Paris: My Vacation within a Vacation

18 July 2012

Wednesday morning, my group and I got to visit the Tower of London. That was pretty cool, especially the part about the disappearance of Richard III’s two nephews. Personally, I think Richard murdered them. But that’s just my opinion.

Since we were leaving for Paris that afternoon, we were a little rushed to get through the Tower, but there’s really not a whole lot to say anyway. It was neat and worth seeing, though, because of the history there.

Going to the train station that afternoon, we were all super excited. Paris has never been on my list of places to visit in my lifetime, so I was a little surprised at how excited I was.

Our first task when we got into Paris was buying a metro pass. So the fourteen of us go up to the ticket office. And the guy there doesn’t speak English. Luckily, one of the girls in our group speaks French, so she worked it out with him and asked for fourteen metro passes. So then we all just filed through and gave him money for whatever it was that our friend requested.

Our next stop was our hostel. It took forever to check in because there were some issues with the reservation, but the guy checking us in was really patient, and he finally got it all sorted out. Our hostel was decent as far as hostels go, but I wasn’t a fan of the neighborhood. Coming home at night was just creepy.

Anyway, after we finally got settled, it was almost ten o’clock, and we hadn’t eaten any dinner, so some of the girls and I went to some random restaurant and got something called chika paprika. It was SO good. Just look at it:

Okay, so it doesn't look as good in the picture. But trust me. It's delicious!

After dinner, we just went to bed. So our first night wasn’t terribly eventful, but we were excited for the next day, when we would start the real sight-seeing.

19 July 2012

One of the very first things Kylee and I did on Thursday was meet up my friend Jennie. She’s from Sweden, and she came to Utah as a foreign exchange student when I was a senior in high school (about three years ago). My friends and I had bonded with Jennie instantly, and it had been really sad to say goodbye to her. When we realized that we would be in Paris at the same time, we made plans to meet up. We decided on the Eiffel Tower. I could hardly believe it when I saw her. After not seeing each other for three years, it was so great to be reunited! I’m pretty sure that our hug lasted for at least a good five seconds. :)

In between talking and catching up, we went on a boat ride on the Seine River (similar to the one I did on the Thames). That was a lot of fun. Then toward the end of the ride, everyone behind us started standing up and making a lot of noise. I thought that maybe they were looking at some cool building. But I was wrong. They were looking at the girl who had fallen off the boat into the river (I’m not sure how she managed it since there was railing all around the boat). So we’re already moving away from the girl, and another boat is getting closer to her. I was just hoping that the other boat would see her and not hurt her. Luckily, they did see her and stopped. In the meantime, Jennie told us that people aren’t even allowed to get into the Seine River because it’s so gross. And here this girl was swimming in it, trying to keep her head above water.

After a while, they had us evacuate the boat. As we got off, we asked about the girl and found out that they were able to rescue, so she was okay, thank goodness.

Once we were off the boat, we went and found some lunch and basically just hung out until Jennie had to leave for work. It was so fun just being able to talk to her and to update each other on our lives! And after another long hug, Jennie and I parted ways and left for our perspective trains.

Jenny and Me

After that, Kylee and I met up with Molly, Shayla, and Miranda. But it takes forever to get anywhere in Paris (joys of the metro), so by the time we were together, it was time for dinner, so we found a restaurant where we could sit outside. The food was pretty good, but I wasn’t freaking out over how incredible it was.

Afterward, we just walked around for a while and went to a couple of shops. We eventually made our way to the bridge right in front of the Eiffel Tower. Then we grabbed some dessert and watched the tower light up. It was so nice to just relax and enjoy the good part of Paris together.

After watching the tower, we all went home: Molly, Shayla, and Miranda to their hotel and Kylee and I to our hostel. I hate going on the metro. It’s so nasty down there. It smells like urine all the time and most of the people look like they want to hurt you. I’m not a huge fan. It didn’t take us very long to miss London’s tube.

And like I said, I really didn’t like walking back to the hostel at night, especially since there were only two of us. So we just walked quickly and made sure we looked like we knew exactly what we were doing. Obviously, we got there just fine, but I wasn’t looking forward to walking to the hostel for the next few nights.

