Si, Yes, Oui!

So a few weekends ago we embarked on our journey to Paris. Neither Teagan, Mitch nor I actually speak French so the thought of being fully immersed in the language was a little daunting. However, we quickly realized that it wouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as we could successfully make the “I have zero idea what you are saying/ have no idea how to even begin to respond to that” face on demand. We had no problems. Once we made it to the airport, met up with Teagan, got a VERY expensive taxi and found our hostel we were finally able to sit back and say “WE ARE IN PARIS BABY!” Of course it was dark and rainy so we couldn’t actually see anything but it was still great. It was pretty late by this point so we decided to go to bed so we could get an early start the next morning. Apparently my body was just totally amped up because I couldn’t fall asleep. I was really comfortable so I wasn’t really upset that I couldn’t fall asleep I was just kind of lying there…not asleep. This lasted until around 3 am when I was finally able to sleep…until the alarm went off at 6am and we had to start our day. I guess you could say that we overestimated the time that we would need to get up for breakfast because by the time we made it outside it was still dark out, and nothing was open. We just wondered around for a little bit taking pictures and looking around until we found a café that was open. Thankfully the people at the café knew a bit of English so we were able to get by without speaking very much French. I think we all got some kind of croissant, yogurt and juice. It was all very good and gave us a nice start to our day. Our café was right outside of Hotel De Ville so after breakfast we wandered around there and took pictures and then made our way across the bridge to Notre Dame. It was surprisingly close to where we already were which we were pretty happy about. Now I have to be honest, I wasn’t too excited about seeing Notre Dame. I thought it was just going to be a big church with cool architecture and such. While it was both of these things it also was one of the coolest things I have seen. The outside of the cathedral had so much to look at, there will statues and designs built into the design of the cathedral that made you feel like it was impossible for people to build such a vast structure with so much detail and so little technology of any kind. As we went inside the cathedral it only got more amazing. I felt like I was walking into the past in some way. Every inch of the cathedral was so unique and different that there was always something to look at and admire. We were all kind of shocked by how amazing the inside of the cathedral was so we didn’t say much while we explored around. After about 40 minutes we made our way to St. Chappelle cathedral, which was right down the road. It cost 5 Euro to get into the cathedral and when we got in it was just a small little room with stalls of people selling souvenirs. We were very confused to say the least. Eventually we figured out that the actual cathedral was upstairs. So we made our way up and it was definitely worth the 5 Euro. There were stained glass windows basically floor to ceiling in the room. It wasn’t even that sunny outside but the light came in through the windows so beautifully that everyone was just staring at the windows and the light paths into the room. After we felt that we had seen all that we wanted to see in the cathedral, we started to walk to the Lurve. Once again this walk was a lot shorter than anticipated. So we wandered around outside of the Lurve and found a really cool lock bridge. One of those bridges where people put locks on after they get married or if they are just in love I guess. From a distance it looked like a golden bridge but as we got closer we realized that there were so many locks that you couldn’t see the actual bridge anymore. So cool. After checking out the bridge for a while we made our way to the entrance of the Lurve. Since it was so early in the morning there was basically no line at the pyramid entrance. It was awesome to go in through the glass pyramid because even though it wasn’t too sunny the light shining through was so pretty. After we got over the shock of how huge the museum was, we started to make our way to the ancient Egypt section. I don’t know why we chose the ancient Egypt section of the museum but it worked. Mainly Teagan and I didn’t know much of what to look for other than the Mono Lisa. So of course we saw that! We pushed our way to the front of the pack of people and took in the Mona Lisa. Of course we wanted to look at it for a little bit but some rude lady was all like take a picture and leave. We basically just ignored her and did what we wanted and then continued on with our Lurve experience. Mitch knew what the most famous things in the Lurve were from his art classes so he would describe pictures to us and Teagan and I would go on a where’s Waldo like search to try to find him. Overall it was a pretty successful visit! Next we wandered around the gardens outside of the Lurve waiting to meet with Taylor for lunch. We saw all of the cool statues and modern art structures while we waited. Once it was time to meet up with Taylor we had to play where’s Waldo again in front of the Lurve. It took us a little bit but we eventually found her and she showed us to a really nice restaurant for lunch. I think we basically all got thee Croque Misure which is basically a grilled ham and cheese except French. It was super good! After we were fed and reenergized we started the long walk to the arch de triumph. The arch itself is so huge. I didn’t expect it to be that large. It was kind of shocking because we decided we wanted to climb it and when we actually saw it we were like oh crap that’s tall. But we waited in line, got our tickets and started our climb. I’m not sure how but we powered our way all the way up to the top and then collapsed on the well placed couches on the top of the stairs. We were all out of breath so after a few minutes we were able to walk out onto the roof to area and finally see the beautiful view of Paris. We took lots of pictures and then walked all the way back down the stairs and made our way to the Eiffel tower. Our legs were pretty much about to fall off at this point but we made it somehow! The line for the elevators to the top of the tower looked really long which was very discouraging to me but the lights on the Eiffel tower turned on right when we were underneath it so that made it better! The line took about 45 minutes and we had to go through metal detectors which were unexpected. Mitch got yelled at by the security guys in French because he had like everything in his pockets but they let him on so obviously security isn’t very tight. I don’t think any of us expected the elevator ride to take as long as it did. I didn’t think Teagan was going to make it because she was very nervous about the height aspect but we all made it! I don’t think cold is a good enough word to describe the temperature on top of the tower. The wind was so strong that it felt like my camera would be taken out of my hands. But as soon as we walked to the other side of the platform at the top the wind was not that strong so it was much better. Once again we took lots of pictures, took in the views and had a really good time.  I am glad we got to thee top at night because we were able to see a really different view of the city and it was beautiful. We rode back down on the elevator and immediately went to find a crepe guy selling crepes on the street as was recommended to us by Taylor. Teagan and I had nutella strawberry crepes and Mitch had an egg one and a strawberry nutella one. We ate our warm crepes in the cold and watched the light show on the Eiffel tower. It was perfect. Then it started to rain, and then suddenly it was pouring. We still had to make the long walk back to our hostel. Naturally I started panicking as I usually do. The rain only lasted about 15 minutes but by that point I realized just how long our walk back was going to be. So we walked and walked and walked forever. It took us 2.5 hour to get back to our hostel. OH did I mention that a bus drove by us and a title wave of water hit us? So we were all soaking wet when we got back but we put on dry clothes and collapsed after our 16 hour day. The next morning we were able to sleep until 9 which was glorious. We went out to breakfast at a really awesome French cafe thing. I don’t think they spoke very much English so we had to mime some things and do a lot of pointing but we got hot chocolate, coffee (Mitch) baguettes croissants and orange juice. It was all so good we just couldn’t stop saying OMG this is so good! I think it was the best hot chocolate that I have ever had. I didn’t want to drink it all...but I did! After breakfast we got souvenirs at a train station, checked out of our hostel, wandered around the ark by our hostel, got a taxi and went back too  thee airport. We had such a great time in Paris it’s hard to fit it all into one blog post. It was hard to say goodbye to Teagan again but I am so excited to see her and others in Edinburgh and Rome in a few weeks!!