Spring Break Part 3: Paris

So after the fiasco in the Dublin airport, I completely passed out on the plane ride to Paris! The flight wasn't very long, about an hour. So I got in a tiny little nap on this flight. My traveling companions did not. When we arrived in Paris, it was raining. I was bouncing up and down because I was so excited to be in France once again, Laura and Megan looked like they wanted to kill me. I just couldn't have been happier! We had to take a bus into Paris because we arrived at the Beauvais airport which is about an hour outside of the city. There was a little girl sitting behind me for the whole hour screaming, crying, and pulling my hair. It was just wonderful. I WOULD NOT let anything ruin my mood though. I was in Paris!!

When we finally got to the hostel (we couldn't find it at first) we were all so exhausted that we decided to take a little nap. We were in a room that was just the 3 of us (it was really more like a hotel) so we went to sleep around 1 p.m. We didn't set an alarm. ....

A little while later...

I wake up and it's dark. There is no clock in the room so we don't know what time it is when we finally get up and decide to go for food. It's almost 9:30 at night! We were a lot more tired than we realized. Just took a nice little 8 hour nap LOL! We walked a ways down from our hotel to get some food for the night and ended up getting omlettes at a place that was like a diner.

We were the only people there, and one other guy had come up to us and was asking us where we were from (in English). Turns out he had lived in Chicago for a few years. He was amazed when I said I spoke French. It was really funny. I said a few things to him and he seemed impressed. More so that an American spoke French, probably had nothing to do with what I said.

I was very proud of myself on this trip because I actually spoke French to people and they spoke back to me! My French is pretty rusty because I haven't studied it or spoken it for a few years, but I could get us around. Actually, at one point at our hotel in Geneva, I translated between Spanish speaking people and French speaking! It was cool. I'll leave that story for my Geneva blog though.

It was for this reason that I had a much better experience in Paris this time than I did the first time I went back in June 2005. I'm not sure what the difference was but last time I went, I was much younger and was with a large group of young Americans so that was probably part of it. I also would like to believe that Americans really are getting a better image around the world recently. Everywhere I go, people are very interested in talking to me and asking me about America. They seem very friendly and excited to speak with an American and I haven't been getting critized every where I go. So good work on improving our image abroad! And hopefully the few people I talked to will have an even better view of Americans after meeting a young girl trying to speak their language with them, even if I'm not so good at it any more!

So that was an off topic rant for no reason, but I thought you would all like to know.

The next morning we went to Versailles. This was the one thing I did not do the last time I was in Paris and really wanted to go! Versailles is a grand palace a little outside of Paris that the Louises (Louis plural?) lived in. You know, the one that got his head chopped off, along with Marie Antoinette? Yeah, those people. (Louis the 14th was the one who moved the palace out of Paris to Versailles and the 16th was the one who was beheaded.) It was rather amazing. Very much what I think of when I think of French royality-elaborate! Golden everything, over-the-top decorations, and all sorts of wasteful but very pretty things, basically.

After Versailles, we spent the day hanging out at the Eiffel Tower. Taking all sorts of photos and hanging out watching street performers for fun. We went up the tower before sunset, because as I've said a million times-there is NOTHING like seeing the sunset from atop the Eiffel Tower!! When you all make it to Paris someday, that is what you need to do.

This is where my favorite line from the whole trip comes from. We were discussing that we didn't think being proposed to on the Eiffel Tower would be very romantic. Here is the exact quote from Megan, "I don't think the Eiffel Tower is all that romantic. I mean with the massive amounts of people, the guard rails so you don't fall off, the pigeon killing spikes, and the signs that say 'please don't shit on the Eiffel Tower'..."

"Um, Megan, my French may be a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure that's NOT what those signs say."

LOL. Maybe you had to be there, but we all thought it was hilarious. So of course we like to remind each other of that from time to time. Please, if you have to go to the bathroom, don't do it on the Eiffel Tower, the French really frown upon that.

After sunset, we walked to the Champps-Elysees and saw the L'Arc de Triomphe (my FAVORITE thing in Paris!). We walked down the Avenue a bit, towards the side with all the expensive shops. Not my favorite side, but we were trying to find some crepes. Which we were unsuccessful at. I was very upset.

The next day, we had a train to Geneva leaving around 7 p.m. and so we had to carry all our stuff with us for the day. I am a very light packer and only had a regular size backpack, so to me walking around isn't so bad. In fact, I specifically packed EXTRA light assuming that we would have to carry all our crap with us. Laura also just had a backpack, but hers was a little bigger and heavier than mine. And then there was Megan. Apparently nobody informed her what "backpacking through Europe" really means. She had a huge hikers backpack with her, which would have been fine if that was her ONLY piece of luggage. However she also had one of those little wheel-y bags. If anyone has seen my little red suitcase that I got for my first trip to France, it was one of those. (Which by the way, I lived out of for 3 weeks in France with JUST that.)

Well at any rate, we decided to take a bus tour of Paris that day. Which isn't an entirely bad idea. In fact, when you all go to Paris (I am absolutely convinced that everybody who reads my blogs regularly will make it to Paris one day) I recommend the bus tour. It's a "hop on, hop off" tour that takes you around to all the sites and you can get off the bus and do whatever you like and get back on later. Paris is very large and spread out, so I definitely recommend the bus tour. It will take you to all the sites and you don't have to kill time in between trying to get every where. We didn't hop off at all though, we just sat on the bus and saw all the sites and listened to the commentary.

I was a little upset, there was a few things I wanted to do. Including going up to the bell tower at Notre Dame (which I didn't get to do last time). I probably could have just hopped off and done my own thing but I didn't want to leave Laura and Megan. I probably should have. Hey, it's not my fault I packed practically nothing. I wanted to walk everywhere.

After our bus tour, we went to a little cafe near the Louvre. I had quiche, so I was happy. There was a waiter that felt the need to try and be cutesy-flirting with us. I think he was just a little bored and heard us speaking English and thought he could mess with us. He came right up near me and starting speaking French really fast. I don't think he expected me to actually answer him. But I did. HA! Jokes on you, I still kinda speak your language! lol

Then, it was off to the train station to hop on our TGV to Geneva! I love the TGV, by the way. It is the greatest way to travel in my opinion. The TGV is a French train and is one of the fastest in the world. It is also very comfortable, clean, and nice! "TGV" stands for "Train a grande vitesse" or "high speed train" in English. (For any of my French speaking friends reading this and are critizing the fact that I have no accents on anything-I can't figure out how to do them on this keyboard.)

So it's off to Geneva!