A bachelor or bachelorette party in France is called an “Enterrement de vie de fille/garçon”which means “burial of the life of a young girl/boy”…meaning the end of the young innocent life. While many of us don’t get married right on the verge of adulthood anymore, it is still a title that sticks for a tradition that is upheld. In France they have quite the shoking way (to me at least) of celebrating this moment. Most french people uphold this tradition with earnest efforts of getting the bride or groom-to-be pissing drunk and horribly embarrassed. The usually put on some silly costume or mask of some sort, something terrible and atrocious, and they have to go around trying to “collect” kisses from all sorts of strangers in addition to getting blind drunk and doing all sorts of dares. The thought of this doesn’t make me feel really enthusiastic at ALL! So this obviously not being my cup of tea, I entrusted my friends to invent something different… something a little bit more my style.

And thanks to my dear friend Alexia who organized it all, I had the most perfect bachelorette day ever!

It started with a fun and girly picnic on the green of the Jardin de Luxembourg, complete with champagne and a home made cake with love! The sun was out and shining brightly, there were families with beautiful pudgy kids running around the grass, we had lunch and one of those moments when you say, “thank goodness I live in this beautiful city!”

Next we headed to a beauty salon for a “fish spa” where you dip you feet in an aquarium of fish for “exfoliation”. Apparently it’s all the rage in Asia. I have to admit, it was a rather odd concept, and I wouldn’t have tried it on my own, but I was glad to not be the girl who came in wearing a snorkle and mask with ten of her drunkest friends on her bachelorette party. She had a fake-it-till-you-make-it-I’m-trying-to-enjoy-myself smile plastered on her face. We let the fish have their fun and ended up just chatting like in any old beauty salon… Every so often I would look down at my feet and make a face, then giggle since it tickled!

And then…and then… I was whisked over towards the Bastille to a place called the Villa Thai. A place of calm and peace and quiet, and relaxation where we were massaged by little Thai women with a lot of force, for an hour and a half! I felt like a marshmallow afterwards. It was by far THE BEST massage of my entire life. I think I want to live there part time…that’s how wonderful it was. If you want a serious massage in Paris, go there.

Then we had some pre-dinner cocktails where we saw another poor soul, this time from the other team, celebrating the end of his youth in an inflated Santa suit that his friends made him wear. I couldn’t resist asking for a picture!

Dinner was at a place I have been wanting to go to for some time now and have never seemed to get there, the Blue Elephant. Where we ate delicious Thai food (a theme seemed to run throughout the day!) and enjoyed some funny laughs about our poor waitress’ name… Porn. That was her name. No kidding.

I would like to thank my girlfriends again for a delightful day that was perfect, fun, girly and for NOT EMABARRASSING ME!!! Some French traditions I am glad not to partake in.