Paris Weekend!

"Experience, travel-these are as education in themselves" -Euripedes

I love this quote above because every time you travel-you really do educate yourselves by the experiences you have and the lessons you learn. I would have to say this weekend in Paris was one of those times. We started our journey early Friday morning leaving London at 3:30 AM (don’t know what we were thinking but can’t blame a few girls wanting to take advantage of all their time there right?) We made it to Paris by 9AM & hit the ground running-literally (backpacks on & all). We were on our feet walking & exploring all day. Started off outside the Louvre just taking pics by the pyramid & fountain (we didn't go inside because we felt like trying to tackle a museum that you could spend years in & only having 2 days there with so much else to see didn’t seem quite worth it).

We then walked over to see the Saint Chapelle (beautiful stained glass inside), walked up the stairs of the Notre Dame to see the bell tower, had some wonderful crepes for lunch, and went to this crypt archaeological place right by the Notre Dame (mainly to warm up for a little bit let’s be honest). After that we made our way over to the Eiffel Tower to try to get to see it during the day and at night. We accomplished both but we decided to come back to it since we all wanted to go up to the top and unfortunately it was closed that night. Afterwards we met up with some BYU Paris study abroad girls and then went to a little young single adult institute crepe party.

Well the real adventure began after that-trying to get to our hotel. Basically: got off the metro, sketch part of town, couldn’t find our place, walked around for like 45 minutes & then get to the “Hotel de Hollande”-our 2 star lovely resort. So if had we done our research we would have known the reviews on this place say it is “a hotel from a horror movie.” As the zebra print bedspread below, the scratch marks, torn wallpaper & inability to use the phone or lock the windows showcase-this was not a very high-class place to say the least. But it was more the feeling we got when we were that really mattered. We said a prayer and it just didn’t feel right. So we called our parents, found a hotel and set up a taxi to take us away. Haha so long story short we ended up at the Marriott on the Champs Elysess-complete opposite from where we were at but all is well that ends well & that night ended on a well-fluffed pillow.

Well after a long late night we slept in a little Saturday & got up to French pastries for breakfast (talk about a carbo-loaded weekend!) After which we hiked up to the Arc de Triomphe, walked down the Champs Elysees and then over to do a boat cruise which was a great way to see the city. Below is some of us acting goofy trying to keep warm with our head scarves on at the top of the Arc.

Following that we went for round 2 of the Eiffel tower-this time to take the elevator all the way up to the top. It was such an awesome view & an incredible way to see all of Paris! Since it was kind of windy up there we headed down shortly after only to get stuck in the elevator for like 5 minutes (claustrophobia hit as our elevator man told us this hardly ever happens & when it does its only for like a minute...) Lucky we made it down!
Then to end off our whole Paris "sha-bang" we ended things off right with the sparkling lights of the Eiffel Tower in the distance- Au Revoir!