Day Tripper

It is official- we are full-blown working women. We work roughly 40 hours a week and man can it get exhausting! Of course we love what we are doing, but naturally we look forward to those 2 consecutive days that we get off per week! It is a great time to relax, catch up on some e-mails, reading, sleeping, and of course BLOGGING! (which we have been slacking on lately...oops sorry!) One of the main goals of ours since our arrival in Paris was to utilize every moment we have and to seize the day every day we are here. That means doing cool things on our days off- which we can honestly say we have! It helps that we are working with people that feel the same way so we always have companions on our journeys. Here are just a few of our adventures we have experienced on our time off.

One morning we got up fairly early (lets get real, we need our sleep) and hopped on the Metro where we made our way to a park called Butte-Chaumont. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't exactly ideal for an afternoon in a park napping and getting our tan on, so we did a quick walk through, took some cute pics, and ate inside a cafe once it started sprinkling on us. We got some great pics, but this was for sure one of our favorites...

We also have the opportunity to go on as many Fat Tire Bike Tours as we want...FO FREE! So, naturally, we take advantage of that in as many ways as possible. One of which is going on our wonderful Monet's Garden Tour out in Giverny! We went separately on different days and each had one of our besties as companions. Patricia went out there on a Saturday with one of her best friends from home, Nick, who was staying with us for a bit. Bethany went with one of her BFF's from home, Kristin, who has been studying here in Paris for the past 6 weeks. Here are some pics of each of our afternoons and words cannot describe the beauty of the gardens and paintings!

After Monet's Tour, we got on kind of a "Monet's kick" and had to visit Musee De L'Orangerie which features 8 of Monet's water lilly paintings, each at a different time of day. Here's a picture from inside of it...

One day, we decided to walk around near one of our favorite Metro stops, Odeon, and we stumbled upon the Luxembourg Gardens! It was cool to finally see the place that we had heard so much about. It was full of statues, flowers, and the lovely gravel that seems to make up most of Paris' "gardens." Needlesstosay, we loved it!

Near the beginning of our time here we were able to go up to the top of a building called Montparnasse, which is one of the most boring and ugly buildings in Paris so that is why you go up to the top floor of it so you can see a sky view of Paris without having it in the view...makes sense. Here is one of the shots we got...

We have also visited Socre Coeur, the tallest point in Paris that offers a great view as well! Surrounding it are a bunch of restaurants and cafes as well as artists that paint right in front of you.

Nick was in town for a few days and one of those day we got up early and headed out to Versailles. We didn't rent bikes, which was probably a poor decision on our part, but lets just say we got the work out of our lives walking around town. We went to the Market and got chicken, fruit, baguettes, cheese, and of course dried strawberries. Once we had our food we started our treck towards the Grand Canal which offered a beautiful view of the Chateau. Here we are on our picnic!

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, we have had so many visitors come and stay with us. Our last and final one (that was planned) was our friend from A&M, Bess! She had been studying in Spain for 6 weeks and headed our way once she was finished and we got to play for a few days. Currently, there is a carnival in the Tuilleries Gardens so naturally, we hit that up. We rode the best ride ever, the Air Swing, where we were taken up in swings and offered the most beautiful view of the Gardens, the Louvre, and the Eiffel Tower! We got some good pics...

This blog is getting long so we will end with a bunch of pictures of some of our other day trips that we have enjoyed. Below are pictures of the Head in the Hand statue, Arc de Triumph, St. Chapelle, and Napoleons apartments found in the Louvre.

We have had so much fun on our days off and we hope you have enjoyed seeing what we have been up to on our free time. On Saturday we will be heading to the exciting city of Barcelona! Stay tuned for an incredible blog post from that! Until then, Au Revoir!

-B and P

Fairytales

Bonjour, Patricia here! Last Wednesday I embarked on a wonderful four day vacation to England. After traveling from Paris to London, London to Taunton, and Taunton to Dunster, I arrived in the most picturesque, lovely town I have ever seen. Dunster is a tiny medieval village in the English countryside and the backdrop for the wedding I had traveled all day to be a part of.

