Paris, Day 2

So I get stuck in Madrid (instead of being in Barcelona right now), but y'all get lucky and get a double-helping of blogposts today. I (hopefully) won't be able to update until Monday night because our boarding house won't have internet. So enjoy.

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Day 2: Our first real day in Paris began bright and early at around 8 AM. We were planning on meeting the rest of our group under the Eiffel Tower and decided that we would take the scenic route and walk there as opposed to just hopping on a metro. This would allow for some excellend photos as well. Our route took us straight down an amazingly beautiful street between Paris districts 8 and 1. We saw an old library, at least one old church, a gold-covered bridge, the River Seine, the Louvre gardens, an obelisk, and the Eiffel Tower from afar. It was a lot of fun.

Our only hope was to get breakfast along the way, we had crepes in mind. Sadly, after strolling and taking photos for an hour and a half, we didn't have time for crepes. Oops, my bad. I was starving so I bailed and bought a hot dog at a tourist stand underneath the Eiffel. Our friends who went to Paris last month told us to get the hotdogs, that they were awesome in Paris. I sacrificed my 5 euros, which really wasn't a bad deal in Paris, for a great foot-long baguette that was hollowed out and filled with a great tasting hot dog, tomato sauce, and onions. It was very good, one of the best hotdogs ever. I seem to be having good luck finding good hotdogs in Europe. I think Mr. Ikoniak would be jealous! Oh, and another thing: the gypsies at the Eiffel Tower are bold enough to present you a random sign in English, if you say no, they attempt to take your food out of your hands. Seriously, I'm hungry and I want my breakfast so bug off gypsy ladies! Plus, they don't do any good wearing the same style skirts and having long dark hair. They should diversify their attempts. But I digress.

Our whole group met up and we were originally going to go on a boat tour down the Seine, but it was pretty expensive and only an hour, so we figured we'd just walk it. In the end we figured we walked about 8 miles during the day and my feet were sore for at least 4 days afterwards. Anyways, during our extended adventures it was a positively beautiful day with complete sunshine so we all managed to get a nice tan and enjoyed the weather. First stop was a semi-circle of museums/plaza to the west of the Eiffel. From there we got great views of the Tower. we continued up to the Arc du Triomfe which sits in the middle of a massive, never-ending traffic circle. To get to the Arc you actually have to go under the road and pop out in the middle! The Arc was cool and is the location of France's version of the "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier". Not as cool as ours in Arlington, but hey, it works.

The Arc sits at the top of the longest street in the world, Champs Elysees. And walking down it, we realized how long it was! It's lined with all the major world brands: Cartier, Luis Vitton, Gucci, Mont Blanc, etc etc etc. Not good for college shopping, but still fun. Next quick stop was the Gran Palais du Artes (I may indeed have butchered the spelling on that). There was a Warhol exhibit that several in the group wanted to visit, but I wasn't in the mood to fork over the money. We kept going, passing by the gilded bridge and heading towards the Louvre. I was convinced that my life wouldn't be complete without a trip inside the Louvre. I love how the major museums of the world have no student discount. Maybe I'll just become a senior citizen and get their discount.... Anyways, the Louvre was incredible. Seeing the Mona Lisa was worth however much I ended up paying to get in that place. We also went through the Italian and Greek sculptures collection (saw Venus de Milo, famous sculpture, but she has no arms or head), saw the original foundation of the castle that sat where the Louvre now sits, saw the ancient Egypt collection, and saw the Code of Hamurabi which is a huge chunk of stone with ancient civil and criminal legal codes written on every available space.

After the Louvre we were exhausted, tired and hungry. Knowing that it was going to be cranky, I decided to walk back to the hotel and along the way I stopped to pick up some fresh fruit and other groceries to try to save some money and be healthy. I also picked up a fresh croque monssieur which is a really snazzy grilled cheese in my opinion. I ate my feast on my balcony and then took a nap with the breeze wafting through the windows.

After my nap I met up with friends to see the nighttime lightshow at the Eiffel Tower. We stopped to get another hotdog along the way and this one was even better: a 15-inch baguette with fresh sausage inside and broiled gruyere cheese on top. Not your average ball-game hotdog! The lightshow was pretty cool, looked like tons of paparazzi taking your picture from all over the tower. Random event: we happened to run into a BYX alum from Sam Houston State who was traveling on his spring break (he's a choir teacher outside Houston). Very small world, indeed.

It was a good night and I tried to come back early to get some shut eye before our early morning train to Amsterdam!

Paris!

Whew, sorry again that it takes me so long to get posts up, I hope I'm not annoying anyone. Plus, I was without internet for two weeks this month due to school trips and this trip...

Last weekend we had a five-day break due to a holiday on Thursday and Monday was just a day off. As such, I decided to join some friends on a whirlwind tour of Paris and Amsterdam, two cities that I'd never visited and that I honestly would say weren't on my top cities to visit. However, I figured I should go now with friends because I was unlikely to visit on my own.

I left for the Madrid airport immediately after school as my flight left at 3. I felt like I was in a hurry, but I managed to get to the gate really early because the check-in and security didn't have lines. I got on the plane and arrived in Paris at around 7PM. That's when the fun started. In France, very few people speak English and even fewer speak Spanish. Also, though French is technically a romantic language, like Spanish and Italian, it sounds NOTHING like Spanish or Italian! It's pretty much impossible to communicate. Hmm, should be fun.

So I take a train from the De Gaulle Airport (wow, 2 major int'l airports I'd never been to in one day!) to the main metro/train interchange at Gare Nord. The train wasn't bad, definitely not as nice as the system in Madrid, but I managed to get to Nord. However, getting OUT of Nord was another story. I couldn't figure out how to get out! I thought I found the metro entrance, but I couldn't find a place to buy a metro ticket! So I proceeded to wander around the place, not worried, just confused. I realized that the train ticket to get there would work to get me in to the metro (at least I think that's how it works?), so I proceeded to stick my ticket in the slot. It spit out, but the guy in front of me jammed the machine and my ticket went through unread. In a whirlwind of people cramming by, the man in front tells me "Come on!" and a guy with a season pass swipes/shoves us through as the two of us in front share a turnstile. I'm glad I got through, though I never want to be that close to a French guy again!

Emily and I wanted to stay at a hotel with our friends, but it was booked. We managed to snag a great room at the Hotel Camelia International by the Place de Clichy. It was really inexpensive but very cool. I made it to the hotel earlier than Emily (she missed her flight and followed it with a harrowing, 50 euro taxi ride. By the time she made it to the hotel she was quite flustered. After a quick bit of decompressing in our nice hotel, I invited her to go with me to eat dinner with my friend Dani, a girl I knew from school who later transferred but has spent the whole year studying in Paris. We took the metro (again, another fun experience, try buying a ticket in french!), but we made it to her stop and she met us there.

Dani lives in a student residence, which is kind of like a dorm open to students of all different universities. She lives there with several students from her program and they cook with each other. It was Dani's night to cook and she made a great-tasting, traditional lebanese dish. Afterwards, she took us out to her favorite bar with her friend Sharif who is from Paris. We tried a typical Parisian student beverage which is half beer and half peach juice. Interesting flavor, probably won't have it again!

After that, we took the metro home, glad to be able to get some rest before our action packed day in Paris. I am still thankful for Dani's hospitality and friendship! I don't know what we would have done without her, being as confused and tired as we were! I'm glad we got to meet up after 2 years of going to different schools!