Omg... how in the WORLD is it May 10th? I literally can't believe it. I have been so bad on the blog lately but it has truly just been too much of a whirlwind! Between classes during the week and traveling every single weekend (for 2-4 days at least), it has definitely been hectic and exhausting. However, it has been the most amazing experience ever and I will never again have such a crazy time in my life!!
I leave Italy TOMORROW. I can't believe how fast this time went. I am so excited to fly to Tucson to be there for Andrew's graduation and have a super fun weekend. BUT I know it's going to be an exhausting whirlwind of a weekend, which makes me really excited to find a new sense of normalcy when I get back home!
It is very unrealistic of me to promise recaps on every single trip we've been on since Rome in January, so I am going to start at least with getting this Paris blog up. We were in Paris for my 21st birthday and as Andrew would say, it was a MOVIE! Since it was an equally special birthday and trip, I definitely want to recap it for you guys! I think I will most likely try to get a London recap up because that was one of my favorite trips (and it should be quick) and hopefully a big long spring break one!
Anywayyyy, I am so excited to give you the deets to my special birthday weekend in Paris! :,)
TRAVEL
We flew to Paris on February 9th in the evening. We had a quick flight from Milan Malpensa to Paris Charles De Gaulle and ubered from the airport to the hotel. We landed around 10pm and we were trying desperately to check-in to the hotel and uber to the Eiffel Tower for my birthday at midnight!
HOTEL
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Paris - Gare de l'Est. We had a super cute purple room equipped with robes and slippers and an adorable balcony. We got the hotel breakfast one morning and it was pretty decent! It was the first time we had seen "American breakfast" items like bacon, eggs, etc. in awhile! Although not very vegan friendly, it got the job done!
EIFFEL TOWER @ MIDNIGHT
Defying all odds, we successfully arrived at the Eiffel Tower with a bottle of champagne in hand at 11:40pm. The tower looked beautiful lit up and we walked down the path to make sure we could get a view of the entire tower for midnight. According to TikTok and a Taylor Swift song, the tower sparkles on the hour every hour for 5 minutes. I was SO beyond excited to pop open the bottle of champagne as the clock struck 12 on my 21st birthday. How unreal?!
While we were walking away from the tower, the lights turned off. At this point it was 11:45, so we figured they were going to stay off until midnight for more of a "wow effect", lol. We stood in a very sketchy location waiting until midnight. At 11:59, I had started loosening the champagne, Brenna had started recording, and we were READY to pop the bottle right at midnight as the tower sparkled. Neither of us could watch the clock turn because Brenna was filming and I was in position to pop the bottle. We stood there for what felt like over 2 minutes, and like I said, I loosened the champagne bottle slightly so I'd easily be able to pop it when the sparkling started. I was trying to hold the cork in the bottle as it was slowly opening more and more every second. Eventually, we figured it was after midnight, but neither of us wanted to move in case it happened as soon as we stopped. And also, as soon as I stopped pushing the cork into the bottle, it was going to pop.
Unfortunately, I was only able to keep it in place for so long before it popped and the champagne exploded onto me... LOL. By now it was almost 12:05 and the tower was still dark. Brenna looked it up while I answered birthday messages I was already getting, and due to some sort of energy saving initiative, the tower apparently stops at 11:45pm now!!! WTF. Thank you Paris for depriving me of those 15 minutes of sparkle.
Although it wasn't what we were expecting, turning 21 in front of the Eiffel Tower literally could not have been a bad moment. It was honestly 10x funnier that the champagne exploded on me and that we missed the lights- it made the moment much more memorable. (Although slightly less Instagram-worthy😂😂)
We stood and laughed and drank the champagne until we were harassed by a Parisian homeless (?) man and knew it was time to make our exit for the night! :)
PALACE OF VERSAILLES
We woke up on my birthday and quickly grabbed the hotel breakfast. We had to get up pretty early for our scheduled Versailles tickets. We planned a LOT for our time in Paris so we really had no time to waste when we were scheduling. Versailles is also 45ish minutes from the city so we had to have enough time to get there.
We arrived right on schedule and it was sooo amazing. I still can't believe how all of these amazing palaces and monuments and structures were made so long ago. The gold detailing on the outside of the palace was unlike anything I've ever seen! The cobblestone entrance, however, was a little tricky for me in my cute heeled booties!😂
We did the walkthrough of the palace and saw everything from the dressing rooms to Marie Antoinette's bedroom! It was insane to see the King's room and all of these old rooms that literal royalty lived in and walked through every day.
