After waking up at 4:40 Friday morning, the 14 of us took the metro to the bus station to get a bus to the airport. We made it to the airport and after figuring out where to get our passports checked, made it through security in about 10 minutes. We then had an hour to waste, so we sat in a cafe and waited for our gate to appear on the screen. We used RyanAir, which is a low fare airline, but if you want anything additional you had to pay. This meant we weren't all guaranteed seats, luckily the flight wasn't overbooked and we all got seats. I guess one of the neat things about RyanAir is due to the additional cost associated with reserving seats, you can choose not to. This allows you to sit where you want and with whomever you want to.
We arrived in Paris around 1 PM and had no security checkpoint as we exited the airport. We then had to journey from the airport to the hostel, this meant taking a bus to the bus station and then the metro (with 2 transfers) to another stop and then walking the rest of the way. With all of that combined, it took about 2 hours to make it to the hostel. By this point we were all starving. After checking in and dropping our stuff off we decided to grab something to eat from a small cafe and then head back into the city to do some sightseeing and other things. The group split up and one group headed out to go sightseeing and the other did some shopping before going to see a few things.
My group decided to go to the Eiffel Tower first. We got there shortly before 6 PM and took some pictures before they turned the lights on and then more once they were turned on.
Saturday we spent the majority of the day doing a walking tour around the city. We saw (but not up close and personal like we thought) the Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Arc de Triumph, and several other things. We ended at a little cafe where I had my first (and only) pastry of the weekend, (yes, I only had one. Hard to believe right?) a chocolate crepe! It was delicious, but it would have been so much better with strawberries or bananas, yum!
After finishing lunch at the cafe, we decided to backtrack and hit the Louvre again before meeting the rest of the group at the Eiffel Tower at 5. We did a drive by of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, stopped by The Kiss, and saw several other statues and paintings along the way. I would definitely love to go back and spend more time in the museum!
We then went back to the Eiffel Tower so we could wait in line to go to the top. There were a few complications and I wasn't able to make it, (I definitely will one day!) so the next set of photos are courtesy of my stand-in photographer Alex.
Everyone say hi to Alex! Didn't she do a wonderful job? Thanks Alex, it feels as if I was there :)
Alex, Felicia, Kaycee, and I then rushed to make it to the Notre Dame. The other group had seen it the night before, but we had chosen to go to the Eiffel Tower instead. The Notre Dame is beautiful! We weren't able to walk around the whole thing, but we did get to hear some amazing organ music!
After hitting up the Notre Dame, the four of us then made our way to the Arc de Triumph. We learned during our walking tour on Saturday that there are 9 lanes of traffic surrounding the Arc and that there are technically no lanes. Can you even imagine? The tour guide said based on statistics that if you stand at the Arc for 17 minutes you will most likely see an accident occur. We weren't there for 17 minutes and we didn't see an accident, but it sure was close a couple of times!
It sure was a whirlwind of a weekend in Paris, but I wouldn't trade it for anything! I had so much fun and got to see a ton; pretty much everything I wanted to see in only 1 and 1/2 days!
I hope you all enjoy the pictures! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!
xoxo
Kelcey
