Sammi Desire

Friday, July 2, 2010

Paella

Authentic Spanish cuisine with muscles, clams, shrimp and fish cooked into it, it might have been one of the yummiest dishes I have had on this trip! We were only in the French Riviera for a day and a quarter so time was spent laying on the beach where most of the women were topless, old or young didnt matter. Then we took a nine hour bus ride, which I got a broken seat that reclined ALL the way back like laying down position to Spain. The hotel here in Barcelona is actually a full service hotel with a pool, REAL breakfast with an omlet bar, and a full size tub! Of course they would give us the nice hotel on our last two nights here! We went shopping and hit the beach of course which was packed and had even more topless women!! Not shy here at all obviously. The sand at the beaches here though are very dirty, they have small flat flakes of black which stick right to your skin. Even in the shower scrubbing myself I couldnt get it all off. But the city is absolutely beautiful, the scenery is so green and palm trees everywhere. Palm trees are one of their symbols here but a plague has hit their palm trees killing most of them.

We also visited the super huge fancy park designed by Gaudi where we took a mini photo shoot in the stone tunnel where an episode of Americas Next Top Model was filmed!!! So cool. He was an architect who at the time people thought was crazy, but of course now that he is dead he is very famous and said to be a genius. The park has frosted buildings which resemble Hansel nd Gretel candy houses and animal shaped canals, so cool! Now we are about to catch the tram to our farewell dinner, sad to say bye to all these people, like moving out of the dorms and moving back home but soo ready to get back to my life in California with free refills, free water, A/C, screen doors, homemade meals, and clean free public bathrooms. I love Europe but I am definitely a California girl!

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Monday, June 28, 2010

Transfer Via TGV

I'm too tired to blog right now. But long story short we yesterday we went to La Louvre museum, checked out Mona Lisa, went to Luxembourg Gardens, shopped on the streets of Paris, caught a metro to the Eiffel tower for picnic and champagne in the park to watch it glitter, saw an old man get caught in metro doors, saw his life flash before his eyes, waited two hours for a taxi cab back to the hotel, packed my bag, hit the hay, and now we are sitting at the train station waiting for our high speed train to drop us off in the French Riviera. Beach time highly needed <3

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Saturday, June 26, 2010

Guilt Trip

So I felt bad after eating plain chicken while in France so for dessert Jackie and I shared this crepe, dark chocolate and banana! yum yum

After this dinner by the way we had to try and find our way back to the metro. We ended up lost and circling the National Embassy building a few times before we ran into some of their very intimidating police/security men. Since Becca was leading the pack she decides to ask them for directions, mind you she is from Louisiana and the officers don't speak english at all, "y'all, do y'all speak english? Can you tell us were the metro is?" The officer looks and her and with the appropriate hand gestures "slooooooww down english, left right left" Um ok merci! We found it, but I suppose you can only circle the National Embassy building so many times before they become suspicious.

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Comfort Food

I know I know I am in France and should be eating calamari with wine and cheese and having pastries for dessert. But I needed something a little closer to home sooo chicken and potatoes at a cute little french diner. It was absolutely amazing, I have never eaten an entire half of chicken but I went nine hours without food today and was starving. I didn't leave one scrap behind!

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French Macaroons!

Yeay we finally got them! They are from Laduree bakery where they are known for their macaroons. We had to wait in line and they were a bit pricey but so so worth it. They melt like butter in your mouth. I wanted to buy a box to bring home but un refrigerated they are only good for about a day, so we ate them! We hiked to the top of a hill overlooking all of Paris and sat on the grass to enjoy our sweet treats!

PS I had the girl give me a surprise variety and one was rose flavor...not so tasty.

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Salmon Panini in Paris

Paris is one of the most dangerous cities and has an extremely high crime rate mainly due to their exuberant population of 2 million people. This was proved this morning for me. It was 9 am in front of our hotel which is in a pretty nice little suburb about twenty minutes from the Eiffel Tower. Everyone was waiting on the bus for the last few people and our tour director placed his bag down inside the bus right on top of the steps then ran inside the lobby to grab something. Well in about two seconds one man asked the driver a question on the left side of the bus but was kind of making a scene, and as soon as everyone was looking over at crazy guy, another guy grabbed Spiro's bag and booked it. Inside that bag was EVERYTHING important to both the trip and Spiros. A binder with everyones personal info, hotel and transportation info, tickets for our museum entrances, all the important and confidential documents, all three of his work phones (one black berry, one iphone, one nokia smart phone) his lap top, wallet with a coule hundred euro, tons of credit cards...the list goes on. In literally just seconds right in front of 50 people, early in the morning, in a nice neighborhood. I'm extra careful with my bags now.
While Spiros stayed behind in hopes that they just took his wallet and dumped the rest of the stuff and his bag, we left on the bus for our tour through Paris and I cannot even begin to start listing what we saw. Just think anything that is any type of monument in Paris from Notre Dame to the huge castle built for hurt veterans which holds Napoleon's ashes...we saw it all. The square where Marie Antionette was executed, the huge glass pyramids that you see in the Davinci Code, the three arches Napoleon had built listing cities conquered, so much history here in Paris and its all so amazing to see.
The lady tour director on the bus pointed out a bakery where she says they have the best macaroons ever and if your ever having a bad to eat one of those and you'll be all better :) ill be stopping by there this afternoon.
Now we are, and yes this very second, walking down Avenue Champs Elysees where ALL the shopping is.
I stopped inside one store to buy a little bracelet and the man asked where I was from, I told him California and his face lit up. In his broken english he rushed back into the store and pulled out a photo album from 1984 when he visited LA. He was a little stud back then wearing his members only jacket standing on the walkway in Venice Beach and Disney Land. He was the cutest old man ever and he was so eager to show me all his California pictures!
The picture above is a smoked salmon panini that I picked up for lunch here on the walk, very very yummy. I miss my lox and bagels in the mornings :(

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Friday, June 25, 2010

Fire Ants

Here is the view from the top of the Eiffel Tower. It is looking down onto the park with the huge screen playing the World Cup soccer game. And all those little dots that look like bugs are people!

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