Paris Finally!!

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Welcome back to my blog. I am sorry I missed a week, things have been really crazy here in spain. But getting down to business; let’s have a recap of my long weekend in Paris.

Friday morning woke up bright and early to head to the airport and get on the flight by 1030. At this time we headed for France, we being my friends Suzanne and John, and we later met up with their friends from school Kaleb and TJ. Upong landing we realized that our Spanish would just about be useless in a French speaking country. Duh. We went downstairs after leaving the airplane to locate how to buy train tickets to get to hostal called Oops, on a street in French called “Goblin Street.” - spooky considering this weekend was Halloween weekend. So, we are trying to figure out what direction to take and where to buy these tickets and when we figure out WHERE to get them, the darn machine, did not accept bills or our cards. Great. So in a panic we jumped to another machine and crossed our fingers and luckily it worked. We bought our tickets, hoped on the train and we were off to Paris! The train ride was interesting. I would consider France a foreign country compared to Spain at this point because I know nothing other than Bonjour and Merci in French. So somehow we figured to get off at a stop and JOLY! The station was confusing. It took us a solid 20 minutes to get out of the place. And the metro system is so confusing, we had to scan our tickets to LEAVE the metro. At one point Suzanne couldn’t find her ticket so we squeezed together in the turnstiles and then bolted away because apparently they give you a hard time there. But then we squeezed together a few more times to save trips anyways haha. So after some time, we made our way to the street. How beautiful France is during the Fall. Reminded me of New York: orange and red leaves, hint of rain, and lots of pretty rivers. Breathtaking. We explored a little bit on our way to Oops. We discovered cute little venders along the bridges whose “shops” folded and locked like tool boxes. So adorable! We viewed a few monuments and stuff (of course not knowing what they meant because they were in French) but a sight to see nonetheless. We keep walking and walking, finally arriving to our hostel. It was very modern with free wifi and breakfast which was worth the extra money. We crash in the eating room and chow down our bocadillas and we met a girl from LA who studied in India with the people to be a nurse and is now traveling France. How neat! That’s one of the perks of staying in a hostal. You get to meet lots of new people from all over the world. Anyways time to check in. And of course…with my luck…I am separated from my group. Awesome. But the guy at the desk was really nice and told me he’d put a mattress in my group’s room, where I ended up staying. But in my other room, I met a nice group of girls so in the end I would have been fine staying with them, but I was clearly more comfortable staying with people I knew.

After getting setles in, we decided to walk around a little more before TJ and Kaleb came into town. We ended up seeing quite a bit, Notre Dame and Louvre, of course not going in but at the sunset it was nice. I swear I even saw the hunchback on the top of Notre Dame, well at least his shadow haha. We also walked a couple more bridges on the river and watched the sun slowly go down. A cool tradition here is couple write their names on locks and dates of anniversaries and lock the lock to the bridge and throw the key in the river. I think its beautiful in the city of romance. If only Mike was with me!! After a bit we headed back towards the hostal to meet up with them and then head out for some food. It was getting late and we were all exaushted! At dinner I got some delicious salmon with spinach and a nice pink wine to wash it down with. It was a perfect meal to close the day. We headed back to Gremlin street for one last time that day and went to bed.

Wake up call : 7:30 am. Today we scarfed breakfast down and embarked on a crazy crazy day. First order of business, we went to Notre Dame. Absoltuley beautiful. So much better than the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. We walk in and it takes your breath away. Stain glass windows that illuminated in the sun and statues and figures of all kinds of saints. In the middle the altar was precious and even had a baptism going on! Could you imagine! Being baptized in Notre Dame! How neat! Of course here I had to do my usual tradition and lit candles for my Nanny and Mrs. P. They are traveling with me everywhere on this trip and boy did they shine in Notre Dame! Following this beautiful place we walked around a bit more, took some snap shots and decided what to do next. Our decision: Eiffel Tower. Method of transportation on this beautiful day: Hop on Hop off…..boat tour : )

We hop on the boat and go picture crazy. Its such a beautiful day now, even though the morning started off so rainy and chilled to the bones. But now its blue skies with amazing clouds and a little chilly. The perfect day. We see lots of monuments on our way and palaces and finally before our eyes is the Eiffel Tower itself. We jump off and dart online to tread up the Tower. The lines are really long but it was a good way to just relax a bit and talk and admire the crazy vendors selling the most random things laid out on towels. Oh! And they had military guys walking around in their birets with massive machine guns. At least I felt like no one would mess with their birets haha.

