I have been told it's time for a new blog post, which is seriously true because I just checked the date of my last post and it was February 16th. Oops! So in the past month, the most exciting thing I've done is gone to Paris. What a trip!
Day 1: So I went with my flatmate Eleanor via the Eurostar which, I must say, was not as exciting as I had expected (I mean the Eurostar, not my flatmate). I thought maybe it would feel like we were travelling really fast but it really felt like it was just like a regular train ride here. The views of the English countryside though were priceless. I also happened to see a lot of wind turbines which were really neat as I've never seen one in person. Tried to take a picture but the train was too fast :( We arrived at the train station in Paris (Paris Gare du Nord) and went to buy metro passes. I was sort of creeped out because I kept noticing French Army guys walking around in their uniforms and machine guns. Being up close to a machine gun is really something scary. Eleanor told me to watch out for gypsies because they are everywhere. They beg for money and they also pick-pocket so to keep extra care of my stuff. As we were waiting to purchase our metro tickets we see three gypsy girls running towards the metro ticket barrier laughing and giggling with arms all raised in the air as they are running and a security guy is running behind them trying to chase them down. HA that was too funny. Wonder what they were doing... So after buying our metro passes and getting through the ticket barrier, I figured out I could NOT understand the stupid metro map! Thank god Eleanor is a genius, had already been to Paris once before, and could read it. Otherwise I think I would have spent half my time trying to figure out the stupid map. I have been told by numerous people that the Parisian metro system is the most difficult underground transport system in the world. So all I can say is, "Thank you London for dumbing yours down enough so that even I can understand it." First thing Eleanor and I did was drop all our stuff off at the hotel. The room was amazingly small although I really had no complaints about it. I heard everything in Europe was small but you never really understand until you see it I suppose. First trip was to the Eiffel Tower! How WEIRD was it to be standing right there with it in sight. We went to the very top of the tower via the lift...heck no was i walking up the stairs (which people were actually doing even though it was 1 degree celsius and the wind was really strong) and it was sort of scary! I was glad when that part was over. When we got to the top we got to see the amazing views. Paris is different than London in the fact that most of the buildings are the same height except in one area which is the business section. London has buildings of all different heights. It was gorgeous though and I really got to see just how big the city is. After visiting the Eiffel Tower and taking 5 billion more pictures we went to find a place to eat. Can I just say ewwww to French food? I mean raw egg? Gross. Who does that? It's bad enough that they don't refrigerate their eggs here but to also serve them raw in restaurants is just gross. Anyway we finally found a place with food suitable enough to eat and fairly easy on the wallet. We ordered chicken with a mushroom cream sauce (yuummmmm) and it came with french fries! The meal also came with dessert, chocolate mousse, which was good but I couldn't finish it. After lunch, we walked to the River Seine and took a lovely little boat cruise and saw most of the major sights. It was quite funny that the boat guide had to speak in 3 different languages each time he described something. He was quite good at that! After the cruise Eleanor wanted to go to Montmartre to see the Sacré Coeur, a really beautiful Catholic church. It's on the highest part of Paris so the view from the top was really nice. I think that the Sacré Coeur is really similar to the Taj Mahal. It looks really out of place in Paris. Inside, the nuns were singing and sounded very lovely. It was a very calming atmosphere (unlike when I first entered Notre Dame, but I’ll describe that later). After the visit to the Sacré Coeur Eleanor and I went and got our first crêpe! I was not impressed with mine. I ordered caramel and didn’t realize until I was almost done with it that the caramel had all sunk to the bottom which just turned into a sticky soggy mess. Yuck. Eleanor ordered a chocolate crêpe and I guess I was under the impression that they’d give something nicer than chocolate syrup! The crêperie in Hampstead (my neighborhood in London) is much better than that and gives Belgian chocolate chips! After that disappointment we went around window shopping and looked at stuff I could never afford and then decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe for a night view of Paris up high. After lots and lots of stairs we made it to the top, and wow. We could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up, and the blur of headlights and tail lights from cars on the streets. It was really just all so beautiful. It’s sort of like a dream where you can hardly believe what you’re doing is real. So after we left the Arc de Triomphe we went to a café near the Louvre so we could have a drink (can you believe it was 5 euros for 10 ounces?!)…which then of course we wanted a dessert which was mmm good and by the time we were done we realized it was almost time for the metro to close so we raced back to the station to get to our hotel.
Day 2: So today we started out late because I am stupid and decided that I should set my alarm for the wrong time (probably due to a lack of sleep combined with sheer exhaustion of being in a new city and touring the entire day). First stop was to get food at the food market we never could find…oh well, so we went to a little French café and I ordered the eggs and ham breakfast with a croissant, coffee and orange juice. Little did I know that when my eggs came out, they would be practically raw!! I am so serious…they were still like jelly- all liquidy on top and the yolk didn’t even look cooked. The waitress never came back (they take an unbelievably long time to check up on you) so I ate the rest of my food (definitely not the eggs, or the ham because it was covered with uncooked eggs), left money on the table and got out of there. First stop after that traumatizing experience: the Louvre! We got in free as the first Sunday of every month is free to all. It was pretty interesting- I’m not a huge art fan but I did get to see the periods of history that I enjoy learning about- the Egyptian era, the Medieval era, and the Renaissance era and got to see the Mona Lisa as well! Not as big as I thought it would be. It was really rather small, but she really does look like she’s staring at you from every angle.We also got to see the Venus de Milo and a head statue from Easter Island. Took lots of pictures of the Louvre and the glass pyramid right outside. There’s also the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel which is similar to the larger one I had been on the night before. It’s also right in line with the large one so when you look through the arch you see the big one as well as the Concorde. Our destination after the Louvre was to see Notre Dame. We walked along the River Seine to get there and of course stopped off for a crêpe on the way. Pretty sights and yummy food= fun. :) Notre Dame’s famous gargoyles were very small but when I looked at them up close via my camera they were scary looking! Did you know they’re actually passageways to drain water from the roof? Anyway it’s a gorgeous building. Inside was pretty as well but it was sort of creepy! Immediately upon walking in you could hear this horrible angry sounding organist playing a piece that just sounded plain MAD. It was very upsetting- I shouldn’t feel that way when walking into a church. It should be peaceful and uplifting. That was a bit disappointing. Next stop was to try to go to some of the open air flea markets which also never happened. According to my Paris travel book the markets were close to the oldest street in Paris, Rue Mouffetard, which we found but just not the markets. That was sort of disappointing. The street was cute though and was absolutely littered with restaurants and cafés. We decided to eat at one of them and I got the boeuf bourguignon, French onion soup and a chocolate mousse for dessert. Mmmmm. What can I say, I love food! After dinner we went to look at the Concorde, walked up the Champs Élysées and had our last crêpe (with ice cream, mmm) before heading back to the hotel to grab our bags and go back home. So that was about it! It was a gorgeous place and I had a lovely time but it's just one of those places where I wouldn’t be torn up if I never went back. I absolutely recommend seeing it though as it has so many famous places.