20 July 2012

On our way to the metro on Friday morning, Kylee and I stopped at a patisserie and got something called religieuse. A friend of mine had recommended it to me before I left, and I’m glad I took her advice! It was delicious!

We met up with Shayla, Molly, and Abbey and went to Notre Dame. We walked through the building first, which was really cool. But I think that having gone to St. Paul’s first, I wasn’t in as much awe as I expected to be. After walking through the inside, we got in line to walk to the top. One thing about Paris in the summer is that you have to wait for 1-2 hours to get into anything. So even though we saw a lot of cool things, I felt like we did a lot of standing around in line. But we finally got in and walked all the way to the top. Having just climbed St. Paul’s, plus the constant climbing up and down to our flat in London, our legs were exhausted! But we still did it, and we got to look out at the city. That was so pretty, and it was fun to see the gargoyles and the huge bell!

Later, as we were walking around, we saw a bridge like the one in Dublin: there were padlocks all over it! It was so awesome. I like this one more than the Dublin one.

After crossing said bridge, we found a creperie for lunch. I got a crepe with potatoes, cheese, egg, and ham in it. So it was kind of like an omelet, and it was really good! And I love watching the people make them. It’s just really cool.

We started making our way to a bookstore called Shakespeare and Company after lunch. On our way there, we passed by a ton of green booths that were full of books and posters and paintings. They were really cool, and I bought a Beatles poster for five Euro that I can use for my apartment when I get back (we’re decorating our living room Beatles style!).

Shakespeare and Company was really neat too. We all really love books, so we tend to nerd out sometimes about things like this. But it’s great! Anyway, so we were all just wandering through this bookstore when Molly said to me, “She said something about the Tour de France. Go!” I’m not sure who she was, but I just headed for the door. I got outside and sure enough, there was Tour de France. Tons of bikers in yellow shirts were riding by and cheering as they went. It was so fun to see it! I tried to get a picture in front of it, but the traffic kept getting in the way. So here's a picture of them:

Well we kept walking around after that until we found a place that sells this ice cream that is supposed to be incredible. So of course we stopped and got some. We could get two scoops each, so I got pineapple and coconut (piña colada is my favorite!). And it was really good, but I guess I’m just not very picky when it comes to ice cream because I didn’t feel like I needed to go back to that specific place. I almost feel guilty about not falling in love with Parisian food…I mean, it’s Paris, the food capital of the world.

Anyway, later we met up with the other girls in our group and went to the Museé d’Orsay. And the best part is that we went at five, so we got in for free! We didn’t have a whole lot of time there, but we walked through as much as we could. I got to see more of Monet’s paintings, which was neat. I really like Monet. But I think my favorite thing I saw was Rodin’s sculpture, “Porte de l’Enfer.” It’s based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, and I absolutely love it! It’s a man looking down into hell, and it’s so cool! I love the intricacy. And fun fact: the man looking down is also “The Thinker.” Someone later copied that piece of Rodin’s sculpture and made it larger.

Our next stop was the Louvre. We had heard that if we went after six, we would be able to pay a discounted price. We were wrong. It was free that night for anyone younger than 26! I’m a big fan of their definition of youth. Haha.

Again, we didn’t have a ton of time, but we did go see the Mona Lisa. It was ridiculous trying to get to the front of the crowd there and even worse trying to get a good picture with it, but we did it!

The best part of the Louvre, though, was the ceilings. They were so ornate and beautiful! There were paintings on them, and they were just amazing! My friend had told me to focus on the building, and he was absolutely right.

After we left the Louvre, we rushed to the Eiffel Tower to get in line. That was another one or two hours. But we had fun in line just talking. Plus the free entertainment. There was a man there who would follow random people around and imitate them until they noticed. It was hilarious! Or someone would walk by and he would say something like. “Presenting the president of Sri Lanka!” and start clapping. Another he would do was walk in front of Asian people and start doing random karate chops and making weird sounds. We were laughing so hard! When he came around asking for money, I gave him some of my change. I felt like he had earned it, and I hate carrying around small coins anyway. While were we all giving him money (there were six of us at the time), he yelled to the crowd, “The desperate housewives!” Not sure how I feel about that. Haha. Then he introduced Shayla as Adele and told her that he loved her song, “Rolling in the Deep.” This guy was awesome and definitely my street performer I’ve seen since coming over here.

