Fashion shows and graveyards

I would be lying if I said the fashion show was life altering. I’m not sure I dig what this show was putting down. We laughed at 99% of the outfits. But it was really fun finding the place and walking  through this incredible mall..

   
    
 I was showing the girls pics and Steph was like “I just keep picturing you being like Lauren Conrad and hearing The Hills theme song play” which made me laugh and now I can’t UNhear that song when I see these pics! 

Today was a bit more rough than the other days. I had pretty huge anxiety. First off we had to take a maze of trains to get to the neighbourhood we planned on exploring today. As we got further and further away, Paris got uglier and sketchier so I naturally became more and more nervous. 

I was super excited to see the Moulin Rouge because like, the movie was amazing and I can basically sing every song from it if anyone wants to hear it. So I thought it would be really glam and life changing. In reality, it looked like a shit hole in the day. Perhaps that was our bad because we didn’t go at night to see it lit up, but if I’m being real, you couldn’t pay me to go to that neighbourhood at night. 

  
After we wandered around and found a massive cemetery. It was actually really creepy and awesome. 

  
We walked all the way up to the top of the city to the Sacre Coeur and on our way I fell in LOVE with this little guy!! 

  
Like stop being so chill. God.

We found this little square where there were hundreds of artists painting and trying to paint tourists. We have become very good at giving snooty stink eyes. People think we are locals because they purposely don’t bother us anymore. GOALS.

  
  
Omg there’s so many super annoying scam artists. Karlin got straight up violent with a few today. There’s this annoying scam where a group of guys stand in a bottleneck area and try to tie string around your wrists and insist you give them money for “blessing you with good luck”. They will seriously grab your arms and yell in your face. Luckily I have a fucking on point resting bitch face, even more so in France, so they realize I am so not impressed and leave me alone. But Karlins freaking adorable and looks like a cute Ab & Crom model so they flock to his boyish good looks. Today he finally lost it and grabbed their forearm and pinched the guy super hard and yelled LET GO OF ME NOW. In addition I shot an even more bit hurt than resting bitch face look and they fucked off for good. So beware of these idiots if you ever come to Paris! 

So the Sacre Coeur was absolutely stunning obv. It’s at the top of Montamarte and overlooks all of Paris. I couldn’t even find the Eiffel Tower because it was so small! There’s about 4 billion steps leading up to the church and they are just filled with tourists! We sat down and immediately some guy was bugging us to buy a cold beer. Like we are at a church not a hockey game, bro? But we were also like if it wasn’t morning we would totally buy one from him haha.

   
    
    
    
 
So after we wound our way back down this horrible gypsy infested streets until we found the metro. I was very stressed at this point and we hadn’t eaten in a while and I was ready to go home but we had still planned to go to the Science Centre that was even further away from home. 

It was an absolute maze trying to find out where to go and which trains to get on and after 30 minutes I was wanting to vomit and faint at the same time because there were 14 trillion people around me in the subway and we were in a ghetto part. 

But once we found our destination I was slightly better. Ok, we also had McDonalds. Whatever, I’m already getting fat so what’s a Big Mac going to do in the grand scheme of things right? I’ll work out later. 

So here was the final stop of the day!

   
    
 
Oh and Karlin wanted to take a picture of me in this stupid fucking crowded street as a form of wife torture.

  
Vomit. 

Anyways, on our way home we tried to buy metro tickets and Karlins card was declined which sent us both into a pretty huge panic because we were, after all, just shopping in the ghetto so we assumed a gypsy had stolen our tears and was selling off our home on eBay by the time we got home. 

But we did get home! I made it! I didn’t faint or puke or die or have explosive diarrhea in public. It’s the little things.

