Paris... a beautiful city

Trip Start May 28, 2008
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Trip End Nov 25, 2008


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Flag of France  , Île-de-France,
Friday, November 21, 2008

The last city of our tour was Paris, France. If you ask me what my favorite city was of the tour, I would say Paris. Mainly because I was expecting not to like it, what with all the French jokes I've heard growing up and what people have said about the French. But I absolutely LOVED Paris. Enough to make me want to learn French! We got in around 5PM and it was already completely dark because of the time change. First stop: the Eiffel Tower! So stunning at night. I cannot describe enough how pretty I thought it was, especially when it sparkled. Sam and I were stupid and WALKED up to the second level (my legs were so tired) and then caught a lift to the top. Don't worry; it's completely caged in so you would feel completely safe up there. (hint hint mom!) It was really cold and wet, because it was raining, but so worth it.

After our trip to the Eiffel Tower we got a bus tour of the city at night. We saw the crazy round-a-bout around the Arc de Triumph, (where there's an accident every 8 minutes and no car is allowed to be insured there) cruised along the Champs de Elyse, and saw the Sac Le Crue area. Beautiful views, but so many more steps to climb. Ha ha. We also saw the Opera House that the Phantom of the Opera was inspired from, and the Moulin Rouge. Just fabulous.

The next day was freezing cold again and still wet. We were lucky that we went up the Eiffel Tower the night before because it was very foggy the next day. One of the girls on the tour, Lucy, is French and she helped us out with metro tickets so we wouldn't get scammed on them. After being in London and riding around on the tube so much it wasn't that hard to figure out Paris' tube system, even though it was in French. Numbers and color-coded lines are so helpful! We were able to get to the Louvre and back to the Arc de Triumph before we headed back to the hotel to get ready for our last night of the tour!

We met as a group at the Notre Dame and unfortunately we didn't get there early enough to go inside. (It only gives me an excuse to go back, though.) After our traditional Parisian dinner (including frog's legs) we had a cruise along the Seine River and I got to see the Eiffel Tower lit up one more time. Since it was our last night in Paris I had to go out on the town with the friends I had made over the two weeks we were together, and funnily enough ended up at an Irish pub in Paris. (Every city we went to had at least one Irish pub, though. I wasn't surprised.) The next morning we had to get up early to head back to Calais to ride the ferry over to Dover and drive back to London.
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