We finally made it to the front of the line and got into an elevator. When we started going up, we all got really excited. We could still see outside, and it was so cool! Of course, the top of the tower was the best. It was neat to be able to see the entire city, and we got up there just as the sun was setting. It was so beautiful!

Me at the top of the Eiffel Tower

The view from the tower

After taking a lot of pictures and enjoying the view, we went back down. By the time we were out, it was time to go home. So Kylee and I had to walk through our creepy neighborhood and back to our hostel again. I hate that street.

21 July 2012

The next morning, we went to a small market to do some shopping. It was neat and we got a few things, but we weren’t there for very long.

We left for Sacré Coure afterward, and on our way there, Molly almost got pick-pocketed. We were all standing on a moving sidewalk, and she had her map out. Well her purse was at her side and zipped up. But it’s black, and the zipper is deeper than the top of the purse, so it looked like it was open. Suddenly, Molly felt a tug on her purse (which she wouldn’t have felt had her purse been open), and looked at the guy’s hand, then up at his face, and she gave him the dirtiest look. Molly said he seemed surprised at her glare, but he just moved on, looking for other targets. The interesting thing is that the man did not seem creepy or weird or poor. He was dressed well (no doubt a result of his successful pick-pocketing career), and he was even kind of attractive. You would have never suspected him!

Anyway, once we were off the metro, we made our way to Sacré Coure. And that was really fun. We didn’t actually go inside the church, but the shops nearby were fun to wander through. I had one guy approach me and ask me if he could sketch my portrait. I told him no, so he said something like, “You have blue eyes. I’ll draw them proper!” I still said no, but I thought it was kind of funny.

Sacre Coure

Since Moulin Rouge is really close to Sacré Coure, we stopped by really quickly. My friends really wanted to get pictures in front of it. I didn’t really care that much, but that’s okay. It was…interesting…walking down that street. Haha. Not really my ideal hangout place.

Later, we met up to go to the Catacombs. There are something like six million bodies buried down there. Only there not complete skeletons; the bones have all been separated and placed in a specific order…almost like decorations. I had heard that it was really cool, so I thought we should give it a try.

This was another of those things that you have to wait in line for two hours to see. And while we were waiting, one of the girls noticed three guys a little ways off and pointed them out to us. One guy had been passed out on the lawn earlier and was now being held up by his neck by one of the other guys. And the first guy was just totally limp. He had to have been drunk or on drugs or something. The second guy (the one holding him) was talking to him, and he wasn’t very happy about something. He was also holding his right hand behind his back kind of awkwardly. The third guy was standing by as backup for the second guy. Anyway, so we’re all just kind of watching and wondering what is going on. A few other guys from the line tried to approach them and calm them down, but it didn’t really work. The good thing is that no fighting broke out.

So we’re all standing there watching and getting really anxious because this is obviously not a good thing, and the second guy might just choke the first guy to death. So we finally tell one of the workers at the Catacombs, but they don’t really do anything about it. Well then, the second guy—remember that his right arm is behind his back—reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a knife. He didn’t actually hold it up to the first guy’s throat, but he was clearly threatening him. So by this point, we’re really getting nervous and not knowing what to do. But then one of the Catacombs employees starts booking it back inside the building to do something about it (he probably saw the knife). A minute later, he comes back out with a security guard. Well the security goes right over to the three guys and without even hesitating, he just steps right in between the first guy and the second guy. Well by the time, the line had started moving and we were curving around the building, so we didn’t actually see how it ended.

We think that the first guy was a druggie and owed money to the second guy. So when the druggie couldn’t pay the dealer, the dealer threatened him. And the sad thing is that even if the security guard stopped them, the dealer probably just went and found the druggie later. In fact, the druggie is probably dead by now.

