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Published: January 27th 2008
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Bon Jour everyone!
So this week, after spending Monday through Wednesday in Edinburgh, eating leek and chicken pot pie, I got the chance to go to Paris for an extended weekend. My mom had meetings at the France office earlier in the week and invited me to fly down to visit (who can reject Paris I'll never know?!)
On Thursday after class, around 2:30, I took a bus to the Edinburgh airport and flew to France. The flight was a bit bumpy, but only took 2 hours. Upon landing, I got into a taxi and drove to the hotel where my mom was staying. We were staying at the Hotel Astor, the closest monument would probably be the Arc de Triomphe. I was planning to take the train from Charles De Gaul airport into Paris, but apparently there were labor strikes going on and my mom freaked. After a nice reunion with my mom, we headed out to dinner. We ate at this nice French restaurant and were served by the owner who basically picked out our meal and an amazing wine to go with it. We ate some kind of veal stew which was really good. I had french onion
soup (or just "onion soup" in France) and my mom had escargot. I tried one and it was surprisingly good, really interesting texture though. The meal ended with creme brulee, then we wandered back to our hotel.
The next day, my mom had meetings in the morning, so I was awaken by the maid coming in to clean the room. After shouting "just a half hour" a few dozen times, she left and I quickly showered, packed my backpack, and headed out to do some exploring. I wandered around the streets near our hotel, and decided to go into this massive Roman-style building called La Madeleine. La Madeleine turned out to be this fantastic church/cathedral. I liked it because unlike other churches, there weren't stained glass windows, there were just three giant circular windows in the ceiling.
After walking through the La Madeleine, I headed down towards the Seine (the river that runs through Paris) and stumbled upon one of the ends of the Champs-Elysées (the major shopping street.) I decided to walk down the street towards the Arc de Triomphe. It wasn't that crowded (it was Friday at noon), and I soon found myself at the Arc de Triomphe.
Eiffel Tower
From the top of the Arc I decided to go up and take a look around from the top of the world's largest triumphal arch. There was a cool elevator that I took up to the top (no stairs!) The views from the top were breathtaking. It was a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky. Not soon after I made it to the top of the Arc, my mom called, she was finished with her meetings and at the hotel wondering where I was. I told her that I was on the Arc and suggested that she take a cab over and meet me at the top.
After we spent a good hour at the top, we decided to go see something else. I had intended to get on a double decker bus tour (my guidebook is a huge fan of those), so we purchased the tickets. The busses drove all over Paris's biggest attractions and you could get on and off whenever you wanted. We got on at the Arc and drove over to the Eiffel Tower. We had been there before, but we didn't make it to the top, so we were determined to get there this time. Unfortunately, only the top
level wasn't open on Friday, just Saturday and Sunday. :-( So we hopped back on the bus and drove over to Notre Dame and walked through the church. Then we explored the neighborhood around the church and had lunch at a cafe. We then moseyed back onto the bus and sat on the top (it was an open roofed bus) which was really fun/windy/a bit chilly. We got out at the opera house which was near our hotel. After showing my mom the inside of La Madeleine, we headed back to the hotel. We had drinks at the bar and met up with her coworkers. We decided to go out to dinner with them, so after freshening up, we hopped into two cabs and went to a french restaurant about 10 minutes away from the hotel by cab. The experience at this restaurant is what reinforces the American's perspective on the French's attitude toward us. The waiter seated us and basically never came back for easily an hour and a half. We finally got water, and 45 minutes later we were able to order and eventually ate our food. Food itself was alright, but the service really brought down the
Sacre Coeur
A giant church, we didn't make it over there. excitement of the place. My mom's work friends were really cool though (once they stop talking about European biscuits and Dannon/Kraft relations.) After our meal we all squeezed into one taxi (it's hard to randomly pick up a taxi in Paris, unless you get into a Gypsy cab, which you might not get out of alive) and then headed back to the hotel.
Me and my mom had decided to sleep in and not call for a wake up call.... we wake up around noon! My mom freaked, but eventually laughed it off. We decided to walk down the Champs-Elysées today and just see shopping scene. We first stopped at Maxim's cafe for some coffee. My mom was feeling very fashion conscious with her full-length winter coat, so we went on a hunt to find a european - style coat. We walked around the Champs-Elysées for the greater half of the day, I bought a nice coat (I have a red L.L. Bean ski coat but europeans don't wear red, they wear black.) I also got a scarf, which all europeans wear. So by the end of the day me and my mom had become chameleons and blended into the
city scene. We decided to go on a dinner cruise on the Seine. We were going to do this the day before, but some of mom's work friends didn't like the idea, saying that it was too touristy. We still wanted to do it, so we did. I needed to borrow a tie from the concierge at our hotel, but it was a really fun evening. We got to see Paris, the city of lights, at night time in all of its glory. It was really cool. There was a piano and violin duo on the boat which was entertaining as well. The food was really tasty too! I ate frog (it tasted like chicken!) And had a veal cutlet, and creme brulee for dessert. My mom was really excited because every hour on the hour, the Eiffel Tower twinkles with thousands of twinkling lights, which she'd never seen before.
After our cruise, we were slightly buzzed and walked home while calling family members. My mom was considering going up to the US Embassy (it's near our hotel) and asking to meet with the Ambassador, so she put on her Hillary '08 pin, hoping to look more american... luckily she
was kidding.
The next day, we woke up around 9:30 and packed up our stuff. We left our luggage with the concierge and headed out. We ate at this under-staffed cafe and then took a cab over to the Eiffel Tower (we were determined to get to the top!) Upon arriving at the tower, we saw that the line to take the elevator to the top was clearly long and would take much more time to wait through than we had, so we decided to take the stairs. People are able to walk up the first two levels of the tower, which is exactly what we did. The first level was really interesting. With some affiliation with a global warming group or something, they decided to cover the walkway around the first floor with snow. There were snowshoes available that we could wear and trek around the first level, while reading about polar bears and north arctic animals and such. It was kinda bizarre. We continued to the second level and took tons of pictures. After a while, we decided to hike back down and we took a cab back to the hotel.
We then got our luggage and took
a car to the airport. Me and my mom said our goodbyes and I hopped onto my tiny plane headed for Edinburgh, and she got on her plane headed for Milan (she has some bread research to do for work) a half hour later. It was an uneventful flight, and once I landed, I got back on the bus that dropped me off in the City Centre and I walked back to the dorm. It was an amazing mini-vacation.
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Aunt Lesli
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I'm tired just reading it all!
Sounds like a fantastic time! Enjoy your time in Europe!