We are staying in and reading and Drinking wine tonight because fuck Saturday’s in Paris. I’m too anxious for this sort of population explosion!! We keep saying we will go to a club but really, we have had many opportunities and decided club life would be lame because we would just sit in a corner somewhere, not be able to hear eachother, and just watch everyone else having fun with their friends. So we will stick with little romantic drunken expeditions on the streets of Paris 😍

My growing gut

I haven’t eaten this much bread since high school. I have a gut. It is concerning. 

Karlin ate raw salmon. Like a chunk of ground up raw salmon. I was gagging. 

   
 
I had this delicious pasta with stewed vegetables and was very happy with myself.  

 
After dinner we strolled down this street that gave me the worst anxiety. People were EVERYWHERE. It was chaos. I don’t understand when people work because every street is always packed with people wandering around and eating and drinking! We just went for a walk around the Notre Dame and people were drinking wine before 10 am. These are my people.

  
I finally caved and bought an industrial amount of macaroons and ate them all in bed like the sloth I am becoming.

  
Yesterday we decided to check out the arc de triumph and I’ve got to say we were super impressed! The views from the top were stunning. We’ve been having pretty good luck with lineups too. We had to wait maybe 3 minutes. By the time we left there was a solid 30 minute line. Suckas.

  
I thought after climbing all these stairs to get to the top I would work off some fat but my gut was def still there this morning. Thanks for nothing, stairs. 

Here’s some cool views from the top:

   
    
   
It was windy AF at the top. So give me a break! Also, watching the traffic circle was hilarious. I imagined every single driver being like “WHERE THE FUCK AM I GOING?!?” 

  
This guy was all “omg, Becky”.

The sculptures on the 4 sides of the arc were pretty impressive.

  
   
   
After ooing and aweing at the arc we walked down des Champs-Élysées Ave where all the huge baller ass designer stores are. In most stores, there was a secret service agent standing at the door and they had to unlock the door for you to come inside to their fancy stores. So we didn’t go in. Except for this expensive pen store because there was a mildly cool pirate ship in the window and Karlin insisted we go in and see it. Oh and we went into Hermes and I felt like fucking riffraff.

   
 
I don’t know why I took pictures of Louis Vitton. It wasn’t all that impressive. I don’t even like LV. I just thought it was a cool thing to do because other people were doing it. 

Anyways, we walked on and found 2 palaces across the street from each other. The Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. One was bigger than the other.. GOOD JOB ON THE NAMES, GUYS. #accurate

Paris’s door game is mad strong. Every door looks like royalty. Take note, Canada.

   
 
The grand palace was actually sort of creepy. You couldn’t go inside and it was just this giant empty palace. We were peeking in the windows obv. And like, this place is huge. The entire ceiling is glass. What a waste of space! And yet people buy a 400 sq ft apartment in the same area for half a mill. Craziness.

I google earthed it so you can see how ducking enormous this place is.

  
  
I personally could think of a lot cooler things to do with that kind of space. Just sayin.. INDOOR DIRT BIKE ARENA, ACROBAT SCHOOL, BOWLING ALLEY, LARGE SHOE COLLECTION, GROW OP. 

  
Most indiscreet grow op on the planet. 

Anyways, we discovered you could walk through the Petit Palais FOR FREE. Which was awesome because Paris is the most expensive place on the planet with exception to maybe some place in Dubai.

There was some beautiful architecture and painting and sculptures everywhere with a huge garden in the middle. 

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
 
Just a typical Friday night coming home from the bar ^^^

After looking around the Paris we carried on towards, I don’t even know. We just walked. We walked for 5 hrs yesterday. (Still fat).

We found this Oblisk that Egypt gave to Napoleon as a gift. I probably made this up but it sounds legit.

  
And a pretty dope ass water fountain with Zues getting ready to shred his golden guitar.

  
By the time we figured out how to get home on the train I was ready to booze pretty hard so we stopped at one of the billion random cafes and watched people for an hour on this cool street.

   
 
On our way back to our apartment we spotted a jazz club and were like YEP THIS IS HAPPENING.

I put on my new coat which was a mistake.