I traveled to this faraway land to see Kimmy, sister of my childhood best friend Kristy Pearce, marry Keyes Clemons. It was so comforting to see Kristy at the train station and to spend time with the Pearce family over the weekend. I nearly cried when I saw the house and the beautiful land around it. The sight was indescribable. Below are the pictures from my time in Dunster with Kristy.

Knowle Manor – our home for the weekend. I had my own beautiful room with a view of the gorgeous countryside (horses included) outside my window.

After a full day of cooking and preparing for the wedding, I enjoyed a drink with KP on my 21^st birthday!

Kimmy was the most beautiful bride. Thank you so much for letting me be a part of your special day!

We took a trip to Stonehenge and couldn’t leave without doing the famous Kristy and Patricia pose! Here’s to another awesome trip with one of my oldest best friends!

A few hours in London was a perfect end to this fairytale trip. My favorite sight was Buckingham palace (thanks William and Kate)!

I couldn’t have asked for a better trip to England. I enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences between England and France. I feel so refreshed after this much-needed relaxation, and I’m ready to continue taking on Paris with the Fat Tire gang. Thank you again Pearce family!

Slumber-party

I will go ahead and preface this blog post by saying that it is Bethany writing. I am flying solo on this one, so bare with me! Patricia got up today at the crack of dawn and is headed to a wedding in London! I am sure a blog post about that will be headed your way when she returns.

Well, we have been living in our apartment for about a month now and so far we have had visitors for about 3/4 of that time. We like to compare ourselves to a local "Hostel," except for it is free and you don't have to share a room with a 60 year old Polish dude named Alfonz. But really, it has been so refreshing having new faces come in and out of our time here and it is great to be surrounded by little pieces of home.

Our first visitor was Georgia Pearce, one of our other roomies at Texas A&M. She was traveling with her family and decided to pop on over to Paris to spend some time with us! Thankfully, Patricia and I had opposite schedules so at least one of us got to hang with George at all times! We went on runs, walks, shopped, went sight-seeing, drank, and had a blast.

Here we are at one of our favorite bar spots called Dernier Metro. It is close to the shop so lots of people go there after work. It has great authentic French food, cheap beer, and the people who work there are so nice! (which is rare to find here in Paris, let me tell you)

The Metro is slowly becoming one of our best friends. More like a friend that we are really close to, but don't like spending time with and sometimes really hate. It costs close to $2 for every Metro ticket that you buy, which is A LOT. Also, its dark and the recirculated air is really bad for your pores. Anyways, it gets you from point A to point B, so who's complaining. However, I will say it is way more enjoyable when you get to ride the Metro with fun people like these girls! CHI-O till we DIE-O...can I get a hootie hoo?? I believe we were leaving a very nice French dinner at one of Katy and Sebastian's favorite places. Georgia tried Foie Gras and Escargot that night, proud moment.

One of my favorite memories of having Georgia here was the night we got caught in the rain. Allow me to pan out the scene: We were in the apartment and were craving something sweet so we walked around the neighborhood trying to find a bakery or something that would satisfy this itch. All the while the clouds were doing funky things and it started getting dark. We finally settle for two 8 Euro pints of ice cream (yes, folks, that is about $22 worth of ice cream). As we are walking back from this shop about a half mile away, the heavens open up and it was like someone just dumped a bathtub of water directly on us. Picture two American girls (in flip flops and v-necks) barreling down a Parisian street laughing so hard and trying to stay upright while sprinting all at the same time. It was incredible. Here we are once we finally made it back. Thanks George for that memory! (and yes, the ice cream was worth it)

Once we said bye to Georgia, we got two new visitors! Audrey (one of Patricia's besties from home) and Lacey (one of Audrey's friends she met while studying abroad). They were on vacation from their study abroad program in Florence and we were so blessed that they could come to Paris! I felt like I was working a lot of the time they were here, but I know they got to go to tons of Museums like the Louvre and Musee D'orsay and they also got to meet a ton of the people we work with!

