Weekend 2: Adventures in PARIS
Upon booking a train and hostel for Paris, I had already judged Paris. I knew Paris would be great and so fun, but I honestly thought it was overrated and just another tourist destination. It’s definitely a tourist destination, but boy oh boy I did not know what I was getting into with Paris! It was such a wonderful, exciting adventure and what made it more fun was getting it done in TWO days.
DAY ONE IN PARIS! Chandler, Rachel, Olivia, Brynne and I began our trip departing from the Citadines at 5:30am and headed to the train station. We easily found our platform and were aboard our 1 hour and 22 minute journey to Paris! When we arrived in Paris, we took our luggage to the St. Christopher’s Inn hostel that we stayed in and bought a locker to store our packs until we could check in at 2pm. We stayed at St. Christopher’s in Barcelona, and knew that they served free breakfast until 10… Seeing that it was only 8:30 and we are poor college kids, we obviously enjoyed the free breakfast – this St. Christopher’s even had tiny packets of Nutella (Me and Olivia’s favorite)! We bought a 2-day metro pass and all “accidentally” bought children’s passes… whoops? We quickly decided our first destination had to be the Eiffel Tower, so we eagerly boarded the metro (our other new best friend in every city) and practically ran off of our stop. One of the funniest moments of Paris was every one of us fan-girl screaming as we rounded the corner and saw the incredible monument for the first time! Of course, right when we unloaded cameras and cell phones to take pictures, it started raining on us. We quickly found shelter in a nearby café, however after deciding only one of us was getting something, they kicked us out. Yes, they literally told us to leave. We decided to go back and get a discounted lunch at the hostel, and wait out our check with free wi-fi. We enjoyed a delicious lunch, quickly checked in, unloaded and finally left the hostel for the day around 2:30pm, map in tow (the map was our BEST FRIEND in Paris, no lie). We went back to the Eiffel tower, and got to see it in all it’s sunshiny state – beautiful as ever. It still doesn’t feel real that I saw the Eiffel tower in person. After standing in awe and taking pictures and walking all around for about 45 minutes, we headed toward the Arch de Triomphe on foot. In hindsight, we decided we should have just hopped on the metro real quick, but we’ll come back to that. The arch de triomphe was awesome – Possibly my favorite view in Paris, and definitely one I want to know more about! It was incredible and so big and just really really awesome.
We then ventured down Avenue des Champs Élysées (great for window shopping). We stopped in two stores: the Disney store (I mean, how could you not? They were playing Frozen…) and McDonalds. McDonalds, you ask? We had heard that McDonalds sells macaroons, and why would you not try a McDonalds macaroon? Olivia and I got chocolate (our first macaroon), and for McDonalds they were good!!!
 We continued walking and passed the Grand and Petite palaces, walked by the Seine River, and found the Jardin de Tuilières (suggestion of Roland). We casually strolled through the gardens, which brought us to the Louvre! It was around 6:30, so we didn’t go inside, but we saw it in the most beautiful light and it’s HUGE. After lots of selfies with the Louvre, we were in search for the Ponts de Arts, commonly known as the lock bridge. This bridge has THOUSANDS of locks covering the sides with people’s names and honestly there are all kinds of crazy things on that bridge. At this point, we were all past the hangry stage and bickering to decide where to eat (everything is expensive in Paris). We finally picked a pizza/pasta place. I got some lasagna – so good. The waiter was weirdly flirting with us the whole time (he called Rachel “amore” and meowed at her, and called Olivia “Barbie,” and asked us all if we had boyfriends) and we think he may have ripped us off a few bucks – adding to our tired and grumpy states as we left the restaurant. We made one last night stop at the Eiffel tower – SO SO BEAUTIFUL at night. It was amazing. We were all cold and tired, and it was around 10:30pm – keep in mind we had been walking all day long. We made it back to the hostel and headed straight to bed.