So that was a kind of intense experience, one that I wasn’t really planning on having. But life goes on, and before we knew it, we were inside the Catacombs. They were really cool (and maybe a little creepy). I had heard right; there were bones everywhere, and they were very specifically arranged. There were also stone slabs throughout with French writing on them. Obviously, I couldn’t read them, but Shayla told us that most of them say morbid things like, “Death is the past, present, and future, and you can’t escape it. It is all around you.” But even though it was a little creepy, it was still cool, and yes, I touched one of the skulls. I wasn’t actually supposed to and it freaked me out a little bit, but I did it. I just did it very quickly!

Look at all of those bones!

After we got through the Catacombs, we grabbed some lunch at a creperie. I got a chicken curry crepe, and that was really good. Then we just went to the gardens next to the Eiffel Tower for a while. We were so exhausted from all of the walking and the climbing, and all we wanted to do was sit. We felt like we could collapse at any moment. Friday and Saturday were definitely the two most tiring days we’ve had this entire trip (well, Manchester might have been worse, but not by much).

We got dessert again that night and watched the Eiffel Tower light up from the bridge. That was my favorite part about my trip to Paris. Plus the slushy that I got. It was SO good. The best slushy I’ve ever had. I’m not sure what they do to make it so delicious, but it works!

When we were waiting for our train in the metro station, I noticed a man come up behind my friends and conspicuously look into their bags and then walk away. So then I told then girls that we had ourselves a pick-pocketer. The man kept walking through and looking at people, but he didn’t have any luck. So he got on the train, went one stop, and then got off again to look for more targets. Good thing all of our bags were closed!

22 July 2012

On Sunday morning, Kylee and I left for church at about 8:30 in the morning, hoping to get there by 9:30. But we could NOT find it to save our lives. The directions that we were given were terrible, and we couldn’t ask anyone on the street because they wouldn’t have known what the LDS church was. We were getting really frustrated, but being angry doesn’t solve anything. after a while, it was suggested that we count our blessings so that we wouldn’t be so irritated. So Kylee and I took turns listing things we were grateful for. After a couple minutes of that, we were able to feel which way to turn and where to go. It was really quite incredible. There is no way we would have gotten to the church without a little divine help. So if you’re ever frustrated, just remember to count your blessings!

It was 10:30 when we finally got there. It was on a tiny street behind a gate. It definitely didn’t look like the church buildings in Utah! When we got there, our shoulders were killing us (we had our luggage and backpacks with us), but we were just glad to have made it for the last few minutes, even though we missed the Sacrament. Only four other girls had shown up, and the only way they found it is because they happened to see a few people who looked really Mormon, so they followed them to the church. And our director never did find it.

When church was over (you know, ten minutes later), Molly, Kylee, and I went to the train station. When we got there, we asked someone what we were supposed to do in order to board our train, and we were told that we just supposed to wait for the train and then scan our tickets as we got on. Well we thought that was a little weird since we would be crossing the border into England, but that’s what they told us. So we sat eating lunch and hanging out for quite a while, since we had gotten there a couple of hours before our train was to leave. As the time got closer to board, we realized that we hadn’t seen anyone else from our group. With half an hour left until departure time, we decided to ask someone else about boarding. And we realized that we still had to go through customs and have our passports checked. We went into panic mode and hurried as fast as we could through the lines. Luckily, we made it to our train in time, but if we hadn’t talked to the second guy, we would have missed our train and been stuck in Paris.

I was really happy to be on the train. Paris was a really fun experience, but I was pretty ready to go “home” to London. I was surprised by how much London had begun to feel like home for the other girls and me. When we got off the train and into the tube station, we all just wanted to cry because we were so happy to be back. We were all breathing the air and enjoying how clean everything was and how nice the people were. It was fantastic! And getting back to the flat was so nice. We really missed it. And Palmer. She hadn’t come to Paris with us, so she was just by herself the whole time. It was fun being with her again.

The rest of the night, we just relaxed and then studied for finals. So that wasn’t too exciting, but it was nice to just be still and sit. We didn’t have much down time in Paris. I also got to talk to my brother (whose birthday had been the day before) and my mom and my sister. It was fun being able to talk to them since I wasn’t able to in Paris. And like I said, it was really great to be home. :)