Passport to Paris

Hey people,

First off, yes I am continuing my theme of naming posts after Mary Kate and Ashley movies but this one I think actually makes sense in a weird way. That would be the fact that I didn't show my passport to anyone coming or going from Spain or France- weird. Also sad because now I have no stamp. Sorry back to the point now- I went to Paris this weekend!!!!

We left Friday morning and got to our hotel by lunch time. This hotel was the worst I've ever stayed in ever but that's ok because it was Paris. I went to a café with a few friends and got a sandwich on delicious bread and an éclair that weirdly had ice cream in the middle. Then all of API trekked over to the Louvre for a tour. It was so huge that I feel like we didn't even see half of what was in there but we did see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and a cool sphinx from Egypt.

The Tuileries

The Louvre

Mona Lisa

My friends and I ventured off on our own to find dinner and then to see the Eiffel tower at night. I think the coolest part was when it started sparkling, which it does every hour for 5 minutes. Then of course we got lost and didn't make it back to the hotel until 1 AM.

Sparkly Eiffel Tower

Saturday morning began with a 3 hour bus tour of the city that had two stops. One to see a great view of the Eiffel tower and the other to see the Invalides military hospital where Napoleon's tomb is.

Me and the Eiffel Tower!

Invalides

We ended the tour at Notre Dame, which is definitely one of the most beautiful cathedrals I've ever been to.

Notre Dame

After that we started to follow my insanely packed schedule, needless to say we didn't get to do everything but we did a lot and were exhausted by the end of the day. First we went to the lock bridge, then the Luxembourg Gardens, and finally the Arc de Triomphe. At this point we were too hungry to continue and went to find dinner.

Lock bridge

Luxembourg Gardens

It's actually fall!!

 

 

Arc de Triomphe

We ate at a café with a view of the Eiffel tower and I got French onion soup because it's just too funny that they only call it onion soup there. We ended the day by going up to the second floor of the Eiffel tower (the top floor was closed because of the wind) and the view was incredible. We didn't stay for long because it had started to get really cold and pretty late too.

Paris :)

On our last day we had the whole morning to ourselves so we went to the Musee de Orsay and saw lots of Van Gogh's and Monet's, unfortunately no pics sorry. We walked along the Seine on the way back to the hotel and finally left for the airport. The last thing I did before leaving France was to grab some macaroons for the flight- so delicious.

The Seine

Yay macaroons!

While in Paris I couldn't help but compare it to Madrid and was pretty surprised by what I thought about both cities. First of all I did love Paris, don't get me wrong it was amazing, but it is also very big, spread out, confusing and expensive. It definitely made me miss Madrid where everything you need is all in one spot and you can get tapas for like 2 Euros. The Paris metro is also pretty gross, while Madrid's is the cleanest I've ever seen. Another problem I ran into was the language barrier. People in Paris speak French- shocking I know- but the weird part was that even though most people spoke English it seemed to make more sense to try to speak in Spanish to me because I knew that I was in a foreign country. This tends to cause problems because no one speaks Spanish there. That definitely messed with my head. Another problem that I know I will unfortunately have with all cities in the future is the fact that things close. Madrid is the only place where everything is open literally all night long. My last observation is definitely in favor of Paris and that is the people. I've always heard how horrible French people are to Americans but I felt so welcome there, everyone I met was friendly and polite which was a pleasant surprise after Madrid. The people here are actually awful- I have not met a single person here who is friendly, likes Americans, or is not completely rude. Sorry that was a lot of info but I just have too many thoughts in my head :)

The ballet store <3 so many pointe shoes

Paris was amazing but I am sad that I didn't get to do nearly enough of what I wanted. That can be a good thing though because now I have a mile long list of all the things I want to do next time I go.

Love,
Sam