reasons why people say france is dirty...

dear friends and family,

why on earth have you not slapped my face and called me DUMBelina??! i haven't written since... FEBRUARY 25th! what is this atrocity!?! over a month!!!! bah! i'm just going to forewarn you: this is going to be a longggggggggggggggggggggggg entry. :) enjoy, suckas!

okay, i'd like to start off with explaining my title. seriously, every day i am here i realize more and more why people say france is dirty. exhibit A: there is poop all over the sidewalks/streets because apparently people don't give a shit (hah, yep. still got jokes here.) about walking around in poop. i don't know about y'all, but in america, in highly populated cities, it's required (or just damn polite!) to pick up your dog's poop. and on the subject of dog poop, i swear, i have never in my life seen such a rainbow of different colors of poop. what are they feeding their poor animals?! their poop literally looks like it's oil paint that's been squeezed out into a pile on the sidewalk...because i've seriously seen bright red, bright orange, bright yellow, and bright green poop. weird... exhibit B: maybe, ohh, once a week i see puke on the sidewalk. nasssty. go do it in the grass, not where i need to walk, please! i know you're extremely inebriated, but have some manners, for goodness sake! exhibit C: again, maybe once a week i see a new (well, it's not really new. it's used. just a different one than the one i saw the previous week.) condom on the sidewalk. really?! REALLY?! glad i'm only here to see the aftermath. yuck. i've also seen panty hose and boxers. oh, france. oh, l'amour. probably drunk l'amour, but still l'amour. exhibit D: weird smells. i swear, one day i smelled, like, three different nasty smells. one smelled like someone let out a huge silent-but-deadly... one smelled like burning hair... and one smelled... indescribably horrible. what is going on around here?! knock it off! i'm sure i'll have more to add to this list as the days pass. but for now, i'm hoping that these flowers that are popping up will mask some of the smells. and as for the dirty ground... welp, nothing i can do about that. maybe i'll start riding a bike so rather than stepping in any poop i can just ride through it... and draw pretty, colorful pictures in the road......

anywho, i'm sure you're wondering about how my birthday went, since that's where i left off at. p.s. i just ended my sentence with a preposition. i'm sorry, mom! :) well, before we could leave for paris, we had to go to this old church as part of our culture class. it was pretty cool. they had some old sarcophagi (yeah, i just had to look up the plural for sarcophagus... apparently it's used both ways. i choose the cooler-looking one.) and some old bones. there was also a lot of old pieces of buildings. but the coolest part was the basement because it was a crypt that had the original roman road preserved!! NIFTY. i touched it. it's sweet to look at something and realize how old it is, but it's even more awesome to touch it. :)

after that, grace and i headed to the train station. when we got to paris, her friend marius met us at the station and took us to his place because we had to wait for my cousin sarah and her friends to get there. marius and grace bought wine. and i already had (not had as in drank, but had as in possessed) two other bottles of wine that grace's roommate skye bought me. so sweet of her! but... let's just say i was a little bourrée that night. hahaha. then karen got there because she had some issues with getting her ticket and stuff, so we met up with her. then sarah got there and we met up with her and karen and i followed her to the hotel and grace stayed behind because we weren't sure if there would be room. i met sarah's friends, delphine and annicka, and they are so awesome! we all stayed up and talked for awhile then hit the sheets. i slept in the crack of two pushed-together twin beds, but, let's be honest, after that much wine, i really didn't care.

the next day we woke up and got breakfast then decided to go to the louvre! it was beautiful. so many awesome things in there, but seriously, you could spend like 3 days in there just to see everything. it was fantastic. i don't think i will ever get tired of that museum. and after that, we walked to notre dame and sat in on the service for awhile, walked around and took some pictures. then we stopped at a brasserie and had some coffee, then headed home to get changed for the night. i wore a new, velvet "little black dress" with some flower patterned hose and we went out for dinner. dinner.. was.. delicious! when we were done eating they brought me chocolate cake with a huuuge sparkly candle in it! it was fabulous! after that, we took the metro to the champs elysées in search for a club to go to. then we found one that seemed pretty bumpin' and went inside. but holy crap, their drinks were 15 euros each!!! which is like $22!!! aka ridiculous! no way i was gonna get my drink on there. noooo wayyyyyy. it was an average club i'd say. nothing too special. they played only techno, which i don't have a problem with, but it was the same beat, the same breakdown, everything. it got old. AND we had creepy stalkers! one in particular, this little short guy with a red striped shirt on who WOULD NOT stop dancing by us, coming up to me and putting his hand on the small of my back and asking me to dance. at first i was just like, "non, merci." and then he went away for awhile, but came back AGAIN!!!! what the fuzz? he did the same thing, and this time i swatted his hand away and said no thank you again. ughhh. helloooo, i'm there with my girlfriends! if i wanted to dance with a guy i'm sure i could find one, and one that had much better dance moves than this little gnome of a guy. haha, don't worry, elliot, you caught me with your dance moves and there ain't no going back! :)

then, the next morning we woke up a little late for check-out but hoped it would be okay. we got together as quickly as possible and had the hotel keep our luggage while we were out for the day, which was super awesome of them (i don't know if most hotels do that??) and i appreciated it. even though i only had my backpack. but, we decided we'd go see the eiffel tower, and karen, annicka, and i went to the tip-top! it was absolutely STUNNING! i was so happy that i went up there even though it was so cold! last time i was in paris i didn't got to the top because it was extremely cold AND wet... yuck! but yeah, the views were spectacular. when we got back down, we went to a cafe and had some lunch. then, we did a little shopping... and while i was looking at a rack of postcards, i felt a little tug on my purse, which is a cross-body purse. honestly, i just thought it was from me reaching up and grabbing cards, doin' my thang, and i didn't think much of it because i had, like, 7 of my friends with me. but when i felt the tug a second time i was like, okay, what's going on and i looked down at my purse to see a hand inside!!!!! he quickly removed his hand and started pointing at the postcards in front of me as if to pretend he was looking at them, too, minding his own business with his trampy girlfriend. way to impress your girl, dude. my heart literally stopped and i just looked at the guy. just stared at him. i didn't know what to say. i wanted to say something but couldn't think of how to say "piss off!" in french. BAH. i was tense the rest of the day. and if you were wondering, i bought a new purse. one that zips and sits riiiight under my armpit. that way no one will want to try and sneak in there. and if they do, i'll just stop shaving my armpits and that's a sure-fire way to keep them astray!

other than that, my trip to paris was absolutely amazing. BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVER. i mean, how many people (who aren't french) can say they spent their 20th birthday in paris, france?!?!

alright, well, i think that's probably enough for you to read for now. i'm gonna get back on the ball with this and try to update about what's been going on this past month and a half! whew. anyone wanna give me a hand massage? :)