Paris!

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Paris - Day one

We arrived in Paris after an 8hr long bus trip which began in Amsterdam at 10pm. We were tired, sore, and a little bit grumpy when we finally arrived in Paris at 6am. It was dark, cold and wet. We managed to buy tickets to the metro and get to our stop only to get lost on the way to our hostel. The directions were useless for people who had just gone through the trip we had gone through and carrying 15kg packs. Finally after walking in every direction we started all over again from the station and this time found our way. Needless to say we weren’t in the best mood when we arrived and the realisation that it was only 7am and we couldn’t check in for another 7hrs did nothing to improve that. So we decided to go for a walk around the area, I had to carry my gigantic laptop bag around with me which had my laptop, all the power cords, portable DVD player, two dvd wallets and a whole bunch of other crap that i didn’t want to just leave it sitting in a corridor at the hostel where anyone could get to it =(

We decided to go grab something to eat at maccas's but of course it wasnt open so we had to wait around like chumps on the street in front of it until it did. Macca's is offically our home away from home on this trip. Bee went about the task of ordering herself some breakfast from the non English speaking staff. While making use of Macca’s free wifi we decided the best way to kill some time was to go see a movie (Dark room with comfy chairs were we could relax and get some rest after our night trip). We found a cinema online that showed movies in English and decided to go see Marley and Me as Bee had wanted to see it after reading the book. Sounds simple right? Once again, after looking at directions and a map for where the cinema was we set off to find it only to get lost for at least 90mins searching desperately for this stupid place. We walked all around the street is was meant to be on, around every street surrounding! We tried in vain to get my WIFI on my laptop working in another Maaca’s then a KFC but they weren’t working. We were close to exhaustion, wet, hungry and fed up with Paris (I was beginning to truly hate Paris as I expected to) when finally we saw a set of escalators in the middle of a small park going down into the ground.... and what do you know, the stupid shopping centre is completely underground without any major signs pointing this fact out!!!! So finally we bought our tickets and watched our movie, it was alright (Very girly type of movie, so Bee loved it).

After killing the appropriate amount of time we returned to our hostel, haggled for a price of a room and instead of staying in a dorm found ourselves in a private room with a double bed and it’s own bathroom! It was heaven for us after the day we had.

Bee Dandy says: Oh my gosh, what a horrible start to Paris! “A little bit grumpy” is an understatement...try walking along with our 5 bags in total screaming at each other “WHO DOESN’T WRITE DOWN THE STREET NAME?” “HOW CAN YOU BE SO CRAP AT DIRECTIONS?” “ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”. Lol also because it was pouring rain, I couldn't see out of my nerdbanger glasses and our clothes were all soaking during the movie. Btw, Maccas is totally such a winner and a backpackers best friend with it's Eurosaver menu (things like cheeseburger for 1 Euro)...ohhhh yeah!!

Paris - Day two

We awoke on our second day in Paris in a better mood after a good nice sleep to be welcomed by clear sunny skies for as far as the eye can see. We instantly knew that today was going to be better. We got ready and headed out to explore the city, first stop - The Eiffel Tower! To say that Paris is a beautiful city is probably an understatement. Today was the day we realised why its so popular around the world. The view of the Eiffel tower and the Parc Du Champ De Mars that surround it are beautiful and really spacious. It was, as expected jam packed with tourists and a million people trying to profit from them. We were approached probably 20 or 30 times by people offering to sell miniature Eiffel towers and other French memorabilia. This did set the tone for the rest of our time there. You can’t go anywhere in Paris without being annoyed by people trying to sell you trinkets, taking your photo then trying to sell it to you, having people beg for money etc. Once you get use to it though you can pretty much ignore these people pretty easily.

