Paris, France 3/9-3/13

We arrived in France on Friday, March 9th. The plane ride was very short from Italy, only 1 hour and 25min. Then we had to take a bus to Paris which was another hour and 15min. After that journey, we had to find the metro which was impossible! Their metro system here is not very visible from the street like it is in Torino. We were walking around for probably 30min until we finally found it! Their metro system is crazy big as well. There are metros 1-15 and then A-D. All of them take you some where else and have so many stops! I never thought we were going to see day light since our hostel was 3 metros away with each having 9 stops. It was a long journey to say the least.

The hostel we stayed at is called St. Christopher's. It has been rated #1 hostel in Paris and I see how that is. Only bad thing is that it's kind of in the "cuts" of Paris. So we had to take the metro to the main attractions such as the Eiffel Tower.

Friday night we went on a walking tour at 6pm which was 10€. It lasted 3 hours and we got to see a lot of cool things, like Van Gogh's apartment he lived in while he was in Paris for two years. After the tour, we went on the company's sponsored pub crawl. That was a lot of fun!! We met so many new people.

Saturday morning, everyone was moving pretty slow. But we pushed through and got out. We wanted to do the free walking tour at 11am but since the metro is so confusing we missed it. Luckily there was another one at 1pm so while we waited, we went and saw Notre Dame. Notre Dame is a breath taking church! The details on the actual building and the stain glass windows on the inside were unbelievable. When we walked through, mass was going on. Paris was actually going to tear down the Notre Dame until a man made the movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame which made Notre Dame super famous.

The free walking tour was more knowledgeable than the one Friday night because we went to the Louve and Eiffel Tower. Do you know why the Mona Lisa is even famous? I do! The janitor that worked at the Louve stole it. Paris police were searching people and trying to find it but they never suspected the janitor who never came back to work. Well the janitor went down to Italy and had the Mona Lisa but since it was a stolen piece of art work, he couldn't do much with it. Until the weight on his shoulders weighed him down so much, he tried to bring it to a museum. They there arrested him and returned the Mona Lisa to Paris. So that's really how the Mona Lisa is so famous. Because everyone had heard about the stolen painting!

Sadly the tour lasted until 5:15pm so we didn't get to see anything else Saturday because Napolean's tomb closed at 5pm and when we went back to the Louve, it was closed! We headed back to the hostel, got changed and went to dinner at this true French restaurant that our tour guide suggested to Joe. Only Blake, Anthony, Joe and I went to dinner. When we got off the metro, there was not one tourist. We knew we were where all the true French people hang out. Only bad thing about this, the menu was in complete French! Culture shock hit us all. Anthony has been learning some French but he doesn't know food. The waiter spoke some English and gave us the one English menu they had. Reading what was on the menu was not the best idea. They serve pig's feet, pork liver, snails, duck and all other types of weird meat. There was ravioli and lasagna but who wants that when you're in France? We all first got the french onion soup. That was delicious! Then boys got duck, I got pork sausage and Blake got the salmon. Well my pork sausage was not what I thought and Blake's salmon was raw!! With the sausage there was French fries, I only ate those. Blake didn't even eat her salmon. The boys duck was really good! Since Blake and I were hungry, we got Creme Brûlée. Joe got it as well and it was excellent. That made up for the weird pork sausage. I'm pretty sure we are not going to a "true" French restaurant tonight.

Sunday, we went to Versailles!! I thought my backyard was big until I saw Versailles. It is a beautiful place but sadly we went during the winter so none of the trees had leaves and there was no flowers. So I wasn't really impressed. Luckily to go to the gardens it's free and to get into the palace it was free for me since I have a student visa. The palace was gorgeous but it was your average king's palace with huge rooms with a ton of paintings. Over all the palace and gardens were really great to see just for their size. The size of both was just stupid big.

By Monday we really hadn't seen a lot. So Joe, Blake, Anthony and I woke up at 7:30am and were out of the hostel by 8:30. Stupidly we didn't check what time things opened at, we went to Saint Chapel first but it didn't open until 9:30am. Since we didn't get breakfast at the hostel, we got it at a near by cafe. Then we headed to Saint Chapel which was beautiful but very small.

Then we headed back to the LouveLouve entrance. Which was sweet because there were no lines and I got in for free again because of my student visa! We walked straight up to the Mona Lisa. There wasn't as big of a mob of people in front if it like I expected which was nice. It is a bigger painting that I expected which was nice. I took a few pictures of it. Then we walked around but the Louve is huge!! You could probably take a whole day walking through it. Anthony split off from us 3 and went to see some painters that he enjoys. We went down to Starbucks..ha

After the Louve we went to Napolean's tomb. His tomb is under this large gold dome. Our tour guide from Saturday said that you have to "bow" down to Napolean since his tomb is under ground. A joke is that when Hitler came to see his tomb, he brought a mirror so he wouldn't have to bow to Napolean but when he was there, his hat fell off, leaving Hitler to bow down to get it so even Hitler had to bow down to him. BUT you don't even have to bow. His tomb is HUGE! You walk up the edge and see it right away. Plus there is a second level that allows you to see it at eye level. So I didn't have to bow down to Napolean!

Blake and I had been itching to go shopping ever since the plane landed. That was the first priority of ours. So after Napolean's tomb, we headed to the main shopping street, Champs Elyees. On this street there is the flagship store for Louis Vuiton, 5 story Abercrombie & Fitch and the famous Paris macaroon store called Ladurèe. Plus another street called George V, had more big shopping stores such as Armani, Bvlgari. And down another street (can't recall the name) had Gucci, Dior, Chanel and Dolce & Gabbana. I was in heaven! You could tell only the rich French people were down in that area, with their 5in heals, fur vests & designer bags. We of course went into every store! Sadly did not buy anything but it was nice to see all of the new spring collections that were out.

After walking around and seeing all of the shops, we went to the Eiffel Tower. I'm kind of bummed because I did not get to see it in the day light, only a night. But before I was on top of the Arc, this time we went up it. The line took an hour and half so we didn't get to the top until 9:30pm. I got so scared going up in the elevator. I was holding onto Joe & Blake with my eyes closed. It was a freaky elevator and was making odd noises. Then we got to the top and I couldn't look over the edge! I stayed along the inside edge while they were all taking pictures of the view. I don't know why but I was terrified and really didn't enjoy the experience until we went down the terrace. I got some awesome pictures of the tower from the ground though.

Anthony and I had gone back to the hostel while Joe & Blake went to dinner. I was so exhausted and my feet were throbbing. Overall I had a good time in Paris but if I don't come back, I don't care! There are better places ha ha