10 hours and 5 trains later, we arrived in Paris! We were a little worried about our hostel, partly because we were afraid it would be far away but mostly because we booked it super last minute and it was the only one we could find with availability. It turned out being fine with the exception of the super weird french wolverine receptionist guy who checked us in and waking up Sunday morning with absolutely no power.
Once we got settled, we headed out to explore the area around our hostel and grab dinner. We found a cheap osteria type place and stopped in for wine and pizza. The owner was the cutest little man and we could tell he was excited for our business by the way his face lit up. So excited that when he brought out our wine glasses, he twisted them in his fingers and flipped them in a 360 to put them on our table in front of us. When he went to put down my glass, it slipped out of his fingers and shattered all over our table. He gasped, apologized about 100 times and cleaned up his mess right away-- we couldn't stop laughing!
After dinner, we walked around looking for a bar to check out. Most of them were packed and because we were traveling in a group of 12, we settled on one that looked cool but didn't have too many people in it. We got a few drinks and Mitch came back to the table and started telling us about a guy he just met at the bar. "The people here are so friendly! Guys aren't usually that nice". We kept to our own table chatting and began to notice this tendency. That was when we realized that we were most likely in a gay bar. The girls were cracking up but the guys were speechless. We finished our drinks and decided to walk back to the hostel and call it a night.
The next morning we woke up, ate our regular free hostel breakfast of cereal and bread, and caught the metro to the Latin Quarter to meet our free walking tour at the Saint Michel fountain. We were a little early, so we killed time by taking pictures and checking out some of the street vendors. We already couldn't feel our feet when the tour began, but we decided it was the best way to see the city in the short amount of time that we had. An hour and a half later, we were rejoicing when we heard we would be stopping at Starbucks for a mid-tour toilet break. We all ordered venti coffees and knew by looking at one another that the tour was going to stop there for us. Our tour guide said she didn't blame us (it was miserably cold) and we tipped her a few euros before waving her and the rest of our group good-bye. We finished our warm drinks from heaven while we mapped out a plan for the rest of the day. We had about 6 more hours to see Paris before we needed to head home and change for dinner.
We decided to start by going back to the Latin Quarter area to go inside Notre Dame. The line was long but moved quickly and the view inside was well worth it. Next, we walked to Sainte Chapelle excited to witness what many said would be the most beautiful church in Paris. We found out it was going to be about 6 euro to go in and after questioning it for a minute or so, we decided we had to. I am so glad that we did. The view inside the church looking out was absolutely stunning- 7 TONS of stained glass made up the walls of the chapel. It was so difficult to fathom the amount of time and effort that had to have gone into it. I could have stared for hours but my neck got sore and we knew we needed to keep our day going if we wanted to see everything on our checklist.
The next stop was the Louvre. We waited in line for tickets only to find out that we didn't need any since we could get in free with our Swiss Visas. Excited about saving the extra ten euros, we checked our coats (also free) and agreed to meet back in about an hour and a half. We split off and I found myself exploring the ancient egyptian art with Jordan and Kerry. We walked around, making sure to check out the Mona Lisa, The Wedding at Cana, and Napolean's apartments before meeting back up with the group.
From the Louvre, we hopping on the metro and took it to eh Arc de Triumph. We took in it's glory and the glory of the traffic madness occurring all around it before heading back underground and making our way to the Eiffel Tower.
We got off the metro a couple stops later and couldn't believe our eyes. There it was. After dreaming of witnessing it in person for years, the Eiffel Tower was right in front of me. We hung out for a little while and watched the light show start at the top of the hour taking pictures and gleaming up with wide eyes and even wider smiles. Once everyone had enough time to snap pictures and soak it all in, we walked to a nearby crepe stand where we ate our banana nutella crepes so fast we could have set a world record. Then we headed home to regroup and get ready for the night.
