“In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it’s on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent.” - Roman Polanski

A view of Paris from the top of Notre Dame

Ok, now on to Paris!  My roommates Mary and Hayley and I decided to spend a weekend in Paris, France: the city of lights, the city of love, or the city of crepes, whatever you want to call it.  We had pretty much two full days to see as much as we can, and I think we made the best of it.  I arrived in the Paris airport by myself because I took a different flight than my roommates due to our different work schedules.  Mary gave me a heads up on how to get to the hostel so I wasn’t completely lost. I started my journey on the metro as per usual.   I have to admit, a metro is typically not the most appealing part of a city, but Paris ranks pretty far down the list.  It was pretty hideous and looked really old and dirty.  When I got off at my stop, I came across super long wind tunnels and police attending to a man with his head bashed in and bleeding. Whooo Paris!  But really, besides the less-than-savory first impression, Paris went uphill from there.  I made my way to the hostel, which was a few short blocks from the metro station, found my roommates, and went upstairs to check out our room.  I found out we were sharing our four-person room with a nice Serbian guy who just got a job in Paris and was staying at the hostel while he looked for a place to rent.  You never know who you’re going to meet in hostels.  It was pretty late by the time I got settled in, so we decided to hit the hay and get ready for a long two days ahead.  Let me tell you a little bit about the beds in our hostel.  Now, I usually don’t complain about hostels because, well, they’re hostels and you usually get what you pay for.  We’ve had great experiences so when there are little things wrong they don’t bother me.  However, these beds are worth writing about.  Not only were they among the least comfortable beds I’ve slept in, they were by far the noisiest – perhaps in the world.  This may sound like an exaggeration, but I assure you it is not. You couldn’t even take a deep breath without the bed squeaking, so forget even thinking about rolling over or getting up to go the bathroom.  I found it difficult to sleep because I was concentrating so hard on trying not to make noise. My efforts, however, were futile.  What made the terrible beds somewhat easier to swallow was the fact that we woke up at around 8:30 to one of the best hostel breakfasts we’d had.  Fresh, buttery croissants and baguettes with cereal and juice.  Pretty standard as far as hostel breakfasts go, but everything was somehow better.    Ready for our Parisian adventure, we headed to the Museum D’Orsay, which I would say is the second most famous art museum after the Louvre.  I really liked this museum.  They had a lot of paintings that I actually recognized.  Now since, I’m not the biggest art aficionado, you know a painting has to be famous if I recognize it.  I’m talking big names Van Gogh, Manet, Renoir, Monet, Picasso – just to name a few.  Let’s just say I was really impressed.  Standing in front of paintings with such history and prestige is an inexplicable sensation. Another thing I liked about the Museum D’Orsay was that it was pretty easy to conquer.  It was really big, but still pretty accessible.  I didn’t feel overwhelmed or like it was impossible to see everything.  (Although this is completely cheating, I’m going to tell you all that this is what we like to call foreshadowing to a future rant about how awful the Louvre is).  After a full dose of culture we headed to the famous Notre Dame cathedral – look out, Quasimodo!  We had to wait about 45 minutes to climb to the top, but it was worth it.  It was a typical claustrophobic, windy, stone staircase that takes you up most famous European cathedrals.  Is it snobby that I’ve climbed enough cathedrals to be able to say that? Nah.  Anyways, the view from the top was really great, but my favorite part was all of the gargoyles.  Something about being amidst these creatures really takes you back in time.  And what surprised me most is that they were all different. This creepy guy over here was my favorite.  Something tells me that painter Francisco Goya got his inspiration for his "Saturn Devouring his Son" from this statue. (Look it up, it's super creepy.)  Next, you can climb up even further to explore the bell tower.  After we soaked in the view and took various silly pictures imitating gargoyles, we headed down the stairs to go inside the cathedral.

 

So like I just bragged about 10 sentences ago, I've been in a lot of super old churches, but Notre Dame really is impressive.  It is enormous and really beautiful.  There were also lots of separate little chapels honoring various saints.  Of course, I had to light a candle for and take a picture with Saint Denis! So we made our rounds through the crowds, took a few pictures and moved on to our next stop:  the Arc de Triomphe. Now, I expected Paris to be big, since it's a European capital and all, but everything just seemed so far from everything else.  In a lot of other cities you can hit a lot of the touristy things in a short amount of time.  Not in Paris.  Everything seemed to be at least a 40 minutes walk from one stop to the next.  But we forged ahead.  The walk to the Arc was pretty cool because we passed through the shopping district down one of the famous shopping streets, Avenue des Champs-Elysees. I was actually really glad we got to the Arc at the time we did because the sky was the perfect shade of blue.  Just an FYI (since I didn't know what it was for either) The Arc de Triomphe is engraved with names of generals who commanded French troops during Napoleon's regime.

