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I never thought I would travel to Paris, or at least this soon. But I can proudly say that I've seen Paris before age 21. That's just crazy to me!
Alyssa and I took a high speed train that traveled via the Channel Tunnel (or "Chunnel" as my dad loves to call it) from London to the Gare du Nord station in Paris. The ride was long and tedious, but there were no hiccups during our journey. Our real adventure began once we stepped off the train. I was already nervous about finding our way to our hostel, since this was my first trip to a country that didn't speak English. My nerves revved into high gear when I was suddenly surrounded by French speakers. Even though I took some French in high school, that was quite a while ago and did not prepare me for the swift, fluent speakers I was suddenly surrounded by. It was a little overwhelming, to say the least. Plus, I was very self-conscious of the fact that I could not speak French (that well, anyways), so that made me want to hop on the train and head back to England.
Thankfully, I had Alyssa with me, so I didn't panic quite as much as I would have on my own. The first challenge we faced was finding an ATM. We didn't have a single Euro on us, so we left the station to brave our unknown surroundings. (Mind you, it was nighttime already, which always makes any new environment more intimidating.) For a good five minutes, we were looking at one of the city maps, trying to figure out the direction of our hostel so we could look for an ATM on the way there. Thankfully, we did set off in the correct direction and quickly found an ATM.
Feeling a little better about having some currency on us, we ran into our next obstacle: ordering dinner in a foreign country. We decided on a street vendor down the street from the Gare du Nord station, as they had fairly cheap paninis. It was here that I had my first little hiccup. Alyssa had ordered hers first, and the man asked me if I wanted to order mine at the same time. I thought that would mean Alyssa would have to pay for my panini, so I told him no. What I didn't realize was that he was just going to make them at the same time, and we could pay separately. So I ended up having to wait behind a couple of other customers to order mine. He looked a little annoyed at me, probably thinking I was "a dumb American." Oh well. At least I got it out of my system by that point, I suppose. On the bright side, the panini was very delicious. I decided on a ham, cheese, and tomato panini. (Very simple, but very comforting as well.)
We continued finishing our paninis as we walked to find our hostel. At first, we did well with turning on all of the right streets and finding the area our hostel was in. But that was where our good streak ended. For about an hour, we circled around trying to find our hostel. By the time we found it, it was about 11 pm.
Exhausted, we quickly got ready for bed and got some rest for our first full day in Paris.
Day 1:
Our first day began with a croissant and orange juice. Hostels really love to go all out on free breakfasts.....especially since there was a one per person croissant limit. But I have to say, it was one of the best croissants I've ever had. No joke.
With plans to see the Eiffel Tower, Alyssa and I set off to figure out the Metro system. I think our experience with London's underground, the Tube, helped us navigate the mechanics of Paris's system a lot faster. The Metro was a little dirtier than the Tube, but it matched the Tube in efficiency.
After a short ride, we got off the Metro and rounded the corner. And there it was. In all of its beauty:
It looks small in this picture, but believe me, when I turned the corner and looked up, the Eiffel Tower was the first thing I saw. I hadn't expected it to be so close to the station, so I (literally) gasped in surprise. And also because I had never really pictured myself seeing the Eiffel Tower in person. It was one of the most momentous experiences during my semester studying abroad, because it was one of the first times I fully absorbed the fact that I was exploring the world and seeing these monuments and sights I believed I would only see through pictures taken by others. And the fact that I was able to take my own pictures, because I was there myself, was an amazing feeling. Let's just say I was a little hyper after that sunk in.
Since our plan was to climb the Eiffel Tower (and take pictures of it without backlighting), we made our way down toward it. It was a beautiful morning, with blue skies, a few clouds, and a pleasant temperature. We took advantage of the great weather to take some photos:
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| This was where we walked down to the Eiffel Tower. This is a museum near the Trocadero Metro station. |
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We made a stop before reaching the Eiffel Tower to get ourselves a Nutella crepe. Delicious!
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We finished our crepes as we tried to figure out which one of the long lines to stand in. After a bit of confusion, we picked the correct line to climb the stairs up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. And it was quite the climb, but I figured we'd need the exercise for all the crepes we planned to eat during our stay in Paris anyways. :)
In about 10 minutes we made it to the first level of the Eiffel Tower. Prepare for breathtaking pictures:
To get a better view of some of the monuments, we climbed to the second floor. It was a little scary climbing up to the second level, because our beautiful morning turned into a cloudy and windy one. As we were climbing, you could hear the structure creaking with the wind. I was just praying it wasn't going to come down while we were up there. But we made it to the top unscathed, and it was well worth it:
After we were done sight viewing, we climbed back down the Eiffel Tower and looked around the area. (My legs were so tired afterwards that my legs would shake if I tried to lift my heel off the ground!) Despite my shaking legs, it was well worth the extra walking:
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And this is where our visit took a little turn. While we were chatting on this bench, a girl who looked about 14 years old came up to us and asked if we spoke English. Alyssa and I heard not to respond to these people, because they would try to scam you and take your money. So we didn't respond and kept looking at each other and back at her. And she kept saying, "Sign, sign!" as she gestured toward the clipboard in her hand. There was no way we were going to sign anything without an explanation as to what it was (and she gave no such information).