We showered and got ready for the night by grabbing cheap bottles of wine and blasting music in our lime green hostel room. We were planning on going out for a nice Parisian dinner but we lost track of time and had to grab something quick on our way out.
We took the metro and found a club that was recommended by friends called O'Sullivan's. For some reason, only Mitch, Jordan, Kerry, Megan and I ended up getting in and staying, but we figured we would make the most of it so we headed to the bar. That was when we realized it was already nearing 1:30 and that the only way we could get home was by taking the Metro with our passes.... which didn't open until 4:30. So we shrugged and headed to the dance floor to wait it out.
When it reached 3:30, we were ready to go so we headed to the coat check line to retrieve our stupid black puffy coats that I would have gladly left there if it didn't provide so much warmth... (you try wearing the same coat everywhere you go for 2 months). Of course, the coat check never goes smoothly. There is something about drunk boys that causes them to misplace their ticket or in this case NOT EVEN NOTICE THAT YOU ARE ALREADY WEARING IT (Jordan!). 30 minutes later, we all had our coats and we left the club to wait for the metro. Realizing we still had about a half an hour to burn, we took cover in a cafe that seemed way too nice to be open so late/early. A nice man in a black apron brought us gourmet ham and cheese sandwiches and we sat giggling until it was finally time to go home. We walked to the metro station, turned the corner to head down the steps and NOPE. The gates were still closed. Looked like the metro wouldn't open until at least 5. There was no way we could keep burning time. Exhausted, we hailed a cab and felt stupid for not thinking of getting home this way earlier. We split the cab fare and stumbled into our rooms to get a REM cycle in before waking up again and spending our last few hours in Paris.
The next morning, we all ate breakfast, stored our luggage, checked out and took the metro to Sacre Coure for our last tourist stop before boarding the train home. We dodged the sketchy could-be pickpocketers and climbed the steps to the summit of Montemarte, the highest point in Paris. We admired the view and then headed inside Sacre Coure to check out the interior and witness the Sunday mass. The church was, of course, beautiful, as was the choir that sang in the background.
Before we knew it we were out of time and hurrying back to the hostel to grab our bags and then to the train station. We got to the train with about 14 minutes to spare and realized that we wouldn't get a chance to eat for the next ten hours since our train only stopped in sketchy French ghost towns. That's when we power walked around the station and outside in search of something cheap and easy. I walked out of the front of the train station and peered off into the distance searching the horizon for.... BAM! There it was. The golden arch. I ran back and grabbed Megan and Rachael and we decided to make a break for it. We sprinted to McDonald's and waited impatiently as the SLOWEST WORKER EVER (of course) took her sweet time dropping ketchup packets into our bags one by one. We got our food with 5 minutes to spare and we took off like lightening back toward the station. Everyone was staring at us as we dodged cars and ignored crosswalks. We looked like three tyrannosaurus rexes trying to balance our ginormous backpacks by holding our McDonald's bags with two hands in front of us as to not spill the drinks inside. We were dying of nervous laughter and slid onto our train platform with at least a minute to board. We walked through the train cars until we found the rest of our group, whose jaws dropped in jealousy when they saw our bags of burgers and fries as they held tiny cold ham and cheese sandwiches.
Satisfied, we ate our food, relaxed, lent against our window and dozed off. About an hour later, I woke up to my Ingrid playlist blasting in my Bose noise canceling headphones and four French people standing over me waking me up. I was SO confused and worried that I was all alone when I realized what they were pointing at. A stray rock had flown at our window and shattered it completely. They wanted to tell me not to lean on the window. I looked over at Megan and her face was filled with pure shock. What are the chances that a rock hits OUR window? Apparently it made a loud shattering sound that I slept right through thanks to my headphones and everyone on the train was looking in our direction in amazement. A train attendant came by and scribbled something on a notepad and we switched seats for the rest of the ride.
We finally got home around 11 and went to sleep, excited for our first Marketing Research test the next morning. Yikes.
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