Paris, France

This song was stuck in my head a lot throughout the weekend because I think it’s the only song I know that’s about Paris…

Paris was amazing and cliché and just what I expected, yet so much more. Pretty much wherever you go you’ll find a tourist, people walk around with giant baguettes all the time, there’s plenty of people watching taking place, wine is their favorite and most popular drink, the Eiffel Tower is beautiful.

My friend, Kelly, and I ventured off by bus to Paris with high expectations! This city was definitely the most surreal of all my travels thus far. When we finally exited the metro and got our first glance at one of Paris’s masterpieces–the Arc de Triomphe, it hit us; we were in Paris! It was big a beautiful and I loved it right away. We took lots of pictures at the Arc, as we did with nearly everything we saw, and then realized we weren’t really sure why the Arc was built. I had brought along a handy book about Paris that my host mom had. We opened it up and read a paragraph about the Arc de Triomphe, felt much more knowledgeable, and decided we were now prepared to climb the steps to the top.

The climb was long and we were out of breath due to the drastic change in sea level (at least that’s what we blamed it on), but the view was worth it. This is where we had our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower.

When we got back down we decided to walk down the infamous Champs Elysees. Unfortunately, we realized that it would be more difficult than we thought. The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of this giant turn about where traffic never ceases and crosswalks don’t exist. We had followed a group of people through the traffic on the way over but going back across the road we were on our own. We ended up playing a little frogger and made it without being smashed.

We enjoyed a delicious sandwich at a random café and people watched for a little bit. We then set off in the direction the Eiffel Tower! Or so we thought… We decided that of all the things to find in Paris, the Eiffel Tower (ET) would be the easiest, for obvious reasons. This was our one chance to not look like a tourist with our maps out and our mouths open trying to figure out where we were and where we should go. We started walking and walking and walking and then after we had walked for quite some time without seeing the ET we decided it was time to stop trying to be someone we weren’t, embrace our true tourist self, and whip out a map. So we did, we had two, in fact. We assumed we were somewhere near the ET so we started looking for street signs somewhere along there. No luck. We then looked in another area where we were sure we had actually, accidentally wandered off to. No luck. After about a half hour of this confusion, I asked a man with a massive mustache, “Where are we?” (In French of course) and he pointed to the far north of the map- just the opposite place we needed to be. Fail. We couldn’t even find the ET on our own! From then on, the map became our best friend.

We took a metro to the ET and when we finally came upon it we were in awe. It was so big and so wonderful. The only thing we didn’t expect was that it was painted a flat brown color and we both had remembered the ET having a much nicer, brozeish color to it. But we weren’t complaining. We spent a good chunk of time in the area taking lots of pictures of each other and for other people because everyone wants an ET picture! We were pro photographers by the end of it all; we knew all the good angles. For some reason, some people just don’t understand that when we ask them to take a picture of us that we don’t mean just us. We mean mostly get that giant tower in the background and then get us in the bottom corner. But no, some people thought our shoes were the most important part of the picture. Luckily, not everyone thought this way.

Everywhere around the ET there were guys selling mini ET, flying things that light up, and little toy puppy dogs that walk around and bark. Typical ET souvenirs, of course. There were hoards of them, though! They were set up right next to each other, so I don’t really understand their logic. But oh well. The people trying to sell us stuff go rather annoying throughout our stay in Paris because they were at every tourist attraction, and so were we, and so we saw them a lot.

We then walked along the Seine River for a bit, were able to get pictures of the ET from another angle, and went to a contemporary art museum called Musee de Tokyo. It was very… interesting… We tried to interpret it all but I think we just didn’t fully understand it. We walked by the Grand Palace on our way to the metro to Kelly’s friend’s apartment where we stayed for the weekend.

I thought the apartment would be small. But small would’ve been much better than the size of this apartment. You walk in the door and there’s a little bathroom to your right. You go down this tiny hallway, oh, and the tiny hallways is also the kitchen with a sink, a stove top, two cupboards and a mini fridge. It's like 1/3 the size of my kitchen last semester. Then you enter the bedroom that has a single bed for her and her husband. The room is also the dining room, the office, the living room and whatever else. I was amazed. The location wasn’t even near anything touristy and yet it was still so tiny for the whopping price of 850 euro a month! Ridiculous! Kelly and I were curious as to where we would sleep, but they pulled out two mattresses from underneath the bed when the time came. So we all slept right in a row and nearly filled up the room.

Before bedtime though, Kelly and I went to the St. Michael area and ate dinner. There was a giant fountain in the area that was pretty. We had had our backpacks with us up to this point and it felt nice to not have the extra weight. We walked down a restaurant-filled street and a waiter offered us a free cocktail if we ate at his place, so we agreed and sat down. We ate cheese fondue (three kinds of cheese) and potatoes and played the guessing game, “Who’s the Tourist?” It was a fun and pretty easy game and the food was great. We walked around there for a bit longer and headed home for some rest, as we were getting up early to get to the Louvre right when it opened so we didn’t have to wait in line.

