I’ll never forget that line from Casablanca. Quite uninspiring taken by itself, yet seemingly meaningful and deep when heard in the film. And what a good city to always have; seriously, this place pwns. It’s expensive, at times sketchy, and very intimidating, but it’s still Paris and it still makes my heart beat a little faster.

Kathryn and I got here Wednesday, November 4 around 6pm, straight off the train from Montpellier, where jackets were unnecessary and the sun still shined. Even the train platform felt cold through my sneakers as I stepped off the TGV train, and that was one sensation that did not stop throughout our stay. The good thing about Paris in November is that tourism is not in season- at least American tourism. I kept making jokes that we were actually in Madrid, because I have never heard more Spanish in my entire life. Latin Americans and Spaniards apparently flock to Paris in November.

My first trip to Paris two years ago was defined by the fact that I was with three other girls, none of us spoke a word of French (“I’m pretty sure sortir means toilet, it’s similar to the Russian word…”) and the fact that we walked EVERYWHERE. This means we saw just about everything, without having any idea of what these things actually were. After my trip with Kathryn, I can confirm that we did a damn good job of seeing Paris in 3 days the first time around. Since Kathryn actually knows what she’s doing, this trip to the city of lights was replete with understanding and awareness. We saw everything you would want to see if you were in Paris:

• Notre Dame
• Eiffel Tower
• Louvre
• Musee D’Orsay
• Pompidou Museum
• Napoleon’s Tomb
• Jardin de Luxembourg
• Place de la Concorde
• Champs Elysées
• Le Petit Palais
• Arc de Triomphe
• Sacre Coeur/Montmartre
• Ile St Louis
• Sorbonne
• Latin Quartier
• St Germain Quartier

But sightseeing was only half the significance of our journey. Eating made up the other half… in fact it was probably a ratio closer to 3:2, eating:sightseeing. Our first night we went to an incredible place where I got octopus (you could still see the spots where the ink comes out) and as the main dish, a nice fat piece of steak with a side of BONE MARROW. This bone marrow at first sounded scary, but it was amazing- buttery and melted in your mouth. What a perfect welcome meal. We went a café called Le loir dans la théière for 3 days in a row for their to-die-for tarts… funnily enough, I got the same one each time: chocolate and banana amazingness. Our last day, Sunday, we got an expensive brunch at this same café, but it was worth it. We waited outside in the cold like super-duper Parisians to be seated (it took about 25 minutes to be seated) and then dined on toast, jam, yogurt, applesauce, juice and coffee, and afterwards for me a cheddar and mushroom tart and for Kathryn eggs. We had amazing hot chocolate at this place called Angelina’s, which was essentially a bar of rich dark chocolate melted down into drinkable form. Incredible. We also had French fries and steak from Chez Eugene’s on Montmartre (this is the highest point in Paris, and where the Sacre Coeur church sits). I had my first encounter with macaroons in Paris, and it was about time. The food of Paris really made me feel satisfied, and I really didn’t care about how much I was paying to feel this way. We didn’t eat out luxuriously every meal, but if you see something you can’t pass up, well you can’t pass it up. One of our best meals, however, was a chilly picnic dinner at about 9:30pm about .3 miles from the Eiffel tower- camembert, blue cheese, 20 slices of salami, bread, butter, and a nice bottle of red wine. Just writing this makes me feel happy.

If you don’t know already know, French in Action is an educational video soap opera-esque series used by many American schools to teach the French language. I think French in Action is a hate or love affair- you either can’t stand watching the questionable instructor Pierre Capretz, or your mad crush on Mireille keeps you hooked. We took pictures of tons of classic French in Action places, like the hotel where Robert stays, the Sorbonne, and a bunch of cafés that are cited throughout the series. I am so glad Kathryn was as into this as I was, it was a lot of fun.

This time in Paris, I was able to see a fair amount of museums, as you can see from the list above. My favorite was the Musee D’Orsay, which is actually housed in an old train station. We also went to the Petit Palais museum, which had a really nice ambiance- very open and airy, completely opposite of the Louvre, which is crowded, formidable, and quite suffocating- even the walls themselves are works of art.

Our last day was especially crazy. We tried to get into the Catacombs, which were unfortunately closed due to vandalism. Boo. We when had our amazing brunch at the café, and after that spent a nice day walking around and pwning as usual. We were leaving Monday morning at 6:50am, and we came to the conclusion that it would be pointless to pay for another night in our stupid hostel, only to wake up so early and leave for the train station. So instead, we elected to stay awake the whole night, waiting in the hostel LOBBY for 5 hours, and then make a run for it at about 5:00am. Since it was Sunday night, we didn’t have too many options for staying out late- we had a late dinner and then caught one of the last metros back to the hostel at 12:30am. We literally stayed in the lobby till 4:45am playing hangman, talking, wondering what the hostel desk people were thinking of us, and paying 1 euro/minute to use the internet here and there. We survived, and the hostel people didn’t say anything. Lucky us, huh?

The Paris metro system at 5:00am is not exactly a tourist destination. It was certainly a unique note to leave Paris on. I won’t go into detail.