  
Because the waiter smashed a wine glass all over me! But luckily the material is a little rain coat-y and I managed to dab off the red wine. The Jazz was excellent and we even bought their CD like little groupies.

  
Also, I finally had a chance to try some traditional French veal and chutney which was amazing. The only downfall was that the portion was about the size of my thumb. We were both starving after.

 
So we walked around drunkenly until we found a place that served nachos. Apparently the beer I was drinking had tequila in it so I was pretty spent after!

Wasn’t even hung over this morning which is excellent because this afternoon we are going to a fashion show!!!

We just went to a little market this morning and I ate this veal stew in a bun that was unreal. 

We found this cool statue thing also..

   

 

And another baller door. Think this was their government building.

Two more things: I’d be annoyed if I were Paris because people lock little pad locks I absolutely everything. Not just that one famous bridge or whatever. They are everywhere!

   

 

And second of all, this store was like “fuck gargoyles, I’m carving cats into my building because I’m going to die alone”

  

Ok I better shower and clean up my life before this fashion show!!

 

Soccer, football, whatever and some hair

This whole jet lag thing is really hard to adjust to. I thought by day three we would surely be totally adjusted but yesterday I was tired and a bit grumpy. As a result, I was being a cranky broad and so we had to go shopping to cheer me up. It was awful. I had to buy a super cute leather jacket and a totally adorable hat and some fun black pantyhose so I could fit in. You all would have hated it. 

  
When I felt satisfied we came home, ate a shit load of Brie, sausage and bread and I passed out for a few hours. It was a really rough time.

Last night was Karlins treat and he bought us tickets to a football/soccer game. Whatever they call it. It was a pretty fun adventure taking a bunch of trains and navigating around the city. The trains are really confusing until you take them a few times. Then it clicks and you just get it! We were excited about the double level trains for some reason.

  
This was after being soaked in the rain, hence the mop on my fucking head. I saw you looking at it, Judy. 

So we arrived to the stadium early and went to a pub to get some beers. I was literally the only female in the whole bar. It took a few minutes to notice but we had a good chuckle about it.

  
Good thing we got a solid buzz before we entered the stadium because, um, there’s no alcohol permitted inside? What the actual fuck? I thought Frenchies knew how to have a good time? But then after seeing how insane the crowd was it sort of made sense. They are crazy enough without adding booze to the mix! 

  
I took a video of the crazy hooligans but I have no idea how to upload videos on here. Let’s just say I understand why photo ID is required and you are frisked before entering the stadium. If your name doesn’t match the one on the ticket, you don’t get in. The streets are lined with police vehicles. Seriously like hundreds of police vans and every cop is wearing riot gear! I felt quite safe! 

So we found our way back home and decided we had been ripped off due to the non-beer -selling stadium so we went for some cheap wine and pizza at a nearby cafe.

  
  
I think I just uploaded a video. GENIUS.

So we drank a shit load of wine last night. I was in bed ready for sleep at midnight and Karlin peer pressured me to stay up and have two more glasses.

End result: this was my fucking head this morning…

  
Karlin slept about 2 hours all night because of this stupid jet lag so this morning was rough. Although I think I’m finally on Paris time because I woke up around 8:30 which is decent. 

We decided to check out the Centre Pompidou today. For 2 people that know very little about art, we were both really weirded out and impressed by the exhibits. 

It’s hard not to be impressed by the building itself!

   
 
While we were waiting in the giant line, we were chuckling at this young guy sitting on the ground reading, completely surrounded by pigeons. I went to take a picture and just as I did he looked right at me and I was busted!!

  
French people just give zero fucks when it comes to choosing a place to chill. They will sit in the middle of the street if they feel like it.

So here’s some shots of this super weird exhibit by the artist Mona Hatoum. This chick wishes she was Marina Abromovic but isn’t quite as artistically insane. What she is very passionate about , however, is her own hair and fingernails and urine. This one room had a bunch of hair balls scattered on the ground and it wasn’t until you walked further into the room that you realized thousands of long gross strands of her hair were individually hanging from the ceiling. 

