oui oui paris

So... I'm back! Did you miss me? (Pfft. Of course you did.) No worries, the lack of activity around here doesn't indicate my demise, merely that I've been doing other things. (Namely, sleeping and eating fruit. You would be surprised by how little fruit there is in France.)  It's been crazy catching up on all your blogs! Ok, so that was all LIES... mostly I've been sleeping... (until ten today, which is actually a new personal record!) but I promise I'll be getting back into the swing of things soon!...that makes it sound like I'm going out dancing... if only.

Despite the lack of dancing, the trip was wonderful. The people were lovely (the people on the trip with me, at least- personal wisdom doesn't lie in saying that Parisians are snobby) the food was good (advantage to being vegetarian: you get everything faster and fresher) and the coffee was wonderful (I drank my own body weight, at least).

And, well, then you have the cities... beginning, as stories are wont to do, with Paris!

I have a ridiculous number of street sign photos... just a reminder that I was really there!

Notre Dame Cathedral! Anyone else want to break into song?

chills. We visited countless churches, and yet...

it was almost inconcievable that I could be standing in the same spot as Hemingway and Fitzgerald had... this was the moment that it really hit me, that I was somewhere else and that there was infinite universes to discover around me.

the French do seem fond of their arches... we saw so many of these too, I lost track of what they all represented

yes. that is the Eiffel Tower. I WAS THERE. Interesting fact: it's the shape of an upside-down equation!

Next up: Versailles! 

yes. that is real gold. yes. I was tempted to steal it

"Louis the Desired?" somehow I don't think so

the famous Hall of Mirrors!

some people enjoyed pretending to be spies with our tour radios...

Monaco, home of Grace Kelly and car racing and the uber-rich... is there anything else I should know?

that it has a lovely landscape, perhaps?

impromptu photo shoots <3 also the one day it was actually sunny...

Last but not least... Nice. My favourite town, in fact; it was positively charming.

why is everywhere in Europe so unbearably picturesque?

let me just say there were a lot of stairs... s'all good, just means sexy legs!

And there you have it, dearest ninjas: part one of my travel saga! Join me next time for... Italy! Writing this post was extremely difficult because I simply have so many photos (most of them tiny details of things that I appreciated... not the best to provide a true story about the place and so many stories... (Aka, over eight hundred. Somehow I didn't think it would be appreciated were I to post them all.) Still. Take this as the inspiration for your own travels! Have you been to any of these places? Do you plan on it one day?

in which we are models

Never underestimate the joys of a good photo shoot. Note that I said 'good'. In the same way, you must never underestimate the pain caused by a bad one. What could be worse than reviewing the hundreds of photos you so carefully posed for, and realising that you look like a stuffed alligator in every single one?

First: the cast of characters. Cécile, who let us invade her home and demonstrated the joys of record players. Kori, who brought hilarious movies and impressed us with her scrambled-egg stirring. And I, the short one. (Seriously. They're both like 4 inches taller than me.) 

Theories about this pose:
1) Kori has a dark soul
2) Kori is secretly a bird of prey
3) Kori wants to show off her hair
Any other ideas?

I was nearly strangled trying to get out of this dress. Moral of the story: when it takes you fifteen minutes to put on a dress, it is too tight and you might die. (This is why I'm glad not to live in the age of corsets.)

A future as can-can dancers? I think so!

After our photo shoot, we retreated to the kitchen to bake! (We had to do it after so we'd still manage to fit in the dresses!) One of the many reasons Cécile is amazing: she has snail cookie cutters. (As well as foxes and porcupines and hedgehogs, oh my!)

And cool aprons. (How could I not be friends with this girl?)

However, neither of them were brave enough to make snow angels with me. (However, this may be understandable, given that we had just left the hot tub and were wearing only bathing suits... there is a line between adventurous and foolhardy which I may have crossed, especially since my entire body was burning as though I'd been dunked in acid afterwards.) 

I did not include the photos in which I/Kori/Cécile appeared cross-eyed, out of (sheer vanity) respect for our future children; I doubt they want to see their mother plastered over the Internet and decried as a lunatic... oh wait, too late, I have a blog don't I? Ah well. At least I tried. (These are namely the ones of us wearing a pastel blue, shiny jumpsuit straight from the seventies. Much as I love Doctor Who, there are some times that don't need to be revisited.)

On a completely unrelated note, I just finished reading Let's Pretend This Never Happened by The Bloggess... GO READ IT RIGHT NOW. If you've read her blog, then it's the perfect continuation. If you haven't, shame on you and go read that too. (This loser didn't... but she was kind enough to lend me the book, so I decided that I would indeed help her in the off chance that her dog needed to be disinterred. If you don't understand the reference... just read it.)

Happy Saturday dearest ninjas!