So this last weekend I went to Paris and had the most AMAZING time!!! If you don't want to read a short novel about Paris, I suggest you stop reading now cause its gonna be a long one!
happy girls with their macaroons!
After getting back into Paris, we headed to Champs de Elysee, the famous shopping street with the Arch de Triumph at the end. It took me about 10 minutes of Emily and Jenna repeating the name of the street (which is pronounced chom ze lee ze) to finally get it right, but after we incorporated the name in a song, it was super easy! As we were walking up one side of the street, we noticed a super long line outside of Abercrombie... still don't know why but it was weird. When we made it to the arch, we sat under it for about 15 minutes because our guide for the tour on Friday said that statistically, a car accident happens every 15 minutes around the arch because there are no traffic rules! Unfortunately, the statistic wasn't happening when we were there, but we still got to see the Arch de Triumph!
such models!!
Thursday: Our trip to Paris didn't start off very well because we were of course running late. We basically had to sprint to the train station to catch our train to Pisa. From Pisa we caught a flight on RyanAir to Paris Beauvais which even though it may sound like it, is not in Paris. If anyone of yall have ever traveled RyanAir, then you can probably agree that flying on that airline is an experience in itself. Seriously though, its basically a circus with everyone pushing for seats and lots of extra charges if you forget your boarding pass/ your bag is too big/ you don't get your boarding pass stamped twice etc. When we landed at Beauvais, we had to take a 1 hr 15 min bus ride into Paris. We finally got into Paris around 11:15 pm and were surprised when the bus dropped us on a random looking corner. We knew the metro closed at 12 so we were definitely on a time crunch to figure out where a metro stop was/ how to navigate the metro/ how to get to our hostel. When we finally got on the metro, I was commenting to Sarah that it was so nice not to have to worry about creepy Italian guys in France, but I definitely spoke too soon. A few seconds later, some drunk french creepo was rubbing his hand on mine and trying to smooth talk me in French. The guys with us on our trip quickly surrounded me and he went away, but I really was not expecting French men to act how Italians do! Around 11:55 we finally got to St. Christophers Paris hostel which was a very welcome pleasant surprise! I was imagining that the hostel was going to be a hole in the ground motel type thing with nasty sheets, and rats on the ground but it was so different from what I had pictures. It was super clean, had a free breakfast, and had a bar and club in the hostel! It was so much fun staying there! After we got checked in and settled we all pretty much crashed. The biggest adjustment of the day was remembering to say thank you, excuse me etc. in French instead of Italian!
me and my super nifty travel backpack in the metro!
Friday: We woke up pretty early and headed down for breakfast around 8 which consisted of baguettes and cereal.. but it was free! At breakfast we met these Irish guys who had just stumbled in from the bars and were obviously in need of some sobering up and sleep! When they stood up to leave, one of them realized that the jacket he was wearing was not his own, and the other still hadn't noticed that he had no shoes on.. oh Irish guys, living the stereotype! Around 10 we met for a free walking tour of Paris which was sooooo awesome! Because the guides are working for tips, and the tours are meant for students traveling, they are so wonderful and it was a great way to get oriented with the city! Here are some highlights from the tour.. it was 3 hours so this is really just a few of the places we saw!
Lovers bridge: Big and Carrie rekindled their love here in the finale. Since that episode of Sex and the City, people come and put locks on the bridge with the loves and throw the key in the river
Bridge built by this party king who at one of his parties, had a sketch artist draw all of his friends drunk and having fun.. he thought the pictures were so funny that he had all of his friends heads immortalized on the bridge based on their drunken pictures
Louvre.. obv
everything in Paris is about symmetry, even the trees!
After our tour, we had lunch at a great little restaurant and then went to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time! It was so cool to see it in person again (the last time I was in Paris, I was 12) and we had a ton of fun taking pictures. At this point the group of 13 split up and me, Stephanie and Jenna went to get a cool view of the tower from across the river and had our first french crepes! OH MY GOSH, crepes are my new favorite food. They make them fresh at these little stands and you can put whatever you want in them. I had nutella and banana and it was seriously like a religious experience.. amazing. Here are some Eiffel tower pictures.. I have about 100!
making the crepe
EIFFEL TOWER!!
After we got our fill of crepes and the Eiffel tower, we took the metro over to the Louvre and met up with Natalie and Sarah. Because we are temporary EU citizens, we got in free at the Louvre (and a lot of other places in Paris) and there was NO line!! Also, for anyone traveling to Paris who isn't an EU citizen, on Friday nights if you are under 26 you can get in free from 6-9. I wish I had, had more time because there is a ridiculous amount of things to see at the Louvre! We saw the Mona Lisa (small but still had to see it) and walked through the rest of the Italian wing which was so cool. My favorite thing was definitely seeing Napoleons apartments which are set up like they were when he lived there. It was weird to think that Napoleon actually used the Louvre as his house... we kept joking that he would have to leave 20 minutes early to go from his bedroom to his kitchen. Seriously, the Louvre is HUGE! After about 2 hours, we met up with Sarah (different one) and Kaylen who had just gotten to Paris because they had class on Thursday and then went to dinner. Here are some Louvre pictures:
Napoleons salon
if anyone wants to get me a late birthday present...
KAYLEN IS HERE!