   
 
It was hard to take a pic but you can kind of see a few strands.

She also wrapped herself in plastic, tied gauze around her head and doused herself in cow blood to make a statement about military leaders. Mmmmhmmmm…

  
This wasn’t actually at the museum but a bunch of pictures of it were there so I googled it.

Some of her other pieces included a glass baby crib..

  
A giant cheese grater that gave me the shivers due to my fear of getting fingernails in your grated cheese and carrot cake at restaurants..

  
A neon globe and a weird light installation that had no apparent power source..

   
 
A monstrous map of the world made out of marbles (note: we couldn’t imagine people bringing kids to this place but lots of people did)..

  
And an exhibit Karlin wasn’t allowed to look at because it can cause seizures.. How nice..

   
 
Some other bizarre things included pieces of toilet paper and other paper products covered in her hair, some with her shit and urine, and glass cubes filled with her fingernails. By this point we were convinced we could be famous artists too. I could harvest my nipple hairs and glue them to a used tissue and frame it and BAM. Modern Art.

There were a bunch of installations that required you to walk down a very dark hallway filled with super fucking weird noises into an even darker room where videos and sometimes holograms of people were doing weird shit. Every time I was terrified and Karlin would bump into something and we would both jump and laugh. Meanwhile, all these art contessouirs would fearlessly walk in and roll their eyes at us. One had a warning hat it may hurt young children’s feelings… 

   
 
It was comparing weird masks to deformed faces. Alrighty then..

Here’s some other neat stuff.

   
    
    
    
    
   
In the end we decided that art was pretty cool but only sculpture/installation types of art because we gave absolutely no fucks about the paintings and “classical” art shit. Looking at a painting of a lake does nothing for me. Yet they were all swarmed with hipsters talking about the rare form in the artists brush strokes. Yawn. 

That being said, there was one photograph that caught my attention and really resonated within me for some reason. I stared at it and it reminded me of my best friend Jen. It just summed up so many of my moods and touched me deeply.

 
 

We stopped for some lunch at a cool Cafe on the way home and I actually ordered a salad. It was weird feeling the vegetables touch my mouth. They were so unlike the bread and pizza I’ve been shovelling in since our arrival in Paris! 

I also managed to buy a BEAUTIFUL cream coloured trench coat, some olive green skinnies, a black mini skirt and a gorgeous wool sweater on our way home. Karlin was so exhausted and just stood there holding my purse and all my jackets and clothes. I love this man. He is now sound asleep. Poor guy. But it gave me time to catch up here so all is good! 

Not sure what we will get up to this evening but we are in Paris so I’m sure it will be marvellous ❤

Just another day in Pari(s)dice

Today was MUCH better than yesterday omg. To start off, we planned to be at the Eiffel Tower by 9 AM to beat the line ups.

We woke up at 10:30 AM. And like.. Did not want to get up. 

Once I showered and realized that none of my hair appliances worked (yes even with an adapter) we went for a cafe au lait across the street and some breakfast. Which was just a baguette with jam. Which happens to be MY JAM. 

  
We decide we would just have a chill day and walk along the water and explore because it was too late to go get in line at any of the historical sites. 

Then we found ourselves at Notre Dame because it was like right around the block! I still can’t get over the military personel here. They look like they would blow your fuckin head off if you blinked out of sync. 

  
So I tried to take a stealth pic of them when they weren’t looking through my soul. 

It was absolutely stunning inside. 

   
 
After we wandered down to the river and found a boat bus! We decided we would go see the Eiffel Tower but only made it like two stops before I was like IM HUNGRY AND GETTING GRUMPY. So we got off at the Louvre and walked half a block until I saw the word PIZZA. 

  
It was heaven. Well done French people. You are good at making jam and pizza. 

