Noon

Spent the weekend in beautiful Paris with beautiful Marion!
I had an incredibly wonderful time. This weekend was all about seeing my sister from another mister. For those who don't know, Marion Destoop stayed with my family my senior year in high school as an exchange student. She's from Lille, France and is one of my most favorite people in the whole world. We haven't seen eachother in over a year, so it was so nice to have a whole weekend together.
I got to Paris early Friday morning and met Marion at the station. We took the train to Versailles, since we were able to stay with her sister and her sister's husband, Fanny and Alex. Fanny and Alex's flat is literally 5 minutes from Chateau de Versailles. It is such a beautiful town and their flat was extremely comfortable. We were very lucky to have stayed there. After dropping our stuff off, we went back into Paris and out to lunch. Just stopped at a random cafe and had delicious food. After that, we treated ourselves to a few hours at a hammam at the Mosquee de Paris. The hammam is a sauna, turkish style. There are 3 rooms, progressively getting hotter. The middle room has little niches you can lay in and the most beautiful mosaics. On Friday, only women were allowed, so it was really nice to just have a bunch of women hanging out and purifying their bodies. The hottest of the saunas was almost unbearable. It made your eyes and throat burn when you breathed in deeply, but it felt so good. After the sauna, we went for a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens, then I went and got my nose pierced(I like it a lot). We went back to Versailles and had a very nice dinner with Fanny and Alex.
On Saturday, we woke up to fresh chocolate croissants. Marion and I spent the morning at the Musee d'Orsay with all of the Impressionists. We had a picnic lunch in a park, and did a little shopping in the afternoon. That evening, we got dressed up and went to the Opera Garnier!!!! We say Joyeux(Jewels), a ballet with three acts: Emeralds, Rubies, and Diamonds. The ballet was so graceful and the Opera Garnier was more than I imagined. I thought the Phantom would appear at any moment. We went out for a lovely dinner after and to the bars.
On Sunday morning, once again we were greeted by croissants. We stuck around Versailles, went for a walk, and had another delicious lunch with Fanny and Alex. It was raining out, but we still went to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur.
It was such a good time. Fortunately, Marion and her parents are coming to Rome in a few weeks, so I get to see her again!
It's a rainy week here, but that's ok, because I still live in ROME!!!!!!!