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Published: April 19th 2007
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Sunday April 1, 2007 - Meggie and I left Saturday night (March 30th) for a 14 hour over night train from Vienna to Paris. The train wasn't all that bad surprisingly and went by fairly quickly. Because it was a holiday weekend, all of the sleeper cars were already reserved so we reserved a regular seat for the 14 hour journey. So we were sitting in a 6 person cabin the whole time. Fortunately, half of our cabin left after Salzburg and we got to lay down the rest of the trip.
We arrived in Paris and were able to find our hostel pretty easily. After that we had planned to meet Tyler and Peter in front of Notre Dame. We went inside the cathedral and were able to see some of the Palm Sunday service which was pretty cool. While we were inside looking around we heard someone say Meggie's name. It was another girl from Drake who is studying abroad in Salzburg. Meggie and her have been meaning to meet up sometime throughout the semester but have never had time. Now they just happen to run into each other inside the Notre Dame Cathedral. Small world.
After Notre Dame, Tyler, Meggie, and I walked close to 10 miles just touring the city for the rest of the day. We later met up for dinner with the girl we had met earlier, her friends, Peter, and his friend studying in Paris. There is a district in Paris with a bunch of restaurants that we decided to go to. It’s interesting because outside each of these restaurants, there is a salesperson standing outside trying to entice you to enter their restaurant. On the board next to them it will say 15 euro, but they’ll tell you, “Special price, 12 euro for each person”. It’s pretty fun to bargain on the price of your meal. We finally bargained for a 12 euro meal with a complementary first glass of wine.
In our hostel I found a flyer for a free, english walking tour of Paris. It was 3.5 hours long and all we had to do was tip our tour guide at the end of the tour. It was an amazing tour and we were all really glad that we did it. Our tour guide was awesome. He knew a ton about the city. The
history of Paris is amazing and I would’ve been very disappointed had I not taken that tour.
We ended our tour at the Eiffel Tower which was much larger than what I was expecting for some reason. Our guide said we went on a lucky day because usually there are guards who walk around and keep people off the lawn in front of the tower, but on that Monday, we were allowed to sit and relax in the lawn and the park as we pleased.
After the Eiffel Tower, we headed for the Arc de Triomphe. We went under it and saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier as well. It was awesome to see that, but what was even more amazing was the traffic that surrounded the Arc. It is a giant roundabout that could fit almost 10 lanes of traffic, but there are no lines drawn for lanes. It is one big dangerous mess and we were amazed that there wasn’t a car accident every 15 seconds. Mopeds veer in and out of cars as if they are invincible and cars just keep their speed up as they cut across what would be 5
or 6 lanes of traffic. It’s crazy.
That night we went a few blocks down from our hostel and walked down the Red Light District of Paris. It was definitely an interesting street to walk down. I thought that the most interesting part of it were the people. There are women as old as 65 to kids as young as 12 walking down these streets at night. Cultural differences I guess.
The next day we were going to go to the Louvre, but apparently the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. So we went to Museum D’Orsay. It is another very large art museum that was neat to see. We saw a bunch of paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, and other very famous artists.
After Museum D’Orsay, Peter, Tyler, and I went to Versailles. Tyler had been to Versailles before and was telling us about it on the train ride there. Because of the long lines and the beautiful day out, we decided not to pay for the guided tour around the inside of the palace, but instead, we rented bikes for an hour and explored the gardens. There is so much land that it
was sort of difficult to see all of it in just one hour by bike. The gardens are amazing and the palace as well. It is hard to believe that all of it was built without modern day construction equipment.
Finally, that night we took the elevator up the Eiffel Tower to look around. It was quite a sight at night. We even saw a guy propose, but we’re pretty sure he got turned down by the looks of things. (awkward elevator ride down for that guy). Every hour at night, for the first 10 minutes of that hour, the Eiffel Tower is lit up by 20,000 shimmering light bulbs places around the tower. It is amazing to sit on the lawn and just watch it. It feels like you’re watching fireworks or something.
Paris has definitely been one of my favorite places that I’ve traveled to so far. I’m sure that a lot of that has to do with the weather, because we had absolutely perfect weather while we were there. We must’ve walked over 25 miles in less than 3 full days, but it was worth it to see all of the sights. I
would love to go back and spend more time there to relax and enjoy instead of running from sight to sight. But none-the-less, it was still a phenomenal trip to Paris.
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