And, obviously shopping was on the t0-do list! Here the three girls are at Champs Elysees, one of the best streets to shop down! The cool thing about this street is it connects Arc de Triumph to Place de Concorde, to the Tuileries Gardens, to the Louvre. All of those things are in one perfect line!

Here are Patricia, Audrey, and our other friend Baby Jack. He is a guide at Fat Tire and one of the funniest guys we have met. This picture was taken at the Moose, one of our favorite bars. It is a Canadian bar and English is spoken there (now you know why we like it so much!) Also, we get killer discounts on the drinks, which is always a plus!

One of the last nights Audrey and Lacey were here we went to this great French restaurant called Chez Gladines. There was a hefty wait, but the food was totally worth it. We all split a phenomenal salad and escargot, duh. For our meals, everyone accept Lacey (vegetarian) got duck! Who knew I would become such a fan of duck since being over here! Anyways, it was a great dinner with great company and such a success! Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, but I had to try and capture some of what we ate that night.

So we said "Bon Voyage" to Audrey and Lacey and "Bienvenue" to Veronica and Brittany! We loved having the two of them stay with us, they were such peaceful sleepers and easy going guests. Neither of them had seen the Eiffel Tower so it was such a fun thing to be able to walk them to it for the first time! Here we are at the beginning of possibly the most epic picnic ever.

Soon after that, the boys came! It was Ben, Andrew (Peaches), Chad (Brittany's BF), and Cameron (one of other friends who is traveling Europe this summer). All of which are Aggies! So basically we had a Hullabaloo kind of time (bahah, I crack myself up). Here are the girls in front of the Eiffel Tower when it was starting to light up. Again, pardon the awful quality.

Lastly, one of my other most favorite memories so far has been our dinner to the Refuge (a Fondue place). I would roughly compare the size of this restaurant to a shoebox. Kid you not. So, my knees were basically in my chest the whole time, but thats okay because it is all about the experience, right? One of the most unique parts of this restaurant is you are given wine in baby bottles! It was such a sight seeing everyone suck on baby bottles while cooking their meat for dinner. We had a blast that night and made memories I definitely wont forget!

So, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry for the extremely long blog post. I guess this is what happens when you sit Bethany in front of a computer screen for too long. I hope you have enjoyed it and it has been a blast reliving all of our visitors and the good times we got to share with them in the wonderful city of Paris!

Capture

So we have finally accepted the incredible fact that Paris is our new "temporary" home for the summer and we catch ourselves walking around town with our heads constantly up because there are so many amazing sights at every corner. We will never understand how people who live here could ever get used to the beauty and the architecture! Granted, there is a definite dirty side to Paris...but we wont focus on that :)

We have been snapping pictures left and right trying to capture the beauty of Paris, which is difficult on a 2x3 camera screen! Here are just a few of our pictures so far of our favorite sights around town that we wanted to share with everyone. Most of these we took on a Fat Tire Bike Tour!

Here we are in front of Iglesia De Dome (translation: The Dome Church)...the French get very creative with their names of things.

This is inside the courtyard of the Louvre Museum. You are surrounded on all sides with beautiful intricate walls and it rocks! We have yet to tackle the inside of the Louvre, but once we get a game plan and a few hours off we will definitely do that (and probably blog about it!)

Versailles is one of our favorite spots that we have visited. It is about a 25 minute train ride from our apartment and is one of the places that Fat Tire takes tours! We both went and highly suggest going if you are anywhere near Paris! Pictures never do it justice, so this artsy picture of a bike will have to do! There are so many things to do while there: you can go to the Market, The chateau, the gardens, Marie Antoinette's village/apartments, etc.

