Day 21: Sunday, February 6, 2011

4am walk from the hostel to the train station

Rough morning, to say the least.  We slept for about an hour and a half, then left around 4am to head for the airport.  We had to deal with a plethora of transportation modes from our hostel to our home.  We walked to the train station, then took a metro from the train station to a stop about half way to the airport where they were doing construction.  (Mind you, they are only doing construction on one stop this month, for one hour.  And it happened to be the day we needed to get home, on the one stop that we needed to take, during the one hour we need to get to the airport...really?  Terrible luck.)  Anyways, we had to take a bus passed the consturction on the rail to the airport.  Then a plane home.  Then a bus to the train station in Milan.  Then a metro ride to our district.  Then walk from the stop to our house.  Door to door it took about 6 and half hours, we got home around 10:30am, and we were exhausted.  We could not wait to crash in our beds, and we all did, immediately upon walking in the door.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder

I slept for about an hour and a half, because I didn't want to mess up my sleep schedule in the beginning of the week.  I spent the rest of the day blogging, relaxing, and skyping Kevin. 26 days till he comes <3     

Day 20: Saturday, February 5, 2011

Today, was awesome.  We got kind of a late start (11:30am) because we were out the night before.  But after we got started, we didn't stop for about 14 hours.  

View from the ground

First, we went to the Eiffel Tower.  And it could not have been more of a debacle to get to.  You would think that one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world would be a little more accessible.  Nope, it's not.  The metro doesn't even go that far; you have to transfer from the metro onto an underground bus (essentially the same thing as a metro, but it has different stops), and it's totally on the outskirts of Paris.  But after taking the wrong train (a couple times) we finally made it!!  We waited in line to climb the stairs to the top while eating breakfast.  It was super cold when we were waiting, apparently underneath the Eiffel Tower is like a wind tunnel.

But it was only 3.50E to climb the stairs to the top, which I was surprised about...totally something they could completely rip you off for.  So we began our climb, reading all the little signs about the Tower on the way up.  The tower was completed in 1889 and was named after its engineer, Gustave Eiffel.  It was made as an entrance arch to the 1889 World Fair that was held in Paris, France.  The World Fair was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Storming of Bastille, the event that started the French Revolution.  I'm becoming so much more educated :)

So 300 steps later, we reached the first platform, and the view was beautiful, but I must say I was a little shocked by the environment they created.  There were speakers surrounding the entire floor, and rap/hip-hop music was blasting!!  People were grinding on each other and dancing...it wasn't exactly the scene I expected!

Ice rink on the first floor on the Eiffel Tower

There was an ice-rink too, which I thought was totally cool.  So we stopped on that floor for a bit, popped in the restaurant and gift store, walked around and took in the entire panoramic view, then moved onto the second floor.  We were obviously anxious to go higher!

So we climbed the additional 370 steps from the first floor to the second, and it was worth every one!  You can literally see every building in Paris from there.  It was really cool to see the monuments we saw the day before, like the Arc de Triomphe and the Notre Dame.  The view of the Champ de Mars is also really pretty.  Somehow, they manage to keep the grass bright green, even in the winter.

Champ de Mars from the Eiffel Tower

We stayed up there for awhile, asking pretty much every single person that walked by us to take a picture of the three of us with one of our cameras.  We decided it would be really convenient to have a someone come along on these trips with us and take our pictures in these amazingly awesome places.

The three of us on the top of the Eiffel Tower

View from the Eiffel Tower

Arc de Triomphe from the Top of the Eiffel Tower

After we climbed the stairs back to the ground, it was actually pretty late!  We decided to grab some lunch, then head to the Pantheon.   Naturally, we got lost.  The amount of time we spend not knowing where we are while on this continent is unreal.  But we finally made it, but it was dark and they weren't letting people in anymore.  But it was still cool to look at it from the outside and read a little bit about it.  

Panthenon at night

Afterwards, we walked from there across town to a little restaurant that Caitlin's dad was "taking" us too.  He called and made a reservation for us, and put down his credit card, and told us all to enjoy...which was so unbelievably nice of him.  It was a really nice restaurant.  Caitlin's best friend from home who is studying abroad in Barcelona right now joined us with her roommate as well.  Right when we sat down they brought us champagne, and we ordered escargot and a crab and artichoke dip as appetizers.

Me being the picky eater that I am, definitely was not thrilled to try escargot, but being in Paris, France, I figured there wouldn't be a better time!  And surprisingly enough, I didn't hate it.  I definitely didn't love it by any means, but I didn't hate it.  It actually had kind of a good seasoning on it.  

