Hey everyone! This is Kelsey and my first post! Sorry, it has been a tad crazy with our classes...
So, this weekend in Paris was absolutely amazing! We saw an amazing amount in the two full days we were there. We arrived in Paris after a hard week of classes on Thursday evening around 11 at one of the main train stations in Paris. We hopped on the Metro, for a 20 minute ride to our hostel. We found out how easy the metro was, and we used it like crazy for the whole weekend. Our whole travel cost for the weekend was about 15 Euro, which was a great deal for how much we used the transportation.
The next morning, we started early, making our way to the Eiffel Tower to beat the crowds. It was a gorgeous day. We were able to take pictures on the lawn in front, then it was about a 10-15 minute process to make it to the 2nd tier of the tower, where we got some amazing views of the city.
After, the Tower, we made our way to Notre Dame. We were able to go into the Sanctuary for free and it was just amazing on the inside. The architecture was amazing, and the place was huge!
We weren't able to go up the towers of the church. We had museum passes, which would have gotten us into the towers, but the line was absolutely ridiculous. They were letting 20 people in every 10 minutes. So, instead we walked across the street to this cafe and we had, in my opinion, the best meal so far in Paris. All of our food was amazing and we split a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, which was just as good.
After lunch, we were looking for a place to buy museum passes. We got directions to the Conciergie which was a place we could buy them. We bought a 2-day pass for 32 euro which got us into every museum or sight that we went to, so that was a good deal. As we were buying the passes, we realized that the place we were at was actually a famous prison and we could get in with the museum passes, so we thought why not and went on in. It was actually a really cool place. It was a palace that was changed to a prison, and it was actually the prison where Marie Antoinette was held, so it was actually a really cool place to go.
Next, we made our way back to Notre Dame, where there were these crypts in front of the church. These were basically old buildings that were found underground from the Roman times. It was really cool to see all the stone and the formations of the building that had been underground for centuries right in front of Notre Dame.
After the crypt, we went to the Louvre. We knew we weren't going to see everything, so we went along and saw Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa, passing statues and paintings along the way. It was beautiful inside.
We were going to go to the Egyptian exhibit as well, but we were running short on time since we were going to meet up with some other people in the group to go on a boat tour along the Seine. We left the Louvre, took some pictures of the outside, and made our way to the Eiffel Tower, where we were meeting everyone. It turned out though that the person that was going to take us on the boat cruise, never showed up so instead we all went out to dinner and after that we went back to our hostel. We were so tired from our crazy busy day, that we all just crashed that night.
The next day, we woke up early again, and made our way to Versailles. It was about a 30 minute trip out there, but it was absolutely worth it. The palace was amazing! It was incredible to think that people actually lived in a place like that. It was so extravagant and lavish.
One crazy thing did happen. After we entered into the palace courtyard, we were taking some pictures in front of the palace and we did a jumping picture. These Koreans saw us and they started doing these pictures too. All of as sudden, they came up to us and motioned that they wanted to take a picture together. We agreed of course, because the whole situation was hilarious and I took a jumping picture with everyone in our group and the Koreans. It was priceless.
After, we walked through the palace, going through the Hall of Mirrors, the King and Queen's bedroom, and some more rooms. The artwork and decorations were beautiful. As we were walking out, we really wanted to go into the gardens there, but it was expensive and our pass didn't get us in there, so we got a few pictures outside the gates of the garden.
We left the palace, got some lunch in the town, then got back on the train to go back to the city. We next went to the Luxembourg Gardens. It was a beautiful place, with a palace a tiny portion of the size of Versailles. There was an orchestra playing outside, which made the experience just that much better.
We hung out there for a bit, then made our way to the Arc de Triumph. It was just as big as you would think, and of course we had to go to the top. We got in with our pass, then went up the 284 steps of the SPIRAL staircase to the top. All I can say is that it was a good work out. We got some great views from the top, took some pictures and made our way back down again, it was very dizzying...
Next, we walked along the Champs Elysees and went through a couple of stores. After that, we went back to the hostel, where we met up with some people in our group before going to dinner with pretty much everyone in the group, about 40 people.
We met at the Notre Dame around 9:30, got some pictures with everyone and made our way to the restaurant for our 10:30 seating. It was really fun to hang out with everyone from the group, spending the night eating a huge meal and singing with Frenchmen and Norwegians that were in the same area as us. It was so much fun.
After dinner, we went back to the hostel, slept, and got up the next morning to make our way back to the train station to meet the bus. Of course, we spent the bus ride back studying for our two tests (Taylor's one) now that we no longer had Paris to focus on :( .....
Until next time!
Kelsey, Alyssa, Justine, Steve, and Taylor
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