Day Trip To Versailles

So my dear sweet lovely followers who have not yet complained of the lack of blog entries even though my Europe trip ended roughly two and a half months ago... even though I promised more of Vienna in my last post I am going to switch back to Paris again. I know, you're done with Paris, you know I got along just fine there, you want to hear about Vienna and Venice and I know for a fact Edith is just DYING for Annecy pictures. But two things brought me back to posting about Paris. 1) It makes no sense to talk about Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna without first talking about Versailles as something to compare it to and, 2) I am completely anal and can't post my facebook pictures out of order and want to post them here before I post them on facebook, and I am percisely 2.5 months behind on my photo uploads because of this. (And yes, I realize this is again an example of my mild neurosis.)

So, without further delay, I present to you Versailles:
Gorgeous isn't it? Of course it is. And I don't mean to diminish your efforts here, but you are sitting at home with your coffee, nightcap or other beverage of choice, and you didn't need to get lost and then stand in line in the heat for 2 hours to enjoy it. So perhaps you can imagine that it is even more gorgeous in person and the context of August in Paris.

Let me back up. The morning of our Palace adventure, Edith, Jorge, Jimmy and Tia were all still with us. We left Evan's apartment slightly before noon (more baguettes in hand) excited to view the most famous castle of all time (or at least the most famous castle of our limited K-12 American education). We couldn't all fit in Edith/Jorge's car, so John and I decided to take the metro to the Versailles train. We were actually pretty bummed about this because we figured we'd get there far behind the others and miss out on a lot of the day's sights. This thought was even more confounded by the fact that when we got the the station we thought we needed to be at, we realized that the only way to get to where we needed to go was to hop on one of 2 poorly-marked 'detour' buses. I can't quite remember the details of the situation, (because it happened 3 months ago) but I do remember that deciding whether or not to get on the bus lead to the first 'disagreement' John and I had on our trip. John wanted to get on one of the buses because we had a 50% chance of going in the right direction, and if we were wrong we could always backtrack, and I wanted to collect more information and make a more educated decision which would hopefully let us avoid these buses entirely. (For some reason getting on a bus without knowing for sure where it's going in a TERRIFYING thought for me... I know, how the hell did I survive 3 weeks in Europe?) John decided that he'd rather not see what it looks like when a 28-year-old throws a temper tantrum and so we studied the map for like 20 minutes before backtracking to a previous metro station and avoiding those scary detour buses all together. We arrived an hour and a half after our car-bound friends, and discovered that they had encountered stresses of their own.

It was precisely 512 degrees farenheight that day, and Versailles provides exactly negative 30 square feet of shade while you wait for the 3 million people in line in front of you to purchase tickets, and once you FINALLY get get your tickets, you must stand on ANOTHER MOTHER-F-ing-no-shade-3-million-people-long-line before you enter. Our friends were quite cranky, and it turns out, John and I were the winners because our metro detouring granted us 1.5 less hours in line than our friends, and they graciously let us cut in the line (behind them of course). We then of course had a solid 45 more minutes line, but my friends....










It was worth it.


We toured the inside, viewing various decorations of a series of Louis X's. Most impressive (somewhat predictably) was the famous Hall of mirrors. This room, constructed under Louis XIV, was later chosen by Prime Minister Clemenceau as the site where the (aptly named) Treaty of Versailles was signed, thus ending WWI. (How's that for an example of my K-12 American education?!) So cool. I wish they had the room set up so that there was a way for a tourists let me to get a picture in there without catching 400 other picture snapping tourists.... alas, it was not possible. Touring the seemingly endless rooms led to exhaustion and general silliness, and so a few of us decided to brave the heat and wander over to the gardens.

We were told we needed to pay to enter the gardens and so we did, but later we realized we were swindled. You do NOT need to pay to enter the gardens. You need to pay to enter 'part' of the gardens, and this is ONLY during the time when they play orchestra music from secret speakers and blast the fountains, otherwise it's free. Let this be a lesson to you penny-pinching-garden-loving travelers.

We walked out into the gardens and were immediately accosted by gorgeous orchestra music that I must admit made our walk just that much more classy. All I was missing was a chilled cocktail and I could have spent all day there (in the shade of course). Even though I expected stone paths instead of dirt ones, and was much more impressed by the fountains than the giant hedge 'mazes,' (I chose to put mazes in quotes because it is not possible to get lost in them.... I tried.) the gardens really were quite beautiful. I think it was definitely worth paying extra for it, if only for the novelty of searching for the secret speakers and getting some pretty fountain pictures.

It was pretty close to the end of the day but we were feeling rejuvenated after enjoying some lovely (if overpriced) ice cream and decided to rush trough Marie Antoinette's apartment. Man, that girl could decorate, but don't take my word for it, you can decide for yourself. Let's compare the main house to the apartment:

Louis XVI Bedroom(gold and guady everything)

Marie Antoinette's Bedroom(perfectly pink!)

After Marie's apartment John and I said our goodbyes to our Geneva friends who had to work the next day, and set back to the city for one more full day of Paris adventures. Which means my friends, that there is at least one more Paris entry left. Will I blog about it in order? At this point I don't even know. Till then!

Resplendent Vienna

I didn't get a chance to write about Vienna until I was two cities away (in Venice actually). Because of this, enough time had passed that I was actually reminiscent about it. We only spent two half days there, and we mostly just walked around, but this was probably the right thing to do here considering that I believe it was the most photogenic city we visited. (You'll have to tell me if you agree after this post and the next one.) Let me recount our visit from the beginning.

Upon leaving Prague, (and I do mean stepping out of our apartment door) it started to rain. And I'm talking, log ride at six flags kind of rain. We unfortunately had a 20 minute walk to the train station to complete. We weighed our options... we could try public transit, but since our apartment was so beautifully located we hadn't had a reason to use it before now and therefor had no idea how it worked. Now, while deciphering bus and tram routes and schedules in the 45 minutes we had left before our train was scheduled to leave seemed like a fun challenge for now expert sight see-ers like me and John, it could also lead to frustrating train missing antics. We weighed in the comical value of such antics as they could be represented in a future blog, but in the end decided that catching the present train was more important than a potential chuckle from future readers such as yourselves. I apologize for our selfishness. Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that we arrived at the train station soaked to the bone, and frankly quite cranky.


Believe it or not, the train ride significantly improved my mood. Rain falling on the countryside is quite pleasent as long as you are not in said countryside. Puddles, fog, and an everchanging lanscape to enjoy each upon. What's not to love? I've always enjoyed rainy days, it's a fondness my father and I both share. I also like telling him this because each time he forgets, and is surprised and happy to find another rain watcher. I hope that again he has forgotten, and that reading this reminds him and makes him smile.
I was sure the rain would end by the time we reached Vienna, (Europe is reasonably sizable, correct?) but no, the rain followed us all the way to our destination train station, and throughout another walk to a different foreign abode. This time we stayed in a hostel. We checked in reasonably quickly, stowed our things, toweled off, and went out to explore. First things first, we were starving. The closest eatery to our hostel was "The Schnitzel Sisters." Having just left Prague, and already missing it, we decided to try it out. They produced an English menu for us, and almost immediately, and without reading the entire menu John decided to order bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed sausages. I promptly told him he was ridiculous, and then went ahead and ordered the chicken cordon bleu. It wasn't until I sat down that I realized we both ordered cheese wrapped in meat, wrapped in meat. Also, mine was breaded and deep fried, so I was more ridiculous.


As we left our dear sisters of schnitzel, it was starting to get dark, and therefore (in my opinion) the most fun time to take pictures. I like it because in daylight it's pretty easy to know how a picture is going to come out before you take it, but at twilight when light is less evenly distributed, you never know what light is going to do to your photo when it is done bouncing around inside your camera. Most of the time you say, "Crap, it is SO much prettier than this picture makes it look." But every once in a while, you say "Wow, this is cool!"

