J'aime Paris!

Yup, I’m pretty horrible at keeping up with this whole blog thing. Sorry! Ever since spring break I have been having problems with getting pictures and having time to sit down and write it. Alas, I am finally going to tell you all about Paris…a month later! Anyways….here it goes…

We left for Paris on Thursday March 29^th at around 1PM. Nothing really happened this day. We spent a lot of time at the airport and then once we flew into Paris we had about an hour and a half bus ride to town to get to our hostel. It was really sort of magical to ride in at night. My first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower was at night, when it was all lit up. It was beautiful. It’s one of those things that you have always dreamed of seeing in person and was skeptical of if it was really real cause you always see it on TV and movies and paintings and then when you actually see it in person, it just hits you like a ton of bricks and it takes your breath away. It was great!

Our hostel was pretty nice. I mean, it was nice for being a hostel. 

The beds were not comfortable and had strange sheets and comforters on them, and the bathroom was kind of gross looking, but actually it was nice. I found it really funny that their toilet paper was pink. It was kind of weird though at the same time. Anyways, we were split up into 2 rooms and we got together that night and decided on everything that we wanted to do over the next 2 days.

The next day we started our Paris adventures! We got started at around 9AM and figured out the metro system for first time. The metro is awesome! It is so efficient and easy to use….even I knew how to work it, that’s how easy it is. The metro is so fast too! We never had to worry if we missed out metro train because, literally 2 minutes later another one was there. It was so great and easy to use the whole time we were there. We were also able to buy a 2 day, unlimited metro pass for only like 15 euro or something like that. It was definitely worth it cause we used the metro for absolutely everything.

Our first stop was The Louvre. Wow! It is amazing! I could have spent all day in there.

 I’ve always enjoyed looking at art work and in museums, but I usually get kind of sick of them after a while, but not in this place. I really enjoyed it. It was so interesting to see and they had so much beautiful artwork in there. I love how they had it structured too. It was all just so perfect. Of course we had to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus, and the Cupid. The Mona Lisa was much smaller than what I ever expected it to be. 

It was actually kind of funny because you walk into this room and the painting are ginormous! They are taking up the entire wall and then directly across from the largest painting in there is the Mona Lisa which is like the size of 1 or 2 pieces of computer paper. The crowd in that room was nuts! I felt like I was in a mosh pit, it was crazy crowded! I could see the Mona Lisa through the whole in the wall of people every now and then and I had to fight my way to the front. It was totally worth it though. It truly is an amazing piece of artwork. It was pretty much the same thing with the crowds for the Venus and the Cupid. 

They were all equally amazing to see in person. I cant even explain the feeling you get of amazement when you are there in person looking at these masterpieces that you have only seen in pictures in textbooks and on TV. It was really amazing. We made the decision together before we went in that we would all go see those 3 things and then leave because the Louvre is so huge and amazing that any of us could have spent all day there and we had a lot more to see!

As we were getting ready to leave we noticed that 2 of the girls had gotten separated from the rest of us and we had no idea where they had gotten separated. So we decided that we would just go outside and meet them by the glass pyramid and hope that they would find us. After about half an hour we finally found them. It was beautiful outside by the glad pyramid. It was really cool to see these older looking buildings and then al of a sudden right in the middle of it all there was this really modern looking pyramid all made out of glass. It was awesome! Such a sight to see!

Then we were on the Arc de Triomphe!! On our way there we decided to do a little shopping!....of course! We found some cute little stores to go into and of course did a little souvenir shopping! Cant go anywhere without getting touristy souvenirs! As we were walking away from the shopping center we could see the Arc in the distance! Wow!...again! Everything about Paris is just so ….Wow! I don’t know a better word than that to say! It was so huge!

 I didn’t expect it to be so huge I don’t think…well I didn’t really know what to expect with it, but it exceeded every expectation I could have possible had. The closer we got the more astonished I would get. It was so massive and once you got close you could see all the detail and to think of it being built, it was nuts! I loved being directly under it. It made you feel so small and that you were somewhere really important…it sounds kind of silly, but that is how it made you feel. It was gorgeous! But we had to keep going…so much to do…so little time!

Our next stop was The Champs-Élysées…and of course, it was amazing and beautiful! We wondered on it for a little while and did some more shopping! Then while I was waiting on the rest of the girls to get out of a souvenir shop this older and bigger man came up to me and started to speak French to me and I was just like “umm, no French.” And so he asked if I was American and I told him that I was and he was like “Oh my, you are so beautiful! I just love you! I love you!” and I was like “uuuummm, okay, thanks?” He then asked if he could take a picture with me and asked if I had a camera so I lied and said I didn’t have one and so then he asked if he could kiss me! So I told him “uhm, no I don’t think so, Im okay.” Haha and he grabbed my hand and kissed it and then told me how he loved me again and then finally left. I decided it was not a good idea to stand by myself anymore so I went back inside haha.