Here we are with our friend Ben, who is a fellow Aggie and one of the tour guides at Fat Tire! We took a day trip on bikes and wondered around town (dodging children, cars, and poodles all down the Champs Elysees). We ended up at the Arc de Triumph and got some cool pictures, probably because it was a beautiful day!

Notre Dame is definitely one of the coolest spots we have seen and it always makes for a cool picture. Love the gothic architecture!

We will leave you with a few of our prized pictures that we love! Again, we are so thankful to be living in such an incredible city with God's beauty evident at every sunset!

Au revoir for now :)

-B and P

Welcome to the Office!

As you know by now, we are working full time at Fat Tire Bike Tours this summer. If you want to find out more about what we do at Fat Tire (or even make a reservation!), here is the link to the website:

Fat Tire Bike Tours- Paris

We started training on May 26th and were thrown right into it! Summer is the craziest time of year for the office, so we have determined that we are getting "baptized by fire" and forced to learn things very quickly! It has been so neat getting to know our co-workers and meeting customers from all around the world. Both of us thrive on talking to people and learning about them -- this is the perfect job for us! Our favorite parts of the job are getting to work with incredible people and also running into familiar faces from home in the shop. Each day is totally different from the one before, and there are always good stories at the end of the day.

We love the office, the people and our experience at Fat Tire so far! Here are some pics of what we get to see every day-

Welcome!

Here is the "Office Staff" area where we spend most of our time checking e-mails, working the register, refilling all the merchandise, helping customers, and answering phones. We are real, working women!!

Here is our wall of t-shirts. It is rather intimidating and people spend about 10 minutes staring at it trying to pick which one to get!

Our new BFF's for the summer...

Part of our training was going on a few of the tours that we offer at FTBT (such hard work, we know). It was so fun getting to go on these 4 hour tours with each other and it gave us a chance to get to know the city a little better as well as the Tour Guide that we had!

Here we are on the Segway Tour with our oh-so-fabulous-helmets :)

We had tons of fun on the Bike Tours. We really tried to focus on becoming "one with our bikes..."

WE LOVE FAT TIRE BIKE TOURS!

Full Circle

Bonjour from Paris! We are happy to say that we arrived in Paris safely and soundly, and have begun the craziest, most incredible summer of our lives. Believe it or not, this is the first time we've been able to sit down and work on this blog. Our time has been nothing short of madness so far, but we've been looking forward to updating the blog and updating all of you on our time here so far.

Our first task of our summer in Paris was finding an apartment. After Bethany's parents left on May 24th, our sweet new Fat Tire friend Katy Culver took us under her wing and let us stay in her apartment. She and her awesome boyfriend Sebastien were so great to us during our apartment search and we had a great time getting to know them better.

After more than a week of searching, we finally found the perfect apartment in the 15th district. Below are a few pictures of our humble abode (we absolutely love it)!

In case you are wondering where the "bedroom" is...we have a Murphy bed that conveniently folds out from the wall on the right!

Our lovely little kitchen...

To alleviate any concerns, the little toilet looking thing in the picture is a "foot washer," not the dreaded "bidet" we thought it was...thank goodness (we are not ready to be that immersed in the French culture quite yet).

This is our view out of our window to the right. There is a metro stop right by our apartment, which is awesome and SAFE!! (thought of you Carrie/Bill and Barbara/Mike)

We are so happy to have a home!!

What the Westlake and Memorial girls learned from being homeless:

1. Showers aren't necessary every single day.

2. Couch beds are a God-send.

3. Baguettes make a great meal for two.

4. Calves form overnight when you power-walk 5 miles in 30 minutes.

5. Friendships strengthen when you sleep 1 inch from them for an extended period of time.

But when it really comes down to it...

1. We are so BLESSED to have roofs over our heads.

2. We have been BLESSED by two of the most loving, wonderful families.

3. We are BLESSED by our new Fat Tire family and their willingness to help us during this crazy time (thank you Katy and Sebby)

4. We are so BLESSED to have each other :)