Paris

(From 5-27)

These last 2 full days in Paris have been ridiculous! I can hardly express how awesome it is!

Saturday morning we had breakfast and loaded up the tour buses for our city tour. We picked up the tour guides and we spent the next 4 hours seeing the major sites, learning about their history, and periodically getting out to take better pictures and see the landmarks outside of the bus. About halfway through the tour we stopped at the Tour Montparnasse building and took the elevators to the top for a well known panoramic view of the city. This was great because it wasn’t nearly as touristy as the Eiffel Tower, and we still got amazing views of the city. Plus the building wasn’t in the center of the city, so we were able to get a feel for the whole layout of Paris. By the end of our tour it was about 14:00 and from there we had free time for the rest of the afternoon to see the city for ourselves; I went in a group with Crash, Johnny, Joel, and Lora. We first walked past the Louvre and went on foot to the Notre Dame cathedral. Just before we got there, a heavy downpour got us soaked, but it cleared up after we took to the metro to the Eiffel Tower. We got more pictures by the tower and tried to find someplace to eat. By this time it was about 4 in the afternoon and we were all a bit cranky, but we found a bakery and got some baguette, cheese, and sandwiches no problem. We felt way better after that, but it was time to get back to the hotel. After dinner in the hotel, we had free time again and everyone headed back out. However, I was very exhausted and didn’t want to overdo it with my knee, so I stayed in the hotel for the evening with Johnny. I wrote a few postcards and was asleep by 11. That was a good idea because I felt great all day the next day. 

Then yesterday we had free time the entire day so after an early breakfast, Johnny, Crash, Sam, Emily, and I took the metro first thing to the Louvre. We got there at 9:15 and didn’t have to wait in lines at all. We all had ID saying that we were students, so we didn’t have to pay an entrance fee! We saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo along with a few other things. None of us were big art fans, so we didn’t stay longer than an hour and a half or so. From the Louvre, we walked through the gardens out front a bit before taking the metro to the Sacre Ceour, an enormous church atop a hill in Paris. Before we got to the top we looked around for a place to get some lunch. The restaurants were all quite pricy, so we just got some baguette sandwiches from a bakery. Then we visited the church and at the top we got great views of the city. In front of the church was a concert of sorts with a guy playing guitar and asking members of the audience to sing. It made for a nice atmosphere for an afternoon in Paris. At 14:15 we met a friend of Crash’s. She was on a very short term exchange with his host family in Graz a few weeks ago, and she showed us around a little bit. We spent the last portion of our free time in the Luxemburg gardens relaxing, as it had been a long day. We took the metro back to the hotel and had dinner. In the evening we took the metro again and walked to the Seine River, directly underneath the Eiffel Tower for a river tour of Paris. It got started at 22:30 and lasted about 90 minutes. It was interesting to see the city from the water and at night. We got to the hotel around 1 and went to bed as fast as possible. 

Now we are on the bus, heading south from Paris to Toulouse. It was a fantastic experience in Paris. I liked it even better than 3 years ago when I was here, and I hope my 3^rd visit to the city will be even better than this one.