By day three, we still don't speak French. Getting pastries in the morning? It's a little hard, lots of pointing and motioning involved - but totally worth it.
With baguettes, cheese, pastries, tomatoes, and some mysterious pate in hand, we headed to the most magical place in the world. I was really cool in seventh grade and read a lot of historical biographies and Marie Antoinette was certainly the capricious idol of my nerdy affection.
She had big hair, awesome dresses, a crazy husband, and a dramatic life. She was the soap opera megastar. She told them they could eat cake and the French, they chopped off her head.
Versailles. The palace complex of the center of European court life for a few centuries. Gardens that blow away all of the other Alice in Wonderland gardens I've mentioned. Salons for gossiping about dukes and lords. Bedchambers for royal birth and death. Grand halls where you can only party like its 1848. The sight of many a revolution and one very important treaty.
After waiting on insane lines of hundreds of people, we dodged tour groups and lost each other in the masses a few times. Thank goodness Kate downloaded Rick Steves' audioguide to Versailles for our aural pleasure.
We flipped out like true NUnerds when we saw where the Treaty of Versailles was signed. History happened on that table in that room. After an hour or so of palace-gazing, we walked through the
gardens of singing fountains, getting lost and running into locked gates, feeling a little trapped, and a lot overwhelmed by just how grand Louis felt the need to make his domain.
My feet were dead. I was dying for a rented golf cart but for 30 euros saved, we were walking all the way. We smelled like more stinky cheese. I slept on the way home while other Americans shrieked and giggled loudly next to us - the study abroad kids we hope to never be.
Finally back at the apartment, we decided napping was the best option before meeting up with some friends. We made it to Berthillon, France's most famous ice cream by 7:45. I was told if I see salted caramel flavored anything, get it.
Best. Ice Cream. Ever. I liked it more than the banana flavor I've been eating all over Spain.
Berthillon is situated on Ile St. Louis, Europe's most expensive real estate, in the middle of the Seine in the middle of Paris. You don't have to wonder why it's so expensive. Still, we found reasonably priced dinner at a restaurant on the water - or so we thought.
Mori had the best meal of her life, maybe. She started with escargot and finished with rotisserie chicken, and the waiter as her new French boyfriend. I think the love was unrequited on her part.
I order the vegetarian plate. Also known as a twelve euro pile of green beans with some carrot chunks. What a deal. Max and Sarah shared their French onion soups with everyone, making up for the veggiefails.
We buddied up to enter the Metro and headed to the nighttime Eiffel Tower. We had a supercute NU party with about 10 of us there - it was just like sitting on the lakefill in Evanston, except we were in front of one of the world's most famous architectural structures. And at 11 PM on the dot, the entire steel statue sparkled and shined and glowed so much my eyes hurt. But I couldn't stop looking.
We bid many a Northwesterner adieu and went to Harry's Piano Bar in Bastille (not to be confused with the Charlie's Diner Piano Bar down the street). The decor was 1920s, the cocktails - anti-Great Depression, and the ladies across from us were randomly dressed as flappers. We enjoyed shared drinks with funny names and crazy flavors (D'Laney and I split something made with pear liquer, cream, cacao and vodka. Max's drink was bright blue. Kate and Mori's martini glass had orange peel in it, I think.). I can still taste it.
The three roommates, satisfied with their adventuring of a lifetime, took a midnight stroll home, past some swanky shops (Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Dior, etc) and dreamed of the days when we'll be rich and famous and lead lives of leisure casually hanging around in Paris again.
We packed, fell asleep, and began the nostalgic dream that Paris becomes for anyone who visits. Au revoir!
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