that one day paris rocked my world.

[sam and annie in the metro. doesn't it look like annie's a little person on a shelf? i love it.]

okay, so i just went to normandy for the weekend.....

and didn't bring my laptop....

so yet again, i am way behind in blogging.

not that you guys even know the difference.

but i do.

and it's killing me, slowly but surely.

so hopefully i can get up to speed before conference tonight [9 hour time diff, peeps.]

last saturday was probably one of the best days of my life. no, i did not get married and no, i did not have a baby. and yes, it still was one of the best days.

why, you ask?

four words: antique shopping. dance party.

those words basically are the epitome of michelle dastrup.

well, that and "food". and "freakin' hot dime piece", but whatever.

[this bad boy went on for miles. i think. that's what my leg muscles told me, at least.]

we decided the night before while we were on our way to watch the eiffel tower twinkle that we would go to the antique market that a few of the girls had raved about in bastille. i was way excited because ever since i've bought that army green thick shirt, i've been wanting to find some antique pins and army patches to put on it. and i told myself that that was all i was allowed to buy. yeah right seriously though.

 our little group was me, sam, tiff, hailey, and annie. we got a little lost for a bit trying to find the market, but then found it, and i proceeded to get ripped off by a darn french lady whilst buying some earrings. ["...decided to rip off by the american public! george banks is saying NOO! who's george banks?.....ME!" <--if you don't know already, i'm one of those people who's a movie quoter. you'll learn to embrace it just as the others have. i only wish jit could join me on this one.]

ANYWAYS, here are my earrings that i'm pretty sure my grandma biasi already owns that i could steal from her house [if i could ever find them in her house/want to go back to her house/sneak them past the crazy lady herself...and by crazy lady, i mean uncle david. yeah, i went there. don't ask.]

[my clip-on earrings i bought. please don't ask me how much i paid for them because it's incredibly embarrassing. i plead the 5th. okay, 10 euro for one pair and 5 euros for the other. i'm not kidding. in my defense, i think i forgot that you're allowed to barter here? and the fact that she initially gave me a lower price as i was sorting through the earrings? not that any of this really does benefit my argument. dang dang dang. oh well, i've bounced back since.]

we kept walking down the line, looking at all the vintage postcards, stamps, clothes, purses, furniture, everything for the next couple hours. it was pure bliss/heaven for me...i don't know why, but i enjoy buying really old things just as much as i enjoy buying really new things. i'm not even gonna ask, because i already know that's a little strange. and i've accepted that.

[our newest obsession. vintage stamps from all over da place, man.]

[adorable little old postcard.]

["combien ça coûte?" was the phrase of the day, basically meaning "how much does this cost?". for some reason, i kept saying "comment ça se coûte?" which probably gets my point across still, but made me laugh when i realized it was wrong. also, me and sam had fun picking up random things like leaves and being all serious asking how much it was. priceless.]

we got some major hungriness in us, so we decided to get some delicious looking pizza [seriously, we stared down a couple eating it through the window.]. it was busy like crazy in there, but no big deal because we had hottie mchottie as our waiter. we did have to wait a bit though, 

so yeah, picture time.

we decided to play a game where you have to look all serious like you're starving.

 [annie was good.]

[i was better. also, ignore my hunched sitting. i don't really have a kegger for a stomach. kinda.]

[tiffykins at her finest.]

[this one's for the books. she's seriously gonna hurt someone, she's that hungry. "cher" "i am NOT sharing" "no, cher like expensive."]

finally, the food came. and i took a picture of everyone's pizza because it all looked so good. and i want to make you all jealous.
mine:

["i'm just gonna get a margarita". it basically tasted like cheese pizza, but with delicious stella rossa-like crust and the most delicious spicy olive oil i've ever had. seriously, i get so excited when they put the bottle of that liquid gold on the table.]

annie's:

[spicy sausage? i believe. and there's always that random olive they love to throw on the pizza.]

sam/tiff's:

[blechhh all kinds of nasty. i'm just not really a fan of mushrooms and artichoke hearts. i do love me some ham and olives and cheese though. everything else can burn.]

yeah, i ate mine all gone. i have no shame. it's especially sad when you have a hot waiter coming and checking on you every couple of minutes and you've downed your pizza. and then you ask to get a picture with him.

