Well, how to begin...my New Year in Paris was...unexpected. I knew there would be a crap ton of people, I knew things would probably close early, I knew lines would be crazy, but figured I could pass them up with my Pass Education for the most part like in Versailles. What I wasn't expecting was how much all these thing I knew would happen would annoy me to no end. Oh and that friggin Pass Education doesn't let you cut lines, super lame. Especially since we bought Matt the Paris pass just so we could cut lines. I learned that no matter how much I prepare myself for utter chaos, doesn't mean I will be able to tolerate it. I also learned that when I comes to New Years, I'm staying at home where it's warm and dry and watching other people freeze their asses off as the ball drops in New York.
Dec 31st: New Years Eve
We decided to start the day off a bit late since Matt wasn't feeling good, and we had already gone to bed at like 10:30 the night before. We got up around 10am and then took our time getting ready and went to the store for breakfast stuff (yay pain au chocolate and OJ, Matt's favorite). We wanted to take a guided tour of Notre Dame our Free Europe Tour guide had told us about. It said they were on Mondays at 12:30 so we hit the metro around 11:30 to get there in time. Once we got there we were first horrified at how long the line was to get into the church alone. Thankfully I later found out it goes very quickly so no big. But then we found out our tour guide was wrong and the tours were not on Monday at all, but on Wednesdays at 2:00 (1st irksome thing of the day) We ended deciding to skip going to the top of Notre Dame since the line was so long. Maybe a good thing, because we would have been more pissed to find out once we got inside the cathedral, the line for the tower was actually on the other side outside the church. And this line I also later found out was just as long as the second, only it moved at a snails pace. So maybe avoiding that was a good thing.
Instead we went to the Arc de Triumph to see the view from there since it was in Matt's Paris Pass. Once we got there we were excited to finally get to skip a ticket line, yay!....Not so yay. Matt got to skip but for some stupid reason I had to go wait in line just to get a free ticket with my Pass Education. I only had to wait about 15 mins, but I was still baffled at how troublesome and just pointless the French have to make some things. I understand they may want to keep track of how many free pass they give away, but why not instead just have someone, I don't know, take tally at the entrance? Very simple, makes sense, gets the same job done but makes people happy. But oh no, we can't have that. Making things simple is just not the French way. Thing must always be complex and full of silly rules. (2nd irksome thing of the day)
Anyway, I wait, we go up, see the view for all of 10 mins (totally not worth 9.50 euros, btw). Then we decide to get lunch before going to the Organgerie Museum (not about Oranges, it has impressionist art, mainly Monet's Water Lillies). I wanted Matt to try Quick since I actually like it a bit more than McDonald's, at least in France. First off in Paris they have the name completely wrong. It is no Quick. It is quite non-quick actually. How about instead we call it Slow, Very Slow. Because that's what it was. I really want to know why Paris restaurants are jam packed at all hours. we had lunch at about 2:30 and there was still a hoard of people in the place. I placed our order on the cool kiosks they have to hopefully makes things faster. Nope, they have no clue what they are doing when fill orders. McDonald's would wipe the floor with these people. You would think they would fill orders in the order they get them right? Nope. They just do whatevs, a sandwich here, a drink here, some fries here, all at a slow very French pace. Then the woman filling orders as the gaul to get huffy when people are pissed it was taking so long. I ended up waiting for about 30 mins in line for 2 sandwiches, drinks and fries. Redic. Then my sandwich ended up being cold and she gave us no ketchup so the burger wasn't as good as usual. I spent most the meal eating in anger and ranting, which a French woman overheard and then asked if we were American. Yes French Lady, I am American, and today I am embodying a stereotype of them by complaining about how much things suck and how much better we do it in the US...BECAUSE WE DO. When it comes to customer service and getting shit done, we reign supreme above France. Deal with it. (3rd irksome thing of the day)
