A trip to Paris...

Whew, if you have been wondering why there haven't been any posts in 4 days, well this was due to a little vacation my girlfriend and I made to Paris. Friday to Monday we escaped the sullen weather that seems to dominate the summer in Germany and experienced genuine sunshine.

So what happened on our adventures? I will spare you the details of what we ate, because this would by itself be enough for 3 blog-posts:

Friday:
We arrived in Paris at about 18°° and after a bit of search found our hotel, close to the Avenue de Wagram. It was a calm 'area', but the hotel itself was nice, though the room was a little small. After dropping all our belongings we made our way to 'cartier 13', the Cantonese-Vietnamese quater of Paris and had the 'buffet' of our lives. I was soooo stuffed afterwards, I had to sit down every few steps...

Then we went to the 'Tour Eifel' which was brightly lit at around 22°° but when we arrived at it's foot, the special light show had already ended. We then decided to do something romatically funny, like having some crazy asian guy draw a portrait of both of us. He still wanted 30€ for it after tense haggling and I said 'why not - if its good'. After one wasted hour we had to pay the crazy dude 15 bucks for something that did not even closely resemble any one of us. Mind you it was no caricature but a failed attempt at a real portrait. What a waste, but we still had a good laugh.

Saturday:
My girlfriend went to La gallery Lafayette in the morning which as every guy who has ever been to Paris with a chick knows is bad... even evil... well I went to the Lafayette 'Homme'-Store which had a delicatessen shop spreading the whole first floor. I could have eaten ALL of the stuff there if it hadn't been expensive as hell. The French sure know how to annoy foreigners by refusing to speak English and putting up price tags that millionaires would refuse to pay (them greedy buggers). For lunch and further shopping we went back to the 13th quarter and had Vietnamese soup (oh my god - FUCKING great).

We went to big Asia markets bought a whole lot of stuff and then went to an Asian gallery to buy even more stuff. My girlfriend bought herself a vietnamese style dress that looks absolutely fucking beautiful and was compared to the prices at Lafayette (185€ for a bloody shirt...no thanks) quite cheap. Then we had vietnamese baguettes for dinner and then went down to the Seine where quite a lot of people were playing 'Boules', singing, dancing, strolling along and having picknic. We wanted to play 'Boules' aswell and have picknic at the Seine but it was just not possible on Saturday. So we walked over to the second Seine-Isle had some great Italian Icecream before we went to Notre-Dame and from there to a nice little quarter where a lot of small cafés attracted a whole lot of people.

We then had our second dinner with snails, mussles and cheese and had our names painted in deco-fashion. It was great fun with all these people around there and with all the wine we drank...*hicks*

Sunday:
After sleeping a little longer...now might that be connected to the wine?!?...we went to the 19th quarter (where islamic and some asians reside), bought a new suitcase and had vietnamese lunch (self-rolled rice rolls). Then we went to the 13th quarter again, where my girlfriend bought even more stuff (like shoes fitting her new dress), while I had to wait...I guess it was then that my back began to hurt. Then we bought duck, baguettes, some desserts and left for the Seine to have our picknic dinner finally, after which we played some 'Boules' (you rent the balls but its free, you only have to leave a security).

Then since Saturday was so great with people everywhere and Sunday being so boring because no one was partying we went to the heart of town, to see if at least there, somethings going on... Nope! Nothing... so we had an expensive coffee and ate (YES ATE even more) some Sushi...

Monday:
I felt sick in the morning (basically still do a little). My first guess was that I had eaten something foul, but now I guess it was just my back hurting so bad, that my ribs started to hurt out of compassion as well, which then caused the strange feeling of sickness in my stomach. My girlfriend went to Lafayette again, while I got 15 vietnamese style baguettes for her family. Then we took the bus to Carles-de-Gaule and flew back to Germany. The sun from France still in our minds, we left the plane in Dortmund and wanted to go back immediatly. It was a bit like the 3-weather-hairspray commercial:

"Paris - blazing sunlight - the hairdo keeps its form perfectly. Dormund - rain and fog - the hair still looks magnificient..."

--> Only our expressions must have changed to >:o(

On our way back with the train, we stopped some time before our final destination because of a 'human-accident' - meaning that someone had killed himself on our route by jumping on the rails in front of a train. So my girlfriend's father had to fetch us with the car... At their place I was greeted by the horde of kids (yeah the same kids I went bowling with...) and then had a hairdo by my girlfriend before I fell into bed.

Today:
WORK! ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH >;o)