After dinner (around 10) we headed back to the apartment and hung out at the bar for a while. Staying at a hostel is like this huge collection of college aged kids from all different countries, which makes the hostel bar a pretty interesting place to sit! Around 1 am I was drained and called it a night... such a long and great day!
Saturday: This was definitely my favorite day in Paris! Around 10, Emily, Sarah, Jenna, Stephanie and I caught the metro/train to Versailles which I was SO excited to see! Upon arriving at Versailles, we stopped in a McDonalds for some coffee and warmth before heading up to the palace. Let me just say that France knows how to do McDonalds because it was so nice. It had a little bakery and the interior was like a nice cafe.
my cappuccino and macaroon
cool little tray thing at McDonald's
After our high class coffee break, we headed up to the palace which was seriously amazing. It was so much bigger than I could have imagined and so elaborate. No wonder the French people beheaded Marie Antoinette...the palace was ridiculous! We got in free at Versailles too which was awesome (tickets are about 24 euro) and had a free audio tour. Here are some pictures!
just the middle of the palace... seriously though its so huge!
hall of mirrors, so incredible!
Marie Antoinettes bedroom
After seeing the palace (the gardens were unfortunately closed because of the weather) we were feeling very Marie Antoinette and went back to McDonalds to get some macaroons for the train ride! They were realllllyyyy good.. and way cheaper than the ones at Laduree!
McDonalds bakery
happy girls with their macaroons!
After getting back into Paris, we headed to Champs de Elysee, the famous shopping street with the Arch de Triumph at the end. It took me about 10 minutes of Emily and Jenna repeating the name of the street (which is pronounced chom ze lee ze) to finally get it right, but after we incorporated the name in a song, it was super easy! As we were walking up one side of the street, we noticed a super long line outside of Abercrombie... still don't know why but it was weird. When we made it to the arch, we sat under it for about 15 minutes because our guide for the tour on Friday said that statistically, a car accident happens every 15 minutes around the arch because there are no traffic rules! Unfortunately, the statistic wasn't happening when we were there, but we still got to see the Arch de Triumph!
such models!!
When we were walking back down the other side of Champs de Elysee, we ran into one of the guys, Nick, who had shared a room with some of the TCU kids the first night in the hostel. He is from Australia and is the most flamboyant, funny kid ever! It felt so cool to run into people we knew in Paris... we are such international travelers! After getting our fill of shopping and the cold, we took the metro back to the Eiffle tower area for dinner. I got a croquet monsieur (very french, or so I'm told) and we tried escargot. Unfortunately, my camera died at the Arch de Triumph, but the other girls took a bunch of pictures! Then we walked outside just in time to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle (it does so every hour on the hour after dark) which was a truly magical experience. It felt like I was in a movie standing with a crepe and watching the tower sparkle! If you have never seen it, you should watch this youtube video of it because it is so cool! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEofyytUWFs
After hanging around the tower for a while (again I wish I had pictures, but my camera died) we headed back to the hostel and hung out at the bar again. We met a group of fun Irish guys who once again, held up the stereotype of Irish men very well. I went to bed around 2:30 and slept like a rock!
Sunday: We got an early start on Sunday because we only had a half day to do things before our flight home later that day. Jenna, Stephanie and I took the metro to the Notre Dame area and first went to the Sainte Chapelle cathedral which was absolutely breathtaking. The cathedral is about 70% stained glass and is seriously beyond words. My little coolpix camera does NOT do it justice at all, but here is a picture!
one of the windows, there were 14 in total surrounding the entire cathedral
one side of the cathedral... sorry, its the best coolpix could do!
After the cathedral, we moved on to another cathedral that yall might have heard of, the Notre Dame! It was so cool because mass was going on when we went to visit it! It definitely added to the experience and I was really glad we had accidentally come at that time! Compared to the Sainte Chapelle, the Notre Dame isn't as breathtaking, but it was still so cool to see it!
Side note about the Notre Dame that we learned on our tour: around 1820, the cathedral was falling apart and no one really cared about it anymore. They were thinking about tearing it down and building another one until the novelist Victor Hugo wrote the Hunchback of Notre Dame in an attempt to save the cathedral. He used the novel to make the people of Paris fall back in love with it and saved it from destruction!
mass inside the Notre Dame
After the Notre Dame, we went to Musee d'Orsay which unfortunately had a line to get in, but at least we got in free! It was SO cold and I thought my feet were getting frost bite, but it was so worth it once we got inside. The museum is an old train station and the building itself is worth seeing, let alone all the artwork inside of it! It has an amazing collection of impressionist art like Monet, Renior etc. I literally had 30 minutes inside so I was taking the museum at a run, but it was still better than not seeing it at all! After the museum, we grabbed a quick lunch and then booked it back to the hostel to get our stuff and catch the bus to the airport! We got to the bus stop about 20 minutes too late and had to take a taxi to the airport (about 25 euro a person...) but it all worked out in the end! I finally got home around 11 pm and have never been happier to be in Florence. It was such an exhausting weekend but so amazing and wonderful! Definitely a great first trip this semester! Heres one last picture from the train ride home :)
I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep right now because I had to stay up and study for a quiz today so I'm going to take a nap now, but I will update yall again mid week on everything going on in Florence! LOVE YOU ALL!!
xoxo
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