Paris, France

Paris!

I spent this last weekend in Paris. In my opinion everyone needs to go to Paris at least once in their life.

We got into Paris late Friday night and went to our hostel. The name of the hostel was “Oops” and after spending the weekend there I can understand why. In our room there was a giant crack in the wall (oops), my sheets and the sheets of one of the other girls had holes in it (oops), and there seemed to be questionable substances and hair on some of the sheets (oops). But the place was cheap, in a good location, and we only spent time there for sleeping. 

Notre Dame

On Saturday we woke up and grabbed breakfast. The croissants in Paris are amazing! They are flakey and buttery, and the best croissants I’ve ever had. Then we went and took a free Sandeman’s walking tour. It started at the St. Michel’s fountain. We went past Notre Dame, Hotel de Ville, and the Museum du Louvre. For part of the tour we got to walk along the Seine River. Then we walked through the Tuileries Garden. We also saw the opera house, Palais Garnier, and the Arc de Triomphe. We also saw a lot of other places on the tour. The problem with this tour was that we covered a lot of buildings quickly and I have trouble remembering the names of places or the significance of many of the places. For example, on one of the important buildings you could see the bullet holes from World War II. Also, one of the bridges we saw was the first bridge made out of rock in Paris. The people believed the bridge would collapse and mess up the river but it didn’t. The King had a giant party where everyone had to dress up. They drank a ton and had a fun time. In order to remember the night the King had a sketch artist draw pictures of all the guests faces. These faces are all along the side of the bridge. There are some funny ones, like the face of a guy that is about to throw up. 

Louvre

Then later we took another tour of the Montmartre District. This district is on the edge of Paris. During Napolean’s reign, he wanted to fix up the city and make it nicer by building new rodes and monuments. In order to make room for his project he destroyed many of the building where the poor people lived. These people needed a place to live so they moved right outside the walls of Paris and Montmarte was developed. This is where the famous Moulin Rouge is located, where Cabaret is performed. Down the road is the house that Vincent Van Gogh lived in. We also saw the famous restaurant that Pablo Picasso ate at. Because Picasso was very poor he worked out a deal with the owner so that every week he would give the shop owner a painting in exchange for food.  Then we saw the Clos Montmartre Vinyard. This is the only place in Paris where grapes are grown. Every year the grapes are made into wine and the bottles sell for thousands for dollars. Supposively the wine tastes really bad though. Then we saw the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, it is a giant church made mostly out of Calcite. When it rains the building self-cleans and the calcite makes the building really white. The bad thing about this is that there are parts of the church that the rain doesn’t reach well so these parts look really dirty. The church is on the top of a giant hill so we had an amazing view of Paris. 

Moulin Rouge

After all these tours we were exhausted, and it was late. We found somewhere to have dinner. We ordered escargot (snails) to share. They were actually really good! We also ordered a normal dinner. I ordered pasta for myself but some of the other girls ordered frog legs. I tried one of them and they weren’t bad either. They taste kind of like chicken but are more slimy. It was after 11pm and everyone was tired and ready to get back. I knew we had to leave for our plane early the next morning and was upset that we only saw the Eiffel Tower from afar. So instead of heading back to our hostel we jumped on the metro and headed to the tower. We got off the metro and as we walked towards the tower we saw that it was not only lit-up but the lights were sparkling. It turns out that every hour, on the hour, for five minutes the tower sparkles. This was honestly my favorite part of the trip. If we had got off the metro 5 minutes later we would have missed. It was midnight, I was a bit overtired and loopy but I thought this was absolutely magical! We got closer to the tower and took some pictures. I could have stayed there for hours!

The next day we got up early, had just enough time to run to the Eiffel tower and take a quick daytime picture and then we got one the metro and went to the airport.

Here are my thoughts about the trip:

1. A.  It is IMPOSSIBLE to do Paris in a day. This trip was more like a teaser to me.  I may have seen the Lourve and Notre Dame, but only from the outside. I didn’t get to see the Mona Lisa, Versailles, and I only saw the Arc de Triomphe from afar. I also didn’t get to go up into the Eiffel Tower. Plus I didn’t get to eat a crepe or a baguette.
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3. B.)  I was surprised to find that the people were extremely nice. Coming into Paris I had the stereotype in my head that French people were really snotty and not helpful. I was extremely wrong. Our metro tickets didn’t work at one point so some French girls helped us jump a turnstile, HA! The restaurant owners were very kind to us and most spoke English.
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5. C.)  The city is beautiful, even if some parts were a bit dirty. We did see a big white rat in the bushes, and mice in the metro. And some places like the metro and under bridges smelled like pee. But… forget all that other stuff I just said because this city is crazy pretty! There aren’t any sky-scrapers. The highest building is maybe 7 floors.
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7. D.)  Lastly, I felt like Gollum (nerdy LOTR reference HA!)  from all the time I spent in the metro. Luckily the metro was easy to understand. But I still felt that most of my time was spent riding under the city in the trains.
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9. E.)   I need to go back!

-Steph