[ june 19, 2014 ]
what's up? i'm finally home after a whirlwind of adventures and have a desperately large amount of photos to publish (and i find myself watching an entire season of orphan black within 24 hours, ok julia ok). so everything will probably be out of order, whatever. we'll talk about my feelings and thoughts and lack of organization later - here are the photos from my day trip out of paris to monet's gardens in giverny with my lovely ladies kaya and cibel. (oh yah, i lived in paris for a month and a half) june 19th was quite a dramatic day in retrospect (things that happened include: my stolen phone and pretty flowers and discussing how we would let monet tattoo our asses and waiting for all forms of public transportation), and perhaps the only way to tell it is with a list~
- woke up and made my way to gare de st. lazare from victoria's place (16th arr) to meet kaya and cibel (who were in town from their month long europe adventure) to go to monet's gardens in giverny, a little bit outside of paris
- due to the train strike the next train leaving to "vernon" (the elusive destination the website told us to go) wasn't due for another hour and a half so i decided to take us to the nearby galeries lafayette for an a+ rooftop view (i am now a pretty qualified parisian tour guide, wooh).
- got to roof and took cute selfie (hey kaya where is that selfie?) and then realized that my phone was not in my bag!?!? (wallet and mark ii were fine and untouched thank god)
- remained calm due to disbelief (don't worry i felt the trauma later) and retraced steps back to train station and called my french number. phone went straight to voicemail - so reaffirming that my phone was indeed stolen and not mistakenly thrown into the trash.
- boarded the train to vernon, there was no point in wallowing and missing out on giverny too.
- kaya and i, being seasoned travellers, assumed that since giverny is a touristy destination and since paris is one of (if not) the most visited places in the world - figuring out how to get to monet's gardens should be easy? well. on the contrary things got slightly awry...
- arrived at vernon and looked for way to get to monet's garden. ah! there is a bus! good! that does not come for another hour! ah! no longer good?
- decided to walk the 5km because it was a nice day out, and found a very badly drawn map (which we then photographed with kaya's phone) as a guide
- grabbed food at carrefour and then proceeded to get lost because we have (apparently) an impaired sense of direction
- realized we walked a circle after a decent amount of time and finally found the seine and walked the right path to giverny
- arrived at giverny and fawned over how god damn picturesque the whole damn place is.
- consumed ice cream at the nearest truck because it was hot as balls.
- proceeded to have our minds and eyes blown at the wonderful beauty of the original water lily pond.
- kaya and i then suddenly realized ("seasoned travellers") that we did not look at any of the transportation times back to paris. ah. and since there was a train strike (thanks sncf :*) it would've probably been wise to do so.
- scrambled out of monet's garden and waited at the bus stop that did not look like a bus stop while eating the rest of our cheese and hummus.
- made it to vernon only to have the next train arrive in....two hours.
- passed the time telling wild stories and acting them out (in which is just stood there and laughed at kaya and cibel because i can't act because i'm not fun) as the sun set in the background (paris is literally sunny until 9PM, it really fucks up with one's mental clock)
- finally made it back to paris and victoria's room and then ate a large stick of butter jana procured earlier that day.
