J'Adore Paris: Part Trois (All The Rest!)

Ok....so I've majorly been slacking and I can't believe it has taken me this long to write about my spring break. I know I tend to include a basic play by play of my travels, which is probably why this has been so hard because I spent 5 full days in Paris and did so much. So here, it is, an experiment in trying to be concise.

Wednesday: We went to the Louvre. We were there for probably like 5 hours or so. Saw the Mona Lisa (it was like a rock concert...there was a HUGE Crowd of people to see her. Amazing what 1 painting has become over the years) We were dead tired at the end. We grabbed lunch at a place by our hostel (had a croque madame...which is a croque monsieur with an egg on it! Then we went back to the hostel and were majorly lazy for the rest of the day. We went down to the restaurant in the hostel at about 10:00 to get a last meal for the day. I had nachos.
On Thursday we went to the Luxembourg Gardens. It was a gorgeous day...the sun was shining and it didn't rain at all for once! We had fun imitating being the statues. I finally had a crepe...got one from the stand in the park! Next we went to a cemetery because Abbey wanted to see the graves of 2 philosophers she really liked. Then Our next stop was the Catacombes! It was really cool but creepy because there were sooooo many bones and skulls. After the Catacombes, Katie and I went to Notre Dame to try to find her friend from UWEC who was there with the marching band because they were supposed to have just started performing a little earlier. We didn't find them and the line to get in to the tower was insanely long, so we decided not to do it, and went to the Arc D'Triomphe to go to the top of that, but the line was really long and we just didn't feel like waiting. We walked around the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, the main street in Paris. We went in to the Luis Vuitton store--the prices were crazy! We also got Haagen-Daaz ice cream. YUM. After that we went back to the hostel. Abbey, Katie, and I went to the Pompidou, the museum of modern art. It was cool, but modern art is a little too out there for me. Katie left at about 8:30 to go meet up with her friend at their hotel. I ended up taking a really great picture of the Eiffel tower at sunset from one of the windows at the Pompidou! Abbey and I left at about 9:15 and went to McDonald's. It is so much better there than in America. France uses their own ingredients and the burger patties are way bigger than America! Ha. Sad that I'm so pumped about it. :)








On Friday, Katie got up early to see her friend perform with the band at the Eiffel tower one last time. I packed all my stuff up, had breakfast with Abbey, and then checked out of the hostel. Abbey and I headed to the Orsay, a contemporary art museum. Katie met up with us later. That museum was pretty cool...I saw a few paintings I knew (The Renoir girl, which is featured in an episode of Gilmore Girls!) and I loved the collection of dot paintings. Katie and I grabbed lunch in the cafe while Abbey looked around more. We ended up crashing on a bench and just vegging for awhile. Then Katie's friend Beth called because they wanted to hang out one last time. We made arrangements to all go out to dinner. The dinner was AMAZING! Beth's mom paid for everything, including mine which I did not expect because we'd never met. She ordered a bottle of wine and escargot! I was a little scared to try it, but I ended up eating 3 and didn't think it was as disgusting as I always imagined it must be. the butter and parsley definitely help. My main course was grilled beef with mashed potatoes....SO AMAZING! Definitely the best meal of my life. And of course, DESSERT. I had a cup of vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, and fresh raspberries and strawberries. I felt like I had food twins after, but it was so worth it! Then we went to the Eiffel Tower because Beth and her mom hadn't seen it at night yet. It was the perfect way to finish out the week. I was so sad to be leaving...well then anyway. After what happened later in the evening, I was starting to look forward to being back in my house, in my bed!

We went back to the hostel to pick up our luggage we had stored and to say goodbye to Abbey.
We had thought the last bus went back to the airport in Beauvais at 12:30 AM. However, that was the last time it came to Paris. We wouldn't be able to go back till the morning. We didn't have anywhere to stay. Our hostel was all the way across town and the metro was going to be closing soon. Katie thought maybe we could just hang out in a hotel lobby all night, but I didn't really think that would work, and sure enough we got kicked out of one that we went to. I was not keen on the idea of spending the night on the Paris streets, even though it was already late and would only be a few hours till we could get on the bus. I was already tired and didn't want to haul my bag around. We ended up getting a room in a best western. IT cost 60 euro which kind of sucked because we were there for probably 3 1/2 hours! But we were glad we did it because we both needed sleep and it would have just sucked being on the streets. We got on the bus at about 6:00 AM, made our plane to Dublin, grabbed a bus back to Limerick (which took forever!) Oh, and I somehow lost my phone for Ireland on the way back. I don't know if I left it at the Best Western or it fell out of my coat pocket, but it was gone! Luckily my mom wasn't too upset with me. I went and got a new one a couple days later so all is well.

Well, that's Paris, in somewhat of a nutshell. It was amazing and such a beautiful city. I can't wait to go back someday! :)

The last of the pictures...my delicious and free Parisian meal!