Paris, France

PARIS

Planning our trip to Paris took a few days, but once it was finally booked, it felt so good to know that we were going to be Paris in a week. :) We planned our trip with some amazing people we have met during our first week at Roehampton. They’re all from Hawaii! Americans…like us haha.

DAY 1

Our Eurostar train was at 5:30am so we all debated about how we wanted to get there. A few wanted to stay at St. Pancras station all night until we left, and a few others wanted to try and take a taxi. The taxi would be pretty expensive so we decided to just leave at 2:30am to take the night bus to the station and wait there until the train leaves. Now whether we wanted to sleep or not before we left was the question. Paul and I ended up falling asleep for an hour and then met up with the others at the bus stop to take the night bus. (too bad it’s not like the night bus in Harry Potter) ;)

When we got to the station we had to go through security, passport, etc and then we were on our way to Paris! The train is actually really nice. There is a snack station and everything. BUT it was too early in the morning to even care, so we both just feel asleep on the train until we arrived in Paris. It only took 2 ½ hours to get there though. When we arrived in Paris, all of us were so excited! We couldn’t believe that we were finally here!

After a few minutes of being in the train station we all experienced major culture shock. It took us about an hour to get day passes to use for transportation around Paris. Everywhere we went, they would slightly know what we were talking about and point us in different directions. When we got to a machine where you could apparently buy day passes was only in French, so we weren’t sure how to even get them on the machine. Then a French guy came up to us speaking in French and we had no idea what he was saying. It got a little frustrating. When we finally got our day passes we took a train and walked to our hostel. The hostel we stayed at was called “Aloha Hostel.” It was pretty nice…except you felt dirty after you took a shower and we had to buy sheets to lay over the beds and are blankets kind of smelled…BUT we were basically just there for sleeping and showering. We couldn’t check into our hostel until 4, but we were allowed to leave our luggage in a locked luggage room they had. After that we went walking around to find a restaurant we could eat at and understand the menu. This was a challenge. There are only a few places around Paris that have a menu that is in French with English subtitles on the bottom. We walked around for a half hour and just decided to eat at a French restaurant and try and figure out what the menu says. So my first meal in Paris was a cheeseburger…it was the only thing I could make out on the menu. :)

After lunch we were so tired that we went back to the hostel and feel asleep at a table until it was 4pm. When it was 4pm we went into our rooms and napped until 730pm…talk about exhausted! That night we went to a bar/pub and it was so much fun! Gabby and I got nutella crepes! They were delicious! But we also had the slowest service ever. The place was packed! We ended up being there for 3 hours. But overall it was a very fun first night in Paris.

                            Day 2

Our hostel says that we have a “free” breakfast every morning at 8am so we were really excited to wake up and have some warm, good breakfast. But we ended up sleeping in instead. Every morning we have to leave the hostel at 11am so they can clean so we went to a small bakery and got some chocolate croissants. They were so amazingly wonderful.

After that we went to Notre Dame, yes it looks exactly like the one from “Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Haha

Notre Dame is so beautiful and the architecture is so detailed. We were able to go inside for free and walk around where ever we wanted. They had a choir singing in the background and it sounded so beautiful with the sound bouncing off the walls into a slight echo.

When we went back outside, there was this man letting people feed all these birds that were flying around and playing in a bush garden. It was really cool! There was also a huge flock of pidgins close by and the man laughed and said something in French to us. He walked over to the pidgins with an umbrella and open it up and the pidgins flew over us! Good thing we didn’t get pooped on.

After the Notre Name we went to the Louvre, which is where the Mona Lisa painting as well as many other famous art pieces are. The mona Lisa painting is actually quite small. It's smaller than you think it would be.

We also saw the Eiffel tower for the first time!! AHH! It is so beautiful! We were able to see it for the first time at night. Every beginning of the hour the Eiffel tower sparkles for 10 minutes. It’s gorgeous! There is also a restaurant in the middle of the tower and it’s so expensive. It’s wear Tom Cruise proposed to Kate.