We took loads of photos in the Hall of Mirrors and this cute little hallway of statues I had seen on Instagram. It was a lot of fun, even though Brenna and I were fully in "insta mode" for the second portion of things!!
After we walked around, we grabbed some water and I enjoyed this delicious Versailles birthday croissant! :)
LUNCH
We Ubered back to the city to this lunch spot I found near the Louvre called Le Musset! We got our first real taste of French people during our time here, and it was interesting to say the least! For example, our waiter was definitely slightly rude/passive-aggressive but also nice and trying to make jokes? I think that about sums it up.
We started off with some celebratory birthday mimosas! In true Paris fashion, we both had to order some authentic FRENCH FRIES! We hadn't seen burgers anywhere really since we'd been in Europe, so a vegan burger with a side of real french fries was an immediate must.
The food was delicious and the place was so adorable. We sat outside in their outdoor section that's covered by all these beautiful blue and purple flowers. It was definitely a great meal and I'm so happy I found it on Yelp so quickly!
THE LOUVRE
We really did not want to take time out of our weekend to see the Lourve, especially on Friday. Originally, I wanted Friday (my bday) to be the more relaxing day with leisurely shopping after Versailles. But of course, the Lourve only had tickets available for Friday and not for Saturday! We debated on going because we both only really wanted to see the Mona Lisa and leave. Although annoying of us, that's exactly what we did. We were already exhausted and needed a break so I couldn't imagine walking through the entire place.
We stood in line for a photo with Miss. Mona and we were out!!
DINNER
I had found us this amazing boat dinner cruise a few weeks before our trip to Paris. We booked with Bateaux Parisiens and we paid for the premier service, which was about $200 each. I know that sounds like a lot, but we got a 5 course meal, welcome wine, red dinner wine, desert champagne, live music, AND a 2.5 hour boat cruise down the Seine River. A bargain if you ask me.
This meal started off HORRIBLY because we left a few minutes later than scheduled. They advised to be there 45-15 minutes in advance from the 8:30 departure time. I believe we left around 7:30 and it should have been about a 20 minute car ride. However, we were stuck in STAND STILL traffic until 8:23 when we flew out of the Uber and literally RAN through the parking lot to hop on our boat. The entire time we were in the Uber I was sooo upset. I had been dreaming of this dinner for weeks and I was so excited for it. The reservation was also nonrefundable so we would have been out $400. I was so stressed and anxious and on the verge of tears until we were served our welcome wine and the boat cruised away from the dock. After my mess of a travel experience in January, I was feeling a little PTSD and just truly thought there was no way we were going to make it!
Thankfully, the dinner was beyond amazing. Although the food was definitely nothing special, they had vegan options for me AND we got served so many courses. All of the wine was amazing and cruising by the Eiffel Tower while enjoying a boat dinner was unlike any birthday dinner I've had before!!
BEING SCAMMED
After enjoying the wine and champagne, Brenna and I were feeling extremely happy when we got off the boat! It was still my 21st birthday and we were ready to PARTY! At the exit of the boat dock, there were a few men lined up in these little bike taxis. We had planned to go to this bar/club that was supposedly pretty close. We knew it was going to be obnoxiously expensive, but when we saw the pink light-up taxi we couldn't refuse! We hopped in the taxi and the man even started playing Happy Birthday music for me. It was one of the most euphoric moments ever! I have this hilarious video of us in the taxi with "Happy Birthday to You" blaring in the background and the Eiffel Tower behind us... how crazy?!
All was well until we were getting dropped off at the bar (which was also fully the wrong location so we were literally in an alley with this bike taxi man and were going to Uber to the actual bar that was 20 minutes away) and the man told us that our Parisian joyride was 250 euros. !!! We both were expecting it to be a rip-off and be charged like 50 for the 10 minute ride, but we were NOT expecting 250 euros. I barely had any cash on me but thankfully Brenna did. We tried to argue with the man and he whipped out this sheet of paper breaking down the pricing that he conveniently did not show us before! It was fully on the paper that it was 125 per person for 30 minutes. Brenna lied about how much money she had and I offered up the little bit of cash that I had, so he luckily let us go after we forked up 150 euros. UGH. Honestly though, that 150 euros was worth the few minutes that felt like a dream and an experience I'll never forget!
We ended up Ubering back to the hotel after this, as we were both a little frazzled by our unexpected scamming!😂 Happy Birthday to Me!
