You know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?: September 2013

Friday, I came.

Saturday, I saw.

But before we get to the sites, I'll explain to you a little something about Italy and coffee.

Natalie and I headed to a little place right near her apartment to eat breakfast. She recommended I try this thing that was like a croissant, but filled with a custard of some sort.

Not bad, but I think the French have the pastry game on lock.

But let's talk about coffee.

So Natalie and I went to order, and I was up. I even chuckle thinking about it now.

I stuttered latte to the guy behind the counter (who was really nice), and Natalie cut me off

and said "una cafe latte."

She turned to me.

You just ordered milk, she said.

Ohhh, so latte is milk in Ital—ohh.

It was a learning experience. I felt like such a foreigner (I obviously am, but ya know).

Anyways, we got our coffee and my-oh-my it was a masterpiece.

Just, lawd. It came in a big mug and was all cute and geez.

Between the two of us (we both got pastries and coffee) the meal hardly came to two euros (if that much, I forget).

Walking out of the place, Natalie explained to me places like that are the reason why Starbucks could not survive it Italy.

She right tho.

I mean, why on earth would you pay for expensive-ass Starbucks when that exists?

Like, really. They could devote a whole SNL "Really!?!" skit to that.

Oh and before I forget, I stopped and marveled at the Coke.

I saw a bunch of names on the cans, and Natalie was wondering why I found it so interesting.

Don't they have that in France?

In hindsight–yes, but up until that point I'd never seen it before.

On the cans were Random Italian names. Davide, for example. Natalie explained to me the idea.
Basically, the cans said "share with" *insert name*. Really neat idea. I haven't seen that form of advertising in the U.S. Am I being weird here or is it a thing?

So now to the sites.

We hopped on the tram and—wait.

I need to discuss the bus police.

This has to be done.

So, in Paris, I was used to taking the metro everywhere. I took the bus a couple of times, but I hadn't even seen any trams in France so far.

With Natalie, we went places by tram or bus.

And the thing is, really, you're supposed to buy this card or something that lasts a certain amount of hours on the tram or bus, and you have to swipe it when you go on.

But nobody does that.

I mean, it helps the government of course, so a couple of good citizens will swipe it and leave others with a twinge of shame (who am I kidding? They probably don't care).

Anyways, so technically you have to get the card swiped every time you walk on.

Here's what happens if you don't.

Nothing.

Well, if you're lucky.

The workers for whatever the system is called will sometimes randomly hop on a stop and check everyone. If you didn't get it swiped, say hello to a fat fine.

Hence, the bus police.

I didn't encounter any in my short time there, but be on the look out. They're vigilant...

So eventually we hopped off the bus to the area with the major sites. Now, Natalie is a history major, so even on the bus she was my own personal tour guide, telling me the "his" stories behind everything (lesbehonest it was a man's world back then).

It was hard to retain everything (sorry Natalie), but I did get one thing from this impromptu history lesson:

She really hates Stalin.

And moving on (this post might be longer than I anticipated. Oops).

So, Natalie and I were walking, and we ended up in front of the forum. We were thinking prices; deciding if it was worth it to pay to go in (might have been 10€ or 15€. I don't know).

Suddenly, a tall lady with tan olive skin approached us.

She was advertising a tour company that gave access to the forum and Coliseum for 40€.

We politely declined, but she was persistent (and nice) so we got to talking.

We explained we're both broke AF college students (this simile makes no sense unless you regularly eat ramen and don't (and cannot afford to) have a car.

But Jenna, you're studying abroad?

Yeah, with money I saved up from three different jobs and loans from Uncle Sam.

But, I digress.

Somehow, tour lady found out I was studying in France, and I found out she's French (can't remember which came first).

We spoke French for like a second. (Basically "Tu parles français?" Some response from me. Some response from her. Back to English for me).

Granted, I understood her if my memory serves me correct, so that was cool.

Anyways, back to prices.

She said the lowest she could go is 35€.

Natalie and I wanted to talk it over by ourselves for a minute and get back to her later, but the tour would be soon and we had to go with her to the office to pay.

Natalie told her we were in, and you know what?

I'm glad she did (hashtag hindsight).

But I did worry (if we're going to talk about the moment).

We followed her to the office, paid our euros, and I began think about how much money I just spent.

Never a good idea.

