Au Revoir Paris et 2010

I can certainly say we packed a lot into our last day here in Paris. It’s hard to believe we’ve packed everything back up and we’re going to be sitting on a plane for most of the day tomorrow, and by Tuesday we’ll be back to living apart for 14 more weeks. But I digress… This blog is about our very last day in Paris, and what a big last day it was.


Last night we didn’t get home till after midnight because we went to see Harry Potter, and we pushed ourselves to get up before 11 a.m. so we could actually do something today. :) So our morning, as with most, began with a subway review, packing of the backpack with water and a snack for me, and we were off. First stop, that Decathlon store so I could once again look for that watch. I know what I’m asking for for my birthday. ;) I still couldn’t find one in the color and size I wanted. I’ve gone from only army green options to only XS…and I’m not an XS anything. From there we headed back to that Roman arena in the city that we tried to see earlier in the week but were too late. It was pretty neat – kind of weird to think about how it was used so long ago. I also took some time to play on the playground.

Protesting Fros Grais

What a broken escalater in the Metro looks like.

Next we finally made it to the area of the Latin Quarter I had been wanted to go to but couldn’t communicate it to Jason. Needless to say we found a great bookstore where we spent at least an hour checking stuff out. Cue my hunger… If you know me at all you know if I’m even kind of hungry you don’t want to be around me. I pushed through and we checked out Luxembourg gardens. It was neat and I’m glad we did, but I could tell that evil little monster that lives in me was growing with my hunger. We found an RER train and were on our way.

We made it to the Love Wall and it was actually way cooler than I expected, but all the tourists were making it kind of annoying… until we stopped the Love Wall cat. She or he was HUGE and so cute! :) As we walked to get our pizza I was so happy. Jason and I spent hours figuring out what pizza place to go in the city, but when we got there they were total asses, waving us out telling us they were closing. This is when I got crazy annoyed. I was so hungry by this point I couldn’t control my anger. How could this be happening?! We’d planned and planned but obviously we hadn’t planned well enough. After being a total bitch to poor Jason (luckily he loves me and knows when I’m hungry I can’t control how evil I am) we headed back to our area to pick up something and chill in the apartment before going out to a dinner. You see, we were in that time after lunch but before dinner… or so we thought. Turns out if you want to eat dinner in the city on New Year’s Eve, it’s like 50€ a piece and reservations are needed. But Jason spent another hour or so on trying to find us a place to dine while I ate and chilled out.

We took one last walk to the market to buy some snacks for tomorrow and stopped at the neighborhood chocolatier for a New Year treat.

Finally back in the apartment Jason was enjoying some cheap sparkly wine and cleaning up a bit, and I was packing when Jason says to me “Why do the wrap these knives so tightly”. I responded, “So you’ll cut yourself trying to open it,” and it was at that second that he did just that! I jumped up, applied pressure and put the cut over his head. It was so deep I thought for sure we’d be taking a trip to the ER… but dear God where is the ER and how will this work?! I was starting to freak out in my weird calm way. I got dressed, dressed Jason, reassessed the situation and decided he could make it with a butterfly bandage or something like that. Sadly here in the France you can’t even get a band-aid at the store. We have to find a pharmacy, and sure they’re a dime a dozen here, but like finding one open on New Year’s eve at 20:00 is going to happen. I was surprised that we did find one and it was actually on our same metro line. Thank God. They didn’t have everything I was looking for but I was able to get some spray adhesive / water proofer to hold the cut shut with an antiseptic built in and some band-aids. As an interesting side note, I believe the women in front of us burned her hand... and in France the pharmacist can assist with thing of this nature and ultimately dressed her wound. It was kind of weird almost like a minor injury urgent care. I don’t have many pictures mainly because I was on autopilot fix Jason and get home safe.

It's cut your own band-aid?! I was lost for a second.

We returned and realized there was nothing open around us and we would have to pick up a frozen pizza at our grocery store quickly before they closed too. Hooray for dinner.

At this point we had to rush to the Sacré-Cœur to because we were going to be late for New Year’s Peace Mass. This just seemed like the perfect place to bring in the New Year. It was nice and although I can’t understand the majority of what is being said I just feel so comfortable I could stay in that building for days. A couple of minutes before midnight the service ended and we stood on the steps of the church as we rang in the New Year. I was really disappointed that there were really no profession Fireworks but it was an interesting experience none the less. Happy 2011.

First kiss of 2011

Celebrating with candy

It’s hard to believe our trip is over. We’ve got to get up in like 5 hours to leave for the airport. All I can say is tomorrow is going to suck and I hope to get a nap in on the plane and plenty of food so I don’t turn into and evil monster.

First dessert of 2011.

I hope to blog again on Sunday about my Resolutions and final thoughts on 2010 but I’m not making any promises. I love you all and hope you’ve enjoyed reading about trip.