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Published: February 27th 2011
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Arc de Triomphe
This was before we got right under it. Unbelievable Captains Log: Stardate 022711
What a couple of days. Please excuse the lack of detail about the places we went. We saw a lot of stuff in 1.5 days.
Started out by waking up approximately four hours after my last post. Seriously. We walked on down to the train station by Sabrinas house, trained to the main station in Zurich (Zurich HB in case anyone wants to go there) and hopped on a train to Paris. Absolutely awesome. On the train, I managed to stay awake the whole time, and had a good chat and a few beers with the bartender whilst Sabrina slept. It was just under 5 dollars per bottle of Heineken. Just awesome.
Anyways, a couple of card games after she woke up later, we were in Paris, and really quite disappointed with the view we got. Taking the train into "Gare de l'est" just isn't a very nice area of Paris. We ended up going to an information center, where I was quite weary of my French so mostly spoke in English, where we were able to book our hotel room for the night ... at $66 for the night.. combined.... in what we
Notre Dame
The Hunchback Returns learned was the "rich" part of Paris. Ridiculous.
So we hop on the bus, me speaking French and/or translating for Stokes, as I became more and more confident with my native tongue as the day went on. Took the bus down to the stop we needed to, then navigated the map we had as best we could until we could find the street we needed to go down to find the little "hotel" sign we were looking for. We got there, tired, but stoked that we were actually in Paris, though it hadn't sunk in just yet (PS I think that's a record 4 countries in 4 days for me. Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France). So even though we wanted to just pass out for a couple of hours, we started our trek through Paris, as we had to see everything we could that day because our train left this afternoon (Sunday the 27th) at 2:24 PM. We started out by heading back through the streets to the "Arc de Triomphe". After seeing that "Notre Dame" and "The Louvre" had closing times, we figured we should go there first, so we had to take the metro (took a lot of
The Louvre Pyramid
Looking at the complex. translating and a lot of figuring out, along with some baguettes, but we made it). Notre Dame was first and Ho...ly... Shit... (no pun intended) it was amazing. Everything about it was absolutely spectacular. After Notre Dame and a shit load of pictures and getting lost once or twice, we made our way back up past a couple more attractions to The Louvre. Not gonna lie, we were there for basically 2 reasons.
- 1) The Mona Lisa ... because you can't go to France, wait in line to get into the Louvre, and walk up 3 flights of stairs and NOT see the Mona Lisa. and
- 2) The Inverted Pyramid. It was awesome, and I took the best picture ever with my Molson Canadian hat.
After the Louvre, we walked the whole way up through the city back to the hotel to shower and change before going out for dinner and seeing the Eiffel Tower. By this time, we had been walking around for.. oh... about 5 hours. Quickly. It's not easy to see every main attraction in Paris in one day; Let me tell you. I recommend two... So after that, we went to
Inverse Pyramid
The Best Picture Ever the aforementioned Eiffel Tower. Now, by this time it was around quarter to eight. We got in line to buy tickets (which actually took about 20 minutes... unlike the 2 hours some lady told us on the way to Paris in the train) and went up to the summit (spelled sommet in French). The view was amazing and Sabrina took a ton of pictures, as my camera decided to crap out. We went back down and walked away to the point where we could see the light show that they put on every hour. I taped it. It was pretty cool. Then we went out for dinner where we split a pate de fois, I had some steak tartar (grandpa, yours was equally as good or better), and Sabrina had some duck, which she claims was unbelievable. After dinner, we went back up to the hotel and passed out. It was a long day, we had consumed a couple of beers at dinner, and we were stupid tired.
Woke up this morning (feeling like P. Diddy) and went downstairs for our breakfast. We then began our plan for the day which basically was to walk back to the museum
Eiffel Tower
No caption is necessary. It was incredible. "C'est Incroyable!!" (which had a wicked view of the Eiffel Tower) for some day pictures, then walk up to the Arc de Triomphe to take the bus to the Moulin Rouge (Sabrina needed a picture of it for some friends), then continue to the nearest pub (or two) we could find before heading back on the train back to Zurich. After seeing the Moulin Rouge and getting the pictures Sabrina needed, we headed to the nearest pub we could find... An Irish pub... in Paris. There, Sabrina had some Strongbow... and I had a few pints of beer. We left and continued on our way to the train station, when we came across another pub randomly... this one served 1L glasses of beer. Needless to say we had one before moving on. Getting on the train was easy, and getting back was beer and "ride the bus" filled. It was a good train ride.
Now we just finished dinner and are now planning tomorrow (over a few beers). Good night.
Captain out.
Stokes has let me know that I missed a ton of details, so for those who needs details.
1) The train had interesting information, such as the photographic six steps to breaking a window with a hammer. No joke, six steps.
2) Irish pub was playing Burt Bacharach. Manager came in, said "that's quite the music we're playing... feels like we're in a department store". This was immediately following Sabrina and I cheersing our second round with Sabrinas now infamous "up your bum equals no babies" saying. Needless to say I was almost in tears laughing.
3) Irish Pub had a MONTREAL CANADIENS shirt hung up. I have a picture right above their happy hour menu. No joke. Eat it Pittsburgh.
4) Getting rudely awoken on the train back by Swiss border patrol. It was awful, they asked for my passport then made me wake up stokes so she could get her ID. Rude.
5) Everyone in Paris seemed to know I was from Quebec. After a while it got tiresome saying "yes" every time someone asked if I was from there. And that was was quite, quite oft.
6) Took a picture outside the Eiffel Tower (it was in the background) with Stokes. Both of us were wearing our Toques and snowboard goggles. How Canadian can you get eh?
7) Saw a World of Warcraft and Magic Card dispenser. I have a picture.
8) Froze our asses off for about 30 minutes waiting for them to do a ceremony relighting the fire under the Arc de Triomphe beside the grave of the unknown soldier. Only to get kicked off because apparently it's not open to the public.
9) Blake, because I barely said it this post... Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways, Anyways. Here's 12. Slam it pal.
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Marcel
non-member comment
excellent
Charles, good to hear that things are going well. Steak Tartare is a great choice to have in Paris! We are excited and really enjoy your blogs......keep it up. Anyways, anyways!