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Published: March 5th 2008
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Our humble abode
Donny relaxing in the lap of luxury that was our first night in Paris. Our trip to France started with losing one of our compatriots due to poor planning. Originally, we had intended to take the 8 am bus from Sevilla to Madrid. Due to every student in Sevilla leaving for the four day weekend, we were only able to get the 1 am bus THAT night before our 5 pm flight. This is when we lost the weak.
The bus ride was miserable, no surprise there, and we sat for six and a half hours behind a terribly smelling, breast-feeding mother and baby combo. We arrived in Madrid ten hours before our flight and then had to busy ourselves in the capital city, dragging our bags around between bus station and train station.
We finally arrived in Paris after landing in the sketchy RyanAir airport 1.5 hours outside of the city. The next order of business was finding somewhere to sleep so we followed some other random Americans we had met on the bus to their hostel. They made a bad choice so Donny and I found ourselves a dirty little hotel for 17.50 euro a night each. We fell asleep with bugs crawling on the wall above our heads and prayed
Sacré-Coeur
Outside the Sacré-Coeur, Donny was conned into paying 1.50 euro for a friendship bracelet from a Kenyan that just kept saying Hakuna Matata. that our mouths would stay shut.
The next morning we sprinted up the stairs of the Sacré Coeur to get the view of the city in the early daylight. We then headed into downtown, carrying our bags in hopes of finding a hotel with not quite so many insects. We settled on a quaint little hotel on the same island as the Notre Dame. This was about as classy as our weekend got.
I then pillaged the first organic market that I found and walked out with the best jelly I have ever had in my life. This eventually was lost to the Parisian gypsies, after being forced to stash it in the bushes before climbing the Eiffel Tower. Luckily a security guard noticed the band of gypsies rounding the corner with two jars of organic goods and was kind enough to save my peanut butter.
We visited the Louvre for free on Friday night and saw the usual selection of wicked famous paintings. The Mona Lisa. Some Goya. You know.
Saturday morning we continued the search for a different hostel, our classy little establishment was a bit too steep for our budget (30 euro a
night and all we get for breakfast is bread and coffee?). We settled on a poorly decorated hostel not too far from the river and then jetted off to Versailles for the rest of the day. We synchronized our audio tours and enjoyed making inquisitive faces at each other after each interesting fact that was presented. That night we walked around Paris laughing and taking pictures of illuminated buildings. By the time we got back, our hostel had been invaded by a school trip of young Irish boys. I riled them up a bit and then we went to bed.
The next morning Donnie attended a mass at the Notre Dame as I read outside. We then booked it to the Musee D'Orsay to take advantage of the free Sunday. Best art museum I have ever been to. Nothing compares to seeing impressionist paintings as they are intended to be seen.
We left Paris on a three-hour train through the countryside to Marseille, where our plane was leaving from the next day. We arrived without a place to stay and wandered the streets until we found a decent looking establishment (marble floors). Apparently not knowing any French hadn't
Our first crepe
Banana and nutella phased me until this very moment, in which we had to communicate through written numbers on a piece of paper. The most useful phrase came to be "No avec douche" to let the hotel owner know that we were so cheap we did not require a shower, nor a toilet, in our bedroom.
That night we splurged on some cookies and ice cream after only having eaten fruit, baguettes and crepes for the past three days. We walked along the Mediterranean and then slept our final night in France on a very hard, very cheap hotel bed.
We landed in Madrid and hustled to the bus station, hoping to make the 3 o'clock train back to Sevilla but we ended up being stranded until six, elongating a game of Rummy 500 into Rummy 1500. Our bus was fully equipped with spacious seats and a Spanish-dubbed version of Oliver Twist. I ended up reading The Sun Also Rises nearly from cover to cover, the Hemingway novel following some American and British expatriates on their journey from Paris to Spain for the Running of the Bulls (how appropriate). We got in at 12 am, I showered for the first time
View from our second hotel
Not far out of sight was the Notre Dame since Wednesday, then had class this morning at 11 am.
I didn't even get a stamp in my passport for France because RyanAir illegally snuck us in on an inflatable raft.
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Amy Barry
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Bugs on the ceiling
With the exception of bugs on the celiing it sounds like it was a great time. Nice pictures, I particularly the like one of the stairs and the other one of the redheaded girl.