We'll Always Have Paris (and Budapest and Vienna)

One more day to go!  The vacation has been amazing so far; although I'm more tired than when I started.

Paris:

Thursday night: The three of us walked out of the Charles de Gaulle metro stop and onto Champs-Élysées at 1am after our flight and immediately faced the Arc the Triomphe and the Eiffel tower (both beautifully lit up).  This breathtaking view immediately instilled a love for Paris in me that increased exponentially throughout our trip.  We jumped in a cab and made it to our adorable apartment in the 13th district, popped open a bottle of wine, and felt very sophisticated.

Friday: We got the day going with a walk from the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs, next to the Seine and ending in the Garden of Tulleries.  In typical Moroccan fashion (or maybe just as ignorant tourists), we attempted to J-walk across the round-about encircling the Arc.  After a couple close calls with death, we realized that there was an underground passage for foot traffic.  Whoops.  We took a hot chocolate and macaroon break in a beautiful (and freaking expensive) café called Angelina's.  We left with pretty extreme sugar stomach aches, but happy none the less.  We continued down to the Notre Dame and Saint Michel square.  We ducked into the Shakespeare and Company bookstore (heaven for my mom, wish she had been there) before meeting up with Flore and Margot from high school (as told in my previous post)

Saturday: After a late start (no thanks to our pub crawl), we went immediately to admire the Eiffel Tower and then walked along the Seine to the Musée D'Orsay to see the impressionist paintings by Monet, Manet, and Toulouse Lautrec.  After that, we hopped on a boat on the Seine with some wine and took a cruise around the city.  After a café dinner that left the boys still hungry, we picked up some (more) wine, cheese, bread, and meat for an après dinner munch.  It was an early night for us to prepare for the day in Versailles!

Sunday: We got to Versailles early in the morning with a bike tour and a fun guide from Los Angeles leading us.  We first stopped in the market outside of the palace in order to pick up fresh baguettes, meat, cheese, and of course: wine.  We biked with our picnic baskets through Marie Antoinette's village and then through the grounds. We stopped on the canal for a delicious picnic before heading up to the palace.  The tour guide fruitlessly attempted to tell us more information about its history over the jokes of the drunk Canadian couple who probably did not need to finish their last glass of wine.  Thanks to our tour we got to saunter past the switchbacked line of people waiting to enter and cut straight to the front.  The rooms were gorgeous as I remembered from when I visited 4 years ago, and still crowded with just as many tourists.  We took a quick stop to the café after the tour and sent Jeff to grab coffee.  Unfortunately he took a little too long to grab it and he came back to this:

No shame

The nap and the coffee did the trip and we spent the rest of the day in the gardens.  We returned to Paris and met up with Sophie (the cousin of my Moroccan friend!) for dinner.  She took us to a nice place in front of the beautiful Opera house and we had a wonderful time with her before we returned to our apartment to pack for Budapest!

Monday: We arrived in Budapest and were awestruck by its beauty!! We went for a run alongside the Danube and marveled at the beautiful Parliment, Buda Castle, and other miscellaneous buildings.  We grabbed a bite to eat in the neighborhood and made our way to a famous rune bar for a beer before bed.  Although the bar was cool, the giftshop in the middle of it made it feel less authentic.  We stopped telling ourselves we "discovered" the place once we saw that... 

Tuesday: More walking!  The cheapest way to see the city for students on a budget!  We made our way from Pest over to Buda and toured the Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Castle, and Matthias Church.  We stopped for a lunch of goulash soup, chicken gnocci and cherry cake before walking back to Pest to see the Iron Shoes; a memorial dedicated to the Jewish people who were lined up and shot into the Danube.  We had dinner at a café outside of our apartment and went to bed early in preparation for Vienna the next day. 

Wednesday: We successfully made it onto the 7am bus to Vienna!!  We met up with Hannah!  It was so nice seeing her again.  It's truly unbelievable that she made it to Morocco to see me and I made it to Vienna to see her.  She took us around to the gorgeous Belvedere Castle, and then lunch in an open air market.  We walked around the city, did some (a lot) of shopping, and had a late afternoon coffee with apple strudel at a famous café where we marveled at Vienna's beauty.  The buildings look impeccable and pristine; the entire city is clean.  It was such a treat to spend the day there.  Hannah then took us out to "Vienna-fest" (a smaller Oktober - fest) where we had a couple beers and sausages and watched a lot of drunk Viennese people in Lederhosen stumble around in attempts to find more beer. 

Thursday: We made it back to Budapest and immediately went to the thermal springs in the most famous bath in the world.  A staggering yellow palace enclosed eight different pools filled with minerals and sulfur (at least, that's what they said that yellow stuff in the water was... a handy excuse if you ask me).  We walked around the city park and admired more of the fantastic architecture before we all realized how truly exhausted we are.  We subsequently got burritos and wine and spent the night in the apartment watching Good Hill Hunting.

Tomorrow we head to Paris!  We have Friday afternoon to hit up the last important things in Paris before we return to Rabat, Morocco on Saturday!

BTW, I wish I had an easy way to post pics, but due to the theft of my phone, it was hard to get them.  I will put more pictures in when I have a chance!