How to be a Parisian

Outside the Louvre

1^st stop: Louvre

Louvre wing

To be a Parisian, you first need to have knowledge of the extensive art works located at the Louvre along with the numerous museums located in Paris. If you wanted to absorb every piece of art in the Louvre, you would need some good walking shoes, a sleeping bag, and enough food to feed an army. The Louvre is GIGANTIC; four hours can easily seem like four minutes. Personally, I don’t enjoy traditional art as much as contemporary art.  I wanted to see more modern art, but we ran out of time to visit the contemporary art museums along the Reine.

2^nd stop: French Wine Tasting

Wine tasting batcave

Menu for the night

Second, a Parisian would never be tricked to pay a ridiculous price for a bottle of wine. So to learn more about the art of French wine, Kirsten and I decided to go to a wine tasting. There are numerous regions in France that produce wine: Champagne, Bourdeaux, Loire, Sud-Ouest, Bourgogne, Languedoc, the list goes on. Northern France produces white wines; southern France produces red wines. From the 6 glasses I had, my favorite French wine is the Sancerre.  

3^rd stop: Tour Eiffel

I think the Eiffel Tower is the most recognizable monument in the world. When people think of Paris, they think of the Eiffel Tower. I’ve seen many photos of the tower in the day, but not as many at night. It was a cloudy night, so the sight was quite eerie.

Kiki's first snail!

4^th stop: French food

In the morning we already had our French breakfast, which consist of a croissant, a cappuccino, and freshly squeeze orange juice. Kirsten never had French snails before, so we went to dinner for her to try les escargots, les frites, and la crème brulée.

 

Before our last stop, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have my digital camera! I assumed a sketchy Parisian pickpocketed my camera on the public transport. Luckily, when I called the restaurant, the manager had found it and was waiting for me to come back to get it. As usual, I had lost something, and some nice European found it to give it back to me. Losing things sure does get old. Sigh.

xoxo,
Amy

Paris by Night

Since we were going to meet up with my friend Megan and her friend Lana in Paris, I decided it would be more affordable for us if we booked an apartment. Not only is it more affordable, it’s nicer than any hotel you would get at the same price! It was a “romantic” apartment, so the place consists of hurricane blinds, erotic literature, and a decked out shower.

We sat like this by accident. 

I hadn’t had sushi in awhile, so the girls and I went to the Champs-Élysées area to grab drinks and a bite to eat at a trendy sushi restaurant. After dinner, we walked around the city to admire the holiday lights and decorations.




xoxo,
Amy

Mug Shots

Next stop: Back to Paris! I made an observation about airplane seats. The middle seat is always the last choice; the window or aisle seat is by preference. Kiki always likes to sit window, and I prefer the aisle seat because of the extra freedom. Out of the 200 seats on the airplane, no one seems to ever want to seat between us. This happened on our Tenerife and Seville flight.  So for our Paris flight, we intentionally sat in our desire seats, leaving the middle seat empty.

We are always smiling, and I thought that might make us seem too friendly and possibly attract even more people to sit between us. So we practiced our mug faces, which scared off a few guys. 




xoxo,
Amy

I'm like a bird, I want to fly away

I came to the conclusion that it took us an average of 2 hours to find our hotels. So we learned our lesson, and took a taxi when we arrived in Granada. After settling in, we changed into workout gear, and then met up with our paragliding pilots at Piazza Nueva, the city center.

Paragliding is surprisingly relaxing. It’s not something to be afraid of, and I recommend anyone looking for some adventure to do it! Our paragliding pilots were extremely friendly. They even drove us up the hill again to do a second flight, but this time with more of an “acrobatic” style.

Our Australian friends

When night falls, we got dressed up to go to a tapas bar near Plaza Nueva. Warning to the girls back home: heels and cobblestone don’t mix well together.  :(

What’s great about Granada is that when you order a beer/drink, you get tapas for free! At our first stop of the night, there were a bunch of Australians sitting nearby that we asked to take our photo. We quickly befriended them, and went bar hopping with them for the rest of the night. 





xoxo,
Amy

Alcazar

Sevilla is one city I don’t mind getting lost in.  The locals say, “Grab a map and just go!” We did just that, but we soon lost the map and ended up just wandering. Sevilla architecture is exquisite, the best of the best.

Detailed tile work

Mazes

One beautifully constructed building that we came across was Alcazar, the King’s Palace. We came 10 minutes before they closed, but they allowed us to stay for another hour or so to explore the grounds. The palace consists of green courtyards, running fountains, fine tile work, open spaces, large arches, and endless mazes. The time and effort that took to handcraft the thousands of tiles is incredible.

Courtyards

Kirsten stole a few oranges from the King. Typical. Now she has to face her consequences…

2 Prison. 

1 Stolen.

xoxo,

Amy

Monkeying Around

When I’m not meowing, people have told me some of my mannerisms are similar to those of a monkey. I just re-read that sentence, and man do I sound like a weirdo. Hahah whatever, we’re all animals at heart.