DAY TWO IN PARIS! We started our day with another free hostel breakfast, where I stole about 10 packets of Nutella… Anyways, we started our day hopping on the metro, like always. After going through the gate, there were police checking metro tickets… Remember how I said we “accidentally” bought children’s metro passes? Well, we all made it through the ticket check, except for Rachel. Thankfully, the officer let her slide with the “I’m an American, I can’t read French” excuse. Without thoughts of turning back, we scurried onto the metro and headed to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was so beautiful on the outside, and the inside of it was stunning. The stained glass was enchanting and the images of different bible stories were hauntingly beautiful. My favorite part of the cathedral was the small pool of water in the back of the chapel that said, “I am the way which seeks travelers” in English, French, Spanish, and Latin on the sides. Like I said, hauntingly beautiful. We then set out to find Pierre Hermé, which is said to be the best macaroon shop in Paris. I was going to bring a box home to my family, but they told us it only lasted 4 days refrigerated (sorry fam). I tried three flavors – milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and salted caramel.
Wherever Chandler read that this was the best, they were correct. The macaroons literally melted in my mouth and we all wanted more after speedily eating them. Olivia and I wanted to go into Musée D’Orsay (more impressionist museum), so we headed in there to explore, while the other half of our crew started exploring the Louvre. We spent about an hour exploring Musée D’Orsay and decided to cross the canal and go to the Louvre. As Olivia and I walked up and saw the long line to get in, an American couple walked up to us, held up two tickets, and gave them to us for free! The couple told us that they don’t even scan your tickets or anything, so you can just walk in with any ticket – aka we got into the Louvre in 30 seconds, no lines, no money, we just walked in! Talk about a blessing!!!! We couldn’t believe the kindness of those people and wished we had gotten their names or something to thank them!!! We walked straight to the Mona Lisa, which was surrounded by a crowd of people, then met up with the other half of our crew! We went to the French paintings section, then Olivia and I explored the ancient Egyptian art (my favorite). I saw a statue of Ramses II, King Tut, the sphinx, and lots of other cool things I learned about in high school history and latin classes! I actually love history so I very very very much enjoyed this! Our next stop (and top priority for me) was Angelina! Roland suggested Angelina to me before I left for Europe and told me about the old fashioned hot chocolate, and if you know me, you know I was immediately sold. We only had to wait outside for about 10 minutes, and were seated in Angelina just as it started raining. I ordered chocolat l’africain (old fashioned hc) and a ham and cheese omelet (my dinner). They also gave us FREE WATER!!!! This is a rarity in Europe, so we were excited. The hot chocolate came in a small pitcher with teacups and whipped cream, and it literally tasted like chocolate soup. IT WAS INCREDIBLE. Breakfast is my favorite meal, and I could have it at any point in the day, so my omelet was perfect too!
After dining at Angelina, we walked off our chocolate with a stroll down Rue St. HonorĂ© – a suggestion from Mrs. Wagner, “great for window shopping.” After another long day filled with walking around Paris, we headed back to the hostel. Chandler, Brynne, and I grabbed our backpacks, said goodbye for a few days to Rachel and Olivia and headed to the train station to return to Brussels. We were running a little bit late leaving the hostel, so we were hastily walking through the streets of Paris. Our train left at 8:55 and when we got off the metro, it was 8:45 and we had no idea where we were going. I had joked to Chan earlier saying that we should run through the train station just to say we did, but when it came down to it, we had no choice, so we ran. We could not have looked more like tourists than we did at that moment (maybe with the exception of the fan-girl scream at the Eiffel tower). After directions from about 5 different random people, we made it to the platform with 3 minutes to spare, found our seats, and were shortly told that because of technical difficulties the train would be delayed 15 minutes… You could say that we were a little bitter. Dripping with sweat on the small, hot train, we laughed at the irony and decided this was another memory that we would soon be fond of.Â
The train ride passed by quickly, thanks to a good ole quality time chat with Chan across the aisle and we were back in Brussels around 10:45. We decided to take it slow back to the Citadines, but arriving in our room crashed. It was great.Â
We slept in this morning, showered, and headed out to find a place that had free wifi for a day of basically doing nothing. It’s been great. Chan and I found a church that we may go to in the morning and are enjoying time in a coffee shop? Paint store? We’re not really sure where we are, but they have tea and cappuccinos and free wifi so we are happy. We have until Monday off, so we plan on exploring another city in Belgium at some point this weekend. Updates to come soon. Only 10 days left here – It’s flying by!
