Paris: Day 3-"Will you hold my baby?"

I'm sorry this has taken so long. My parents were here for the week and just left. I'm now in the weird period between my parents leaving and Lee's flight getting in.

Just in case there was any confusion other than my parents, there are now 4 posts about Paris (The Strike, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3)

We started out the day by walking through this street market thing. There were trucks parked along the street and were decorated and looked really cool! There was also this homeless guy that started talking to us. Well, he was talking to Megan because Colleen and I were across the street. When she pointed at us, he asked if we were her children. This caught us very off guard because as young as Colleen and I look, Megan does not look like she could be our mother. So that was interesting...

When we got inside the market area we just walked around and took pictures the whole time. It was fun to be able to focus only on that, not needing to buy anything and stuff. It was fun and we got some artsy shots throughout. Here is one of them!

After that Megan went off and explored on her own a bit while Colleen and I went over to Notre Dame to try to get inside. I included these pictures with one of my earlier entries I think, so I'm not going to put up more pictures of it. Because of the service going on, there was practically no line to get in. We couldn't walk through the middle area of the church, but we got to wander around the sides and check out the service as well as the cool building. Of course, none of it was in English, but whatever.

Then, Colleen and I headed over to Sacre Coeur to meet up with Megan. We successfully avoided getting those braided bracelet things and made our way up the hill. It's really steep!

About half of the way up we stopped for a "traditional" (is it really traditional? I could never figure this out...) lunch of bread and cheese! Authentic or not, it was really good.

After going inside and around the church, we continued to the blocks behind it and wandered around the shops and the artist areas. There are some really cool paintings of Paris as a whole, or just certain parts of it that I loved, but I had already spent so much money, and don't have a house to put anything in yet, that I decided to wait until my next trip to Paris to stock up on art. I did however do plenty of souvenir shopping and blew a good chunk of my money. Totally worth it though.

Colleen is a big Moulin Rouge fan, so we went over to that area to kill some time before catching our transportation back. I, however, have not seen this movie, so while it was cool and all, I had no idea what we were looking at. Maybe I'll watch it over January while I'm home. Christy? You in?

Despite not knowing anything about where we were, the three of us got really lucky because while we were standing around, we noticed some music coming from down the road. After going over to check it out, we realized that a large group of people were dressed in white masks and reflective vests and playing various instruments. They also started chanting at one point, but it was in French, so that was lost on us.

After they passed, we notice more music coming from the same starting point, so we went back down the street and saw this big float thing with people playing instruments on it. The float was being pulled by this guy, and there was a fire blower circling it down the street. Again, we had no idea why any of this was happening, but it didn't stop us from taking pictures!

All in all, I'm so glad that I went to Paris. I got to see a lot of famous places and things that I've only ever read about or seen in pictures or on TV and I got to explore a new city and language!

Megan and I took the train back to Glasgow and while we were getting on we heard this one lady ask a man nearby to hold her baby while she put her suitcase on the shelf. Everyone who was around and heard this thought it was funny, so, I titled this post in honor of her.

Paris: Day 2...because I forgot to come up with a good title for day 1...

On our second day in Paris we decided to take the train to Versailles for the morning. We got there early enough that the line wasn't too bad. It was nice to see the palace and the town. When we were standing in line I noticed that the people in front of us had a Tufts bag with them. Being the insanely outgoing person that I am, I asked if they were from Boston. They said yes, but then later admitted that they are actually from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Close enough when you're all the way in France.

The coolest room of the whole place was the Hall of Mirrors. One side of the room was covered in windows and across from them were mirrors. The whole place was decorated in gold and crystal things. You'd think eventually gold and fancy decorations would get old, but they never do!

Throughout the morning the weather got better and better. As beautiful as the Paris skyline is, looking out those windows on the garden and the little town was great.

After our Versailles morning we made our way back into the city and over to Pére Lachaise Cemetery. We visited Chopin, Jim Morrison, and Oscar Wilde.

After exploring the cemetery we took the train back to the Notre Dame area to try to recreate picture number 2! We had a bit more trouble with this because we didn't know exactly where my mom was for it.

We wandered up and down the river looking for the bridge and a ledge to sit on. We found somewhere and even though I know it isn't the exact location, it's in the same city, along the same river, so I declare that it is close enough. Also, sunglasses are totally not my thing.

Then we went over to the Arc de Triomphe and took the obligatory pictures.

Our hope had been to go back to Notre Dame for the service that night but while we were underground on the train, it came to a sudden halt and we all almost fell over. The driver made an announcement but since it was in French we couldn't understand it and got a little nervous. I asked this lady standing next to me if she spoke English and she said no, but then her daughter translated for me. We were stuck underground for a few minutes and then once we came to the next station the driver made another announcement and we got nervous and jumped off.

After the whole train issue we were too late for church so we stopped by the Louvre again for a little shopping and then found a little restaurant for dinner. We tried to order in French, but as soon as we started talking, the waiter responded in English. I had pasta with tomato sauce and while it may sound simple, it was some of the best tomato sauce I ever had. As I was eating it I realized that I might be able to finish the whole bowl because it was so good. Then I had some of the bread that was on the table. The bread was even better than the pasta sauce!

