and all! Everything was quite...umm....icky honestly, but what really topped the cake was when I ate what I think might have been a fried rubber band. Luckily enough, there were more of them so I forced Theresa to eat one too! Such a good friend I am! Hahaha. Even the steak and wine were icky! Really sad. Anyway, that was our "night out" and we learned a very important lesson: When in Paris, either eat someplace famous and expensive or eat at McDonalds.

Both of us trying Escargo for the very first bite!: