Sunday, August 29, 2010

I love Paris - Part Deux

(...continued from below) The Hummus and fatayer helped me attain inner peace. We walked around aimlessly for miles, and found ourselves at Palais Royale, where a group of street musicians were playing wonderful symphonies of Beethoven and Mozart.

We strolled toward The Louvre, a majestic piece of modern architecture nestled in a histortic neighborhood. I'm more of an architecture person than an art one, and I had already been to Louvre on my last trip to Paris, so we just decided to be tourists and took some pictures of the museum and its surroundings:





We crossed the Seine and walked on Pont Du Carrousel, a wonderful bridge overlooking both left and right bank:



From here on out, I went a little bit insane. Allow me to explain: for the longest time, I've coveted this Burberry handbag. I love the concept of being creative with plaid and am impressed with the number of ways in which they can make it hip. Not to mention, Hermoine asked me to buy Burberry. And we all know that if Hermoine says it's good, then it must be true. So, while we were crossing the bridge, I had an epiphany. I deduced that with the low Dollar-Euro exchange rate, the bag wouldn't be all that expensive.

But we had a situation: I didn't know where the Burberry store was located. So I whipped out my ancient smartphone and looked up the address of the store on the left bank. We found an address on Google, and since google never lies, we trusted it enough to make our way to St. Germaine, where I was assured the store stood. Alas, Google had joined forces with Steve Jobs and conspired against me! For we were at St. Germaine, where we found Chanel, MaxMara, and other stores, but no Hermoine's Burberry. Desolate, I made my way back to the right bank. It was just as well, because I discovered something truly startling in my hunt: Hermoine was no longer the face of Burberry! If they abandon Hermoine, then I abandon them! What I eventually ended up buying in place of the Burberry bag is too traumatic and shocking to be put in writing. Let's just leave it at that.

At night, we had dinner at the Loving Hut, a wonderful Asian vegetarian restaurant, not far from the Bastille. The food was delish, and neither the brother nor I uttered a single word and were focused on the eating the entire time.

We walked to Bastille after dinner, and the monument, in the shadow of the moon, made for a pretty sight:



This is where I explain to you what stood between me and creme brulee: it was my pants. I committed a grave fashion faux pas, you see - I only packed two day dresses. So I was forced to wear pants in the evening and was thus physically unable to indulge in any creme brulee, due to lack of flexibility to stuff anything else in my stomach. Nevertheless, we marched on and continued strolling along Bercy, soaking in wonderful moonlit castles:



and caught sight of the Eiffel Tower towering as a beacon of light and making the city dance in its lights:




You could close your eyes and almost hear the sounds of carriages riding along the river and of street stalls wrapping up for the day, as they would have hundreds of years ago. The night was perfect. Sure, there was a situation where I thought one of the towers of a castle was Eiffel Tower, which earned me a shocked look from my brother, but that's a rookie mistake, right?

The next day, we went back to Sacre Coeur, a beautiful church atop a hill:



And made our way back to Place de la Concorde. We chilled at Jardin des Tuileries where we grabbed a quick lunch, took a nap, and then do the one thing that I had still not done in Paris - have creme brulee. We walked along Rue Rivoli, and I'm proud to let you know that success was met:



This concludes an exhaustive recap of Paris. This post is no shorter than the previous one, in fact, it's even longer, if possible. So if you're reading this and are still awake, I'll just say that if you ever get a chance, do visit Paris, at least once in your lifetime. And let me know if you also feel its magic the way I do. It will make you feel fulfilled and yet will leave you wanting for more. It will transport you to a different world, all the while allowing you to enjoy the convenience of this one. Paris, je t'aime!

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