As John and I were about to abandon the cool wet evening, (yes, it was still drizzling) we heard music coming from this ominous looking castle. We stumbled on an outdoor film festival! Tonight's series? Dance! We thought this was quite fortunate because if there were no words at least we would be able to understand everything. (We were wrong by the way.) The first was a modern ballet composition that was really beautiful. There was obviously some kind of story happening, but when John and I compared interpretations, they couldn't have been more different.
The next piece had a short synopsis (in many languages) at the beginning, so we knew we were going to watch a depiction of the life of Christ. The choreographer decided that 'funk' was the most appropriate style of dance for this epic religious narrative, and so we were rewarded with break dancing, slow motion running, and (I kid you not) moon-walking. It was extremely difficult to keep from laughing when Judas was doing the 'Robot'. The rest of the Viennan audience apparently did not see the comedy in it. (Perhaps they were just cranky about the rain ruining their cultural event.) The final act was definitely the most visually interesting, it was a beautifully choreographed ballet-film, complete with costume changes and extremely confusing plot lines. The dancers seemed to be moving so fast, I'm still wondering if they were using less frames per second for effect. As part of the story (which we caught none of) they had a male character (dressed as a female character) on point shoes. I was impressed. I never saw a man do point before. Tell me dancers, is this common? Do males use toe shoes, or was this a unique experience? I am not trying to say that I don't think males have the grace or talent to learn this type of dance, only that I wouldn't think there would be a reason for males to master this technique if they never needed to use it in a ballet. We watched about half of it before we gave up on ever discovering the meaning of the piece and left those silly Viennans to their own interpretations.
After stopping to fight with (and conquer!) the most confusing Austrian hot chocolate machine ever, (was it really asking us how 'chocolaty' we wanted our drink?) we retired to our respective bunk beds excited about the palace we would visit the next day.

What's that? You want a preview? OK, I'm feeling generous:

Dali, Dancing, & Nazis in Prague

After our evening with the Czechs, the men were significantly exhausted. (Dare I say hung over? They might contest that.) I however, felt surprisingly better than I did the day before. (I guess beer and Sudafed was good idea after all, take that Surgeon General!) I was up, showered and dressed by 9:00 AM. I told the men that I was going to the internet cafe to write up a blog post, and that if they decided to go anywhere before I got back that they should just come and get me. (It was literally a block away.) When I got to the square, I found out that the place didn't open until 10. Bummer. But was it really a bummer? The square was already bustling with people, and actually, "What's this? A parade? No, it's actually an international folk dance festival!" People traveled from all over to show off their cultural dance moves. What about the US? How do you think we were represented? Moonwalk? No. (Good guess though, it woud have been quite fitting considering that the number of times I've heard "Billie Jean" this summer is fast approching the Dyson number for 2.) More guesses? Don't forget Hawaii is a part of the US too!

For some reason that I can only loosely explain, when I saw all of these different people dancing joyfully in the streets (cheesy music and all), I started to cry. I mean it, I'm talking some serious tears. I guess I went a little soft seeing people from all different nations being happy and united by something as simple as music. It's the idealist in me... the Utopian, she got a little emotional.
I watched for an hour as various groups preformed their numbers. I don't have any good pictures of this... you know... due to the crying and all.

I crossed the square a little before 10 to see the astronomical clock do 'it's thing' that it does every hour, on the hour, all day starting at 9 AM. After watching the 15 second 'show,' I've decided that the only reason it exisits is so tourists have a reason to stare at the clock for any length of time. If you just saw the clock (there's a picture of it in my previous blog entry) you'd say, "What a beautiful clock!" and promptly move on after snapping a picture. But folks, that thing is 'F'-ing complicated! (Image ripped from wikipedia.) You can't appreciate it without standing there and trying to figure out how it works for a while, and the only reason you would ever try to do that is if you were killing time while standing in your 'prime spot' for viewing a 'show' of sorts. My advice, skip the show... it's exactly like a giant coo-coo clock, only with apostles instead of birds. It might be more interesting if the apostles actually made 'coo-coo' noises. I should suggest that to the Czechs... with their dark humor record, they might actually consider it.

Finally, the internet cafe was open and I took a break from experiencing life to reflect on it. Reflection takes longer than one would expect, and I almost fainted when I looked at the time. 11:30!? How did that happen? Then I started to worry because I knew we were supposed to meet our Czech friends at 1:00 for lunch, and I REALLY wanted to go to the Dali exhibit before then. Did the guys forget where the internet cafe was? Had they looking for me? I practically ran back to the apartment... our last full day in Prague and I was wasting it in the cafe! I was going to have to do some apologizing.

Three locked doors, and three flights of stairs later, I was standing in the middle of the living room looking down in amazement at John and Frank's respective beds... each still occupied! I went to sleep at the same time as them, (Midnight maybe?) and here they were four hours after I started my day... halfway through their twelfth hour of sleep! Here's where I got a little bossy.... "WAKE UP!!! You need to get ready so we can go to the Museum! How long will it take you both to shower?! If we leave in more than 20 minutes, the Dali exhibit (while small) won't be worth the crowns!" I have to give them credit, they sprang into action. John even ignored the shower queue and went first for a change. I felt sort of bad in retrospect because I could have just as easily went to the museum on my own and given them a little more time to start their day, (really does anyone deserve to be awakened like that when they are on vacation?) but I was just so surprised to find them still asleep, and was mad at myself for rushing in the internet cafe because I was worried about holding THEM up.