Then…the one thing I was the most excited to see (next to the Eiffel Tower of course) was …The Moulin Rouge!!!! AHHHHHH! I was such a happy camper when I saw the Moulin Rouge! It was absolutely amazing…words cant even describe how happy I was! 

I was just so giddy and happy! It was like I was living my favorite movie! I was great! I really wanted to go into a show there and originally I was planning on it, but the girl that was gonna go with me backed out on the last minute and I was really upset. BUT I was glad that I at least got to see it in person. It was everything I hoped for and more! I was so absolutely excited and happy to be there! My face was hurting from smiling so much!

By this time it was almost 6PM and we didn’t want to go back to the hostel so we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower and just chill out for a little while. They have some grassy areas right next to the Eiffel Tower that is perfect for just hanging out. There were so many people there relaxing in the grass. There were couples having wine together on a blanket. There was a group of friends celebrating a birthday. There were groups of people singing and playing guitar. It was the perfect chill spot!

 The Eiffel Tower is so beautiful to look up at too. It was so nice and relaxing. Then one of the girls we were with, Filomena, knew someone that lived in Paris and he speaks both French and Italian and he wanted to take us out to eat with some of his friends so we went back to the hostel to get changed and drop off all of our stuff and met up with them at an Italian restaurant and a pub to hang out. His name is Dario and he brought his girlfriend and his 2 other friends with him. We all hung out for a few hours just talking about nothing and everything. It was a lot of fun! We were all pretty pooped out from the day so we went back to the hostel and just hung out there for a while. We even took turns reading The Hunger Games out loud before we went to bed. It was a great first day in Paris!

The next day we wanted to be up and going by 9AM again, but we didn’t leave until almost 11 because some of the girls took a long time to wake up and get ready. We headed out and made Notre Dame our first stop of the day! 

We finally got there and were so amazed by it and I went to hand Caroline my camera so that she could take a picture of me in front of it and when I handed it to her, I thought she had it and we both dropped my camera and it fell and broke…..sad face. So, my camera no longer works and it is the only one that I have here with me. So the picture of the Notre Dame was the last picture taken with it. I am now forced to share a camera with someone else the rest of my time here in Italy. I was pretty upset, but what are you gonna do?! Oh well. Just gotta shrug it off, nothing I can do about it! I didn’t let it ruin the rest of my day…I was in Paris after all! Outside of the Notre Dame there were people dressed as hunchbacks and scary-death like and old-fashioned looking people. They were so creepy! They would come up to you and try to scare you. It was actually really entertaining to watch them scare people. It reminded me of Fright Fest at Six Flags. We took a look inside and it was gorgeous, just like every other European church. Gorgeous. Words cannot even describe how intricate and pretty everything was. Beautiful.

Then we heard about this Shakespeare Library place that we eventually learned was called Shakespeare and Company. It was the coolest book store I have ever been to! It was so old school looking and books were everywhere! They were stacked to the ceiling and they were in every nook and cranny. It was so cool. They had old, beat-up leather chairs to sit in and it was just so cool. 

The upstairs had the childrens book and those were fun to read. I even bought one of them haha. It is called ‘The Astonishing Adventures of Awesome Man.” And let me tell you, it is awesome! I love the book, it is so cute! Then upstairs they also had this thing called the Mirror of Love. On it, people left notes about love and friendship and family and Paris. Some of the notes were from the 60’s! It was really cool, so I decided that I needed to leave a part of me on the mirror so I wrote a note and added it to the thousands already there.

 It was really cool to leave something there and I hope that someone reads it one day and it makes them smile. It would be a lot of fun to go back there some day and try to find it again. Maybe one day I will.

After getting some lunch we went over to the Sacre Coeur. Wow!...i know, everything I say sounds the exact same, but seriously, everything took my break away. It was so gorgeous. This amazing palace looking dome/chuch sitting atop this beautiful hill with thousands of people sitting on the steps below and beautiful colored flowers everywhere with the greenest grass you could think of.

 It was beautiful! We trekked all the way to the top and went inside and of course the inside was beautiful with the stained glass windows and beautiful dark wood details. It was gorgeous! Awesome, it was just awesome!

It was starting to be late afternoon slash early evening so we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower and climb it to the top and then when we got down we could watch the light show that they put on at night. So, we got on the metro and it was a long ride to the Eiffel Tower and all of a sudden this group of guys all in the same t-shirt with a picture of this guy and woman on it, get on the metro along with this other weird guy. This other guy had a snow white costume on, complete with garter and black wig, and he had clown make-up on. He was pretty strange and creepy lookin. All these guys looked like they were havin a good time though, they were pretty entertaining haha. The snow white guy was asking the metro if anyone wanted to buy his balls….then he held up this thing that had different colored wiffle balls in them. It was really funny. Then he saw all of us. He came over and we couldn’t understand him since he was French and he was huggin us and they were taking pictures with us (on their cameras). It was so funy! They were goin to the same place as us so we were on the metro together for a while. Soooo funny. Then on the metro there was a small add for the snow white movie with Julia Roberts in it and he ripped the sign down and pointed at it and them at himself and started to laugh. It was too funny!

