3 Days in Paris

While in London, my friend and I planned a short getaway to Paris.  This was my first time taking the EuroStar and I was surprised by how quick it was!  We were in Paris in about 2 hours and set out to explore Saint Germain, my old neighborhood, the first day.  It was ridiculously hot, as they were experiencing a heatwave at the time, but it was still great to be back in Paris wandering around.  

Le Bon Marché department store hiding behind the trees

I did a bit of shopping at Zara, and then we went to Le Bon Marché, which I love.  It was pretty empty at the time, and air conditioned (I would have been happy to move in there at that moment to be honest, the heat was killing me) and I love to wander around the maze-like boutiques that surround the main floors.  It's just such a different store, it reminds me of being in the 1960's and 80's all at the same time.

Notre Dame

Lunch at Café Buci

Down the Rabbit Hole...

After our day exploring Saint Germain, we decided to stick with that area for nightlife as well since it's the area I know the best aside from Bastille.  We thought Bastille would better be conquered the following day when we had had a proper rest (we had to be up at 5:30am to get the train from London to Paris).  First, we went to Cafe le Petit Pont, across from Notre Dame.  The place is pretty touristy but we went because my friend told me she had gotten flaming mojitos there once (they put some kind of big sparkler in the drink) so we wanted them, but sadly they didn't seem to have them!  We got regular mojitos instead

Afterwards, we headed over to one of my favorite bars, The Long Hop, because that was much more of a party bar.  It was just how I remembered it except that they now have a Foosball table where they used to set up beer pong.  We had a good night there and got a bunch of glow sticks for our drinks so that kind of made up for missing the flaming mojitos!

The following day, we went to Montmartre since it is my friend's favorite area in Paris.  Honestly, I cannot stand Montmartre.  It's out of the way, overloaded with tourists and cheesy tourist shops, and just not the real Paris to me.  I feel like it's like Times Square, it's just not really a representative of the real city.  There's also a lot of sketchy characters who hang out there and we had our own bit of a run in with some, but I'm not going to go into detail on that.  So anyway, Montmartre really isn't my favorite place, but it makes for some great pictures!

Lunch in Pigalle

Sacré Cœur and views of Paris

Back Streets

Down the Rabbit Hole...

For our second night out, we got to do the one thing I had been wanting to do the most in Paris- go out in Bastille.  I've talked before about my love for the area, I just always have such a good, wild time when I go out there,  I love it.  We headed over to Rue de Lappe, which is a street completely filled with bars, and decided on a place called Charlotte Bar.  I was intrigued because my guinea pig is named Charlotte!  and also because the bars on Rue de Lappe change pretty frequently, I had never been to this one.  It reminded me a lot of New York style bars, it had air conditioning (my elation was unmatched when I found this out) and inside the look was very modern red and black decor mixed with massive wall collages of all types of iconic pop culture images.  The music was mostly American hip hop which isn't really my style but we met some great people and had a fun night

 

Jay Z and Kanye above the bar

The ceiling!

Epic awesome wall

After Charlotte Bar was Balajo (which I believe used to be called Balajo Latino), a place I know but had never actually been to before.  The inside is really hard to describe, they had these weird decorations on the wall that were like things out of one of those Halloween fun houses.  It was such a surreal experience!  I don't have any pics from there as it was really late at night and we were wrapping things up, but it was interesting!

A bit of whimsy at home after a long night

The next day was our last, so we didn't do much, but we grabbed lunch at a cafe at the end of our street called La Barrique, and they literally had the best cheeseburger I have ever had in my life!  Definitely recommend it!