Paris! Oo La La!

Bonjour!

The trip to Paris this weekend was unbelievable. It was great roomie bonding time, very educational, and a lot of fun. I took 133 pictures, so here are just a few of the highlights.

First off, our flight was out of Pisa, so we made a quick pit stop at the leaning tower. It was really cool, but unfortunately it was dark, so my pictures came out blurry. Here's the best one.

We got to Paris late Thursday night, so we crashed when we got to the hostel. However, we woke up bright and early so that we were ready to go. Our first stop: Sacre Coeur.

At Aimee's recommendation (thanks Aimee!) we decided to go to there to get a good view of the city. It is in a really fun district (Montmarte) so we wandered around and looked in a bunch of the boutiques before heading over to the Moulin Rouge. I had heard from several people that the Moulin Rouge was in a seedy area, so we decided that it was best to go in the middle of the day. We went across the street to a grocery store and bought food so that we could sit and eat lunch in front of the Moulin Rouge. Luckily it was perfectly safe in broad daylight.

Here I am being sassy in front of the Moulin Rouge. It seemed appropriate for the location.

After that, we went to Notre Dame and Saint-Chapelle. Notre Dame was amazing, but I think Saint-Chapelle was my favorite. I don't think I've ever seen stained glass like that before. The windows tell the story of the old testament, so it's really interesting to see the stories told in such intricate stained glass. It's also amazing to think that it was built in the 1240s and it's still around.

Me in front of Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Inside Saint-Chapelle

After that we made our way to the Eiffel Tower. It is so huge! We didn't go up (the line was ridiculously long, and we had other things we wanted to do) but it was fun to see. We took plenty of pictures, but here's a nice one of the three of us. (Emily, me, and Emma).

Here's an artsy one from underneath the Eiffel Tower

After some walking around, we made our way to the Louvre. Here's a picture I took while we were crossing the Seine.
The pyramid entrance at the Lourve.
The Louvre is completely overwhelming. I think it's difficult for anyone to describe how big it actually is, but it would take days to see everything. I took a lot of pictures, but here are some of the more famous pieces.

Venus Di Milo
Winged Victory (Nike)



Mona Lisa
Also, here's a picture of Emily taking a picture. I liked how it turned out with her in focus and everyone else blurry. It's so artsy and appropriate for the setting.
On Saturday it was a little colder and was actually snowing at one point (something I haven't seen in about a month) so we started out looking for one of the famous flea markets and ended up going to the Musee D'Orsay instead. The Florentine weather has softened me. Here they have a ton of famous paintings, more pieces that the average person would recognize than there were at the Louvre. Here are some of my favorites.

Whistler's Mother
Haystacks (Monet)
Vincent Van Gogh's Bedroom Painting
After Musee D'Orsay and some lunch we went in search of the Arc De Triomphe and Champs Elysees. Yet another amazing monument in Paris. It was really cold and windy at this point, so we only spent a little time there, but I'm definitely glad that we saw it. Me, Emily and Emma in front of the Arc De Triomphe

We had a lot of good food in Paris (French the first night, Italian for lunch the next day) so we decided to walk around the area where we were staying and find something. Luckily, our hostel was near the Bastille, and there were all sorts of places. We ended up choosing an Asian fusion restaurant that had Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai food. I ordered stuffed crab and it was delicious. I have no idea what they stuffed it with, but whatever it was sure was tasty.


After that we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night, which was breathtaking. Here are a few of the pictures I took.
Emma, Emily and me in front of the Eiffel Tower Every hour on the hour it sparkles for a few minutes.

So all in all, we had a wonderful weekend. Also, a good thing to remember is that the idea of Parisians being rude is a stereotype. Whenever we went to museums, ate out, etc. people were very polite. Also, when we asked for directions (which was frequent) we made sure to start off with something like "excuse moi", "bonjour madame", "s'il vous plait", "parlez vous anglais", etc. (again, thanks Aimee for the recommendations!). I think that made all of the difference.
Au revoir!