Right across from the pizza place was the Hotel de Ville (basically their city hall) which was like a magic castle.

  
We decided after our pizza fuel we would continue on to the tower. On the way we saw a bunch of crazy buildings that we will likely go back to. And the Statue of Liberty? I don’t even know.

  
Once we got off the boat my heart stopped and I died because one of those stupid mime/human statues was staring at me and I was having flashbacks from the Last Exorcism 2. He made me come closer and stand with him. It was awful. I played along so he didn’t shank me but my heart was coming out of my throat while all the bystanders laughed. Ha ha ha. Real fucking funny. I might get murdered by this soulless carny, but you go ahead and enjoy your stupid baguettes you French fucks. 

  
This is as close as I would get to him and shuddered when he tried to get closer. Like stand still. You’re a statue you creepy fuck. 

Ugh. So wrong.

Anyways. We took so many selfies at the tower because what else do you fucking do when you’re on vacation somewhere awesome? Side rant: the selfie stick is so fucking annoying. Every other tourist has one and I’m constantly dodging them as I walk down streets in Paris. I haven’t been this annoyed by a novelty item since those absolutely degenerate “heelys” shoes hit Canada. You know those stupid shoes with wheels. Ugh. White people. 

So here’s some selfies because SELFIES.

   
    
    
    

    

  

We didn’t go up because like I said, we were way too late and the line ups would have made me throw up and faint. We will go up another day. 

Oh and by the way, the park build the tower where people allegedly lounge around on the grass and take effortless cute photos? It smells like a rancid petting zoo and is so destroyed by tourists that 90% of it is literally fenced off because the grass stopped growing. So good job, gross humans! Keep up the good work. 

On our way home we grabbed some fresh baguettes and a fuck load of cheese and salami and so much wine we looked stupid. Like they encourage you use your own bags and as punishment supply these ball hair-thin see though bags so everyone can see your groceries. Like excuse me but all of Paris doesn’t need to see my Plan B, extra large condoms, hemmorhoid bullets and 5 bottles of $4 wine. K it was just wine. But still. 

So I made Karlin carry the bags obv. 

All you could hear for 3 blocks was the clanging of the wine bottles. It was slightly embarrassing so I walked ahead of him.   

We got back to the apartment and ate too much and drank too much and went for a stroll to see all the freaks. I love Paris!

   
    
    
 
I need to shop tomorrow. What is wrong with me? All I’ve done is eat here. Tomorrow I must start buying clothes! 

Jet Lag. We meet again..

I was way too cocky with my plans for getting over jet lag. “I will sleep on the plane and wake up and be perfect by the time we get to Paris!”

Reality: I slept for the last 20 minutes of the flight and awoke abruptly to turbulence and chaos because everyone’s getting ready to land. After a super bumpy landing I wanted to throw up. I held it together for the whole “customs” thing. Got our bags. Then I was like NOPE ITS COMING IM GOING TO BARF. 

I didn’t. But Karlin insisted we navigate the Paris train system with zero sleep and a tiny sugary piece of banana bread in our stomachs. Let me tell you.. That banana bread road the train for 45 minutes in my hot clammy throat. 

So. First thoughts on Paris: SO THIS IS WHERE ALL THE HOT BLACK MEN LIVE. Good lord. What’s up. Jk. I’m on my honeymoon.. 😎

The street style is unreal. A huge trend here is black nylons. Under legitimately anything. Shorts. Skirts. Short skirts. It looks bomb. 

I felt like riff raff travelling in black leggings and a cute grey slouchy knit. I need to kick this fucking game up tomorrow.. And by that I mean I need to go shopping.

Paris is really god damn expensive. We spent like $80 CAN on 2 meh beers and 2 terrible burgers in an Irish pub. Yeah I know why didn’t we get French food. Listen. When I’m hungry and haven’t slept in 24 hrs, I do not have patience for finding  a cute chic place to try food I don’t recognize. I’m like GIVE ME BURGER AND PUT ME TO BED.