Eventually, she got so fed up with the fact we weren't falling to her peer pressure that she threw the clipboard on my lap and forced the pen into Alyssa's hands. If there had been any chance that I would have signed that form before, it was certainly gone the instant she threw her clipboard on me. Alyssa felt the same and just held the pen back to the girl. I placed the clipboard on the bench, staying calm despite her pushy and rude behavior. Thankfully, she took her pen and clipboard in a huff and stormed off.
By that point, we both thought it would be a good idea to leave before we lured any more tourist traps to us. Unfortunately, I let my guard down before we were out of the area, and a man came up to me and, quite frankly, stood right in front of me, so I would have to obviously side-step him in order to get around him. I don't know how Alyssa dodged him so fast, but I was not so lucky. I didn't have much fight in me to try to get away from him (and as you will read later on when we visited the Sacred Heart Basilica, it would have been pretty useless anyways).
He told me to hold out my index finger so he could braid a bracelet. I already knew where this was heading, and I had come to terms with the fact that I would have to pay him "a small fee" for the bracelet. Alyssa, meanwhile, stood to the side and waited for me. Unfortunately for her, one of the guy's fellow comrades came over and started braiding Alyssa a bracelet. While my guy was braiding mine, he kept saying "Hakuna Matata" and trying to make me relax. That wasn't about to happen. He flat out creeped me out, so I was not about to relax any time soon. And I never thought I would find that phrase creepy, but he definitely managed to make my skin crawl through his repetitions. Thanks, dude.
All of my instincts just told me to get away! But before I knew it, he swiftly took the bracelet off my finger and onto my wrist, tying it so tight I could barely fit one of my fingers underneath it. Then, he told me to just give me whatever he could. Right.
Back to Alyssa, I heard her assertively telling her guy to cut off the bracelet. (It was quite humorous in hindsight, because she never is that adamant to anyone. But in the moment, she scared me! Lol.) Apparently, he told her to give him 5 euros for it, which was ridiculous! Her guy saw that I was paying 2 euros for mine--meanwhile, Alyssa is still telling him to cut it off--so he said to Alyssa, "Okay, okay. Two euros like your friend!" Alyssa grudgingly conceded.
After that, we quickly got out of the Eiffel Tower area, vowing never again to get caught in a tourist trap. (I still feel bad about the incident, since it was my fault that I stopped and let the guy braid a bracelet for me. But it serves as a great story!) We even left our bracelets on for the duration of our study abroad experience through the rest of our travels, just to remind us what happens if you give in to tourist traps:
After getting out of the tourist trap area, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. We were sad that there was some reconstruction being done to it (they must have been getting it ready for the summer), but it was still amazing to see nonetheless:
After looking at the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down the famous Champs-Élysées! There were so many fancy (expensive) stores:
We even found one of my favorite stores:
About halfway down the Champs-Élysées, we crossed the street due to this museum:
We decided to keep walking down that street so we could see what else we could find. We eventually found the Alexander III bridge, which we saw up on the Eiffel Tower:
We continued down the rest of the Champs-Élysées after our slight detour and found more beautiful sights:
Then, we headed back up the Champs-Élysées on the opposite side of the street, and found the store that we were looking for the whole time: Ladurée.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I did not expect the store to be so fancy when we walked in. So it was no surprise that to get four little macarons, it would cost 10 euros. Figuring that was just a little too expensive for our budget, Alyssa and I left the store, vowing to find some cheaper macarons elsewhere.
By this point, our feet were absolutely exhausted, so we headed back to our hostel to rest our feet before dinner. Because of our exhaustion, we decided to take the easy route and eat at the McDonald's down the street. (Don't worry, we made sure to eat a better meal the next day.) McDonald's food, we found, is the same, even if you're not in the U.S. What wasn't the same was the fact that a meal with a Big Mac, fries, and water bottle cost a whopping seven euro! I guess only in America can you get cheap fast food from McDonald's.