Twenty minutes later we were out the door and at the Dali exhibit. (I can say this because our beautifully located apartment was literally 2 blocks from the museum.) Let me say, Dali was a crazy SOB. And I'm not just talking about his artwork, I mean seriously, look at this guy!







Right? This particular exhibit combined photos of the artist with his sketches, paintings, sculptures, and pottery. Did you know Dali was a potter? His plates had the same crazy ass designs on them. Can you imagine eating off of this hairy rotting clock?

Honestly though, had they sold duplicates in the gift shop, I would have seriously considered purchasing a few for my brother. Alas, they did not. (Sorry Jus.) I really enjoyed looking at his work. Did you also know that Dali painted Abraham Lincoln?



















Well... sort of anyway.



I really enjoyed the exhibit, and was really satisfied that we saw the whole thing in an hour. I mean don't get me wrong, Dali's artwork is so interesting because there seems to be about a million ways to interpret everything he does, and because of this I could have spent a whole day there and written several posts on what I saw. (I am especially intrigued by his frequent usage of shuffleboard stick shaped support devices.) It's just that we had friends to meet and dumplings to eat!

We met Mark and Aaron a little to the east of old town and they took us to an extremely cheap place to eat lunch. It wasn't a touristy place and so they had to read the menu to us again. Frank and I each got the schnitzel again, and John did this time as well. (I guess he learned his lesson. :) )





The rest of the day was pretty relaxing, we did some sightseeing, stopped for coffee, did some more wandering around, and had some gelato. Feeling especially laid back the men even suffered through a few souveneir purchases. One thing that we toured that was different that usual was the Jewish Quarter of Prague. There were a few things there that were particularly interesting for me. The first was this old graveyard:



Isn't it strange that the gravestones are all practically on top of each other? And doesn't the ground look like it's swelling? I was very curious about these characteristics, so I did a little research. It turns out that when the graveyard got full, they just added more dirt, and piled on more graves. When they did this, they just moved all of the old headstones up to the top layer. There are actually 12 full layers of graves. This is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe (operational from 1439-1787) because the Nazis made a point to destroy all Jewish cemeteries they came across. Prague happens to be the only capital in Europe that escaped bombing in WWII, and this is the reason this cemetery still exists.

The other was more of an emotional event.



Each name written here belongs to a person who was murdered in the holocaust. Next to each name is a date of birth, and a date of last known location. It fills an entire temple. It's very overwhelming. It's very important to see... perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's an important thing to experience.

OK, but it's time to stop being all emotional. (I know I know, in the beginning of the post I'm crying and now I'm preaching to you about the holocaust.) By the evening, we were quite exhausted, and this being our last night in Prague we decided to spend it at the bar. (You probably guessed that already though.)

The last thing we did in Prague before turning in was walk over to the Charles Bridge for some gelato. While Frank and John caught up on Notre Dame football, I played with some of the exposure settings on my camera. I liked how this one turned out.

Goodbye for now Prague, I am sure I'll be for a visit sometime soon!

Czech please!

Ah Prague... I love you.



Winding city streets, schnitzel, dumplings, and (very) cheap beer; what's not to enjoy? Ever since Julia first described it to me I've wanted to go. Ever since my father came home raving after (accidentally) watching the world cup in the main square, I've been intrigued. (If you knew how my Dad is about sports, you'd understand.) Ever since my grandfather taught me how to say, "Pojď sem a dej mi pusu" which is the one phrase he knew in Czech, I figured it was an important part of my heritage. (Don't ask me how he came to learn this phrase... I doubt very much it was so he might one day ask his granddaughter for a kiss on the cheek.)
Praha did not let me down.

As you may recall, I was stick fighting off something fierce and was on a bunch of drugs, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from seeing the astronomical clock, the Charles Bridge, and especially any beer gardens we might come across. (It was a good thing John brought cold medicine that wasn't in it's original packaging... I don't need some preachy label telling me I can't have alcohol with my drugs, I'm in Prague dammit! No label probably means it's OK to have a beer, or two, or three right?)