So we pay for admission, I tried pronouncing French words but naturally I defaulted to Spanish. No problems she understood me. So location: Eiffel Tower. Destination: the top. Method of transportation: HIKING ALL THE WAY UP. That’s right we walked each and every step to the top of the tower. Stopped in the middle floor to have a quick lunch and rest our feet and our muscle spasm butts now. Then we embarked all the way to the top of the tower. It was truly a beautiful site and worth every step of the way. I liked how at the top of the tower it had the names of cities and how far they were from this point of Paris. Pretty cool. And also if you felt like it you could buy some champagne, but we decided against it, as the altuide was already getting to our heads. But we start heading down wards (the lines are forever long about 20 minutes apiece) and we hear a buzz that goes off twice, and Suzanne said the exit sign goes off. We panic a little bit but then calm down as no one is panicing and people below don’t seem to be darting away. Oh man what an event that was. So we exit the tower and practically run to the Louvre before it closes. At some point along this journey we see a French zoo and an ostrich. Oh yea, and in the metro we saw a rat with a cup on its head. That’s right a rat. Ew.

We really just make it in time to the Louvre to see the incredibly small smiling Mona Lisa. We also see the painting “the coronation of napoleon” which we spent a good amount of time analyzing and figuring out who is who. After that we spent the remainder of our time checking out the greek statues and figures and enjoyed that as well. So this was what we did during the day. At this point its nearly 7 (I think)and we dicided to walk up a famous street (the street fails me now) with lots of fashion and a Disney store (which made me think of Katherine!) and went to view the Arche of Triunfe. We also managed to get warmed chestnuts to eat and they were so yummy!! After this we headed to find a place to kick back and eat. We found a nice little restaurant and I had tuna with spaghetti. SO AMAZING and some nice wine again. I swear I went into a food coma. I did not want to move. But after this we headed back towards the Eiffel Tower to see the night show. It was beautiful! The whole tower lit up and sparkled like crazy. We were all joking around that the light show would just be these little light sling shots the venders were trying to get people to buy but in reality it was way better haha. After this we walked around for a bit, I found myself a nice biret, and rocked it all the way back to the hostal. We were beat of course , but that didn’t stop us. Time to wake up tomorrow? 630 am, and don’t forget it’s a time change here, but my alarm didn’t work so I was up at 530!

Day 3 starts of good, we get a little bit of a late start and we jump on the metro and head back to Notre Dame at 830 am to attend a mass. I can officially say I’ve been to mass at Notre Dame! And of course I lit another candle. A very big tradition I am into. So we went to mass and afterwards we marched to the metro to buy tickets to get to Versailles where King Louis XIV/XV constructed their royal palace. We jump on a double decker train and head towards the palace. We get to the palace see the golden gates and incredible palace and view the lines are absolutely long. We quickly bustle to the line to get our tickets and play a game for the next 30 minutes. The game is all about guessing what person, fiction or nonfiction a person is thinking of. Its actually pretty fun, but considering I have the mind of a 5 year old all my people I were thinking of consisted of Disney characters. So anyways we get in the line and time to pay….not quite! John and I both had our passports and saved about 18 euros because we have a 6 month visa! So we got into the palace for free (later paid 6 euros for the gardens but it was totally worth it). So then we get in line to enter the palace. Its truly amazing. All the incredibly art work and the architecture was truly a sight to see. The only thing I did not like was that there was Japanese anime sculptures in each room that I felt was not appropriate and took away from the historical building. My favorite room was the Hall of Mirrors where each mirror had a parallel window of the view. It was really beautiful. And the ceiling was decorated with fantastic artwork and extremely fancy looking chandeliers. Either way it was great to realize that I was walking in the steps of Marie Antoinette and King Louis. Very cool. We then went our way to the gardens for a fountain show with music. This was really my favorite part. The view was breathtaking and you could see all the leaves that were changing. The fountains were cool too. I’ve always wondered how even back centuries ago they got the pressure built so high with so little technology to make just great things work. We walked through the trails and down paths of golden leaved trees. I actually took a leaf because I miss seeing yellow leaves and enjoy the Autumn smell. It’s currently hanging in my room!

