So sadly I've gotten a bit behind on my journal/travel blog writings as I'm just now writing the Paris edition while driving to Switzerland... And I've been to Brussels and Amsterdam and the Black Forest of Germany and have yet to even start those posts. Lucky for you the blog will be a bit less detailed since remembering back gets a little hazy with everything that's going on. Aka less tangents and more to the point hopefully haha. I have to say this trip is already testing me in how much I can absorb and attempt to retain since we're constantly moving and have other things on our minds looking forward to the next day and forgetting a little of what happened the day before, waking up in one country and going to bed in another.
ALSO a heads up, I can't seem to upload pics or video from my iPad to this blog site so I'm sorry you'll have to wait till August!
Let's see how much of Paris I can throw your way though :)
Day 1-
We arrived into Paris via the Eurostar railway and immediately hop on a bus to take a bit of a tour before being able to enter into our hotel. So the story of Paris for pretty much everyone on the trip was that they despised it at first and then it grew on them, and the reasoning for this is because we started off driving through a rough part of town when we first got there and it really turned everyone off of the city. We were on the bus actually asking each other why we left London haha. Luckily that way it could only get better right? But the hotel was a very nice place located a bit away from the heart of the city in what is Paris's business district. It was somewhat nice for the fact that we only had two to a room in this hotel andddd that there were elevators! Haha no more walking up countless flights of stairs with a heavy as heck luggage.
The highlight of day one was an optional dinner we signed up for that Delia/Deals set up as what she calls a "Delia Dazzler" and I surely am happy I coughed up a little coin for. We went into this pretty old restaurant on a side street somewhere in downtown Paris and actually came down some steps into what was pretty much a old cellar with stone walls and it arched over our heads connecting each side. The thing that made this dinner so special was the fact there was a native older gentleman playing guitar the whole time and getting people into it. He would have them choose songs that he might know and the whole room exploded singing lyrics along with him. Other times he would serenade a girl and make her feel so uneasy or grab ones hand and force them to dance with him while he played music and sang. It was really a good time, hopefully once I'm home I can upload a video. But that's without even going into the food! Well luckily being in a large group like this and everyone being pretty friendly we decided to try multiple things and share. I had probably the best French onion soup of my life, one person got escargot, one got a shrimp and prawn salad and another got some veil and I had the luxury of trying them all! The escargot was actually pretty good so I had two or three of those despite their saltiness, the shrimp and prawn salad was good as well but a bit bland I would say and the veil wasn't exactly for me, I think it was just a texture thing but I had to try it right?
For the main courses we did a bit of the sharing game again, I had a traditional beef that was epic to say the least, one girl got a chicken in a mushroom sauce and another had a different style of veil I believe it was. Like I said mine was amazing, the chicken I tried was also quite good since I didn't eat a mushroom with it haha and the veil for the main course was actually quite better than the appetizer, I'm not sure what kind of sauce it was covered in but it made a huge difference. After that we had some desert options and pretty much everyone went with chocolate moose that was delectable! It was very rich though so I don't remember being able to finish it, plus by that time we were all pretty full and loaded up with the free wine that came with our dinner. Well really we all paid 40 euros and it got us our three course meals and three or four bottles of wine per table and champagne, so we were doing pretty good by the end of the night! I have a video of all of us singing Wonderwall by Oasis that's a classic and at one point Andy from our group got up and started dancing with the guitarist and ended up pulling his shirt over his head and twirling it in the air! No one saw it coming but I guess he was a little intoxicated and just going for it hahah it surely opened up Paris in a interesting way!
Day 2-
Day two started off a little slow, for me at least. See we started off the day going to a special perfume shop that made specialty perfume and cologne for purchase and we would be able to purchase for discount prices. It just wasn't for me so I ducked out after they gave us a tour of the facility and how it's made, but I did hear some girls did buy some perfume and one guy got some for his girlfriend back home. Some of us went outside and started taking pictures of all the stuff around us like the opera house that happened to be located very close by. The architecture in these towns are just something to behold since the United States is so young as a country and doesn't have anything similar! So I pulled off my best tourist impression and took pictures of everything during this trip haha. After a little time waiting around there it was off to the Louvre!
This surely is one of the biggest buildings I've seen. It spanned multiple blocks and was just so grandiose that every time we rode by it or walked in its vicinity, each and every time I was in awe. The only problem with the Louvre is that it's a prime place to get pick pocketed, so we had to make sure to stay in groups and look out for each other. And boy was this place packed! We were pretty much always getting pushed or bumped by someone here so you really had to be on your toes. Once again I'm not the biggest art snob so I didn't know fully what I was looking at but we of course had to see the Mona Lisa and the Crown Jewels! But let me tell you, getting up close to the Mona Lisa would take either a large amount of time waiting to get to the front of the pack, or a large amount of shoving because there was a hugeeee crowd in front of it. We opted to stay a bit more towards the back and try and get some pics while zoomed in on our cameras. Even with my decent zoom lens strapped on my camera I still couldn't get a great picture :(
It wasn't the end of the world, I did see it haha but we then ran off to the Crown Jewels before we had to leave. Luckily with these guys I could get up close and personal and take some different types of pictures before leaving and heading towards the bridge with loads of locks attached to it!
The sad thing about the bridges with locks is that they're actually pulling the bridges down and breaking them! So for this reason the French government has had to cut off tons of locks to prevent the bridges from deteriorating. Despite warnings I know people did it in our group haha. There were people selling locks all over the place so they were readily available to tourists. I know Tyler bought one and made a wish as he locked his lock to the bridge and threw the keys into the river. None the less it was still a beautiful site to behold and I got a very nice picture of the locks that I'll have to upload sometime! But before we knew it we were off to see Notre Dame and go inside to see just how amazing it was. It looks like such a work of art from the outside with its architecture but is even more breathtaking on the inside where you can see its arches and ceiling towering above you. Sadly we didn't get to walk up towards the altar really but I did try and take some pics zoomed in so hopefully a couple of those came out good.