Finally we got to our stop and we parted ways with Mr. Snow White. We made it to the Eiffel Tower and we got in line to pay for tickets to walk up the stairs. Then after about an hour of being in line we noticed that we hadn’t moved at all. Which would be understandable if the line was long, but it wasn’t. We were towards the front. Then all of a sudden we see the French SWAT team come out.

 They had their glass shields and everything! It was totally nuts! So finally we found out that there were some peace protestors on the second level of the Eiffel Tower and they had a huge banner hanging off the side and so the SWAT team had to evacuate every single person from the Eiffel Tower and then they had to go up there and take care of the protestors then come back down and then they would start selling tickets again. We were told it could take at least 2 hours so we left and went to get some food instead and decided we would come back later. We were also extremely cold. The day before we were in tank tops and now we were freezing with layers on! So we went to this little resteraunt that was super expensive. We got a small soda for 5.10 euro! And my glass had some nasty booger lookin thing on it so they had to get me a new one. It was gross…but the food was good and we were inside out of the cold. Afterwards we went back to our hostel to get more layers of clothes on and then we were back at the Eiffel Tower. This time the line was moving fast…mainly cause most people were taking the elevator instead of walking and everyone I was with hated me. I have wanted to climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower since I was 10 years old. It’s gonna sound silly, but I want to climb them cause in the movie Tuck Everlasting they talk about climbing all the stairs and ever since I saw that part, I have always wanted to do that. Everyone wanted to take the elevators, but I told them that I was walking even if I had to do it by myself and then they eventually all joined me! We got there when it was dark out and so the tower was all lit up!

 It was so amazing, it was truly a dream come true! It was the most magical place I have ever been to and the most amazing feeling I ever had. I was so over joyed that my eyes started to tear up. I was doing something that I had dreamed of doing for the past 10 years of my life and it was coming true. It was just…amazing and astonishing. Then we began our trek up to the top. So. Many. Stairs. Actually, to be exact there were 1,665 steps. Yup, I climbed every single one of them. 

It was so satisfying and I felt so proud of myself when I got to the top. It was the most amazing feeling anyone could ever have. They don’t let you climb all the way to the very tipy top, you have to take an elevator up there, but that was okay I was still really proud. The top was so awesome! You could see everything from up there! It was so windy and amazing. It was great! I didn’t want to leave! While we were at the top the light show went on…they have one every hour….so now I can say that I climbed the Eiffel Tower and I was a part of the light show. Amazing. It was great!

 Then we began our journey back down so that we could watch the light show from outside of the tower. As we were walking with our hot chocolate in hand we saw a couple on a bench together. They looked very cute. Then all of a sudden the man gets down on one knee in front of her and we all start hitting each other saying “oh my gosh! No he isn’t! oh my gosh!!” and we think he heard us…oops haha. We tried to keep it down so we didn’t mess it up and then all of a sudden he puts both of his hands in fists and pumps them in the air and looks at us and shouts “She said YES!” It was so amazing and awesome and romantic! Being proposed to in front of the Eiffel Tower right before the light show! Oh gosh, it was just so magical! I just love Paris!!

Then we found a spot to sit on the ground and we watched the light show for the 5 minutes that it was on. Basically they light up the Eiffel Tower and make the lights go in and out so that it looks like it is sparkling. It was so pretty! Gosh, I totally fell in love with Paris! I will definitely be back at some point in my life! After the light show we were getting ready to leave and then these 3 guys in their early 20’s probably came over to us and they spoke Italian, French, English, and Deutch! It was nuts! They were all really nice and they seemed like they would be a good time to hang out with but we were all just so tired we didn’t stick around and talk to them much. We had to be awake in 4 hours!

Me, Caroline, and Abby left at 5AM to catch our plane at 8AM. Filo and Elm had a later flight that night so they stayed an extra day. On our way to the bus to get to the airport the line in the metro that we needed to take was shut down until 10AM for some repairs so we took the metro as long as we could then we had to take a taxi the rest of the way, but at least we got there. We finally got back in Tuscania by 3:30PM. We took the metro, a taxi, a bus, a plane, a bus, a train, and another taxi all to get home. It was hectic. But we were so glad to be back. Exhausted. It was a great trip, it just took a lot out of us. I loved everything about Paris. Ireland is still my favorite, but Paris ranks right up there with it. It was so great! I LOVE PARIS.

Again, sorry it took so long to do this, I was waiting on pictures again and had to find time to type it all up, but here it is none the less. I will be much better with updating, I Promise! I wont have as many pictures anymore though since I no longer have one, but I will do my best!!

Until next time…ciao!