Escargot

I think it was just the fact that I was eating a snail that kind of turned me off.  I ordered a steak and mashed potatoes for dinner, and it was so delicious, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  I have been craving a steak for the last three weeks, and it was so yummy :)  And of course, the mashed potatoes were on point.  For desert, we all ordered a chocolate mousse and creme bru le, which were so delicious even though I was so full I thought I was going to pop! 

Afterwards, the five of us went back to the Eiffel Tower to see the midnight light show.  During the millennium new year, the Eiffel Tower put on a light show, and since then, it has become a nightly tradition.  It is a 5 minute show that plays every hour on the hour from dusk till dawn.  And it's absolutely breathtaking.  There are 20,000 bulbs that sparkle and light up the entire Champ de Mars field.  We had a perfect view and watched in awe.  

Eiffel Tower light show

After the light show, we noticed a bridge really perfectly placed in front of the Tower, so we decided to go snap a few pictures.  And I'm really glad we did, because they turned out spectacular.  See for yourself:

Afterwards, it was about 2am, and we had to leave at 4am for the airport...so we figured it was time to head back to the hostel.  But it was an unbelievable night.  I have seen the Eiffel Tower light show...cross that off my bucket-list!  

Day 19: Friday, February 4, 2011

We got started today around 10am!  We had so much we wanted to see and do, and luckily there was a metro station directly outside our hostel, so we hopped across the street, each bought 10 metro passes for 12E, then let the exploring begin!

Le Pont des Arts

We began by making head way towards The Louvre.  After getting terribly lost and taking the metro the wrong way, then walking the wrong way, then apparently asking all the wrong people, we FINALLY found it.  It baffled me that so many locals didn't know where the museum was??  When we finally got there, we were distracted by an awesomely cool bridge, with locks all over it.  It was called Le Pont des Arts, meaning the "Love Locked Bridge."  Lovers from all over the world come and engrave metal locks to show their mutual commitment towards each other.  The collectiveness of all of them is really cool looking.  

There she is!

Afterwards, we were off to the Louvre!  We figured we couldn't come all the way to Paris and not see the Mona Lisa!  It was 10E to get in (everything costs money, everywhere!)  It was the biggest museum I could ever imagine.  Apparently it takes 2 weeks to see every single piece of art in the museum.  There are 4 parts, and each part goes on and on forever!  The Mona Lisa was so much smaller than I imagined.  And it's also blocked off, nobody can get within 15 feet of it, and its behind like 9 feet of glass, and there is security guards everywhere!  And there was also about 23456789 people crowded around it taking pictures...which, at least you could do!  A lot of museums you can't take pictures, but this one you could.

Outside the Louvre!

We only spent about 2 hours in the Louvre.  I was so anxious to walk the streets and see everything!  Afterwards, we walked up Champs-Elysees on the way to the Arc de Triomphe.  The road is really historically famous for being the second most expensive streets in the world to live on, topped only by London's Bond Street.  There are hundreds of stores that line the street, and it was bustling the whole weekend.  Although the authentic French boutiques have been replaced with chain and designer stores, it was still awesomely cool to walk down and have the ambiance of the Eiffel Tower behind us and the Arc de Triomphe in front of us.  The Arc itself is sitting on a little island in the middle of a six lane round-about of traffic, with no cross-walk.  Well thats because there's an underground cross-walk, which I didn't notice.  So I nearly killed myself running across trying to get a close up picture!

My close up picture that I risked my life for.
 I'd say it was worth it. Pretty epic. 

Afterwards, we ventured off to see the Notre Dame.  However we quickly realized that the transportation systems in Paris are far more confusing than they are in Milan.  First of all, the have color coded lines, which one would think would dumb it down for people like us.  Which it would, if the colors they used weren't all so bizarrely similar to each other!  They had a light pink line, a purple-pink, and a magenta colored line, a light green and light yellow line, etc., etc.  And on top of that, it's incredibly difficult to determine which metro lines intersect, and where.  The metro maps looked like they had been slightly misprinted, because all of the dots indicating stops were slightly off the lines.  It made it very difficult to navigate, because it seemed like every place we wanted to go to involved at least two transfers!  And another thing about the metro, they were very, very dirty...and smelly.  There was always trash everywhere, and gross stains on the seats that I didn't even know what they were.  They definitely do it better in Milan! :)

We did finally make it to the Notre Dame.  And it was amazing; the Gothic architecture was unbelievable close up.  We were going to go in, but it cost 8E, so we decided to save some money and pass that one up.  8E...c'mon Paris, it's a church!!  I thought those things were supposed to be free!

