PARIS! Paris, Paris...WHAT! Pariss!!! OH My Gosh...PARIS! I just got back from one of the most amazing cities in the world. Paris. This was one of the most amazing trips I have ever been on...and I wish so bad that yall could have been with me. Speaking French was so much fun...and by French i mean "Hello, Goodbye, Thank you!". It was incredible....but I am so exhausted from everything!
Wedneaday after class we took the train to London and then hopped on the Euro Star to take the Chunnel (the Tunnel under the English Channel --- THE OCEAN) to Paris! We got there aroudn 7pm and immediately hopped on the Metro to hit the Eiffel Tower :) Right when we went down to the metro, we saw something that we would get to enjoy the whole trip....huge posters of Robert Pattinson!!! It was awsome...(He is the vampire in twilight for those who dont know....and some might still be clueless but its okay). He was everywhere we went. It was night time...so perfect for Eiffel Tower viewing. We walked up and immediately saw it glowing! IT was such a beautiful sight. The parks surrounding were so serine and filled with so much love and making out! HAHA! We took tons of pictures and walked up to the Eiffel Tower and then.....ONLY 1 Euro! 5 for 1 Euro!! 6 for 1 Euro! 1EURO!! You want Eiffel tower? 5 for 1 Euro!...we were attacked by a million black men try to sell us little Eiffel Towers for 1 Euro! haha! We got in the LONGEST line to go up to the top of Eiffel and after an hour got on the huge elevator full of poeple who dont speak the same language as us to go to the top! We finally got the the viewing deck...after two more lines... and it was absolutely breathtaking. All of the lights in Paris were lit up and we could see everything! When we were standing around the top admiring the general splendor of Paris...the Eiffel started sparkling!!!! It was so cool! It was so windy that I was almost blown away and I also froze. I walked around and was looking out on the Arc de Triomphe and alal of the sudden I was slightly pushed against the railing by someones backside and then felt their hands go away at my bum! Either they were trying to grope me or pick pocket me...Im going to go with the latter, Since every single place that I had been in Paris so far (train station, hotel, Eiffel) there were a MILLION signs warning against pick pocketers! When he quickly realized that I didnt have anything in my pockets and they were buttoned shut, he continued to take the picture that he was supposedly taking at the time (I suspect it was just a diversion). After being nearly blown off the Eiffel, frozen to ice, a victim of a pick pocket attempt, we decided to go down to the bottom and hit the sheets.
Thursday! Disneyland Paris time!!! We woke up at 715 to get breakfast...yummy yummy French Croisants! and we got on the train at 830 on the way to the land of "Where Dreams Come True!" We arrived at 930 and took tons of pictures of French Disneyland and Sleeping Beauty's castle. The rides opened at 10am sharp and we flat out RAN to Space Mountain, weaving through a huge crowd of french teenagers and strollers! But we only had to wait 5 minutes! We rode roaler coasters the whole day and the Disney story book rides and it was a blast! All of the rides were the same as Disney world in florida which was cool, but they were a little bit different. We hit the park hard and realized that we hadnt eaten all day! So we had to stop all of our fun and nourish ourselves. We went to the nearest thing we saw which was the Blockbuster restaurant. We walked in and i SCREAMED!!! Everything in the Blockbuster restaurant was High School Musical!!!!!!!!!!!!! The walls were covered with all the characters and there were their lockers and uniforms and posters for the Wild Cats and they only played music from High School Musical!!! It was HEAVEN! I had so much fun eating and singing all of the songs while gazing at Zac Efron on the wall. Some of you might not know what all of this rubbish is...but its okay...just another one of my teeny bopper obsessions that I seem to get attached to often :) who can blame me...I'm a kid at heart! We finished the Magical Kingdom and went to Universal Studios type park to do a few rides and a show. The show was SO funny! It was a black light show with a bunch of disney songs and characters called Animagique! (in English : Animation Magic) Some of it was in french which was reallyyy cool and the song was so much fun...we had it in our head the rest of that day...La La La La Animagique! (I'll sing it for you when I get home so you can get the full affect...dont worry!...because I know you were worried) It was a Gorgeous day for disney and wonderful weather and temperature! We finished the park was we werw exhausted!! We got back on the train to central Paris and went back to the hotel and got some pizza at a pizzeria to eat for dinner and chilled in the hotel and watched French games shows!!! It was so much fun trying to guess what they were saying and what the object of the game was. We went to bed early because we had another fun packed day on Friday and we needed our rest. I went to bed and couldnt close my eyes or lay on my side because I got Virtigo. So I sat up in bed for a couple hours until it passed and I went to sleep until 4am when I woke up with it again and extremely sick to my stomach and I yelled to myself (in my head of course..i didnt want to wake my roomates)...You are NOT going to get sick in Paris...and I guess I listened to myself because I felt better the next day.
