Japanese street fasion event in Paris "La vie en rose" - Friday

Though I have exams to write at the moment, in november my friend Natalie and me decieded to go to Paris this weekend for "La vie en rose", an event for japanese street fashion, that also includes lolita fashion. Or should I say almost only lolita fashion? But I should start at the beginning.

Friday

As the event was going to be on saturday we went to Paris on friday by Thalys. As the only train departing from Essen and not Cologne was around 5:30 I persuded Natalie to take the train departing two hours later. As I didn't wanted to begin the day stressed because I would had to get up really early.
So we just had to go to Cologne with the normal trains. That was what I thought.
But the Deutsche Bahn decieded to get me stressed as hell by just decieding to completly cancel the train from my hometown to Cologne and leaving me no other choise than to take the car to be there on time. Thank you Deutsche Bahn. I love when this happens...
I never expected them to just cancel the train as there are so many people travel to work by train. But that's my hometown: it isn't important enough to have trains that actually are on time or even depart.
So I quickly got into the car and drove to Cologne. 40 Minutes left lane. Luckily there weren't that many cars on the highway at that time and I managed to be there about 10 minutes before the train departured. The journey was about to begin.

In thalys you get the seat reservation with your ticket (not like Deutsche Bahn, die Penner).  But I was very disappointed that there had only been a half of a window next to my seat.

Only half of a window :(

But the drive was good. Natalie took so much to eat with her that I survived the three and a half hours. I wanted to buy something at Cologne train station but as I was late, we rather wanted to get the train than buy me some food.
The train goes from Cologne to Aachen, then trought Beligium to Paris. We both expected Beligium to be more like the Netherlands with tiny houses. Everything was more like in France. There were old houses, that looked really old, as there had been done nothing on the front for too many years and among them big office biuldng with fronts made of glass. It was a strange view.

We arrived in Paris on time. But there was the next problem: I only knew the street where our appartment was, not the number. I knew it had to be on the beginning of the street but not which side. And it was raining. But I had an umbrella with me.
We met up with Leo at the train station and headed to the street where our appartment was supposed to be. Unluckly I decieded to take the wrong side.
As a helpful man, opened us the door of house number 2, we knew this was the wrong house, as on the door bells inside there wasn't the name of our hirer.
Yes, in Paris the door bells aren't outside the building, you have to go in there to ring! On the front door theres only a little numeric keypad, where you have to enter the right code to get in. On every single house! French...

So we switched sides to the number 3 where you could see the door bells tough the window. As we didn't knew the code we were lucky that a family living there arrived by the time and let us in, so we could ring.
Despite of our terrible french, the hirer came down. He was an old man, and was very confused at the beginning, but when he checked his papers, he knew who we were and led us to our appartment.
It was light, big and warm and as it was on the seventh floor you had a great view over Paris. We could see the Eifel tower from there. Seem like this is the main thing an appartment in Paris must have. It's a light house at night.

View from our apprtment

We went to the "Baby the stars shine birght" store and the "Axes femme" store that day. On Baby I saw three dresses that I loved, but each one was too expensive. So I spend most of the money I took with me at Axes femme. I was heavily breathing when I entered. So many clothes that are just my style. I want one in my city. Now!
I spend about 200 euros for a coat and two blouses. The dresses didn't fit me that well and my friends holded me back from buying more things like a backpack or a knit jacket.
We later heared that the shop assisants didn't know that so many lovers of japanese street fashion were in town that weekend. I think we all together nearly managed to buy out the whole shop.
In both stores we met other lolitas, but hadn't much time to chat, as we had little time and needed more to try on the clothes.
Afterwards we had a Crépe at Princess Crépe, also a very famous location for lolitas and then went to the venue where the event was going to happend the next day.
All the time it was raining. I was still glad I had an umbrella. With it, the rain wasn't that bad.

So after we finally got rid of Leo (Just kidding he had to go to his appartment) we went to do a bit of sight seeing.
I quickly noticed that my first impression of Paris at the afternoon was now completly turned around. Paris at day is dirty, ignorant and poor. But Paris at night is more quiet and really beautiful.
I think it's because in the dark you can't see the dirt and are reminded of a Paris that was once beautiful. Also there are less people on the streets and everything is lighted.

Arc du triomph

As the arc du triomph seemed to be nearby, we decied to have a look. It wasn't that close, as the building is far more bigger than it looks from the distance. Inside the arc du triomph is a little museum and you can go to the top, where you have a breathtaking view over Paris. Especially by night. You can see in every direction an the view differs from which street you are looking at.
This one was very impressive. It seems to be the bank quater of Paris, but at night and with the high buildings lighted and seeming symetric to the street it looked like it was from a science fiction movie.

View from arc du triomph

And for sure you could see the Eifel tower from up there. We couldn't get rid of the view but it was freezing tough the rain stopped, so we went to the Eifel tower afterwards.
It was the best decision to go there by night. It also was so impressive.

Golden Eifel tower

It's huge! I never expected it to be that big nor that pretty. Lighted at night it seems golden and from time to time it starts to sparkle *.* There are little lamps on it which go on and off with an offset.
I also felt homelike as it was a huge steel construction like the industry in the Ruhrgebiet with their furnances.

We returned to our appartment exhausted and hungrry. So we found a kebab shop near our appartment where we ate the best kebab and chicken sandwich of our whole life. Or visit.. Though the fries could have needed more salt... or at least some salt.
After we had our stomaces filled, we fell into bed as we had to got up early the next day.