John's friend Frank from undergrad who is currently also living in Genevea, (working on the particle accelerator like everyone else) decided on a whim to come an stay with us in our lavish apartment. (OK, it took a bit of arm twisting, and I'm told TWO all-nighters on his part, but he made it alright?) In the morning there was much strolling, picture taking, and shopping, but once Frank got there, we made a bee-line for the beer gardens. I liked this. Our temporary "landlord" (also conveniently named Frank) suggested that we go to a pace that was just north of the old city on the other side of the bridge. It's a good thing he told us, because we never would have found this place on our own, and it was AWESOME.

A few half liters later (don't worry, I was conservative) we were drunk in the city and looking for schnitzel. We decided to walk a little further north and were chatting loudly about such and such, (OK, OK, I was the one chatting loudly.) when a man with a Czech accent turned around and said quite suddenly, "Where are you from?" That's it. There wasn't even an introduction. We didn't even know they were listening. We stopped short, and he said, "It's just that your accent is very familiar." I proudly answered, "New York!" He went on to say that he had a friend from NYC that was in an orchestra (The Prague Orchestra? I forget.) with whom he had spent two exciting weeks of travel. My accent reminded him of this.
This my friends, is probably the first time anyone, anywhere has thought of a New York accent as endearing.

Our new friend's name was Mark, and his friend's name was Aaron. (I am not sure if these names were 'Americanized' for our benefit, but perhaps if they read this they can tell us.) We asked them where we could get some dinner, and they brought us to a local place 'off the beaten path.' Because we were out of tourist town, they needed to do all of the ordering for us. I couldn't read any word besides schnitzel and pivo (beer) but in retrospect that was probably ok, because that was what I ordered anyways. Only John suffered from some (arguably) poor ordering choices, but it was not without ample warning from our Czech friends.


First John ordered what the Czechs kept referring to as "Pig tails." Mark and Aaron said that it was a ton of meat, and should be sharred between at least two people if someone were thinking of getting it. John ignored this suggestion because (he told me later) he usually cut the "number of servings" in half when purchasing food from safeway. Besides, he justified, European meals were small in general, and "pig tails?" those cute little curly things? How much meat could be on them anyway? Right. Can you see where this is going?
When the "pig tails" came out, I saw absolutely no resemblance to what one thinks of when they picture a pig's tail. Instead John had in front of him the fattiest slab of gray mystery meat I have ever seen, and (you guessed it) it was bigger than his head. Regretfully, I have no pictures of this. (I know, I have no idea what I was thinking.)

John said it was delicious, but suggested we get a defibrillator ready because he predicted he would suffer no less than three heart attacks by dessert. He probably ate a good 2/3 of it before asking Frank (the friend not the landlord) for some help. Even then full of schnitzel and dumplings, he was up for the challenge.

After dinner, we went to a local bar. It was here that John made is second ordering mistake. He noticed in addition to the beers, there was something he could order called "grog." Now I must admit that the name does sound like something a warrior Dwarf might order in Dungeons and Dragons, and therefor pretty bad ass (or BA-dass as my cousin Cory would say), but I also know better than to order something a local warns me he's never tried and can't quite describe. John was feeling a bit more adventurous, and so he ordered the grog. (Plus ten experience points for John!)

It turns out that grog is not something a dwarf would order, and actually you are probably much more likely to find an elf (or maybe a fairy?) ordering grog. It was a shot of something brandy-like mixed with hot water and sugar, and served in a glass identical to the one my mother used to use when she had other ladies over for tea and lady fingers. Also, by the by, perhaps youve already predicted this, grog is NOT delicious. I would much rather have my mother's tea and lady fingers.

Even though John has a really hard time leaving any sort of alcoholic beverage undrunk, (just wait until I tell you about the "Maximators" in a few more posts!) I think he was secretly happy when they (quite literally) turned the lights out on us after telling us 6 times (in Czech) that they were closing. (Our Czech guys failed to translate that one for us.) I hope he doesn't have bad dreams about the inch of undrinkable liquid sitting in the bottom of that lonely lady finger glass.

We walked back to our apartment (the boys may have staggered) and parted ways with the Czechs, but promised to meet them for lunch the next day. I went up stairs and promptly passed out from the effects of cold medicine and three (OK, four) beers, but learned the next day that poor John's Pig Tails and grog kept him up a while. Luckily, his stomach eventually won the fight and there was no porcelain praying, but I still wouldn't run out and order grog soaked pig tails any time soon.

