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Published: April 15th 2008
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When people think of popular international cities, it’s for sure that Paris pops into mind. A city home to the Eiffel tower and the Louvre, on everybody’s list to go see. How did I end up being so lucky that I have this chance to go? With all of these trips I’ve been able to go on, not once have I lost sight of that. I count my blessings with every train ride and plane boarding. I’m so ridiculously lucky, I feel guilty.
Paris. It’s a huge, romantic, and quite expensive city. There is a good size group of us going, which makes it that much more of a happening in school. Almost everyone is leaving Valencia this weekend to embark on an adventure.
About twenty of us board the Ryan air flight, with a million and one expectations for Paris. Lone and behold the flight is the scariest one of my life. I’ve flown a lot, and can deal with the normal turbulence. But this turbulence is scary. It’s throwing the plane from side to side, spilling our complimentary drinks all around. Nadine and I order two alcoholic drinks which come packaged in what looks like IV bags.
Might as well be. We’re both scared shitless, squeezing the others hand until our knuckles turn white. And don’t even think about looking around at the other people sitting around us, because their faces won’t give you any ease, but only make you dream of feeling blacktop under your shoes once again.
Thankfully, and counting my blessings once again, we arrive safely to an airport about an hour and a half from the city. We board a bus and get on our way. It’s dark out by this time. As we drive by the lit up and sparkling Eiffel tower, people ooh and ahh, faces glued to the windows and climbing over strangers to get a better look. Some people cry, I just try and take it in. Ladies and gentlemen, we made it!
We reach the station and grab our bags. Let’s get a taxi and go to our hostel, drop off our bags, and continue with our dream weekend in Paris.
Where the hell are all the taxis?! Oh, there’s a public transportation strike going on. No buses, no metro, and few taxis. After about an hour of freezing and running after occupied taxis, we
find one and get to our hostel. There are about 8 of us to a room, and being stingy college students living abroad in Europe while dealing with the lowering value of the dollar, we sneak in two extra girls.
We venture out with grumbling stomachs in hope of finding some legendary crepes or escargot. We settle on a diner type place. What tourists.
We are ignored for about 7 minutes standing in the doorway. 7 minutes which felt like forever. Maybe we were just unfamiliar with their system; it could be just a culture difference. We are sat down and people are staring at us. 10 girls who only know how to say hello, thank you, and I have a red bicycle. We take a quick glance at the menu and place our order. The waiter comes over with white placemats and puts one down for each of us. One of the girls turns hers over and catches sight of something reddish smeared. The rest of us follow with turning it over and thinking the worst but hoping for the best. The waiter comes back with our silverware. We notice quite a huge gash on his hand,
bleeding to the point of dripping. Our silverware had drops of blood on it. We catch his attention, pointing to the blood. He looks at the silverware, then looks at his hand, and just says with gestures, “Oh, that’s just mine!” Ha. We stand up and tell him to cancel our order.
The next restaurant was amazing.
We walk around and enjoy the remaining hours of the night, but decide to get good nights sleep. Our hostel is located in the Red Light district of Paris. So walking home was an adventure of saying no to the drug dealers and strip club owners.
The next day we start off with the Montmatre, not too far from our hostel. After there we meet of couple of American guys also traveling. They give us the huge hint of buying a two day ticket on one of those double-decker tourist buses. No public transportation, and this bus brings you directly to all the sights all day long. I had to lower my status of not wanting to feel like a tourist and fully embrace it, with cheap headphones and map in hand.
We go and see the Notre Dame.
Beautiful. Amazing. Everything I expected. I don’t know what else to say. Pigeons surrounded the outside and one of my favorite memories of this trip is all of us running through them, and hundreds of pigeons flew up and surrounded us.
We wanted to see the Eiffel tower next. We drive by the Opera house, snap a few pictures, and hop back on the bus. The Eiffel tower took my breath away. It felt like I wasn’t really seeing it. It was a dream. We stood in line for about two hours cupping hot chocolate trying to keep warm. Finally we get to the slanted glass elevators that go up and up and up. I have a fear of heights, and elevators. Well worth it, we reach the top. You can see for miles and miles. By this time it was night and seeing the whole city lit up is a sight I will never forget for my life. Its times like right now where I wish I were a better writer so I could truly get across my feelings and what I was seeing. It was amazing.
We grab a few 2 Euro crepes from street vendors
and call it dinner. A pretty delicious dinner if I may say so myself. I had one with chocolate and cream, and then one with butter and sugar.
The next day we hit up the Louvre. What a huge museum. There’s no way to see this place in a month, let alone half a day. We roam around, and come across the Mona Lisa. I was impressed solely from the fact that I was standing next to THE Mona Lisa, if it truly was the real one (which was a rumor floating around.) It was a beautiful painting for all its reasons of being so famous. And yes I appreciated it. But it was difficult to be blown away by this small painting, when on the wall opposite it is a huge, intricate and beautiful painting. And then every room had paintings like this. The artwork in this museum blew me away. All of it.
After the Louvre, we went to see the Arch of Triumph. This reminded me of Rome. Around the Arch, was still moving traffic. It was literally in the middle of a traffic circle. The traffic circle that people take to work now, that
people drive on everyday. And inside is this huge arch screaming history. This, like in Rome, was one thing that was impressive. The combination of Modern and Old. Where I live, this is just not a part of life. Sure the Huguenot Houses are cool, but there is no comparison here.
By this time its ’Sunday afternoon, and we decide to lay off the tourist attractions and walk around. We walk down a road and see the Ferris wheel. Sometimes I enjoy just wandering around with no aim so much more than rushing from sight to sight, stressed out by the clock. We stop in a restaurant and order escargot. I liked it!
We check out of our hotel and call it a weekend. Catch our bus back to the airport, and get back to Valencia that night.
A great weekend in Paris
“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”
Benjamin Disraeli
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