And with a not-so-healthy, but delicious-because-we're-so-hungry dinner in our bellies, we headed back to the hostel to rest for Day 2 in Paris.
Day 2:
In about 10 minutes we made it to the first level of the Eiffel Tower. Prepare for breathtaking pictures:
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| I love the style of Parisian buildings. |
To get a better view of some of the monuments, we climbed to the second floor. It was a little scary climbing up to the second level, because our beautiful morning turned into a cloudy and windy one. As we were climbing, you could hear the structure creaking with the wind. I was just praying it wasn't going to come down while we were up there. But we made it to the top unscathed, and it was well worth it:
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| La Basilique du Sacre Coeur, or the Sacred Heart Basilica. We went here on our last day in Paris. |
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| L'Hotel Royal des Invalides was a hospital built by Louis XIV for soldiers injured in his service. |
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| Pont Alexandre III --- Alexander III bridge. |
After we were done sight viewing, we climbed back down the Eiffel Tower and looked around the area. (My legs were so tired afterwards that my legs would shake if I tried to lift my heel off the ground!) Despite my shaking legs, it was well worth the extra walking:
Eventually, she got so fed up with the fact we weren't falling to her peer pressure that she threw the clipboard on my lap and forced the pen into Alyssa's hands. If there had been any chance that I would have signed that form before, it was certainly gone the instant she threw her clipboard on me. Alyssa felt the same and just held the pen back to the girl. I placed the clipboard on the bench, staying calm despite her pushy and rude behavior. Thankfully, she took her pen and clipboard in a huff and stormed off.
By that point, we both thought it would be a good idea to leave before we lured any more tourist traps to us. Unfortunately, I let my guard down before we were out of the area, and a man came up to me and, quite frankly, stood right in front of me, so I would have to obviously side-step him in order to get around him. I don't know how Alyssa dodged him so fast, but I was not so lucky. I didn't have much fight in me to try to get away from him (and as you will read later on when we visited the Sacred Heart Basilica, it would have been pretty useless anyways).
He told me to hold out my index finger so he could braid a bracelet. I already knew where this was heading, and I had come to terms with the fact that I would have to pay him "a small fee" for the bracelet. Alyssa, meanwhile, stood to the side and waited for me. Unfortunately for her, one of the guy's fellow comrades came over and started braiding Alyssa a bracelet. While my guy was braiding mine, he kept saying "Hakuna Matata" and trying to make me relax. That wasn't about to happen. He flat out creeped me out, so I was not about to relax any time soon. And I never thought I would find that phrase creepy, but he definitely managed to make my skin crawl through his repetitions. Thanks, dude.
All of my instincts just told me to get away! But before I knew it, he swiftly took the bracelet off my finger and onto my wrist, tying it so tight I could barely fit one of my fingers underneath it. Then, he told me to just give me whatever he could. Right.
Back to Alyssa, I heard her assertively telling her guy to cut off the bracelet. (It was quite humorous in hindsight, because she never is that adamant to anyone. But in the moment, she scared me! Lol.) Apparently, he told her to give him 5 euros for it, which was ridiculous! Her guy saw that I was paying 2 euros for mine--meanwhile, Alyssa is still telling him to cut it off--so he said to Alyssa, "Okay, okay. Two euros like your friend!" Alyssa grudgingly conceded.
After that, we quickly got out of the Eiffel Tower area, vowing never again to get caught in a tourist trap. (I still feel bad about the incident, since it was my fault that I stopped and let the guy braid a bracelet for me. But it serves as a great story!) We even left our bracelets on for the duration of our study abroad experience through the rest of our travels, just to remind us what happens if you give in to tourist traps:
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| Alyssa's is on the left, and mine is on the right. I think Alyssa's was much better than mine, although hers started to unravel by May, while mine stayed tight the whole time I wore it. |
After getting out of the tourist trap area, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. We were sad that there was some reconstruction being done to it (they must have been getting it ready for the summer), but it was still amazing to see nonetheless:
After looking at the Arc de Triomphe, we walked down the famous Champs-Élysées! There were so many fancy (expensive) stores:
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| How cool is this?!? It was in front window of the Cartier building! |
We even found one of my favorite stores:
About halfway down the Champs-Élysées, we crossed the street due to this museum:
We decided to keep walking down that street so we could see what else we could find. We eventually found the Alexander III bridge, which we saw up on the Eiffel Tower:
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| Alexander III bridge, and L'Hotel Royal des Invalides in the distance. |
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| Oh, hello Eiffel Tower! |
We continued down the rest of the Champs-Élysées after our slight detour and found more beautiful sights:
Then, we headed back up the Champs-Élysées on the opposite side of the street, and found the store that we were looking for the whole time: Ladurée.
