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Published: March 13th 2012
We didn’t have class on Friday, Monday, or Tuesday, so a lot of people took advantage of this long weekend to travel. I went to Paris with Emma, Amber, Becca, and Alex. I had been spending a lot of time before this trying to plan for the trip, buying the plane tickets, booking the hostel, and figuring out our itinerary. It was a huge relief to finally leave. Amber has a host brother who lives and works in Madrid, but he was here this week on vacation. He offered to drive us to the airport in Madrid so we didn’t have to take the bus. Alex was taking the train to meet us in Madrid, so it was just the four of us girls with Cristobal. He is actually a bodyguard in Madrid for a judge, and he was pretty cool. We talked in Spanish the whole ride up because he didn’t know a lot of English. It was a little difficult because the three other girls are only in the beginner levels, so I had to translate a few times.
We got to the airport Friday night at nine and camped out at the café. Our flight didn’t leave
until six the next morning so we had to spend the night at the airport. It was not a fun night. There were no benches, and the café wouldn’t let you lay on their chairs. We picked a spot on the floor and tried to sleep. It didn’t work very well because the floor was very hard and very cold. I probably only got thirty minutes of sleep. They opened our gate at 4:30 Saturday morning, and we went through security. We were taking Ryanair, a cheap airline in Europe. They have very specific requirements for boarding. You can only have one carry-on, including your purse, so I had to stuff mine into my bag in order to get on the plane. They had everyone put their bags into a sample storage bin to see if it fit. Emma had a little difficulty because her bag wasn’t fitting into the box. She spent ten minutes readjusting her things to make it fit, and finally stuffed it into the bin. If a bag didn’t fit, you had to pay 60 Euros to check it.
With Ryanair, you also have to pay to reserve your seats. We didn’t want to pay,
so we just had to board the plane and find empty seats ourselves. I was a little nervous about this, but I guess Ryanair never overbooks. It took a little over two hours to get to Paris Beauvais airport, and we were all dead to the world as soon as the plane took off. It’s impressive that I actually slept because the seats don’t recline, so it wasn’t very comfortable. But we landed and had to find our shuttle. One thing about Beauvais airport: it is not in Paris. I didn’t think about this when I booked our tickets, but it’s an hour outside of Paris. Thankfully they run a shuttle to Paris after every flight, so it didn’t cause too much of a headache. And it provided us with an extra hour to sleep.
When we got to Paris, we took a taxi to our hostel. The lady at the desk was not very nice, but we checked in and left our bags in the luggage room. We couldn’t move into our rooms until 2:30, so we headed out. As we were walking down the street, there was a huge building on our left. It wasn’t tall; it
just covered a huge city block. When we reached the end of the block and turned towards the river, we realized this was the Louvre. I couldn’t believe how big it was! It had taken us fifteen minutes just to what the length of it. Our plan was to do the Louvre Sunday, so we kept walking. We crossed the river and took the metro to Versailles.
If you don’t know, Versailles was the center of political power for France from the late 17
th century until the French Revolution. And of course, this was where Marie Antoinette lived. We entered the grounds, and saw the chateau. It sits behind huge golden gates, and is just incredible. We saw the chapel, the Hall of Mirrors, the King’s and Queen’s apartments, and the Dauphin’s apartments. There was a lot of artwork in the chateau, but the building itself is a work of art. Every ceiling is different and simply stunning. I could have spent the whole tour looking up. When we had gone through a few rooms, there was a disaster: my camera stopped working. I had dropped it a week earlier, and the zoom was crooked, but I fixed it
and it was working fine. But I tried turning it on at Versailles, and it wouldn’t open; the zoom was stuck. So halfway through the first day, my camera broke. We weren’t even through the palace. Emma said I could steal her pictures from the trip, but I wanted to have my own pictures. I had been planning on taking pictures of all the architecture in Paris. So now I’ll just have to come back and take my own pictures someday. Darn.
We didn’t know it, but there is a tea room in the chateau. We stumbled on it, and thought, why not? So we had tea and pastries in Versailles Palace. It was a little over priced, but the experience was worth it. After the chateau, we went out on the grounds. Since it’s still winter, they didn’t have the fountains on which was a bummer, but it was still cool. The grounds are just huge! To walk from the chateau to the other end of the park would take a whole hour. I’m sure the grounds are beautiful in the summer, and I hope I can come back to see them. We walked through the grounds to
Marie Antoinette’s estates. Here were the Grand and Petit Trianons, two small palaces. After seeing all the buildings, we started the trek back to the chateau and the exit. We had to take a break and sit for a while because our feet were tired.
We took the metro back to Paris and walked back to our hostel. On the road that runs by the Louvre there are a lot of little touristy shops and cafes. We stopped to get some dinner there. It was a French twist on American food: I got what looked like cheese bread, but with a hot dog under the cheese. Then we got some ice cream. It was now about seven, and we were tired, so we went back to the hostel, moved into our rooms, and were in bed by 7:30. We slept until eight the next morning.
