Our flight left from Madrid early Friday morning at 6am. We took the 3pm Thursday bus to Madrid and got in around 8:30pm. We found a little sandwich place to eat at. We didn't want to book a hostel for the night so instead we went straight to the airport. We found a food gallery that was open 24 hours that had some soft benches. We slept there. We had 8 hours at the airport to kill! It was exhausting! Our flight left Madrid at 6:30 am and we got into Paris at 8:30. Boy was it cold. I walked out of the plane and thought I had somehow ended up in the North Pole. haha.. It was the first time I had seen my breath in Europe!
We then had to take a bus from the airport to the city center, all of which I slept. I had no idea we had even arrived at the city until I heard someone say, "wow - she is OUT." That's when I woke up and realized there were only a few of us still on the bus! Needless to say my airport bed must not have been that comfortable!
Once the bus dropped us off, we found our way to the metro station in order to find our way to our hostel. It was kind of confusing, but lucky for us, we had Nerea! She not only is a mean metro navigator, but she also speaks fluent french! Exactly what we needed because we ended up getting lost :( haha When we go off on our metro stop, we ended up walking the wrong direction in hopes of finding a hostel. It wasn't until we found a very nice french woman that we were told how to get where we needed to go. We checked ourselves into the hostel and then went straight out to explore. We didn't want to waste ANY time, seeing as we only had 2 days.
The first thing we did, was get a crepe. We figured, we're in Paris, why not? Little did we know that over the next two days, crepes would be almost the entirety of our diet.
Stop #1 was Montmartre, the highest point in Paris. This is where this picture was taken. As you can see, it is really quite beautiful. I bet this is a gorgeous site when the sky is clear, because it was absolutely amazing on this cloudy/rainy day!
On Montmartre is a church called the Sacre-Coeur. This church was built using donations from the people of Paris. Translated it means 'sacred heart'.
After looking at the Sacre-Coeur, we went on in search of the famous Moulin Rouge (We thought maybe we'd get a job to pay for the trip to Paris. Boy was it spendy!) We walked around forever looking for it but we finally did. Honestly, it looks exactly the same as in the pictures and stuff. We really wanted to go see a show, however that was way too expensive, and it turns out they weren't hiring. :( Too bad, maybe next time?
We then went to the Pantheon, which is where famous French people have some of their tombs. This includes, Voltaire, Rousseau, and authors such as Emile Zola and Victor Hugo. The building was actually quite beautiful, and it was interesting to see the tombs of some of these people. There were a lot of people that were there that I had no idea, for example Marie Curie was there too.
After the Pantheon, we went to the Luxembourg Gardens. These were absolutely beautiful so we hung out here for awhile, until we realized just how starving we were. We had seen a million sushi places throughout the day, so we thought that was a good idea. Funny thing is, we couldn't find a sushi place anywhere around where we were! How ironic. It's like change in your purse. Always there when you don't want it, but when you need it, you can never find it! Luckily we eventually stumbled upon a street that had 6 or 7 sushi restaurants! The one we chose was absolutely delicious,and pretty cheap. For 10 euro I got soup, salad, rice, 12 pieces of sushi, and 3 skewers. Mmmmhmm It was delicious! I even at the whole meal with chopsticks! (For those of you who have ever been out to teriyaki with me, you realize what an amazing feat this is!)
After eating, we went home, got ready , and went out. We didn't want to spend any money, so instead we just decided to head to the eiffel tower. It was kinda late, so we didn't go up on the first night because we wanted time to be able to enjoy it.Instead we just sat on the grass and watched it. We also made some argentinian friends. They were super nice. After this, we were exhausted. So we took the last metro home, and went straight to sleep. We had a busy day planned the next day!
Day number two started off when we woke up at 8 am to go downstairs and get the breakfast that was offered at our hostel. Little did we know, we woke up for a freaking BAGUETTE! Not even a good baguette. You would think that being in France, who are kinda known for their bread, we would get a delicious piece of bread. Instead we got this tiny little rock hard baguette that tasted like crap. I was so mad! I told everyone that if we had slept in, I would've bought them baguettes!
After breakfast we all got ready, and then left the hostel to go meet up with a free tour that Andrea had heard about. She had done one in Prague, and figured the Paris one would be just as good. We met in front of the Fountain of St. Michel. There were a ton of people so we split into groups. The tour guide we had was a girl from Sydney, Australia. She was quite spunky, and very interesting. She told us all sorts of stories. Places we went to on our tour/ places we saw were: Notre Dame, The river Seine, Tuileries, the Basilisk from Egypt, The Louvre, Gran Palais, Petit Palais, Invalides, Palais Royal, and many other small places along the way. The tour was 3 1/2 hours long! It was very interesting to hear her stories and historical information! The next few pics were taken on the tour.
This was on a bridge. The view behind me is of the River Seine. On the right you have the right bank, and on the left you have Ile de la Cite.
This was taken near the Egyptian Obelisk. If you look in the back, you can see the Eiffel Tower!
This one is at the Louvre!
This wasn't actually taken on the tour, but it was in an art gallery that we found. It had some pretty interesting things.
After we finished the long tour, we doubled back and decided to go to the things we thought were interesting. The first on our list was of course, The Louvre Museum. Why might you ask? If you don't know then you're stupid. The Louvre houses the most famous painting of all time. Still don't know? Stop reading this. You're not smart enough to be my friend. THE MONA LISA! The first thing we did upon entering the Louvre was go to the Mona Lisa. There were so many people! It looks exactly like you think it does. But the thing is that it's amazing to realize that this is the actual painting that Da Vinci sat down and did. It's the one he carried with him. His MASTERPIECE. It's very humbling actually to know that you are so close to something so fantastic.
We also saw some other sculptures and painting but my favorite by far was the Mona Lisa. After leaving the Louvre, we decided to go to Notre Dame and the other two girls went to Jim Morrison's grave. I really wanted to see the gargoyles on top of the Notre Dame, which did you know is 422 steps up the tower! Unfortunately when we got there, the towers were closed and we were only able to go inside the church itself. It was still beautiful though.
Next, Nerea and I did some shopping and mosey'd our way back toward the Eiffel Tower which is where we were supposed to meet up with our friends Andrea and Diana. We finally were going to go up! On our way, we passed a bunch of the sites we had seen earlier, only this time is was at night. For example, the picture below is at the Gran Palais. Funny story. We each loved the background so we each got an individual picture. Then we asked someone to take a picture of us with the background. The guy captured a BUS. bahahahhahaa. It was just so pretty, we had to take a picture!
Last, but certainly not least was the EIFFEL TOWER. We finally went up, and it was amazing. It's so high but oh so pretty. I'm super happy that we went up at night. It was really cool to look down on the city of Paris and see all the lights and everything.
This picture is at the end of everything. My last crepe and my last glimpse of the beautiful Eiffel Tower. An image I will keep in my mind until my next trip to Paris :)
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