I'm proud to say that although I am "one of those third year girls" that Gene Kelly's character speaks of, there were absolutely no profound observations made on my trip to Paris whatsoever. That could probably be attributed to the fact that my group spent most of our time laughing and singing. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I should have started this post writing about the very beginning of my weekend.
It began promptly at 3:30am on Friday morning. Most college students would just be climbing into bed at this hour, but I was wide awake and ready to go. Our train for Paris was leaving at 5:25am and because we had to leave so early, none of the Underground trains were running. We were forced to take a night bus. Sadly, they are nothing like the Knight Buses in Harry Potter. We got to the train station in plenty of time, found our seats and settled in for a fairly short trip. It should be noted at this point that during this train ride I accomplished something amazing. I fell asleep. For a whole hour! I didn't think it was possible, but lo and behold, it has been done! It probably won't ever happen again.
Our train got into Paris at 8:50 and by 10:00, we had made it to our hostel. Hostels are interesting places. For those of you who have never stayed in one, you're really not missing much. Hostels are simply very cheap hotels, usually occupied by students who cannot afford somewhere nice to stay. Annie and I shared a room with two other girls and the room consisted of nothing but two bunk beds and a sink. That's it. The beds were uncomfortable and squeaked ridiculously loud. Seriously, if I so much as blinked it would go, "SQEAKKKKK." But you get what you pay for, and we didn't pay much.
Finally, we met up with Annie and Andrew, who had gotten into Paris the night before, and we made a quick plan. We decided to grab some lunch and head towards Notre Dame. We did a lot of walking this weekend. A LOT of walking. I think my calves are now fully toned and my feet will probably never recover. Goodness gracious. Anyway, as we walked, we talked and laughed and snapped a ridiculous number of photos. Well, I snapped a ridiculous number of photos. The others contained themselves a little more than I did. It was so nice to be in Paris with three of my best friends. Matt and I remarked later that we could not have picked better travelling companions than Annie and Andrew. We're all so easy going that we got along perfectly. I had been desperate for some girl talk, and thankfully, I was able to chat and giggle with Annie, something I haven't done for a while. ANYWAY, we got to Notre Dame and we were able to go inside and ogle this huge cathedral for as long as we wanted. And ogle we did. It is possibly the most gorgeous cathedral I have ever been inside and I could easily have stayed there for hours, just sitting and marveling at the design of the building. Afterwards, we made our way to Luxembourg Gardens, a place we had heard of, but knew little about. Once we got there, I recognized the place from movies. The gardens are full of trees, some scattered about and some in perfect columns, all with leaves that are just beginning to change colors, which is quite a sight to behold! We walked around for a while, but eventually it was time to head back to the hostel to check in. We dumped our stuff in our rooms and decided to go the Louvre.
Ah, the Louvre. Let's talk about the Louvre. The Louvre is gargantuan. The Louvre is overwhelming. The Louvre is amazing. The Louvre is terrible. We had no idea what we were getting into. We spent about two and a half hours there and barely saw 1/3 of the museum. The building is an intricate maze of rooms containing paintings, sculptures, figurines, jewelry and every other kind of art you can imagine. Many times I found myself staring at the architecture of the building itself more than the actual art inside. It was beautiful! We saw the Mona Lisa, the statue of Venus, the giant statue of the Sphinx and many, many other objects. Then we got lost. We found ourselves stuck inside this one wing of the building with no earthly idea how to get out. Our map was no help, of course, and the longer it took for us to get out, the more exhausted we felt. We'd reached that point where everything we said was funny and we began walking through rooms without even looking at the art. We were that desperate to get out. After what felt like ten years, we stumbled out of the Louvre only to remember that we had to go all the way back through the building to get to our Metro stop. It had been a long day. We found dinner and drinks and fell into our beds, falling asleep in no time.
We began our second and last day in Paris with a trip to a cemetery. It sounds weird, doesn't it? But don't be too quick judge, this cemetery was special. This was where Jim Morrison, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, Frederick Chopin and Edith Piaf are all buried. The graves in this cemetery were crazy! So many of them stood several feet tall above the ground and had all kinds of carvings and engravings on them, many surrounded by flowers as well. Following the cemetery, we hopped on a train and rode over to the Arc de Triomphe. The arc is surrounded by the biggest roundabout that I have ever seen, with no clear path to the middle of the circle. We thought about playing our own version of Frogger, in true George Costanza style, but then we found the underground path to the middle, which didn't have death written all over it. We walked around, took a few photos, or in my case, ten million, and moved on. We walked down the Champs Elysees and promptly stumbled upon a farmers market! We had decided the previous day that we wanted to have a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower and this farmers market was ideal for supplying our food! We bought some cheese, fruit and wine and with groceries in hand, we made our way towards "le Tour Eiffel." After staring at the structure for a long time out of sheer amazement, we sat down in the shade and had our picnic. It was glorious! The weather was perfect, not too cold or too hot, and the sky was that lovely shade of blue that always signifies a good day.
We lounged in the grass for a while, talking about our time in our prospective cities, London and Dublin, and then decided it was time to ride to the top of the tower! Then came the waiting. And the waiting. And more waiting. First we had to wait in line to buy tickets. Then we had to wait in line to get on an elevator. Then we waited for another elevator. Finally, we were at the top and my goodness, it was worth it! I have pictures galore and they do not do this view justice. It was breath-taking. Please, I beg of all of you, visit my Facebook page and take a look at these photos!
It was getting later in the day and there was only one thing left that we wanted to do. After a dinner of pizza and margaritas, we came upon the one, the only....Moulin Rouge. The nightclub on which the movie musical is based! Sadly, we couldn't find Ewan McGregor. It was insanely expensive to actually go to a show, so we were quite content to sit in a cafe and just look at the outside of the club. We talked, laughed, told stories and sang "Elephant Love Medley" until we were too tired to go on. This morning we woke up early enough to go out for a final meal of Nutella crepes and then we parted ways at the train station. Andrew and Annie flew back to Dublin and Matt and I took a train back to London. It's strange how quickly this city has become home to us. When we got back to our neighborhood, we both let out a sigh. It's comforting to be back here, where we know our way around and don't have to worry about speaking the same language as those around us.
Final thoughts on Paris? Well, the stereotype that all French people are rude simply isn't true. I don't think we encountered a single person who was unkind to us. Although our French consisted of the few simple phrases that I remembered from high school, the people we spoke to were quite accommodating and forgiving. The food was delicious, the sights were amazing and the company was unmatched. Paris? Quite a success.
This post was far too long.
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