So I was really eager to get in touch with my monkey friends at the Tenerife Monkey Zoo Park, but unfortunately the zoo was almost 1.5 hours away and it didn’t fit well into our schedule. It gets worst.

11:00 am- We couldn’t rent a car.
12:00 pm- We missed the bus.
1:00pm- We missed the shuttle.

Lost.

The lady at the reception felt sorry for us, and offered us a ride in her car to the airport. She ended up calling the shuttle bus driver again, and he was willing to turn around and pick us up :)

We arrived at the airport, and our reservation for a car rental fell through. Plan B: we take the bus. After the bus dropped us off, we walk around Sevilla attempting to find our accommodation. Let me emphasize the word “attempt.” -_- All the traveling made our stomachs growl, so we decided to take a break at a nearby tapas bar. Luckily, we sat next to a tour guide at a local tapas bar who was more than happy to assist us in our search.

After weaving through countless roads, we finally arrived at our destination!

If you think the series of unfortunate events stopped there, think again.

Next morning…

7:19am- Woke up late.

7:31am- Went to the wrong bus station

7:48am- Arrived to the correct bus station 3 minutes late

7:50am- Our Granada bus tickets are nowhere to be found.

7:52am- Realized that 7:52am is actually 8:52am from the time change.

COMPLETE FAILURE.



xoxo,
Amy

Volcanooo!!

Originally we were planning to rent a car, drive up to the cable car to take us up halfway, and then hike the rest of Volcan el Tiede. Unfortunately it seems that no one here drives automatic transmissions (Sarah Miller if you’re reading this, I expect lessons when I get home.) Things never go as well as planned, and honestly it’s better that way. You have more surprising adventures, and you gain more confidence in yourself when you reach your goals with the improvised route :)

Top of the volcano

We ended up taking a bus to the cable car, and took the cable car halfway up. Kirsten didn’t book her permit to hike to the top early enough for the morning sessions, and instead had booked an afternoon session. What I thought was a minor error before turned out for the better. Since we had a few mishaps in the morning, we couldn’t even use the morning permit I booked!




Success. We made it to the top! The views are phenomenal. I’ve always imagined the crater of a volcano to resemble something of a hole, rather than a large bowl. I wished the crater were filled with water so we could go swimming, but we were way above the clouds for any precipitation to occur. I must say it was difficult to breathe that high up; no wonder birds have the most efficient respiratory system.








After taking numerous photos, we ended up having a little picnic at the top of the mountain :)





xoxo,
Amy

Puerto de la Cruz

Only in Tenerife can you get 70-degree weather at the end of November. Beautiful beaches, great food, and cheap alcohol tend to attract high school seniors during spring break. Tenerife did indeed attract “seniors.” The island was crowded with people the age of my grandparents!




 Here’s a brief preview of the “Hotties.”

Our sweet dates! 

You know what they say, age is just a number. 






Thanks for the shots boys ;)

xoxo,

Amy

Moulin Rouge

We snuck in a photo :)

“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce coir?” Do these famous lyrics ring a bell? Kirsten and I thought we would start our trip off right, with a bunch of naked dancing women and some champagne!

The lip syncing was mediocre, but the overall show was fantastic! I think the show could be a bit more cohesive, because it felt like a circus. There were acrobats, gigantic snakes, a “talking” dog, ponies, a juggler, a ventriloquist, and dancers. I would recommend everyone to see the show, but maybe not with your parents. It’s a bit awkward with breasts flying around.








xoxo,
Amy

Warning: Don't feed the Europeans!

Grrrr!

The Americans and I thought we would throw a little fiesta for our Italian and Spanish friends, Tex-mex style. So on Tuesday, I made 3 batches of guacamole, a batch of queso, and seasoned the fajita meat. Megan attempted to mix margaritas, which turned out a wee bit on the stronger side. Haven made enough salsa to feed an army and Darren grilled the fajita meat… men and the grill. Ha.

The fiesta turned out to be a success!

xoxo,

Amy

Twice with rice!

(2005) 6 and half years and still going strong! :) 

The rice I’m referring to isn’t the small grain that you would find along your kung pao chicken, but my best friend, Kirsten Rice. She will be coming to Europe in 2.5 weeks, and I am beyond ecstatic to see her! We’ll be going together to visit Paris, Tenerife, Seville, and Granada!

I’ve been spending all week reserving our flights, hotels, and activities. I was so excited; I even made a 30-page powerpoint highlighting all of our plans. I guess it’s just the business student in me, to not only make an itinerary, but to also make it visually pleasing. Hahah okay okay, whatever I’ll admit I’m a loser. :)

Anyways what I was getting to is I probably won’t travel anywhere in the next 2 weeks, so my blog posts won’t be too exciting. Unless I get arrested or something, but let’s hope that doesn’t happen.



xoxo,

Amy