salut de paris!
[ hi from paris! ]
this past weekends adventures were to paris. ahhhh, such an awesome trip. i must say, i absolutely loved paris, and did not want to leave. we originally planned for our group of girls to go, but then last minute lauren and kristins girlfriends from their dorm decided to venture to paris as well, so we ended up with 8 girls in total. we took the train friday night and arrived to paris around 11 pm. i was so excited to get there, that i forgot they dont speak english. typical. luckily i took 3 years of french in high school so i had some what of an idea of what they were saying/ what signs said.
first stop: our hostel.
a bit hesitant for this, given that we freaked out at the last one. well to start off, the metro stop that our hostel was closest to..crimee.
solid.
well luckily, our hostel was not as sketch as the metro stop. it actually ended up being really nice. downstairs there was a bar, restaurant and club. we ended up eating at the restaurant one night just because it was so convenient and we received a discount for staying their rooms. so here they are, our wonderful rooms...
pretty up-scale huh?
yes, we literally we in our own little caves .. definitely interesting. after getting settled friday, we all went to bed because it was late and we wanted to wake up early to get a head start on sightseeing. well, everyone else went to bed. for some reason, although i was exhausted, i could not fall asleep. so chilled until like 3:30 starring at the ceiling of my cubby and listened to the wicked soundtrack on a ipod.
the next morning we woke up at 8:30 [way to early] and headed downstairs for breakfast, aka a bowl full of french baguettes [yummm] and then headed out for the day.
first stop, eiffel tower!
AHHHH!
is this real life?!
so cool. we were all in awe when we arrived. i couldn't believe that i was actually standing in front of something that i always heard of, but never imagined myself in-front of. it was unreal. so for the next 40 minutes, we all just had a photo shoot in front of the tower ... taking ever picture we could think of. umm hiii, we're tourist, couldnt you tell?
disregard the dress.
bad life decision to wear that,
but i couldn't not take the photo.
all the girls.
after the eiffel tower, we headed for the louvre......' to the louvre!!!' [eurotrip reference]
well we decided to walk there. luckily we had nice weather, but didnt realize that the walk was about 5 miles, so about an hour later we arrived. once again, so cool to finally see something that ive only see in pictures and text books. before we went into the louvre we grabbed quick lunch at a cafe around the corner and then came back and hopped in line. luckily since we were students we get free entrance. i like free things.
once inside i spent a solid ten minutes just staring up into the glass,
ahhh once again ... soo cool!
then we headed to see mona.
oh hey there mona .. what up
every one crowding the painting..
relax people, relax.
then we headed downstairs to see milo.
just chillin.
after the louvre, we need a break. at this point we were all exhausted, tried and our feet were killing us so we took a little rest in the gardens outside of the louvre.
after our break. we continued our journey to notre dame, which was only about a 10 - 15 minute walk from the louvre. nothing compared to the first trek from the eiffel tower. on our way we walked over the lock bridge. and no shocker here, the bridge is covered in locks. the tradidtion is go to the bridte with your significant other, write your names, initals or whatever you want to on a lock. you then lock it to the side of the bridge and throw the keys into the the river to signify locking you love together for ever. cute right? well this bridge is completely covered with locks.
my favorite lock ..
continuing to on our journey, we finally arrived at notre dame but unfortunately, once we arrived not only was the sky quickly turning grey and it looked like it was about to down pour, but the line was ridiculously long, so we were unable to go in.
before i changed the settings on my camera ... so dark!
a bit creepy.
wheres the hunchback at?
gotta love camera settings
after our quick stop, we headed towards the longchamp store because kim wanted to buy a bag before she left on sunday. well sure enough ... the rain finally caught up with us. lost in paris, trying to find the darn store and it starts to down pour. well sorry im not in london, i left my umbrella at home. so we strolled around in the rain, trying to find this store. not happy campers.
well, we finally gave up on the store and headed back to our hostel to change out of our soaking wet clothes and get some dinna. we had the most delicious burgers there, i was impressed. perhaps the best burger ive had since being over here. that night we went to bed early because we were absolutely exhausted ... except for me, couldnt sleep again. what the heck natasha. well just like then night before, 8:30 am came awefully early and i had to get up and moving and get ready for the day, but all i wanted to do was stay in bed and go back to sleep.
agenda for day two:
arc de triomphe, moulin rouge, monmarte and eiffel tower at night
the walk to the arc was crazy. this street is very upscale. we heard there was alot of shopping in paris, but this definatley was not in our price range. on the way we passed so many designers, the most intense louis vuttion store followed by a mercedes gallery.
the only thing on this street i could afford, was mc donalds.
stopped in the middle of the street.
next stop: moulin rouge.
can - can status
needless to say, it was a quick visit. this is all we really wanted to do. =)
then we headed to monmarte
after a trek on a cobblestone path, uphill we finally made it. and im glad we did. not only want the area around it adorable, surrounded by shops and restaurants but the building and view were amazing.
after we relaxed for a bit, and enjoyed the view we went to a little restaurant for a glass of wine before we needed to head to the eiffel tower. we had 7:30 tickets to head up the eiffel tower, and i was so excitedd!!! the whole thing tooks us about 2 hours to go up stop on both levels and then come back down. before we got there, i remembered that we had daylight saving there the night before so i was afraid that it was not going to be dark like we had planned. luckily we picked the perfect time because we started when it was light out, made it to the bottom level around dusk and then the top when it was dark and let me tell you, it was absolutely breath taking.
waiting in line!
the city.
the photos cant capture how awesome it was...
so i took a video too!
unreal.
well i thought that this was the highlight of our trip. but sure enough, leave it to paris to leave me in absolutle awe with the city. monday was our last day in paris, and since we accomplished so much in the first two days, we wanted to relax and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. so we headed to the story, bought some snacks, and wine and headed to the eiffel tower for a picnic. talk about an amazing day.
our lunch.
hot dog, in a baguette, covered in cheese.
umm...yummmm!
you know that looks delicious.
view from our spot =) setting up our picnic.
seriously ... rough life.
after a day full of sunshine and relaxation we had to pack up our perfect day and head back to the hostel to collect our bag and go to the train station. wahhh did we really have to leave? i dont want to!
ugh, well back to london it is. hmm complaining about heading back to london, wow ive got a rough life huh? =) but in my defense i did have to come back monday night and wake up tuesday morning to take a test. that ... not so fun. but hey, its over now. overall the trip was a success, noone lost anything or had anything stolen! if you havent been to paris, you must go and go up the eiffel tower at night. youll be blown away. its official ...
on another note. friday i have another test but the only thing getting me through it is knowing that mama ellie is coming to visit saturday...
AHHHHHHH IM SO EXCITED!!
you have no idea.
but this may be the longest blog ever. im sorry, but we did alot in four days! here is the link to ma facebook album so you can see of my photos. enjoy!
<3. j'adore paris.
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