Natalie and I waited outside the office for the tour to start. It ended up being us, a group of aussies (God that accent), I think a family from the UK and our tour guide, who was also from the UK.

While we were waiting for the tour guide and the UK family (they had to work something out), one of the aussies turned toward us.

He said something along the lines of how much did they scam you for?

I told him 35.

He told us a guy originally told them 55 euros, until they haggled down to 35.

Dang.

Guess we got the nice one.

Anyways, we waited in the hot sun. Italy was way hotter than France. I know geographically it's a given, but I just wanted to tell you all.

I loved it, of course.

Eventually the tour started, and we headed for the Coliseum. We stopped at some incline with the amazing structure in view as the tour guide began to tell us about the history, a lot of which I didn't know/forgot.

I was so glad for the refresher.

Part of the tour was being able to skip the line into the Coliseum, so we walked straight in, and

let-me-tell-you

IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME.

I WAS AWED. STUNNED. AMAZED.

OVEREXAGGERATING?

MAYBE (I PERSONALLY DON'T THINK I AM).

BUT I WAS SO IMPRESSED.

Being able to walk inside the Coliseum, where so much history took place—I loved it.

He told us all about the seating in the Coliseum, how women generally weren't in any seats of honor unless you're one of the vestil virgins.

He was going to give us a hypothetical scenario. He turned to the only girl in the aussie group, and said something like, now let's say you're one of the vestil virgins...

Yeah right! shouted one of the aussie guys, and everyone started laughing.

Needless to say, it was an interesting tour.

It ended at the forum, and we went our separate ways. Natalie and I walked by a building, and she casually remarked it was where Peter and Paul were imprisoned.

WHAT!?? REALLY!??

I FREAKED OUT.

SO MF COOL.

SNFLANSLVKFNMDL;VMGDAJO

I don't know, actually being able to see firsthand the stuff I read about in the Bible—it was amazing. So Cool.

Cool, cool, cool.

I took pics of course.

Anyways, after that we headed to a nearby cat sanctuary.

What is that, you might ask?

A sanctuary.

For cats.

Unwanted cats chill there. Natalie said it's been called "Kitty City." People work there and take care of the cats. On the inside, the ceiling is really low. Like, sorry Lebron, you're not getting in here.

Anyways, after that we headed for linner? I dunno, it was like 4 but we were starving so yeah.

And the next thing I'm going to tell you is...

Well...

I think I had horse.

OK maybe not.

But really though.

I ordered spaghetti at the place we went to, and it tasted all right, but like I told you all before, I can be a bit of a red-blooded Ron Swanson, meat-eating American, so I know what beef tastes like.

That did not taste like beef.
In fact, it did not even look like beef.

I asked Natalie.

Yeah, it was beef.

"beef."

My mind immediately went to the whole horse-meat-sold-as-beef scandal that had been going on fairly recently in Europe.

but I was hungry as *insert decent comparison* so rest assured I ate that horse up.

OK really maybe I'm just weird maybe it was beef.

Later that night, I got to see the Parthenon, and I saw the most beautiful view of St. Peter's Basilica.

My-oh-my. It was just beautiful. I know, I need to find better adjectives, but it was just breathtaking.

Italy at night is the real deal. Like, take me to the highest hill in Rome and show me the view of St. Peter's Basilica so I know it's real.

Too broke for our original plan to go to a bar, Natalie and I decided to head back to her place afterward. She mentioned earlier that she liked certain aspects of the bar scene over there...

"The main thing is if you tell them to fuck off, they'll fuck the fuck off."

That's my friend, folks.

Anyways, we headed back via tram.

And oh God.

It was packed. The most crowded I have ever been on any form of public transportation in my life. Some of you might be familiar with the expression "packed like sardines."

Well, I lived it.

It was "literally" so close, you couldn't hold on to anything, but you didn't lose your balance. The mashing of body against body, flesh against flesh, kept us all in place like cattle.

No space at all. Never experienced anything like that in Paris. No, not even in Paris.

Not so fun fact:

It's ridiculous how easy it is to get low-key groped by some creep when the tram is that crowded.

P.S.
Sorry for the language. I'm assuming so few people are reading this by now the ones left are the ones who won't care. I don't really see the point in censoring my own blog (hashtag First Amendment?). Plus, we can all assume *** = uck.

P.S.S.
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