 Our next and final stop for the night, and the most anticipated for me, was the Eiffel Tower.  We were able to see it in the daylight from afar, but I was really excited to see it at night.  So we walked, and we walked, and we walked.  Finally, through some thick trees, I spotted my first glimpse of the glistening tower. However, we still had a ways to go.  When we finally got there, I breathed a sigh of relief because I would have walked another hour to see what we saw, but I was sure glad I didn't have to.  The Eiffel Tower is everything I thought it would be and more. 

 

Let's get to the good stuff though, we weren't there just to stare at it, we were going to the top!  Every customer has two options: ride the elevator all the way to the top, or pay 5 euro less and climb the first 700+ steps and take the elevator the rest of the way.  Well being the super young, fit, and broke ladies we are, we chose option B.  After already climbing up and down the 400-something steps in Notre Dame, 700 more was not very appealing, but we did it anyway.  Believe it or not, it actually wasn't that bad.  Don't get me wrong, I was panting pretty hard at the top, but we made it nonetheless.  Next you take an elevator the rest of the way and you're let off into the top.  The view was, as you can imagine, breathtaking.  Everywhere you looked, there were beautiful sights freckled with streetlamps.  It was difficult to take pictures in the dark, but I guarantee I won't forget that.  After making a few rounds around the deck, we made the trek back down to go see the light show that they do every hour.  We went out onto the lawn, and picked a spot to sit down.  No more than a minute passed before we were approached by a couple of young French guys.  Not surprised.  I think European guys have a special radar for American girls.  They were clearly drunk and equally hilarious so we humored them by chatting for a few minutes, but their English was almost unintelligible, so that made communicating a little difficult.  As soon as we noticed the light show starting, we shooed them away, and I'm assuming they went to find some more American girls.  It's not a bad gig if you ask me.  Hang out on the lawn of one of the more beautiful structures in the world with your beverage of choice just waiting for young tourists - just like shootin fish a barrel. The light show was really cool. It basically just looks like the tower is sparkling for a few minutes. I'm going to post the video, even though I was not tech-savvy enough to figure out how to rotate it.  You'll get the idea.  Also, if the volume is up you can hear the French guys flirting.

Shortly after the sparkling fizzled out, we walked to the closest metro stop to make our way back to the hostel.  Sometimes I think hostels should charge you less if literally all you do is sleep there.  We were out and about from 9am to about 11:30pm.  Ridiculous. So back to the squeaky beds we went to try and get enough rest to do the same thing all over again the next day.  The plan:  Louvre, Sacre Cour, Moulin Rouge, back to the hostel.  We got pretty much the same start with the wake up time and the scrumptious breakfast and out the door. We'd heard stories about the daunting lines than can accumulate outside of the Louvre, so we wanted to get there early.  It paid off because we hardly had to wait at all.  Also, we got in for free for being students in the European Union - which I forgot to mention we got into almost everything for free the day before as well.  Next we grabbed some maps and tried to plan out how navigate this massive place.  Begin rant:  The layout of the Louvre seems efficient at first glance.  It is organized into three branches, and then those branches have branches and so and and so forth.  The problem is, when you go up a branch, you have no choice but to come down the same way before you can go up another one.  Why is this such a problem you may ask?  Well, if you ask me whoever designed/built the Louvre is probably still laughing about it.  It is so big that it is literally impossible to see everything in one visit.  I don't see the point of that.  It as if they thought, let's make some place so enormous and so jam-packed with art that no one can see it all, but we'll watch them scramble to try.  This is why the lay out annoyed me so much.  Now, I'm going to attribute some of my rage to the fact that my feet started hurting within the first hour from being on our feet for about 11 hours the day before, but still.  It if were possible to go up one branch and come down another, you could see twice as much in half the time.  But nooooo, instead you are forced to go up one way, and walked past everything you just saw again, and then you do that over and over and over.  It's infuriating!  On top of that, I was so preoccupied with my annoyance and the constant wondering if we were missing something, that I barely enjoyed what we actually did see. I was pretty much just dragging my feet and pouting around like that 5-year-old girl who's never going to get that pony for Christmas.  After about 5 hours of desperate wandering, we finally threw in the towel. I couldn't wait to get our of there.  I just  felt so defeated.  Ok, end rant.  Now the stuff that we did see was really really great, and I will try not to let my frustrations and permanent grudge against the Louvre overshadow the amazing pieces we got to see. The highlights for me were the Mona Lisa, the Ancient Egyptian collection, the Venus de Milo, and the Michelangelo sculptures.  Also, the ceilings were so beautiful.  Here are a few shots:

