phenomenal Paris

Day 7 (April 9)


Today was another travel day from Madrid to Paris.  It began well enough--our flight wasn't until late afternoon, so we got to sleep in a bit.  All seemed to be well with our flight.  We were on the plane and all appeared to be ready to go..except, it wasn't.

We sat on the plane for nearly an hour and a half before it finally took off.  The reason?  We suspect it was the two American girls around our age.  A stewardess kept coming over to them and saying something along the lines of "do ___ next time or it's going to cost you a lot of money."  We suspect they forgot to have their visas checked and didn't check their oversized bags.  Not cool!

By the time we got to Beauvais Airport, got to Paris via the bus, and found the metro to our hostel, it was after 10 p.m.  We settled in a bit before going (unsuccessfully) in search of food.  We ended up getting bread and cheese at a convenience store and making grilled cheese in our hostel.  Lame.

We did meet two girls--Charley and Louise--from Manchester, England in our room.  They invited us out to a club with them, but we were pretty tired and it would've involved an hour-long walk.

Day 8 (April 10)


For our first stop in Paris, we decided to tick the most important attraction off our list--the Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower).  After a quick metro ride, we reached our destination.

It was unreal to actually be looking at the Eiffel Tower in person, not in the movies.  And it was a beautiful day for it.  Though nowhere near the hot level of Madrid, it was a pleasant 65 F (20 C) and sunny.

Our short walk to the tower was filled with a number of guys on the street trying to sell us cheap Eiffel Towers.  They all had the same selection and seemed to know each other.  We ignored them and continued on to the Tower.

The line wasn't horribly long and moved fairly quickly.  We bought our tickets and took an elevator to the second level--the point above the legs.  We enjoyed the view and grabbed some coffee.  After taking a satisfactory amount of pictures, we decided to get in line to take the elevator to the third level.

We spent quite a while at the top of the Tower, enjoying the beautiful views of Paris and taking our fill of pictures.

On the way down, we took the elevator to the second level and the stairs to the bottom.  About halfway down the stairs, we were pretty glad that we didn't decide to take the stairs up to the second level.  The stairs were pretty never-ending!

After we reached the bottom and walked down the courtyard area, we had a great deal of fun taking pictures with the full tower in the background, including ones where it looked like we were holding the Tower in our hands.

After we got our fill of the Eiffel Tower, we went in search of lunch.  Since we were in the touristy Eiffel Tower area, lunch did not come cheap.  It ended up being about 16 EUR ($23-25) for a plate of fries and a glass of Coke.  :S

We spent a while of the afternoon doing some souvenir shopping and wandering about the Paris city centre before heading back to the hostel.

After dinner and it got dark out, we set out in search of a view of the Eiffel Tower by night.  We didn't intend to go all the way back to the Tower, but by the time we got in sight of it, we decided that we might as well go all the way back.  It was a bit of a walk, but worth it!

Our pictures didn't turn out the greatest, but the Eiffel Tower lit up at night is amazing--especially the light show that happens for five minutes of every hour.

Day 9 (April 11)


For our second and last day in Paris, we decided to go to Notre Dame Cathedral.  Before heading to the cathedral, we decided to stop off for coffee.  Ashley used her French skills to get us coffee--although, we ended up with espresso instead of actual coffee.  At least they brought us sugar cubes.

Notre Dame Cathedral was pretty packed with tourists.  The outside of the cathedral looked really cool.  The inside of the cathedral was also beautiful.  At first, we thought it was strange because there appeared to be a mass happening while tourists were going through the cathedral.  However, it turned out to be just a choir singing. It was still strange.

After we saw all of the cathedral, we headed to our next destination for the day--the Louvre and Royal Palace.  We paused on the bridge over the river to take enjoy the view and take some pictures before continuing on.

When we got to the Louvre, we were overwhelmed by its size.  We didn't plan on going in, since it was late in the day and we were a bit museum-ed out.  We walked through all of the Louvre courtyards, instead, and looked at the Arc di Triomphe du Carousel.

On our way out of the Louvre, we walked through a courtyard filled with statues.  Having had our fill of wonder at the Louvre (especially its size), we went in search of the Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace was not easy to find.  We probably walked around it three times before we  finally found an entrance.  Once we did, we discovered that the inside was under construction and apparently not open to the public.

Instead, in the courtyard, we found what appeared to be items for a strange game.  We weren't quite sure what the purpose of the varying-sized podiums (?) was, but it was interesting.

The gardens were beautiful.  They were lined with trees and benches.  We sat and enjoyed a bit of the afternoon there before heading back to the hostel to pack for another early morning.