So, since there is only several hours remaining in my time abroad, I feel I should finish these blogs.
Paris began the way all great trips begin, with an all night “lets sit in the airport and look homeless for the next 7 hours” fest. I will say, however, that I’m enjoying the feeling of resting my head on cold dirty tile – it’s comforting.
Our plane landed in Charles DeGaulle Airport at around 9 a.m. It was here that I learned a very important lesson in international travel – when in doubt ask the information desk. After an hour of transferring from the bus stop to the train stop, to the bus stop, to the information desk, and back to the train stop, we were finally on our way to the Garden hotel (hostel).
A word on the luxurious Garden Hotel, that merited a 2 star rating on hostelbookers.com – The accommodations were what we expected, but the location is roughly comparable to that island in the first Pirates of the Caribbean – it cannot be found except by those who already know where it is. After a lengthy period of frantic blackberry Google searches and some PG-13 language we were settled into our 9 X 9 prison cell.
We had no time to waste, as Paris is massive. We began with Notre Dame cathedral, which is definitely worth the visit. There was a service going on while we toured inside and they let you take pictures of everything. The whole place smells like expensive wood and candle wax and for the right price (50 eurocents) you can take a picture with Quasimodo.
Next we were off to the Eiffel Tower which is an experience to be described in 3 parts:
Eiffel Tower, Part 1-
Our first visit to the Eiffel Tower was somewhat sheepish. The line was too long to go to the top and the base was too filled with Moroccan immigrants trying to sell us miniature scale plastic replicates of the monument. We decided our time would be better spent taking those “from a distance” pictures – you know, the ones where you stand really far away with the INSERT MONUMENT HERE in the background and then take pictures of you doing various, mildly comical things: holding up the monument, pinching the monument, being Godzilla with the monument. Needless to say our time with the Eiffel Tower was far from over.
Our next journey was to the arc du triumph where we met Arianna Fox who would become our tour guide and lifesaver. Next we had a very un-french dinner in a very un-french restaurant that had a very French-french waiter. The rest of the night consisted of some drunken metro festivities, toe licking, and a small fight about the exact location of our hostel:
Kyle: “Well I don’t know where the FUCK it is!”
Sam: “We’re close, just chill the FUCK out!”
Kyle: “Well let’s just call a FUCKING cab!”
Sam: “There’s McDonald’s, it’s right around the god damn McDonald’s!”
Kyle: “I don’t give a shit if it’s BY McDonalds!”
Sam: “I’m NOT calling a fucking cab!”
Kyle: “Wait I found it!”
Kyle and Sam hug and go to bed
I would like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Samantha Bernens for my behavior.
Eiffel Tower Part 2:
The next morning began a bit more optimistically with a trip back to our favorite national phallus. This time, we arrived a bit earlier to avoid the lines. As we made our way up to the top we started to realize our mistake – France is really cold in February. We shivered our way up two elevators and three lengthy lines before we reached the top. I don’t know if it was the hypothermia talking, but the view surreal. It’s really the only way you can understand just how big Paris really is. Before losing the ability to move our fingers, we started to make our way back down which funny enough had a longer line than the way up. We silently wept for the hour it took us to reach the bottom.
Our next destination was the Louvre Museum, which we foolishly arrived to with only an hour until closing. This gave us enough time to see the Mona Lisa and Napoleon’s Apartments. Everything else was kind of a blur, but I can’t really say I’m much of an art person anyways.
Fun Fact: They say if you looked at every piece of art in the Louvre for 30 seconds on a 24/7 basis, it would take you over 6 months to see everything in the museum.
After our brief encounter the worlds most famous artists, we journeyed on over to the Moulin Rouge for a photo op and a 7 euro bottle of water (…the French). We enjoyed a dinner that consisted of Gyros and Crepes before heading back to… you guessed it…
Eiffel Tower Part 3:
Our third and final trip to the Eiffel Tower was my favorite, because at night the whole this is lit up with golden light and for five minutes every hour on the hour it twinkles. It was all around amazing and I couldn’t stop taking pictures – by far the highlight of the trip.
After, we made our way to the apartment of Arianna’s friends who would give us instructions on taking the night bus back to the airport so that we could catch our 7 am flight. This involved a very emotional experience with an elevator (built for 4 people and filled with seven) break down that I would rather forget (I still wake up screaming). We received our vague mandate for getting to the airport, said goodbye to Arianna, and made our way back to our hostel.
Our journey home began at 4 am and couldn’t have gone smoother. We made our flight with 20 minutes to spare. It was by far one of the best and simultaneously most exhausting weekends of my life.
Up next: Germany!
