segways et fromage

oh, paris. you did not disappoint. it was every bit as magical as i had hoped. i adore every little inch of that city, and in typical emily fashion i’m now daydreaming about how i can figure out a way for us to live there … hmmmm. poor wen is terrified. i doubt he’ll be as supportive of future girls’ weekends, as it seems i inevitably come home with plans and plots and “what if’s??” but come on … a pied a terre in beautiful paris?! who’s with me??

i’m tempted to just put up some pictures and let them tell the stories, as it’s honestly a bit hard for me to capture the 3 days in a few paragraphs. it was SO fun, for SO many reasons. but it’s clearly impossible for me to fully restrain from a little story telling, so i’ll do my best.

thankfully my new travel buddy, tauna, and i have similar tastes in terms of what we find funny / interesting / entertaining. traveling with someone new can always be a bit strange, as there could be the painful exchanges of, “what do you want to do?” … “no, what do you want to do?” … “anything you want to do!” … but luckily neither tauna or i are shy about saying exactly what we want to do (no indecisive girls allowed on this trip!). this resulted in me dragging her down random side streets in le marais until we found a particular furniture store i had read about in a blog (which turned out to be a very random, dominatrix type store – clearly i hadn’t done my homework extensively!), and tauna taking me on a long journey through no less than 10 cafes to find the perfect breakfast (which was well worth it – i am still dreaming about the omelette and baguette and perfect cafe creme … and … and … ). needless to say, we were “simpatico” travel partners, which opened the door for adventures such as …

a morning that we like to call, “2 american chicks on segways.” i posted a pic of this on fb, so you may have had a sneak peek of the awesomeness that was this 4-hour segway tour. and while the picture is PERFECTION, it does not do justice to the hilarity of the whole event. there was an amazing cast of characters (or as our segway guide called us, “her seglettes”) – it was truly our own paris version of “the breakfast club.” there was the southern belle who just graduated from college and was about to embark on her career as an “interior designer” (molly ringwald, of course), a father we called “dirty dad” (sort of emilio estevez macho guy) and his son, “insecure teenager,” (anthony michael hall, totally awkward). in addition to the entertainment of our fellow seglettes, there was also a CRAZY rainstorm that hit in the middle of the tour (hence the “i adore paris” sweatshirts), a segway crash that scared that pants off me (thankfully no one was seriously hurt) and the fact that tauna’s segway was called “segs on the beach.” this led to a number of jokes which only we seemed to find funny – but i’m still laughing, so clearly the other seglettes just don’t recognize or appreciate our sophisticated sense of humor.

our next big adventure took us to a restaurant called “refuge des fondus.” i honestly can’t adequately describe this place, other than to simply say the drinks are served in baby bottles. literally. there is no other choice given. you also have to CLIMB OVER YOUR TABLE to get to it (pity the girls who were wearing dresses – oy!). we ate way more fromage than should be allowed in one sitting (but to be fair, our judgement was a bit clouded by some pre-dinner champagne and the baby bottles filled with wine!). for some reason the baby bottles opened the door for tauna and i to repeat, “maaamaaa” a million times, and rather than getting annoying it just got funnier each time (again, the champagne and wine!). all in all, one of the funniest / randomest / hilarioust nights in a long time.

the rest of the weekend consisted of walking and walking … eating and eating … a brief interlude for my first thai massage (um, how did i not know about this before now? good lord, amazing. it’s like yoga without any of the work!) … then back to the walking and eating. all in all, c’est parfaite.

je t’aime, paris. until we meet again ….