From the Eiffel Tower we strolled up to the Arc De Triomphe which is located at the beginning of the Champs Elysees. The Arc is impressive as is the view down the Champs Elysees from the base of it. The one thing that we were starting to notice was how spacious Paris was. After being in Amsterdam which is cramped streets with canals every 25 metres this was a welcome change. The Champs Elysees is filled with expensive cafes and shops but is nice to stroll down and window shop on. We continued walking around for the next few hrs passing by many museums, historic buildings and monuments until we arrived at the Palais Du Louvre, a huge building where the Louvre museum is located, we didn’t actually visit the Louvre but were happy to stroll the grounds and look around. We finally made it back to our hostel and had a quiet night preparing ourselves for the sightseeing still to come.

Bee Dandycore: First day that I walked around without my jacket on, woo hoo! Smic forgot to mention that as we were walking all those tourist scammers with the mini Effiel Towers must've seen police approaching or were running to claim their "spot" or something because we saw about like 50 of them all running away or towards something...so funny...I wish I had tripped one over! Paris is soooooo roomy, Champs Elysees is so WIDE and this is definately a bonus. I really didn't expect Paris to look so nice, I expected it to be a bit more run down and more cramped so it was a nice suprise. Paris really contradicts itself. One of the prettiest places I've ever seen but there are beggers and homeless people everywhere. It's a bit sad really.

Paris - Day Three

On our third day we continued our flurry of sightseeing and headed off to the Catacombs. The Catacombs of Paris were created at the end of the 18th century. The cemetery of Innocent had been used during nearly ten centuries and had become the origin of infection for all the inhabitants of the district. After multiple complaints, the Council of State, by decision of November 9, 1785, pronounced the removal and the evacuation of the cemetery of the Innocent ones. Now day’s tourists can walk through the 1.6km of underground corridors which are stacked with the bones and skulls of millions of Parisians.

Walking through the catacombs is an eerie experience. Its dark with only small lamps every couple of metres giving off a faint light. Walking through the halls you can’t help but wonder who all this people were and what their lives were like. It is seriously stacked from floor to ceiling with bones and skulls.

At the entrance to the tombs you are warned not to remove any of the bones from the site. Bee & me thought that even the idea of doing this was super freaky but as we were leaving a guard at the exit of the building above the tombs requested to check my bag then pointed to a bunch of bones and a skull someone had tried to steal just that day! I couldn’t believe it, who would want to take human bones from a tomb for a souvenir!

After the tombs we headed off to the Notre Dame. The Notre Dame is the true heart of Paris, in fact distances from Paris to every part of metropolitan France are measured from 'place du Parvis Notre Dame' the square in front of Notre Dame. Notre dame is a master piece of French gothic architecture; it was first started in 1163 and mainly completed in the 14th century. Walking through the Cathedral is impressive. It’s hard to describe the feeling you get as you move around, the organ was playing as we went through, a lot of the side areas are dominated by statues or areas where candles can be lit and prayers offered and the numerous stained glass windows including the two massive ones bathe the inside in sunlight. The photos do this place little justice, you really need to go see it yourself to to appreciate it =)

Bee Dandycoreeeee: Catacombs was really interesting. I walked super fast at the start because it felt weird in there, like there was air rushing through in some places but I think I was super dooper expecting a ghost to appear or something. I'd only ever seen skulls and stuff like that behind glass at a museum so it was very surreal to be surrounded by all those bones...stacked up ridiculously neatly. I felt a bit disrespectful as I did when looking at the Bog Bodies at the Natural History Museum in Dublin but I tried my best to be quiet and hoped their spirits didn't mind hehe. There was a pile of blocked off bones that had collasped and I said "Sorry to had to collaspe and that no one has fixed you yet" so I figured that was respectful enough and that I better stop talking to the bones as there were other people around :P
Some people had actually signed their name on the stones like "Anna and Pete from Mexico"...what losers! I bet they tried to steal bones too. Anyways, it was a cool experience.


Thats our first three days! Still have a few more to write about which will be in the next blog! Disney Land Paris here we come!!!!!

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Photos

Two ducks
The female was swimming up and down in the bottom pond while the male watched and followed her from the top, pretty cute!

Arc De Triomphe
Craziest round about ever! It has so many lanes, entrances and exits!