Sunday, we devoted the whole morning the Louvre. They have said that it would take a person one week to see everything in the Louvre, and two months to appreciate everything. We spent three and a half hours. We saw everything from French and Italian paintings to Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman statues
to French decorative arts like the furnishings of Napoleon’s apartments. In the basement we saw the history of the Louvre, which had been a castle, and you could see some of the original foundations. We saw noted works like the Mona Lisa (of course), the statue of Aphrodite, or “Venus de Milo”, and the Colossal Statue of Ramesses II. We had packed sandwiches with us before we left for Paris because we knew the food was going to be expensive, so we ate some of those at a Starbucks in the Louvre. (Even amid all this French and European art, we have Starbucks.) This old man was sitting next to us, and he started talking to us. Of course he spoke French, and Alex was the only one who knew even a little French. We figured out that he was asking where we were from, and told us his wife was from the US, and that she was upstairs in the museum, and that he loved America. And I thought the French hated us!
After lunch, we left the Louvre and walked to the bus stop. We decided to do one of those hop on hop off bus tours
of the city. Just to be clear, it is not a guided tour that you are stuck with the whole day, and have to stay with your annoying group of tourists. The bus has nine stops at different places of interest, you buy a ticket good for two consecutive days, and you hop on the bus at any of the stops, and hop off when you want to see one of the sites. There is a bus every ten minutes so you never have to wait long, and it saves you from a lot of walking. They also give you headphones to listen to the audio guide as you ride the bus which explains the various buildings you drive by. That audio guide was very informative since we didn’t have a guide of our own. I found out that that the Place de la Concorde was where they had the guillotine during the French Revolution—very interesting to me because I am reading a series about the French Revolution and an Englishman that saves nobles from that very guillotine. Just a plug; read
The Scarlet Pimpernel if you get the chance. It’s very entertaining.
The first stop we came to
was Notre Dame. The chapel was cool, but honestly, after seeing the cathedral in Sevilla, this one wasn’t as impressive. There was a mass going on when we saw it though, so that was interesting. A boy was singing, and his voice really did sound like an angel. It reminded me of the Vienna Boys Choir. After Notre Dame, Amber saw a Subway and just had to get something even though we had already eaten lunch. They have a thing called baby subs for one euro, and I just had to get one because the sandwich was only three inches long! It could only fit one piece of meat on it, it was so cute! I wish Subway had those in the States; it makes a good snack.
After this we got on the bus to head to the Palais Garnier, the opera house, but it was closed for rehearsals. They said we could try coming back on Monday, but no guarantees. Discouraged, we caught the next bus which took us to the Arc de Triomphe. Emma and Becca didn’t want to go up to the top because it cost 6 euros (big deal), but Alex, Amber, and I
did. The stairs are in a tight spiral the whole way up with 284 steps. Alex tried to show off that he wasn’t tired at the top, but I bet he was. He did that a lot throughout the trip, and I think it was on account of him trying to compensate for being the only guy. He just had to show off to the ladies. It got a little annoying. When we came back down, we walked around a bit on Champs Elysees, which is a big commercial area. We found what looked like a mall, so we walked through it. It ended up being just a passage through the buildings with some pretty classy stores inside. We came out on a side street and found a chocolate shop. Of course we went inside, and I was in heaven. There was chocolate everywhere! Big blocks of milk, dark, and white chocolate, cookies covered in chocolate, Happy Anniversary and Birthday chocolate bars. And that’s when it started to get creative: CD’s made of chocolate, men’s ties made of chocolate, belts, Eiffel Towers, wallets, giant pencils, all made of chocolate! I bought an Eiffel Tower.
It was getting late, so
we rode the bus back to the Louvre stop and walked back to the hostel. W freshened up, then looked for a restaurant for dinner. We finally found a pizzeria that wasn’t too expensive. Since we were eating Italian, we got some Bordeaux wine to have something French, and it was very good, one of my favorite red wines I’ve had. Over dinner, Emma was telling us all the things her friend had told her to do in Paris. She said we had to take a night boat ride on the river, so we went back to the hostel, got online, and found one for that night. It was a bit last minute, and we had to speed walk for a half hour to get to the dock to catch the last boat for the night. It was worth the rush though; Paris at night is magical. It was a little cold out on deck though. We sailed past the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and some other notable buildings. The voice recording explaining the sites had six languages: French, Spanish, English, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese. It was funny because
the recording didn’t say the same thing when it was repeated in each language. Some languages were a lot shorter than others. It helped that I know Spanish as well, so I got different information from the English recording and the Spanish.