BRUNCH AT CARETTE
We woke up on Saturday morning and got ready for brunch at the famous Paris brunch spot, Carette! They are known for their famous hot chocolate, which Brenna loved! We had to wait in a decently long line to get seated BUT it moved pretty quickly thankfully.
I ordered a croissant and breakfast potatoes with some coffee. A joyous meal of carbs! I gave zero Fs about what I was eating the first month abroad because I was truly just trying to survive! 😂 I think after Paris, though, I got back on my strict vegan healthy eating ways! HAD to carb-load on bday weekend.
ARC DE TRIOMPHE
Brenna and I should be jailed for purchasing tickets to see the Arc de Triomphe and fully not using them. We walked to the Arc and went through the underground entrance to see the biggest line ever to get to the top. We were able to skip the entry line because we had pre-purchased tickets, but we were definitely not expecting the line of people who had ALSO pre-purchased tickets, lol. We decided that we didn't care enough about venturing to the top to wait in the crazy long line and take up time from our day. We still took plenty of photos though, don't worry!
SHOPPING
The Arc is right at the end of the main street full of designer shops. All of the stores were about 10x more amazing because they were the big Paris ones! We, of course, spent time gallivanting around every designer store within sight.
LADURÉE
Of course we had to stop in Ladurée. There was a line inside that was moving obnoxiously slow, but that's a line Brenna and I will wait in, LOL. They had Valentine's Day macarons out shaped like hearts and coated in gold!! It was sooo freaking cute. We both chose boxes of macarons to enjoy from all of the amazing flavors! I did a taste test later that day on TikTok, just in case you're curious! 😂
JACQUEMUS
Our next stop was extremely exciting: Jacquemus!!! Of course there was also an annoyingly long line outside this store as well. I think we waited for like 45 minutes? It was extremely annoying.
BUT, all was well when we finally made our way through the door! I was extremely excited to pick out my birthday present from my parents! <3 I have been wanting one of these bags for AGES but I had an extremely difficult time making a final decision. I knew I liked the chocolate brown color the most, but I also loved the classic brown leather color as well. I thought I was set on the largest size too because that was the only size that would fit my phone, but seeing the medium sized one made me rethink. Long story short, we were in there for ages and I probably thoroughly tortured Brenna with my indecisiveness. In the end, I went with the chocolate brown I wanted and I knew I couldn't justify getting an expensive bag that my phone wouldn't fit inside, so I went with the big size!
In retrospect, I am so glad I got the large size for my first Jacquemus bag and for my time abroad, since it was still barely started. I am able to fit my passport, phone, wallet, lip gloss, and more in this bag that I use SO MUCH. I definitely do want a medium-sized one in the future, but more as an "accessory" than a practical daily bag. I've taken my bag on day trips and it even fits my portable charger. It truly can hold everything I need, and this was not the time of my life to buy something that would only fit a card and some gloss, although utterly adorable (and next on my list)!😂
LIBERTINO
We had tried to make dinner reservations at the famous Pink Mamma restaurant for the famous truffle pasta. Of course they were all booked, BUT we found Libertino, which is just another location (and name?) of Pink Mamma's that we reserved! We were SO pumped for this meal. We arrived and immediately were shook because we sat down and realized that the randomly placed zodiac plates were both of our signs at each of our seats!! How crazy?!
We each ordered the famous truffle pasta AND we decided to split a regular pasta with marinara. We heard this place was amazing so we wanted to try different options!😂
The drinks were also delicious. I had a fun fruity one and then got one in this hilarious boob cup. We had a great time here and the food was 100% worth the hype. The truffle pasta was the best pasta I've everrrrr had!!!
DRINKS W SARAH
After dinner we met up with our sweet friend Sarah for some drinks at a speakeasy! She spent her semester in Paris so we had to get in touch. It was so fun to catch up with someone from home and see a familiar face! :)
OUTFITS
Check out my LTK for some of my outfit details!! These outfits are definitely not in season right now, but they are full of great wardrobe staples!
Aaaand that's our trip to Paris! We headed back to Milan early the next day and had the day to recover. We truly fit a lot of sight-seeing into a short amount of time! I definitely wish we would've had slightly longer in Paris so it wouldn't have been as rushed, but we truly made the most of every second!!
It was one of the most insane and memorable birthdays ever! How many people get to turn 21 in Paris under the Eiffel Tower? I am so lucky to have spent my 21st in such an amazing place. :)
Thanks for reading!! Hopefully I will be back very soon with some more updates! Until then, I am heading back to the USA!!!!! CYA SOON!!
Xo,
Bella
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