 

 

Ok so enough with the Louvre.  Next we went to the famous church called Sacre Cour.  You can see if from afar when you're in the center of Paris, and it's really easy to get to by metro.  As you walk up to the to the steps in front of the church, you can't help but be impressed.  The style of it resembles the Taj Mahal which is a refreshing change from the Gothic style cathedrals. We trekked up the steps, yes more stairs, to see a really great view of Paris.  It was also perfect timing because it had been cloudy most of our weekend and as we approached the church, the sun finally broke through.  

We wandered around a bit and took some pictures and started to make our way down the stairs.  About a third of the way down we noticed a guy starting to set up a guitar and microphone and speakers.  A bunch of people started gathering and sitting on the steps, so we figured we might as well check it out.  I'm really glad we did because this turned out to be one of my favorite parts of our whole trip.  We ended up sitting at watching this guy's whole set.  He was really good and sang a lot of songs in English as well as Spanish, French, and Italian.  It was really entertaining and the crowd was really into it.  There was this drunk guy that occasionally came up behind the guy singing did some pretty sweet dancing.   

The funniest part was in the background, there was a street performer doing soccer tricks the whole time.  At one point, the singer was getting all emotional to John Lennon's Imagine while this guy was at the top of a light pole juggling a soccer ball with his feet.  We could not stop laughing.  After jamming to some Adele and Backstreet Boys, the set was over and we headed back down the stairs to find Moulin Rouge.  We had no intentions of going inside, but we just wanted to see the outside. We knew we were going in the right direction when we looked around us and I had thought we were back in the red light district of Amsterdam.  Live sex shows, sex toy shops, and red lights everywhere.  Finally, we came up to the infamous glowing windmill.  We took our obligatory tourist photos and took the metro back to the hostel.  Once again another day of spending about 14 hours walking around, but in the end it is worth it.  

 

 Moulin Rouge!
















Now in black and white! I did a lot of experimenting with black and white photos in Paris because it was so cloudy.





Another thing, which I can't believe I haven't mentioned before, is that my roommates and I eat kebab wherever we go, and we judge cities accordingly.  Now kebab is not shish kabob.  It is similar to a gyro but usually with different kinds of bread.  The best thing about it, is that it's totally different everywhere we go.  So on our way home, we had to try the kebab in Paris.  We stopped at a to-go place on our way back to the hostel.  This kebab was decent, but it didn't measure up to my two favorites - Bilbao and Santiponce (both in Spain).  The best part about this place was the menu posted outside.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and guess this was short for assorted, but at any rate, we did not order the ass kebab.

Shortly after we finished our dinner, we went to sleep to prepare for our early morning flight the next day.  Well, it wasn't that early, but we did have to make sure we found our way to the bus that we had to take to the airport.  Our travel back went off without a hitch, and I would say we had a really successful trip.  We were extremely exhausted as usual but I had a lot of fun. So many people asked if us if we spoke French before we left, and none of us do.  And people said things like, well good luck because French people hate Americans and if you don't speak French, they won't talk to you and all this other fun stuff.  Even my roommate Hayley, who had been there before said that people were in general really rude to her.  My experience, however, was the complete opposite.  We did not encounter any rude people during our entire trip.  Everyone we talked to was nothing but nice to us and more than willing to speak English.  So, I got a really great impression of the city and the people. In case you were wondering, no I did not forget to indulge in a delicious French pastry before I left.  On our way to the airport bus, we stopped at a quaint bakery and I bought this piece of heaven.  It was a triple chocolate mousse cake with little chocolate chips and a gold shaving on top. It was amaaaaaaazing.  

To finish things up, here are a few other pictures from the trip.  Au revoir! 

Saint Denis signs everywhere!

In front of Notre Dame

The altar inside Notre Dame

One of my favorite statues from the Louvre. I can't help but think they're all standing around, looking down, and arguing over who has the biggest....feet, of course!  Get your minds out of the gutter people!

One of my favorite pictures I've taken so far. This bridge had tons of locks on it.  People actually do that here in Sevilla too. I used the cool color isolation feature on my camera to only show the red. Pretty cool!