After Notre Dame we walked to the Eifel Tower and had the option of going up a floor or two but the group I was with decided against it since the lines were at least a hour long and we wanted to go to Point Alexander/Montemarte which is the highest hill in Paris to take on the view.
First off I totally forgot to mention how much I love crepes! I got one earlier that day that was a Nutella and Banana slices and holy heck was it amazing! They're so delicious I can't even explain it, and for dinner I also got a crepe! This one though was filled with the works, a fried egg, ham, chicken, cheese and some seasoning. This too was an incredible meal, if I lived in Paris I surely would weigh considerably more than I do now! Anyway back on track, we had dinner and grabbed some beers and went to the top of Montemarte and sat down in the grass to watch the sun set. What we didn't expect was two pyrotechnic guys that come to this balcony sort of stage infront of us and put on an AMAZING show! I surely need to show you guys videos of this because these guys were incredibly talented and made the night that much more magical!
Day 3-
Day three was pretty great as well, really there hasn't been a bad day on this trip despite the fact we're all getting sick. Today started off with heading to Versailles to see the grand palace and breathtaking garden behind it. This was a great thing to see but somewhat like the Louvre it was packed and everyone was pushy. That kind of killed the vibe a bit but it was really cool to see how excessively grandiose this place is. The rooms were covered in detail and had so much gold accenting it was unbelievable. The beds themselves in the king and queens separate rooms were huge! To be honest I think I would feel very weirded out sleeping in a bed that big with curtains closing you in that run almost all the way to the ceiling. Theres no way to even go into how magnificent they made everything without you seeing the pictures I took. Once leaving out the back of the palace we got to run around the gardens for about a half hour. There's never enough time! We're on such a tight schedule that it's hard to take things in sometimes but we did our best and as always I took a ton of pictures to reminisce later. They had very interesting mirrors around the gardens, one that made you look upside down, another was a shallow bowl of sorts and we got pictures from each side trying to see how we looked with the different angles and effects. As we made our way down the pathways we head towards a newer piece of art that they recently put in the gardens that getting quite the attention of the neighboring people that think it's out of place and doesn't belong. And in all honesty it is kind of out of place with all the older architecture, plus it's apparently supposed to be a women's vagina... So there's that... Apparently people broke in and painted it entirely white to show their distaste but it's still there so we'll see what happens. We grabbed some ice cream and hiked back up to the palace, we noticed that we only saw a small glimpse of the entire palace and the gardens. The palace spanned off to the left and right from where we entered and saw and then the gardens spread out in each direction behind the palace, it would have been cool to be able to explore more but at least we got a taste.
I think this trip if anything is just very eye opening, I'm seeing such things that I really didn't think about or care about before but it's refreshing and exciting. Also the nice thing about just getting a taste is that we have a reason to try and come back someday, to experience more and explore. Or on the other hand realize that we don't necessarily want to go back for more.
In the afternoon we jumped on a tour boat that was quite lack luster. We were hoping for a exclusive smaller boat that would just be our group but we ended up going on a very large boat holding probably about 200 people and had glass roofing and walls around. It was alright I guess but we were hoping for something more personal. Luckily I brought two bottles of wine aboard and our row of six just kept pouring it and passing the one cup I had back and forth. No wonder we're all getting sick haha. Somehow it took us the whole 45min of the ride to kill those bottles and ended up being the perfect amount for our little group.
LAST NIGHT IN PARIS LETS GO!!!
It was time to bring it all together and we had a plan! Stock up on drinks and go to the Eiffel Tower and drink in Paris herself. Most of us got champagne and wine to enjoy and we had a fun time popping our champagne with the tower in the background, I actually have a video of me popping mine. For about a hour we just chilled in the grass and played music and talked and took pictures and took it all in. Also, sorry mom, but I think this is where I lost your Anker tube charger :( I've been searching for it while in Amsterdam but no one can find it! And I just found a video showing it laying on the ground next to my bag at the tower, so I'm guessing it's still there, I'll get you another one I promise!! Xoxo
We then started searching for another group of friends that are on the trip with us and I literally ran completely around the tower and somehow, by the grace of God somehow heard a voice and noticed one girl named Audrey and found their group! Dani and I who were searching actually walked past them and then I somehow looked over my shoulder and found them, it was awesome! But first I had to run back and get everyone from our area and let them know where we were moving to. Once we had both groups combine as one is when things got interesting. So around the tower there's hundreds if not thousands of people walking around trying to sell wine and champagne to tourists. Well as soon as we got there the police showed up on Vespas and shined their lights on a guy selling drinks right beside where we were sitting. He immediately dropped his bag and wandered off and the cops followed him. Immediately one of the other guys in our group George grabbed the bag! It was full of alcohol! We didn't tap into any of it but we asked these Canadians we met to take our picture and gave them a bottle as thanks from this sellers bag. Well what do you know, the seller guy comes back and is demanding his bag! George ended up throwing it behind all of us and said look there it is! The guy grabbed it and started counting, then started screaming at us that a bottle was missing. He was getting pretty heated saying he had friends in the area that would come help him and started looking at all the stuff we were drinking and trying to go through our bags until the smallest girl in our group Kellyann, snapped and put this guy in his place! It was awesome! She started to threaten to get the police and was screaming at him for being rude and the guy immediately stopped when she said police, and then he tried to sell us wine and champagne for half price hahaha
Oh Paris.
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