Thank you, Eiffel. For the Tower.

A weekend in Paris. Interesting to say the least. Not a bad trip – just interesting. And it was very quick. We arrived in Paris Friday morning and left late Saturday night. The first day was wet and chilly, so after lunch at a cute, little French restaurant with crepes, we headed to the Louvre Museum.

The Louvre is where the Mona Lisa is housed, so it was cool to see her. She’s much smaller than you would expect. But for anyone who knows me, I’m not a huge fan of museums and I don’t know much about art, so after about an hour, I was good to go. I just think it’s more fun to explore a city that I’ve never been to than to spend my day in a building. But we stayed a little longer since the others wanted to look around more. Really though, that place is HUGE, and it would probably take about 4 and a half days to make it through the entire thing.

After the Louvre, we walked towards the Arc de Triomphe. We walked through some gardens and parks along the way, which were lovely with all the leaves on the trees changing colors. But fall is definitely not the ideal season to visit Paris – spring or summer would be much better because there’s just so much to see that’s outside. By the time we made it down to the Arc, it was dark because it was actually a lot farther away than we thought. But it was fun walk and it was cool to see the Arc at night.
After that, we headed to our hotel. It was by the airport, which is definitely not in the centre of Paris, so we had to take a train back out to it. Thank goodness for public transportation – otherwise we definitely would’ve been in trouble. When we got to the hotel, it was actually really nice – but of course there has to be a story to go along with it. There were four of us who went on this trip. Well, when we walked into our room, there was only one bed. Awesome. How that happened I don’t exactly know, but regardless, there was still only one bed. So me and a guy slept on the floor. He took the curtain down from the window and slept on that. I, on the other hand, used my towel for a blanket. So yeah, not the best sleep ever, but at least it was only for one night. We ate dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, which was one of the first hot meals I’ve had in a long time that did not consist of English muffin and American cheese sandwiches. :)

The next day when we checked out of the hotel, it was raining. Not exactly pleasant, but no matter what, I was going to see the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower, because really, that was pretty much the whole reason I went to Paris in the first place. Before we went to Notre Dame, we went to a restaurant where I had a croque (I think that’s the name of it). It’s basically two slices of bread with some sort of cheese, either mozzarella or asiago, melted on each slice. Then they are stacked on top of each other with tomatoes in between and an egg on top. Probably one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had in my life. Seriously, it was delicious.

Notre Dame Cathedral was beautiful and HUGE. We toured the inside while mass was happening, which was probably somewhat awkward for them, since random people were walking around them, taking pictures, and staring. I really wanted to climb the stairs to the top of Notre Dame because you get to see the bells and the gargoyles along the way, but the line was too long and not everyone wanted to wait.

Then we FINALLY headed to the Eiffel Tower. Unlike the Mona Lisa, it is much bigger than you would expect. We rode the elevator up to the second level, because the very top was closed due to the weather (But I don’t really understand why… It’s not like it was foggy or snowing… just a little rainy). But the views from the second level were still extraordinary. It was so beautiful – and the sun even started to come out while we were up there. After taking tons of pictures, Mel and I decided to go back down to the bottom because we thought the boys were already down there. WRONG. After standing on a bench underneath the Eiffel Tower for at least 45 minutes looking for them, they were nowhere to be found. So, we decided to walk through the Parc du Champs de Mars to get pictures of the Eiffel Tower from a different view. After that, ee decided to walk under the Eiffel Tower one more time and look for them, but if we couldn’t find them, then we were just going to meet them at the airport. Well, somehow in that crazy mass of people, we saw them. Amazing. They said they had been looking for us the whole time, but I find that hard to believe. You know how boys are – they probably got distracted and then finally realized that we weren’t near them anymore.

After the Eiffel Tower, we headed over to a street near there, went into a few shops, and ate dinner. We went to a sandwich and dessert café, which was absolutely adorable. I got a baguette sandwich (because that’s just something you have to do… hello, it’s called a FRENCH baguette for a reason!) filled with goat cheese. It was AWESOME. And then for dessert I had a chocolate éclair – really, you just can’t go wrong with French pastries.

By the time we left there, it was dark outside, so we walked by the Eiffel Tower one more time to see it all lit up. It was spectacular – I can’t even describe it. It’s just something you have to see in person – and even then it doesn’t actually seem like you’re really there looking at it.

After that, it was time to head to the airport. We made it to London without any major problems, but it just seemed to take FOREVER. It’s just one of those things – when you’re traveling home you just want to be there. You don’t want to take a plane, a shuttle, a train, and the tube – you just want to instantly be at your place. Is that too much to ask? Ha.

But all in all, it was a good trip. I saw almost everything I wanted to see, and learned that springtime in Paris is probably better than fall in Paris. And as much as I love traveling, there’s just something about coming back to London that makes me feel all warm and cozy on the inside. :)

Until next time,
Rachel