Paris: Day 1

On our first morning in Paris we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower first, just to remind ourselves that we were actually in Paris. We found our way to the subway and got off by the Eiffel Tower. As soon as we left the station I began to frantically look around to try to spot it. The moment I saw it, it was pretty crazy. We turned a corner out of the station and there it was, huge and towering over me. At that moment I thought "wow, I guess I really am in Paris, aren't I..."

After checking out the Eiffel Tower and taking a ton of pictures, we found a playground. It had the little horse things like the playground in Edinburgh, so I decided to ride on it too! Starting my playgrounds across Europe tour.

After playing on the playground for a bit we made our way back to the subway to go to Notre Dame. It was so crowded and we realized we needed cash to get to the top so we wandered around for a bit to find an ATM. After figuring out how to change the directions into English, we got our money and went to grab some crepes for lunch! I got a nutella one and it was delicious!!

The line for going to the top of Notre Dame took a while, but it wasn't terrible. The stairs though, those were pretty terrible. It was a spiral, stone staircase that went all the way up to the top of the church. So many stairs! Going back down the stairs was way worse than going to the top. It reminded me of hiking and how badly my legs hurt when I get to the bottom. Thinking back now, I have no idea if it would've been better to save this adventure for the end of the weekend so we wouldn't have had to walk on tired legs the rest of the trip. But oh well, we were walking on tired legs the whole time anyway.

Once we got up to the top we got to see the view and gargoyles, we realized that within the past 20 years they put up a fence like thing (for security reasons, I assume). So instead of looking like this:

It looks like this:

After having some re-creating fun we had time to check out the awesome view. You can see the whole city from up there!

So then we continued to wander around the Notre Dame area (which was our main "playground" for the whole weekend). We found a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company which was a really cool store. The walls were covered with shelves and there was a reading room on the second floor with some comfy chairs.

We wandered around more and made our way over to the Louvre! I, of course, took the obligatory holding-the-pyramid picture before we went in. It was hilarious to get there and see at least five people in a row, standing on the little platforms, all in the same position. It was like, no matter where these people came from, they all had the same goals in mind, to see Mona Lisa, and to "hold" the pyramid.

While we were waiting to get in I noticed this guy in a police officer's uniform and roller blades! It seemed silly for a second, but it quickly started making sense. It's a lot easier to chase after someone and tackle them to the ground in roller blades than a bike or a segway.

The Louvre was really cool! It is a huge building with way more than we could ever see in a day, or even a weekend! We saw some highlights. The Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, other paintings and statues. The building itself was almost as cool as the art inside the building.

After having some dinner and seeing a bunch of art we headed over to some of the museum gift shops and then some of the other bigger shops in the mall thing. There is an apple store....in the Louvre. It was a bit shocking to see until we realized that there is a whole mall with clothing stores and stuff under the museum. Very strange.

After the museum closed we went to find some of this famous ice cream that Megan had read about. I got this dark chocolate kind. Megan and I wandered down to the Seine while we ate our ice cream. It was so good. We got to see the Eiffel Tower all lit up at night which was so pretty, like a picture!

Paris: The Strike...

I did a lot in Paris, so much that I'm going to have to split my weekend into multiple posts...starting with, my getting-there adventure!

So the French transportation people decided to go on strike last week, thus closing the airports starting on Thursday, the day I was scheduled to fly to Paris. Originally I was supposed to fly into an airport about an hour outside of the city and then take a bus in. If only it was that easy...

My trip consisted of 5 parts, most of which went smoothly, aside from the whole strike fiasco.

Part 1: I had class until 2 and a train to catch at 2:30. After my class I called the cab company while walking out to the street. I guess since there were so many people standing out there, walking to and from class, the cab didn't know who to look for, so it didn't show. Luckily, one pulled into the library driveway to drop a bunch of people off, so I just got in and went to the train station. I got there with some time to spare and made it onto the train!

Part 2: We made it to the airport exactly when we expected to. The lines were all really short (because of the strike) so we were able to get our passports checked with no problem. However, when we showed our tickets to the worker guy he asked if we had heard about our flight. When we responded with, "no, is there something to hear?" he informed us that our flight was no longer landing in Paris, but instead landing in Brussels and that there would be a bus from the Brussels airport to the Paris airport! Yay!

Part 3: When we landed in Brussels we went through customs, got another stamp in our passports and began to look for the bus to Paris. Once we found it and got on, I realized that the driver was multi-talented. Not only was he driving a manual car from Brussels to Paris, he was smoking at the same time! It was a fun few hours. It would've been nicer had it been light out, but oh well.

Part 4: Eventually we got to the Paris airport. We even got there a little before schedule. Something we all realized once we got there though, was that because of the strike, the airport was closed...The thought that there might not be a bus from the airport into Paris suddenly crossed my mind. Luckily we found a lady who was from France but had been living in Glasgow for a few years, so her English was great. She asked the person at the information desk about the bus and we realized that the bus was on its way since it was through a private company and not on strike. So that worked out well.

Part 5: Once we made it into the city, the lady helped us with the cab and told the driver (in French) where we were going. It was so expensive!

After a day of traveling, we made it to Paris!