Paris -- Day 1

Bonjour, Paris!

(note: wayyyy too many pictures to post on this blog, but if you're interested, there's a Picassa photostream on the left margin that I added that will update automatically with new pictures when I load them onto my computer. Feel free to poke through those!)

I've spent the last two days in Paris, and they have been the most magical two days of my life. There's something about this city that completes me, maybe its just the experiences that I've had and the lucky things we've discovered along the way.

Day 1: After a short run-in with baggage control at RyanAir and some sneaking on of overweight bags, Lauren and I started our foray into Paris. It took us a while to actually get there -- we flew in to this tiny airport outside of the city and had to take a bus then the metro to our hostel. We were quite exhausted (and my tired legs decided to make me fall down a flight of stairs) and looking forward to a restful nap before beginning to explore. How happily surprised we were to find our hostel was one of the best in Paris! Beautiful, large rooms, with a restaurant on the bottom floor, 24-hour reception desk and a bar/club in the basement! They set us up with a free walking tour and some other cool deals and we were good to go. First stop? The Eiffel Tower.

Magic. Pure magic.

Me! In Paris! In front of the Eiffel Tower! At night!


Standing underneath the Eiffel Tower as it is all lighting up!

Day 2: We woke up bright and early and headed over to the free walking tour that our hostel gave us a flyer for. Turns out, this is the one of the highest-rated walking tours in Paris (and this company is great all over Europe!) and we had the best tour-guide ever. She took us on a four-hour tour of Paris, hitting all of the stops and giving us all of the inside information on everything. She told us the times when museums were free for students, cool places to shop, where to explore, what to see. Perfect. Best possible thing to do first! Her energy was awesome and infectious so we were so excited, too. I wish I knew more about French history now!

Our tour group for our walking tour in front of the Fountain of Saint Michel.
Chris, our tour guide, is the one in red in the front.

Cool things I learned:

• Louis XIV used to think he was so talented, he would dance for his courts. It's been said he could dance and perform wonderfully. Now, I am curious if they're just too scared to tell him he was terrible.
• Knight's Templar were massacred and burned at the stake at this place we visited. The leader cursed the pope and king responsible as he was burning, and they died within six months. Everyone flipped and wouldn't go back there for 200 years. That's why one of the kings turned it into his personal garden for frolicking in the nude.
• There is a society called The Guardians of the French Language and they ensure the French language stays intact and no English words are found there. (Uh, yeah okay, way to hate, French.) These people are called The Immortals. They had to decide whether the 'iPod' would be masculine or feminine in French. Masculine won.

Me, pretending to be a Knight's Templar. Except they weren't hung, they were burned.

Pretending to be Carrie Bradshaw, on the bridge where the final episode takes place! I love Big!

This is where the guillotine used to stand during the French Revolution. It was said that horses wouldn't even walk down this street because the streets were so soaked with blood. The streets flooded with it. Lovely image, don't you think?

After, we went to the Arc di Triomphe (or however you spell it) then to Notre Dame and explored that for a while. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. How can you even imagine these things? I'm looking at them and they don't feel real.

Notre Dame cathedral.

There were also some crazy people outside Notre Dame with pigeons landing on them. Those pidgeons were so scary! They looked like they were going to eat me! They'd divebomb your head! Ahh! No, little old creepy lady with pigeons perched on your shoulders, I do not want to hold them!

Lauren, chasing pigeons!

After Notre Dame, we were pretty exhausted, so we ran back to the hostel for a quick nap, shower, and rest before heading out again. This time, we wanted to conquer Montmartre, the red light district and also the artists' quarter. Also known as, the home of the MOULIN ROUGE.

Yes, I took that picture. The legit MOULIN ROUGE. :D

What a fun place to be. The energy was just buzzing. Lauren and I wanted to try to find the Sacre Ceur, supposedly one of the best viewpoints of Paris. Well, we didn't know how exactly to get there, but we knew it was up, so we figured if we walked "up" enough, we'd get there! We were right! But not only did we find it, we also discovered some amazing tiny streets in Montmartre. The view was spectacular. It was a feeling I couldn't describe, like being on top of the world. We were sitting on the steps of this beautiful church, listening to this French guy play guitar and sing French songs, and looking out over the world. It doesn't get better than that.

Except, it did. We went into the Church (mostly to escape this French dude who was talking to us in French. Clearly, we didn't understand him. We pretended to only speak Spanish, though, because on the whole, French hate Americans and English-speakers. He totally bought it, too, and didn't understand a word of Spanish . At one point, Lauren started saying the Our Father to me in Spanish, and he thought we were talking about him!) Anyways, we went into the Church and discovered they were just starting Mass. The nuns were standing at the altar singing. Lauren and I sat down in the congregation and listened. It was a profound religious experience, listening to the Word of God being spoken in another language, but with the same rituals. Very, very cool. And of course, we come out of the church to stand on these steps looking out over the world again. Nothing can beat that.

After, we grabbed the Metro and hopped on home to our warm and comfy beds. I'll write about today's adventures tomorrow! As for now, time to sleep!