We were a little late because sleep was nice and we grabbed a couple baked goods along the way, but we still didn’t have to wait in line. We headed straight for the Mona Lisa, once we bought our ticket! She was nice. Small, protected by bulletproof glass, but nice. We didn’t really know what else we wanted to see and so we went to the starred items on our Louvre map and saw lots of things along the way. Lots of paintings, sculptures, items from long ago. I think things in museums seem to blend together after a while. But it was still a sweet museum! And massive, too! One of the cooler things was the Napoleon Apartments. It was set up like his house (was or was guessed to be) and it was beautiful and luxurious. The colors were rich, the decorations were refined, the wallpaper was cloth and the chandeliers were the biggest I’ve ever seen.

We spent nearly two hours in there and found that the hardest part was trying to get out of the Louvre! We walked around it and saw the glass pyramid and it felt surreal all over again. The pyramid has been in so many movies and it made me feel like I was, too. We then headed towards the Notre Dame via St. Germain Boulevard, which is supposed to be known for it’s cafés and people watching. It’s also supposedly the best place to spot a celebrity (that’s what my book said at least). We didn’t find one though. We stopped at a café and enjoyed our first croque madame, which is the Parisian way of doing a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s meat and cheese in the middle with melted cheese on top and a fried egg on top of that. I loved every bite. I made one for myself a couple days after I got home, too. Another thing I really liked about Paris was that they gave us a giant pitcher of water with every meal we had – for free! I’ve missed free water.

We left the café and headed for the Notre Dame. We followed our usual patter of lots of pictures and then sit in awe for a bit. The Notre Dame was cool, but I felt like the church in saw in Cologne, Germany was much more amazing. The only unique thing about the inside was the intricate and extensive stained glass throughout the cathedral. Otherwise it was just like any other European cathedral, which is still great. We got in line to head to the top to be with the gargoyles. There was a crepe stand nearby (how convenient) and so we got a hot crepe with Nutella on the inside. So delicious! My purse was feeling left out at first, but after a dollop of Nutella fell into it, it was much happier.

It started to get overcast and sprinkle and so we decided that it wouldn’t be the best day for a view from the top of something. Aside from the little bit of rain, we had pretty good weather. It wasn’t always sunny skies, but it was a good temperature and not too overcast. We stopped at a café for some hot chocolate, went home for a couple hours rest, grabbed a cheap bottle of wine and were off to visit the ET at nighttime!

The ET was great during the day, but it was amazing at night! It’s lit up with a golden glow and sparkles every hour on the hour. We thought we had taken a lot of pictures of attractions up to this point, but we went crazy here! We tried every setting on our camera and every angle we could think of. We saw it sparkle twice. I loved it.

After enjoying the radiance of the ET and the wine, we went to the Bastille area. We found a nice looking bar, grabbed a beer and sat down. We were there for a while watching this foursome interact and coming up with dialogue for them. Our version was probably more amusing than what they were actually talking about. We went home relatively early again in preparation for our final day in Paris.

Our first destination of the day was the Catacombs. They are these underground tunnels all throughout Paris. One section is closed off for this tour. Apparently, back in the day the cemetery in Paris filled up and they didn’t know what to do with the bodies. So naturally they took the bones and lined the walls of these underground tunnels with them. It was crazy and creepy but quite interesting. There were so many bones! It was unreal.

After that we went to an outdoor market with Kelly’s friend and husband. They had scarves (I bought one), fresh food, shoes, jewelry, art, random nick-knacks and lots of other things. We decided to buy three kinds of fresh cheese- goat, brei and something else, and a fresh baguette and head for Montmartre. We got there, and ate our delicious cheese and bread and then hung out there for a couple hours. There was a guy who was doing crazy juggling for like an hour! He was so amazing! After he finished Kelly and I went and told him he was really, really good. We chatted for a bit and he gave us his card. You should watch him by either Googleing him or going to his website: http://www.iya.fr/en/iya_traore.php

There was also a guy who was playing guitar and singing and so we sat, along with over 200 other people, and enjoyed his show for a while. Because there were so many people there, some guys decided to buy a couple 6-packs of Heineken and sell them to the crowd! So funny! We then saw the inside of the church briefly and walked down this street that had a bunch of artists working on and selling their art. It was so cute.

We took the metro back home (we became quite familiar with Paris’s metro system in the short time we were there) to grab our stuff and then went to the bus stop to head home. The weekend was wonderful but I was quickly forced back into reality when I got home as I had a test and a 3,000-word paper due along with many hours at the internship. All is peaceful for the moment as I’m outside enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and I head for Dublin tomorrow!