After lunch I made the terrible decision of walking down the Champs Elysee instead of taking the metro to the museum and was accosted by crowds of people which I was already too pissed off with to deal with. It took about 30 mins just to cross about 6 blocks. Once at the museum I was at last happy to see the guy at the first line would let me through the fast lane with my Pass Education, just for getting in the museum. I guess they actually monitor how many people go in to make sure to doesn't get crowded since there were people waiting behind a rope. That I'm cool with and understand. Don't need people so squished in you risk hitting a painting. However I was not cool with the snooty French hag in the museum ordering we to get in line for my free ticket, refusing to say a word of English to me. I tried saying the guy up front said I could get through with just this but she barked back, no I'm telling you you have to get in line like everyone else. I tried explaining again but then just finally yelled " will someone please just speak English to me?!" I was tired of translating crap and never understand half of what I hear and just wanted someone to talk to me. To this the woman replied as I walked away (in French of course) This is France you're not in the United States anymore, to which I turned around and replied in English a phrase everyone knows "Blah Blah Blah!" I really wanted to say it's snobby French bitches like you that gives the rest of the country a bad name. That and I really wanted to push her down the stairs she was standing by, but I refrained. I got my friggin free ticket, and Matt waited for me once again, there by defeating half the purpose of his Paris Pass, and gave the woman a death stair as I passed her again, still refraining from pushing her. (4th irksome thing of the day) Oh, and nothing was in English in the museum and I was too annoyed to read in French, fml
By this time I had had it and was fed up with Paris. I couldn't even enjoy the art in the place, thought the Monet Water Lillies were cool. Much bigger than I pictured. I felt like the whole day had been a waste and it was all due to my terrible temper (but also due to the stupid rules. Gotta blame the French somehow, right?). It was already about 4:30 so we just decided to call it a day before I killed someone. Thankfully we had a nice plan for dinner which ended up working out. We bought a nice roasted chicken and some potatoes, then a king cake and ice cream for dessert. Plus I also had the Christmas wine I bought back in Orleans at the Food and Wine expo. We ate in our hotel after I had a nap to cool down. I think the stress what getting to my immune system because my light cold I got from Matt started to feel worse. We ate dinner and watched Doctor Who, and wore little paper crown hats as we ate king cake. The chicken and potatoes were amazing, I must learn the secret behind the French roasted chicken. Even the Foyer in Orleans makes an amazing one so they've gotta put crack in it or something. Slowly the even started to get better. We were so comfy after dinner we almost didn't want to go out for New Years to see what was up. But my stubbornness to do something different this year over took me and we went out...in the rain...and cold...bad idea.
Fun crown hats came with our Gallette du Roi
Wonderful dessert and Doctor Who
Matt got the little guy in the cake, he looks so happy about almost choking on it
We left around 10:30. My one umbrella I had was shot so we pretty much got soaked. I wanted to go to Montmatre since I read the view was best from there and you could see the whole city. you might be able to, if there were everyone else in the way of your view. We hiked all the steps to the top by Sacre Coeur, then spent about 20 mins just trying to find a good stop. Pretty much every decent spot I could see was taken and none of them had a view of the Eiffel Tower. Too many trees or stands left over from the Christmas market where in the way. We ended up opting for a tight place on the steps going up to the church, which wasn't too bad. no one could see much so we were all in the same boat, then some in a boat filled mostly with booze. It was actually quite hard to tell when midnight actually happened. People kept going in random uproars and I just ended up going by my watch. which was probably a bit off. I prefer the count down ball in NYC. Finally we just said happy New Year and had our New Years kiss.
Mass mob of people out that night
Matt at Sacre Coeur after midnight
Everyone seemed to have brought their own champagne. We just had little horns we bought at the store. There actually were little things of fireworks around the city we could see and a few random ones up where we were by random people. The Eiffel Tower doesn't do much more than it's normal twinkling light show from what I heard. All in all I was a bit unspectacular if you just for got about the fact you were in Paris. If it were any other city everyone would have considered it tres lame. Though maybe it was a super magical night to those who were just drunk enough to vaguely remember it. We stayed after midnight for about 20 mins to let the hoards go down a little. Sadly the drunk people must walk slow because we caught up to all them in the metro and it took about 5 trains before we could actually get one. Once we literally crammed ourselves into the metro car, I finally learned what it must feel like to be clothes in a suite case, getting pushed back and forth, back and forth.
While waiting for the train is when I really started to feel the cold coming on even more. My legs were aching and I couldn't get warm even though we were out of the rain. I felt soaked to the bone even though I knew my coat wasn't that wet. The overall crappy feeling that comes with the start of a cold washed over me. Once we finally got back to the hotel I just jumped into bed and tried to warm up, which seemed to take forever. I took NyQuil and Matt made me some tea and, God love him, he rubbed my feet to make them warmer. I feel asleep around 2am and sadly the feeling of crapiness didn't end there.
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