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I did not expect the store to be so fancy when we walked in. So it was no surprise that to get four little macarons, it would cost 10 euros. Figuring that was just a little too expensive for our budget, Alyssa and I left the store, vowing to find some cheaper macarons elsewhere.
By this point, our feet were absolutely exhausted, so we headed back to our hostel to rest our feet before dinner. Because of our exhaustion, we decided to take the easy route and eat at the McDonald's down the street. (Don't worry, we made sure to eat a better meal the next day.) McDonald's food, we found, is the same, even if you're not in the U.S. What wasn't the same was the fact that a meal with a Big Mac, fries, and water bottle cost a whopping seven euro! I guess only in America can you get cheap fast food from McDonald's.
And with a not-so-healthy, but delicious-because-we're-so-hungry dinner in our bellies, we headed back to the hostel to rest for Day 2 in Paris.
Day 2:
Our first stop of the day was the Louvre. We left fairly early, with enough time to take pictures and get into line before the museum opened. By arriving before it opened, we hoped we would be able to see the Mona Lisa (as well as the rest of the museum) before the huge crowds came.
We entered the huge courtyard from the back, which provided us with a lot of photo opportunities:
The line wasn't too long when we made our way to it, and we were only standing there for a couple of minutes before they started letting people in. Someone was smoking in line, though, which made the wait feel a little longer than it should have.
Don't judge me, but I hadn't realized that you had to enter the Louvre by descending underground in the pyramid.... After we descended into the Louvre, we received our (free!!!) entry tickets into the museum. (Thank goodness for our UK student IDs, or else we would have had to pay 12 euros to get in.) It took us a couple of minutes to figure out which wing of the museum we had to enter to find the Mona Lisa (there were a lot of people entering the museum by this point), but once we figured out that it was in the Denon Wing, we made a dash towards the painting. We did have to take a couple of stops to just stop and look around. I mean, even the ceilings were a work of art!
However, we did find the Mona Lisa quickly, and we even got up right to the front!
In the same room was the painting of The Wedding at Cana, another crowd gatherer:
After that, we just wandered around the rest of the wing to look at all the other amazing pieces of art. (You would need a couple of days to get through the whole Louvre, as there are many more wings in the museum to explore. Here are some of my favorite sights I captured (the ceilings were some of my favorite, as you'll see below):
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| I saw this courtyard looking outside one of the windows in the Louvre. I wish I could have walked down those stairs! |
After the Louvre, we were absolutely famished, so we got some paninis that definitely hit the spot. Remembering that we hadn't had any macarons yet, we found a McDonald's Cafe, which served them for a lot cheaper than Laduree. And I was surprisingly pleased with the flavors as well. My favorite flavor was the vanilla macaron:
Once we finished our macarons, our next stop was the Notre Dame. The outside of the building was beautiful:
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| So tall! |
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| A pigeon decided to make its nest here. :) |
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| These large, wooden doors were so intricately designed. |
The inside was just as beautiful, if not more so. There were so many stained glass windows that each had its own uniqueness. Sorry about the many pictures of these windows:
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| This might have been my favorite stained glass window because of its beautiful colors. |
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| Titled "Appearances of the Risen Christ" |
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| The Virgin Mary and Jesus |
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| Notre Dame seen on the left |
Not only was it beautiful architecturally, it was peaceful as well. There's something about churches that hold an air of tranquility to it, while also (at least for me) emanating an eerie stillness as well. The Notre Dame was no exception.
The Luxembourg Gardens were a short walk from the Notre Dame, so we decided to head there next. This would be a great place to spend an afternoon with family or friends on a nice, sunny day. Unfortunately for us, it was a cloudy day. I would have liked to see the inside of the manor house on the grounds as well, if that was even possible:
Alyssa and I wanted to visit the Catacombs before it closed, but we knew we needed some food before heading there. So we went to this restaurant for a crepe:
It was a little awkward because we were the only ones in the restaurant with the owners, but the woman was very nice. Plus, they served amazing Nutella crepes, and garnished them with powdered sugar. Yum! I never thought eating a crepe with a fork and knife could be so good!
However, our food detour took longer than expected, so we had to fast walk all the way to the Catacombs, which was quite a bit of a walk. We made it there before the closing time, but our efforts were in vain. Apparently, the closing time is also the time that they cut the line, so even if you're in the front of the line by that point, you aren't allowed inside. So I guess it was better that we were in the back of the line so we weren't super disappointed. With that, we went back to our hostel to rest our aching feet and legs until dinner.