By the way, Mark and Aaron, who are starting their own hostel business, said our apartment was a real steal! Yay for not being swindled!

J'adore Paris!

I’m going to sprinkle in a little bit of my Paris visit here. For context, this happened after Geneva, but before I went to the L’Orangerie.

It turns out that Tia had a connection in Paris.

Her friend Evan from Aikido was staying at a friend’s apartment for the summer while the regular

occupants were bicycling to Istanbul.

(Crazy right?) So again for the fourth night in a row, all six of us got out many blankets and pillows and set up a sleepover in the livingroom of a tiny European apartment. By this point the men even had coordinating pajamas! (Full disclosure… this picture was actually taken in Geneva, but I’ve been looking for a place to work it in.)

I

nterestingly enough we had another midnight stirring as we did in Geneva. At some point close to 3:00AM, my pillow nudged a pile of electrical cords and magically turned on a lamp in the living room, and promptly woke everyone up. I could not for the life of me figure out how to turn the damn

thing off, and the electrical socket was behind an extremely heavy desk, so I couldn’t even unplug it. One by one, everyone got up to try to help me. Edith mused that she had solved the age-old riddle, it only took one physicist to turn on the light bulb, but it took five to turn it off. Eventually the riddle was solved, there was a dimming device that we had all earlier dismissed as a power supply.
The next morning Evan made up some spectacular pancakes, and we started up our regular shower queue. Edith always woke up first, and after she was done she made Jorge go in, then it was my turn, then either Jimmy or Tia (whichever order Tia was in the mood for) and finally John dragged himself off the floor and shuffled into the shower. John

loved the shower queue. It always guaranteed him an extra hour of sleep… or half sleep, considering everyone was stepping over him at all the time.

Finally, (pretty close to noon now) we were out of the house and on our way to the Eiffel Tower. (By the way, John and I had been lucky enough to view it ‘doing it’s thing’ the night before when we were awaiting everyone’s arrival. Please excuse the fact that this video is on it's side. I can't figure out how to rotate it on this &@$!ing european computer.)

It was even more impressive up close.
I was a fountain of information about Monsieur Eiffel (recall my New York visit when I learned that Eiffel had designed the interior structure of the Statue of Liberty) but everyone seemed to know already or not care very much.Meat, cheese, and several baguettes later, we were off to Montmartre to see ‘Sacré- Coeur’ (Sacred Heart). This is home to the most famous steps in Paris, and also happens to be one of Evan’s favorite places. There was a really great dance troupe there that was performing all of Michael Jackson’s hits one by one. ‘Thriller’ has become the theme of our trip because the Europeans have been playing it constantly since the King of Pop’s unfortunate death

earlier this summer. We enjoyed the moon-walking.

For our first dinner of the evening, we had pizza and a rosé wine. (Which I’m told dear Californians and fellow wine lovers, is very ‘a la mode’ in Paris right now, so if you want to be ‘trés chic,’ order a rosé at your next dinner outing.)Later that evening we planned to meet up with my friend Sinclair. Sinclair is living in Paris for the summer studying French cuisine. I like to think his life in class everyday is like an episode of ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ but he assures me it’s not. He asked us to meet him for second dinner in a lovely little village in the south west part of Paris… but when we got there, the gates to the village were CLOSED?! How can you close an entire village? It turns out there was a fire right in the middle of the dinner hour and about ten restaurants had to close. Tempers among restauranteers were high because a lost night during peak tourism season… well that’s a lot of Euros lost. Hungry, thirsty, and some of us in need of a free bathroom, we ended up eating in a British style pub. Sinclair found this humorous, but I believe he thoroughly enjoyed his burger.

After dinner, Evan suggested that we get a few bottles of wine and ‘picnic’ on the Seine. After a somewhat comical quest for wine, (all the stores save one were closed) a wine opener, (Sinclair skillfully opened the bottle at the register despite all the pushing and rowdiness akin with a

Saturday night in a tiny liquor store) and of course plastic cups, (we aren’t heathens!) we made our way down to the riverside.
Stomachs full, thirst quenched, and all the museums closed for the day, we lounged, laughed, and enjoyed the view with locals and tourists alike. These were my favorite moments in Paris.

More Paris to come... but for now, back to Prague!