Paris! Day 28.

July 19^th

 

We had to wake up super early to get to the airport so, I set my alarm. BUT apparently I just turned it off when it went off, because I was woken up by a knock on the door from Allison.  We were planning on leaving at 5:45am, and it was totally 5:30am.  I grabbed the first dress I saw, brushed my teeth, grabbed a bag of makeup and rushed out the door to meet our taxi.  The taxi took us to the train station where we got on the chunnel (train? ..who even knows..) to go to Paris!

Once we arrived, the first thing we wanted to do was go to the Louvre.  We took the subway to get there.  We thought this procedure would be extremely easy since we were all extremely comfortable with the tube now, however, it was so different in France.  For starters, everything was in French.  Furthermore, it was just difficult to understand overall. We had multiple attempts that included getting on the subway going one way, then getting off to go back in the opposite direction.  Also, the subway was gross inside.  Finally, a woman on the subway with us asked us if we needed help-we obviously looked helpless.  She directed us where to go, and we finally arrived where we were supposed to be! 

Once we finally got there, we were welcomed with a sign informing us that the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays.

:(

We were so bummed. I was really looking forward to seeing the Mona Lisa and everything else that was in there! So that wasn’t the best start to our day in Paris-plus, it was cold and rainy.  Even though we didn’t’ get to go inside, we took some pictures outside the building.

Next we decided to find that tower. We found a taxi and were on our way.

We drove under it!

The Eiffel Tower was so much bigger than I had pictured it! It was so cool to see it in person.

Unfortunately it was getting rainier and rainier, and colder and colder so we did not end up climbing to the top. I think if the weather had been better, we definitely would have, but we all wanted to get somewhere dry and warm.

Our next stop was the Notre Dame.

We went inside and it was beautiful!

After Notre Dame we started wandering a bit and came upon a bridge that our taxi driver told us about.  I forgot the name of the bridge, but it had tons of locks on it and we were told that apparently lovers come to Paris to put locks on that bridge for good luck. [I saw this on a lot of bridges in Italy as well when I went there later on].

It was really sweet to see all the locks with the various messages and dates on them..I want to come back to Paris (or Italy) one day to put a lock on a bridge too :)

Then we did souvenir shopping. A lot of souvenir shopping. Prolly too much souvenir shopping.  I got gifts for the various people in my life that I love and a couple for me as well...

After that, we wanted to relax and sit in a cozy café.  We found one of the off-streets…

We all got wine, and Jill and Allison had a cheese-something.

We had some time to kill before we had to catch our train, so we stopped by a place to buy giant baguettes to eat on the train.

We also didn’t think we could leave Paris without trying caviar, so we went somewhere to do that! Unfortunately we were in a bit of a rush because our train would be leaving within a half hour. But we all tried it..even me!!

Overall, I liked Paris. I just wish the weather had been better. Oh yeah, and that I had gotten to see the Louvre  :<

Good thing I had my mom to comfort me by telling me she went to a Rolling Stones concert instead of going to the Louvre when she was in Paris ;)