[ricardo was his name, and italian speaking was his game. this picture doesn't do him justice though, he was a fine piece of......work.]

funny story: the whole time, sam kept telling me to say "i miei piedi puzzano" which she said means "i want a picture" or something like that in italian [don't ask me why i believed that.], so when he came over to give us the check, i asked him [in english] if we could get a picture with him because i couldn't remember the italian saying even though i had practiced it a couple times. he said yes, and then i remembered the saying and said "oh, i mean 'i miei piedi puzzano'". he looked at me weirdly and shook his head saying "no that's wrong" and i asked sam what i really just said and she laughed and said it really meant "my feet stink". yep. so i asked the hot italian for a picture and then warned him right after that my feet stink. classiness in a jar, if you ask me. i'll get that little devil child back.

we continued to shop around for a couple more hours and i found my awesome pins/patches that i was looking for. i'm still wanting to get a couple more, but it's a start.

[tadaaaa. pretty proud of myself for them. especially because by the end of our shopping, i got way better at bartering aka actually attempted bartering instead of accepting their sky-high prices. i still need to figure out how i want to organize them on my army shirt.]

 then decided to head over to hôtel de ville, because there was a dance/dinner at the lds institute that night [free food, whaaa?]. we got in the area a little early, so we went and sad in this grassy courtyard area by a gorgeous building/church/cathedral/who know's what, obviously.

[don't really know how to define this thing. it's gorgeous though!]

[see, no kegger. okay, maybe i shoved it to the side for this picture, gosh.]

[there's that dramatic gothic detail that makes my heart swoon. i want this crap on my future house.]

[i believe this is right after we saw a couple making out. we don't care. we're not jealous. hiiii dad.]


after our little break in the garden, we headed over to the instute, but we were still a little early. what's a girl to do? get amorino, duh.

[coconut, carmello, and nutella. boom baby. i believe i will keep them in business for the time being. and smuggle one of the workers home with me so they will make a "moyen cornetto" filled with love whenever i want. i'll put them right next to my random french hot croissant-making husband. yeah, that'll work.]


then we went back for dinner [there definitely was a lot of pasta salad. the mormon food never changes, even in a different country.] and dancing. dancing was a little awkward at first because the lights were all the way on and they were playing french music that nobody knew. and there was nobody in there but us. but obviously we're so cool and pumped up the party and eventually, it was pretty hoppin'.


and because i'm so awesome, i managed to score some vip footage of the event:

[note: do not watch if you can't handle really good dancing and singing on my part. it may blow your mind seeing this.]


it was seriously one of the funnest dances ever, is that sad? just because the french people would be dancing all boring and a couple of us would go into their circles and start dancing and they'd get all excited and start yelling and clapping. i loved it! it was so fun to just dance around and be crazy again.


a few of us decided to leave a little early and go to la defense to watch a fireworks show that maddie and courtney had told us about. it took awhile to head out there, plus we were super confused when the metro took us inside a mall and we had to find out way out as the show started. we were literally running up stairs and all over the place, trying to find a freaking exit to watch them works of fire. 
and finally, that we did.

[magnificent.]

[just beautiful.]


it was absolutely amazing. really though, i always feel like when fireworks go off, i get goosebumps and am just so overwhelmed with how pretty it is. i really almost did cry, is that sad? i think it's because the music with all of the big bursts of color is too much for me, but in a good way. i have a big connection with music because i've heard it my whole life, so when it's really good and grandiose, it emotionally moves me. i love it though.


all in all, can you understand why it was one of the best days ever for me? it was jam-packed with more goodness than most saturdays i've ever had, that's for sure. i'm really loving and appreciating how paris has so much life to it. you can go about ten minutes from one position and be in an entirely different-looking and feeling situation than what you were in. there's so many different moods and feels to this place, which i love, because i feel like there are so many different sides to me and things that i love. and paris just seems to satisfy them all.