Monday we planned to head straight to the opera house to make sure we saw it. We walked to the Musee d’Orsay bus stop to take it to the opera house. We realized then that the museum was not open on Mondays. Musee d’Orsay is an art museum with one of the best collections of Impressionist art in the world. We could have seen works by Monet, Manet, and Van Gogh. I was really bummed we didn’t get to see it, and regretting being all “arted out” on Sunday from the Louvre. But we did get to go into the opera house today, so that made me feel a little better. This building was the setting for
The Phantom of the Opera. The hallways in this opera house were probably even more magnificent than the hallways at Versailles. It was the most expensive building built during its time, and you can definitely tell by all the detail
and designs in gold.
After the opera house, we walked to the Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur since the bus tour didn’t take you to these sites. I honestly don’t blame it either. I was disappointed in the Moulin Rouge. I was expecting it to be bigger and cooler somehow, but it’s just a red windmill on top of a low building on a crappy street. We were thinking about going to a show that night, but then we saw that it cost 150 euros. We walked on to the Sacre Coeur, and discovered that this was the sketchy part of town. The whole street was lined with sex shops, strip clubs, and erotic massages. I would not want to walk around here at night. We made it up to the Sacre Coeur, which is at the top of a hill, tired out. All of us were sick of walking and our feet hurt. We found a bench to sit on and looked up at the basilica for 15 minutes. None of us wanted to climb the stairs up to get a closer look; this was sufficient for us. There were men trying to sell trinkets and pick pockets
all over the area, so eventually we decided it was time to leave.
We made the long trek back down to the center of Paris and stopped at a pastry shop for some sweets. If you ever come to Paris, you have to try out at least one of the many pastry shops. I tried macarons. Apparently Marie Antoinette ate these little cookies all day long (or was it just the movie?), and I don’t blame her. Those soft little meringue based cookies with a cream sandwiched in the middle are just delightful. We ate our pastries on the steps of an old church. I must tell you before I go on that Becca is engaged, so she wanted to look for wedding dresses in Paris. Really, why not? How many girls from Iowa can say they got their wedding dress in Paris? We set up an appointment for Monday, and that was where we were headed after our pastries.
We had a little time though, so Alex went back to the hostel because he really didn’t want to have to stick around for all the fluffy, white, bridal gowns, and Amber and Becca looked at some of
the touristy shops nearby. Emma and I were tired of standing, so we crossed the street and entered the Garden of the Tuileries. This huge garden is spread in front of the Louvre. We picked a bench and rested our poor feet. This was probably one of my favorite moments in Paris: sitting on a bench in a beautiful garden, with the evening sun shining (it was the few hours of blue sky we had all weekend), and watching the pigeons chase each other in what I assume was a mating dance.
Next was the appointment. Needless to say, Becca was ecstatic, and I was probably just as excited. This would be my first real wedding dress shopping experience. (I’m not counting the time I tried them on in China because that was just a fun, impulse thing). All the dresses were gorgeous, but she would have to come back in four months for the fitting. That’s a problem because we’ll be home in three. But the good news is that the shop we went to is based out of Spain, and there’s another shop right here in Granada. Actually, I walk by it every day to school, and
I never realized it was the same company.
After the dresses we got on the bus for the last time to see the most important thing in Paris: the Eiffel Tower. It’s just a big mess of iron, but it really is something to see. You can take a lift or the stairs to reach the first and second levels of the tower; we took the stairs—the lift costs more. It was quite a long climb but we made it. The sun had gone down by now, so we got to see all of Paris at night from the Eiffel Tower, which lit up for one of its light shows while we were in it.
When we came down, the bus tours had stopped, so we had to walk all the way back to our hostel. My feet were already crying, and it was well over two miles. Alex led the way, and we just followed, not questioning his direction. A few blocks away, we passed a McDonalds, and since all the other food places had closed already, we got some dinner there. I think Spain has spoiled us. Stores and street shops are open until 8:30 or
9, and here, everything was closed when it wasn’t even 8:30. As we were sitting eating our burgers and fries, I looked over and saw a mouse running around. This is the first time I have ever seen a mouse in a restaurant. I’ve seen them a few times at the barn, but never in an establishment for food! I definitely lost my appetite for the rest of my fries, which was a shame because they were so good. I’ve said this before about American fast food joints around the world, but I’ll say it again: McDonalds is a classy place in Paris! They even had their own little pastry shop. I saw macarons, and I had to get some more. I think I ate ten that day.
We had to wake up at five the next morning to catch our shuttle back to Beauvais airport. We said goodbye to Paris, or as much of a goodbye as could be made that early in the morning. At Beauvais, they were being extremely picky about people’s bags. They made everyone stuffed their bag in the sample compartment, even if it obviously fit. Emma couldn’t get hers in again, but this
time she just decided to check it. It was an uneventful flight back, but I wouldn’t recommend flying into Beauvais airport for anyone. You are so rushed and crowded going through security and waiting for you plane.
Once to Madrid, we caught our bus back to Granada. It was a long day of traveling, but I was so glad to be back home. It helped that Granada was so much warmer. Spring is in the air!
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Jas
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I'm so excited about all that you got to experience in Paris! It is definitely one of the cities that I want to visit before I die. I can't wait to see your pictures!