The most annoying thing though when you go to the Eiffel tower is the illegal street sellers trying to sell you Eiffel tower key chains. There is seriously a flock of them every 15 feet of each other. And if you say no to them, they’ll follow you and lower the price. There was at some point all of them standing 5 feet from each other in a row so you had to pass through them. Funny story: So Gabby and Keoni were sitting by the Eiffel tower and a guy comes up to them and hands them a flower. Keoni takes it, looking confused and then the guy says, “2 Euros!” So he pretty much had to buy it since he grabbed it haha

On the way back home, we were in the underground and we look over and there’s this passed out guy with his butt hanging out of his jeans just laying there. It was so disgusting, but really funny at the same time. Haha

Later at night, we met up with one of our friend’s French friend who took us to a nice French restaurant and treated us to a bottle of wine. :) The food was delicious! It was very helpful having him around and speaking French. After the second day in Paris, we were starting to miss London. It’s cleaner, we know the language, we’re familiar with the area. After a while of being in Paris for two days though we did get the hang of traveling around and knowing where we were. It’s also quite funny that Paris drives on the “right” side of the road. And I found myself looking the wrong way since I am so used to the roads in London. I am going to have such a hard time when I get back to America.


Day 3

We actually woke up early to get breakfast. On the way down, Paul, Victoria and I were really excited. I turn to them and say, “I really hope this breakfast is like a real breakfast and not just…” and Victoria says, “Bread…” Our hostel has a bowl of stale bread everyday for anyone who wants to eat it. So we walk down there and what was for breakfast?...BREAD! And also cereal that I had no idea what it was with orange juice and hot chocolate. So the breakfast was a major fail.

For the third day, we decided to go to the padlock bridge, the Arc de Trimphe and try and go to the Eiffel tower to get tickets to go up.

For those of you who don’t know what the padlock bridge is… it’s a bridge in Paris that has loads of padlocks around the links of the fence that couples put on. The locks have the names of the couple, the date, and possibly a quote on it. The tradition is that you buy a lock, put your names on it, and you throw the key in the water below to symbolize ever-lasting love. Paul and I bought a lock near by, wrote our names on it, and we locked it around the fence link together and threw the key in the water. J It is so cool to think that our lock will be there forever and people will be able to pass by and see it. Maybe one day we will even go back to Paris for an anniversary or with our family and see our lock.

The Arc de Trimphe is so beautiful. It’s actually a lot bigger than I pictured it to be. There is a roundabout motorway that is around it so you take an underground tunnel to get through. In the tunnel it shows you facts about the Arc de Trimphe and you can see a picture of Hitler standing with his German army by it.  It’s so crazy.

We unfortunately weren’t able to get tickets to go to the top of the Eiffel tower. Everyday it is so jammed packed with people that it would probably take you 2 hours to just get a ticket and another hour to get to the elevator. Instead of going up we decided to sit in the grass and wait for the twinkle lights to come on the Eiffel tower. When we got to the Eiffel tower, Paul handed me a rose and said “Happy Sweetest day.” He wanted to wait to do the padlocks for sweetest day. J I am so in love with my fiancé. I couldn’t be any more blessed than I am now.

Afterwards, we left for the bar we went to the first night…

And that’s pretty much all to say about that night…haha

Day 4

Last day in Paris! Bitter but also very sweet. We finally were able to go to the top of the Eiffel tower! It took about 2 hours total to get in line get the tickets and go to the very top. It’s so scary taking the elevator to the very top. You can see straight down below you and it’s so high up! But
when you get to the top, it’s so worth the wait. It is gorgeous. You can see all of Paris. You can see the city and in the distance, the countryside. They also serve campaign at the very top!

It was so much fun to experience Paris with such an amazing group of people. I had an incredible time and I can’t wait to experience more new things as the weeks go by. We just bought tickets to go to Barcelona, Spain and Rome Italy for a week. Can’t wait for that adventure.

Well I hope you all enjoyed reading this and experienced a little bit of Paris through this blog. Love you all. Thanks for reading and being apart of this journey with me.

Em <3

Glistening Eiffel Tower :)