For dinner, we went to a small restaurant called Creperie Broceliande. Living up to its name, Alyssa and I had savory crepes for the main course and shared a dessert crepe afterwards. My savory crepe had carmelized onion, cheese, potato, eggs, and bacon in it. The crepe was crispy on the outside (which is different than most crepes, but it was amazing for this dish), and full of gooey goodness on the inside. Let me tell you, that crepe was perfection! I didn't think it would get much better than that. Well, until we had the dessert crepe that is. I never thought of adding ice cream on top of a chocolate crepe, but boy did it hit the spot! For your viewing pleasure, see below:
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| Savory crepe (left) and dessert crepe (right) |
I'm so glad Alyssa and I found this place and splurged a little on our meal here (especially after the McDonald's dinner the previous night). I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a good meal in Paris. But because the restaurant is small and intimate, reserving ahead of time would be a sure-fire way to get a table. Alyssa and I were very lucky we showed up when we did, as we saw a couple of groups being turned away due to the full occupancy.
(And yes, the total count for crepes we ate that day was three. When in Paris...?)
We walked around the neighborhood a bit before heading back for our final night at the hostel.
Day 3:
Our last day in Paris was bittersweet. We were excited to see Italy (and I was so exhausted from all of our walking), but we created a lot of great memories in the city as well. But we still had a couple of sights to see before we boarded our overnight train to Italy.
After checking out of our hostel, our travel backpacks already weighing us down, we hiked up to the Sacred Heart Basilica. There weren't many people there when we arrived, which was perfect because it was a beautiful morning:
To get to the basilica, though, we had a lot of stairs to climb:
But we took the challenge, and the view was definitely worth the effort:
I considered the climb with my 25-30 pound backpack on my shoulders my workout for the day.
After taking our pictures, we climbed back down and sat on some of the benches overlooking the area where we first began our ascent. It was here that we witnessed the tourist trap we had fallen prey to back at the Eiffel Tower. Remember the bracelet scam from Day 1? Well, there were more of the same scammers at the Sacred Heart Basilica. There had to have been at least 15 men trying to catch people. For 20 minutes, we just watched the people form lines on both sides of the pathway up the hill, trying to trick people into paying for the bracelets. Not only were there more people working the trap, but they more more aggressive too! I couldn't believe what I was seeing as I saw some of the guys grab onto tourists to try to get them to stop. I feel like the guy who scammed me at the Eiffel Tower would have grabbed onto me too if I had tried to side-step him. Alyssa and I cheered (quietly) when people were assertive and pushed through the line of men. Some people even shook off their hands if they managed to grab them. The way the men were treating all these tourists was definitely crossing the line. And Alyssa and I felt so bad when we saw the nice people stop and fall prey to the scam.
Eventually, we had to get up and leave because we couldn't watch it anymore. Unfortunately, we needed to walk right through the wall of scammers to leave. At first, they didn't notice us as we came up behind them. But sure enough, they started swarming us. Alyssa wanted to try to get through without having to flash her bracelet, and I was going to do that as well, but one of the guys started reaching for me so I quickly flashed my bracelet. Once they saw I had one, they acted very friendly and said, "Oh, you have one already? Alright, have a great day!" Those people gave me the creeps. But at least we escaped their clutches the second time around.
After getting through the barricade, we walked around the neighborhoods in that area, enjoying the beautiful morning:
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| This had me longing to go to Disneyland! :( But it was still awesome to see! |
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| I don't know why someone randomly put this on the street, but it definitely made my day. :) |
Since we weren't sure where our train station was, we took the Metro over to the area and acquainted ourselves with the area. With hours to go, we wandered around the streets of Paris some more to find a park area called Jardin des Plantes (I think that's what it was called anyway). There were so many families enjoying the afternoon (as it was a Saturday). Alyssa and I got our last crepes in Paris there (I got a Nutella and banana crepe, which was very good), and then took a little snooze in the sun.
Then we decided to walk over to the Notre Dame and check out all the stalls set up along the streets. By accident, we ran across the famous lock bridge! I couldn't believe we had missed it, since we were just visiting the Notre Dame the other day!
We walked along and sat next to the river for a while, resting our (mainly, my) feet before making the trek back to the train station, where we ate dinner and waited for our overnight train to take us to Italy.
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And our Paris adventure was then at an end. We had an amazing time there, and I would love to go back. I never really got to see the city at night, as my feet were so tired by the end of the day that I couldn't manage another step. That is definitely on my things to do if I have the opportunity to visit Paris again.
Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for my blog posts about my experiences in Italy! First up: Pisa!
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