Welcome to Paris

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May 8 & 9, 2008

After classes, well 2 of the 3, I went home for lunch, showered, packed, and headed to the Plaza de Armas Bus Station to meet Theresa and Katie to catch our bus to Madrid at 6pm. We started to trek to Paris, and after 6 hours of being in the bus, we finally made it to Madrid. We took a couple different Metro lines from the bus station to the airport.

Unfortunately, we got there around 2:30 am, and since the counter to check in wasn’t open, we had to wait around. Theresa and I were really tired, so we laid on the cold, hard floor to sleep. The counter finally opened, and we went to check in. We went to our gate and slept some more before it was finally time to board the plane. 2 hours later, we landed in Paris, but the Beauvais Airport, which is on the outskirts of Paris.

We had to take another bus, an hour and a half into Paris. We were dropped off by the Metro station, where we met Katie’s friend, Bri. Katie went to Bri’s house to sleep, and Bri showed Theresa and I how to get to our hostel. After 2 Metro lines, we finally found our hostel. When we checked in, the guy working didn’t know any English, so we just got our key and went to our room.

Theresa and I decided that we weren’t in Paris to sleep, so after getting cleaned up, we asked the guy for a map, and started to explore Paris. Our hostel was close to the city center, but Paris is so big, that it took awhile to walk. We started walking towards the river, and we found the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Since it was free, we went inside. It was different than most of the Cathedrals in Spain, but, nonetheless, it was still a Cathedral!

After making it through Notre-Dame, we walked along the river until we found the Louvre Museum. There was a courtyard in front of it that we went to see. Then we went into the courtyard of the Louvre with the glass pyramid from "The DaVinci Code." That was really cool. We decided not to go into the museum because it was a little pricey, and we had lots more to see. We walked through the gardens of the Louvre and made our way towards the Place de la Concorde. Here there was an obelisk like the one I saw in Argentina and a couple really interesting fountains, that we heard they show in "The Devil Wears Prada."

From the plaza we could see this huge palace, so we decided to go see what it was. We walked around, where we could without having to pay. It is now a museum to the army, and Napoleon is buried there, but unfortunately we couldn’t see his tomb because we didn’t buy tickets. From here we could tell we were really close to the Eiffel Tower, it was just a matter of finding it. When we started walking, the buildings around us were really tall, so the Eiffel Tower kept disappearing! Finally we found the grassy area by it, and we were there. The Eiffel Tower was amazing! We were pretty exhausted by this point, so we laid in the grass under the Eiffel Tower and took a nap.

We were a little hungry, so we went to a café for some bread and a drink. We were waiting around to hear from Katie and Bri, so we went walking some more; this time to the Palais de Chaillot. There was an area set up for rollerbladers. They were skating between cones that were very close to each other. It was really entertaining to see how good they were!

Then it was off to Bri’s house. We took the Metro and waited to meet them to go to her house. We were having a home cooked meal, so we helped Bri get everything together. The four of us and Bri’s friend Ryan, ate pasta with chicken, bread and cheese, vegetables, and fruit and drank some wine. It was really good! We hung out and talked for awhile, and Theresa and I were getting tired from our 12 hour day, so we took the Metro home to go to bed.

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