The apartment is adorable. We are very pleased with it. Cutest view ever. 

  
We are staying in the Les Halles neighbourhood like a hard farts distance away from the Louvre and Centre Pompidou (you can see it in the back!)

So we wandered a bit in a super jet lagged state looking for wine to shut my mouth up. Found a hole in the wall that served fresh cork in the wine. But got to sit outside and watch all the beautiful people (black dudes) stroll by! 

   
   
After awkwardly paying for very expensive cork wine, we decided the server had zero interest in feeding us so we bounced and found a loud Irish pub as I mentioned before to feed ourselves horribly seasoned burgers.

I tried to find a SIM card but apparently my phone isn’t unlocked (even though I was charged by Telus to unlock it) so looks like the rest of the trip will be done without my precious 4G. Actually, the man trying to figure out my phone only spoke Spanish and French so perhaps tomorrow I’ll find someone who knows what’s good with international phones.

Yo so this is mega disappointing. I still have not seen the Eiffel Tower even though it’s allegedly around the corner. Probably a good thing because I would have public ally cried today and embarrassed Karlin even more. 

So after deciding we were barely functioning we stopped at a little shop and bought some wine and Pringles and oranges and went for a nap. 

Waking up at 9 PM  wasn’t the best but now I’m into the wine, I’ve figured out the wifi, and we are nerdily nosing our way through all our Paris guide books planning our day tomorrow. Look how cute our apartment is:

   
    
   
Look how cute my husband is 🙂

K I’m going to finish this bottle of wine and drug myself back to sleep so we can start our adventuring tomorrow. 

Pretty much a pizza

I woke up this morning and fell into a Pinterest trap. I have been drinking Isogenix shakes every morning because j hate breakfast and thinking of new breakfast ideas. But today, Pinterest got the best of me and I decided it would be a super nice wifey thing for me to make a frittata. Even though fuck eggs. It turned out basically being a pizza and I’m so ok with that.

I give you: Spinach Leek Turkey Dill Fritatta. 

   
   
Did I maybe go too far with the cheese? Yep. Was it maybe to hide the eggs? You bet. Am I going to fart loudly for the next 8 hours? Probably. 

Was it worth it? Oh baby.. 

French, France, Fries

In preparation for my honeymoon in Paris (NEXT FUCKING WEEK) I decided to make a French inspired dinner tonight. I have been reading French Women Don’t Get Fat and one of the recipes was for Apples and Pork Chops. It just so happened Karlin had pulled out pork chops and we had some fresh apples on the counter so voila.

It was super easy and tasted pretty good (although I have a cold and can’t really taste much). 

Put chops in a dish and pour some wine on them. Note: you can tell I am sick because I didn’t drink the rest of the bottle. Add some bay leaves, celery leaves, and jam a clove in each chop. Bake for 30 min at 375.

Meanwhile, chop celery very finely and sauté them for a few minutes. Then slice 2 apples and add the slices to the pan with some brown sugar and cook until the apples are tender!

  
This smells delicious. Even with a plugged nose.

Then after the chops are done, you sprinkle some Swiss cheese (I used marble because I didn’t have Swiss) and baste it with the wine sauce and broil for a few minutes. 

  
Lay the chops on top of the apple and celery mixture, put together a salad and you’re looking at a decent meal that’s not horribly bad for you.

  
My little croissant: please note this is Karlins plate. Suck my dick, garden tomatoes. 

I can’t believe I’m going to Paris in like ten days! We booked the three most important tickets yesterday. Front row seats at a fashion show (BALLLLLLLLERRRRR), tickets to a soccer game, and a tour of les catacombes. Underground burial tour filled with skeletons? ROMANCE. I might get pregnant that night. 

PSYCH! Kids are the worst. Sorry mom. #puppiesoverbabies 

  

She’s taken. Sorry future babies.