After this, it was close to 5 and we hadn’t eaten since 730. So we are exploring the city and come across a carnival which we return to later on. We walk into a mini plaza to a street performer playing I’m yours and we hit up a local restaurant and eat away the day. Such delicious food I ate In Paris! Slightly back in a food coma, we walk back towards the carnival and spend some time there. We get some candy apples, powdered sugared waffles and giant sized cotton candy to munch on. We play some crane games because they had all the Land before Time characters but alas we lost. That’s okay the couple euros were worth the laughs. Following this we decided that since it is Halloween we’d take our candy apples and go to the Cemetery of Oscar Wilde and apparently Jim Morrison. Did you know that Oscar Wilde’s grave is in danger of disintegrating because women come and kiss his grave and the lipstick is acidic and is destroying it! How interesting! Anywhos, we head towards the cemetery and although its closed we munch on our apples and decided what is next. We decided to head back to the hostal rest for a few and go to a bar and get some desert and drinks to conclude a great weekend. So we go to a local bar/restaurant order our things (had my first pina colada, though it wasn’t very good) and enjoyed the rest of the evening. Out of nowhere we look down the table and there is a little girl dressed in a skeleton costume with her cloth pumpkin on the tablet. We had no idea what to do. So to make up for it, everyone reaches to their pockets and puts money in her bowl? What is this?! Held up by a little gremlin that’s what. And the mom is at the door smiling at her little girl who is now skipping along with her little pumpkin clinking with money. A few moments later TJ goes “I gave her my only euro. I have no money to get on the metro tomorrow.” And so we closed our even with a little gremlin taking our metro money, that we willingly gave out of shock.

The next day we got to sleep in a little bit because we didn’t have to be to the airport until about 1030. So we got up and ate breakfast said our goodbyes and when we got to the airport we shopped a little and did some work. Our flight was overall set back about 2 hours and by the time we got back to Spain we were exhausted. My senora had her friend over so I couldn’t exactly sleep but it was nice to see her and speak Spanish a language I knew once again. She also really loved the chocolate covered almonds I brought back for her!

France surprised me. I really didn’t think I was going to love it as much as I did. Maybe just because it is different than Spain or maybe because it reminded me of home, which in reality it truly did. I really hope I have the opportunity to go back. I’d love more than anything to take Mike back with me and Katherine, and I know certainly my mom would love it too. Any takers? Even though it was truly expensive and there wasn’t much down time I’d do it all over again. It was another side of Europe I am glad I got to experience even though I didn’t think I would actually go to Paris. This trip was wonderful and I’m glad I had a great group to go with and had people who spoke some French with us. It was nice to meet new people too. But nevertheless, I’m back in Spain now, currently writing this blog with my parents and little brother asleep in bed. They’ve been sleeping since about 8pm here and its funny to realize that they won’t even have a chance to adjust to the time difference and the bustly city below us in the hotel. I am so happy they have come to visit me. A great hold me over until next month when I will be home at last. I’m currently debating bringing my senora back with me because she and I have gotten really close and I absolutely adore her. I can’t wait for my parents to meet her finally.

So within the next couple weeks prepare for many stories about my parents trip here and then Germany to meet a family friend next weekend! As always thank you to all my home supporters who get me through things. To my Katherine, a special shout out to you for the amazing package with all the letters, Taylor cd and candies inside. And to Jimmy, Chris, Rach and Abbey thank you for the notes!! And Mike, soy tuya 😉 Thank you everyone and I can’t wait to give you all a massive hug! And my mom and dad….thank you for bringing home to Spain <3

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