From there we went to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.  It is a church that is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It sits on the highest point in Paris, France...it was definitely a hike to get to.  So many stairs!! But it was awesome when we got to the top; totally felt like we were on top of the world!  It was kind of overcast when we there though, so we couldn't see as far as we may have been able to, but it was still super cool to look down on the whole city from so high up.

The Basilique 

Us outside The Basilique, the highest point in Paris.. 

On the way back down! 

The Basilique was very close to our hostel, so after we saw that, we went back and regrouped, then decided to grab a bite to eat.  Thank god that morning we managed to convince the manager to put us all in the same room, so we were all going to be together for the next two nights!  We popped our head into a few restaurants, but the prices just absolutely blew our minds...Paris is SO expensive!!  We settled on the cheapest place we could find, and we all got the cheapest things on the menu.  However, somehow that is just beyond my realm of comprehension, we still spent an obscene amount of money.  Picture this: we all drank water, Emily and I both got a ham and cheese sandwich, and split a side of fries, and Caitlin got an omlet...40E.  That is $55!!!  And it wasn't even good, at all.  How someone manages to mess up a ham and cheese sandwich is really confusing to me??  And more than that, how does anyone afford to LIVE in Paris???  Thank God we are not studying there!

After dinner, we went back to the hostel, showered, and got ready to go out.  We drank a little before in the hostel with each other, talking and laughing mostly about how bad our hostel sucked.  It was really, really dirty.  And I don't do well with human filth.  Hairs absolutely gross me out.  Unflushed toilets...do I even need to touch on that?  Men that look like Jesus sleeping two feet away from me, never ok.

That night we caught a taxi to some bars that we heard we supposed to be popular, and hung out for a bit.  Apparently Paris doesn't have huge, raging night "clubs" like Milan does; they are more known for their bars.  Which is cool, it's always fun to go to new bars and see new places, but I think I'd rather the discoteca's in Milan :)  Emily wasn't feeling well, so we went back to the hostel around 3am and called it a night.  I think I literally went to sleep dreaming about the Eiffel Tower :) 

Day 18: Thursday, February 3, 2011

A quick continuation...

Train from the airport to the hostel!

Our flight landed in Paris pretty late, so we quickly caught a train that dropped us near our hostel, then attempted to find our hostel.  We were lucky enough to locate these implicitly clear directions from the train station on the hostel's website: "leave the station, then turn right."  Thank you, hostel website.  So naturally, when we left the train station and turned right, the hostel was no where to be found.  And, we were also in a really sketchy part of town!  So we walked around for about 20 minutes getting lost, then decided to just catch a cab, just like we did in Florence.  So far, we're zero for two!

He took us to our hostel, and we quickly realized we were on a very interesting road.  Every single store, literally one after the other, for a 5 mile stretch, was some sort of sex store?  Very odd.  We immediately regretted our decision to take the cheap route by getting a hotel a little further from the center of Paris.  When we got to the front desk, we were informed that all three of us were is separate rooms, and all on different floors.  It also didn't take us long to notice that there were a considerable amount of older people in the "hostel"...we realized the place we were staying was, "Not a Hostel, A BUDGET HOTEL!"  Classic mix-up on our part.  Usually hostels have age limits of about 30 years old...well, since ours wasn't a hostel, and was in fact a "budget hotel," there were men of all ages, shapes, sizes, and colors.  Gross.

Our lovely budget hotel.

Caitlin was fortunate enough to have a room with 3 old men, who took a liking for her.  They loved to wink and whistle at her every time she walked by.  Creepy.  I was lucky enough to have a room that smelled like cat urine.

Considering our living arrangements, we decided to just drop our stuff off and leave.  We walked around for a little bit, then sat down at a bar and got a drink.  At the bar, there was an entire Scottish Rugby team wearing kilts and singing Bruce Springsteen.  A few of them were somewhat infatuated with us, and talked our ears off the entire time we were there!  A few others were really drunk and proceeded to take their shirts off and reveal their hairy pot-belly's to the rest of the world.  Incredibly unattractive.  They kept asking us to sign their shirts, so we did, and it made them very happy!  

For some reason they thought we looked like Lakers
cheerleaders, and wanted us to sign their shirts!

After awhile, we decided to head back!  We were all so excited to see what Paris had to offer! :) 

Day 18: Thursday, February 3, 2011

Today, I leave for Paris!!!!!!!!!

That is all.  More when I return! :)