Friends and Firsts

This weekend was crazy-wonderful-exciting-exhausting.

It started Thursday night when my roommate Elle, her friend Madi, and our other friend Sergio went to an absinth bar (sorry mom). We each only had one drink because we went more for the experience than anything else. The waiter brought us each a small glass of absinth, and we had to melt a sugar cube into it using water droplets from a very strange looking water machine they brought us. Interesting experience, bad taste, weird looks from the waiter when we asked for a lime to put in it to mask the taste a bit... that pretty much sums up that part of the night.

The four of us then headed to the Seine river to meet up with some of our other friends who were just hanging out by the water. The cool thing about Paris is that it's perfectly acceptable to just grab a bottle of wine, head to the river, play some latino music and just dance for a while... so that's exactly what we did.

Friday morning I woke up very much in a "I want to be by alone" mood so I headed out by myself to the Palais de Tokyo, a museum of contemporary art, and not to mention a great view of the Eiffel Tower. The exhibits seemed more science than art to me, but had everything from magnetism, light, water purification systems, a dark room full of illuminated cobwebs... you name the weirdest, most random thing you can think of and they probably have it. I'm usually not a fan of contemporary art; I can wander through Delacroix, Monet, Renoir, and Titian paintings all day, but something about modern art has never caught my attention much. Saying that, I did enjoy the Palais de Tokyo not because of the art, but because of how it connected art to science. Rather than just displaying a line of hammers and nails and claiming it was art, they explained how tools are just an extension of the human hand, how tools are impossible to classify because each one is held and used differently- My mind likes to read explanations rather than be left in the dark wondering what the significance of a hammer hanging on a wall is. So thank you, Palais de Tokyo, for providing me with that good experience.

After the museum I met up with my friend Morgan for a late lunch and then with some other friends to figure out our plans for the night. We were all pretty content to just sit on the couch all night, but extremely last minute we decided to head out a place called Bastille, which is pretty much just a small street lined with dance clubs and bars. Usually I would never post about this sort of stuff, but the point of me talking about this particular night is that I MADE MY FIRST REAL FRENCH FRIENDS! Two Parisian girls named Anne Charlotte and Flora graciously befriended us and showed us their secret clubs to go to. All day Saturday I was texting Anne Charlotte in french (aren't you proud, mom?) which made me feel like I was really becoming part of this city. It feels really different to be living here but still having American friends, then to be living here and finally having some french friends.

Saturday morning Morgan, Ali and I went to the Jewish neighbourhood to explore and sample some of the best (only) Jewish pastries I've ever had. The whole neighbourhood is made up of small pedestrian streets lined with bakeries and clothing boutiques. After walking around for a while, I met up with Elle and Madi and headed to  Montmartre, bottle of wine in hand, to sit on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur and watch live music while the sun set. At 8 pm the three of us had reservations at a traditional French cuisine restaurant that Elle had found. Our stomachs and hearts were happy after eating Os à Moelle (bone marrow) and Frois Gras (duck liver) for appetisers, and duck for the main meal. If I've learned anything from my time abroad so far, its that I REALLY like duck.

Us Americans have also befriended a 16 year old Parisian girl, Alexia, who lives in the apartment above my friend Emily. Alexia had invited us to a party with some of her friends that night, so I ducked out of dinner a little early to go. We got there to find a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds having a typical high schooler party, but just something about the fact that it was with Parisians made everything so much more enjoyable. Just a couple days before, we had been asking Alexia what her and her friends did on the weekend, and apparently this was it! I feel like we've now crossed over to the locals side... ok maybe not quite, but we are getting there. Baby steps, right?

I usually don't make chronological posts like this because I think they get a little repetitive sometimes, but this weekend was full of a lot of firsts, a lot of new friends, a lot of late nights, and a lot of memories made. It's a little crazy to think that these weekends are the ones I'm going to be telling my grandchildren about someday.

Props to you if you made it through this whole post, and as always, thanks for reading :)