Friday! We woke up and hit Paris! The first thing we did was walked to Notre Dame Cathedral and walked around which was amazing. We then walked to Musse' de Orsay (Museum Orsay) where a variety of Monet and Van Gough is housed and tons of other famous artists. Here we got our 2 day museum pass and went in and spent a while admiring all of the artist beauty and incredible works of art. Van Gough's tecniques were some of my favorites...and seeing the paintings of Monet that I have seen in pictures all throughout my life was unreal. It was amazing. We then walked across the river to the Lourve!! (Pronounciation Luve) The Lourve was unrealistially huge and overwhelming. This is where Mona Lisa is housed and many famous sculptures and works of Leo Divinci. It was seriously sureal. My feet were on the verge of running away from me because they hated me so much when we were finished with the Lourve...and we didnt even go through the whole thing! We walked through the court yards and park of the Lourve and grabbed lunch at a bakery. We then walked down the Champs de Ellysses (Pronounciation: Shons da Leesay)... This is the most expensive shopping street in the entire world!!...Dont worry Daddy, I didnt buy anything!! This is also where the largest Louis Voutin store in the world is...5 stories high!! WOAH! This street leads up to The Arc de Triomphe, which is a very cool sight to see. You can see the Eiffel Tower from here...like most places in Paris haha. We took the Metro...dying to be able to sit down...back to the hotel to go get dinner. We ended up getting pasta which was very very yummy! and then caught our French game show on tv again :) and then went to bed...after giving each other foot massages. It felt like we were walking on pins everytime we got out of bed.
Saturday! We woke up and hit the train to go to Palace of Versailles. It was breathtakingly full of Asians!!! and breathtakingly beautiful..but thats besides the point. There were sooo many Asians....we were 1 of 10 white people there...and it was the funniest thing ever. All of them went around all of the rooms and took a picture of every single painting and object in the room and then they would take pictures of everything and do a peace sign with their hands...EVERY Asian did a peace sign with their hands in every picture!!! It was halarious and became one of the many jokes of the trip!!! hahaha!! So we went through the Palace and then out to the gardens and walked around for about 2 hours and then we got back on the train and made it back to central Paris at about 1pm. This is the best part of the trip because we got to shop and enjoy the culture and different areas of Paris. So we went to Montmarte, which is the art/shopping/market district where the Basilique (amazing church) was and also Moulin Rouge! We spent the entire second part of the day there which was so relaxing and fun and we watched artists paint which was awsome. We shopped and got souveniers and then we went down to Moulin Rouge, which is ont he street that is kind of like Paris' red light district so there werw sex shops and caberets everywhere!! We took pictures and got out of there! haha..it would have been cool to see a show at Moulin Rouge...but they were really expensive. We ate at a great cafe in Montmarte and then caught the train back to the Eiffel so we could see it during the day time and take pictures..which I liked better than night because it was a cooler atmosphere because you could see all of the surroundings and get a feeling of what it was like around the Eiffel tower and the culture. This is where I got my first Crepe!! It was a sugar Crepe...yummy yummy!! We also went back to the Champs de Ellysses and Arc de Triomphe to see it at night...because its all lit up..it was beautiful. On this street a ton of Indian women walk up to you and ask you if you speak English because they are beggars and one did that to us and everyone said no (because we were told to) and I was the only one that said yes because I forgot and I immediately started busting out laughing and the lady thought i was crazy...it was halarious! Then it started raining on us a litle bit so we went back to the hotel and got some cookie dough ice cream at a super market and laid in bed eating candy and ice cream while watching our French game show! (what an awsome routine) We went to bed and looked forward to sleeping in on sunday because we didnt leave until noon. We woke up and missed breakfast...sleepy heads and then walked around by our hotel and went and got a Crepe for breakfast..YUM! I got a strawberry jelly one :) We packed up while we watched a mixture of French and American music videos on the tv and got on the metro to the train station to take the Chunnel!
Overall fantastic weekend! Paris was so full of different cultures and different feeling areas and it was amazing to get to experience all of them. It was so cool seeing all of the vespas (mo-peds) everywhere! AND...there was also movie posters for Cher John (Dear John) everywhere, which made us so happy to see Channing Tatums face everywhere we went :) hotty! So everytime we would see it we would all say "Cher John" with a french accent. It was funny! French people are so rude!! and in France...and I suspect all of Europe you completely lose your personal space bubble...it is non existent! We would stand in line for rides at disney and people would literally be touching our backs they would be so close. Wierd.
I miss all of you so much. I keep thinking about coming home and when I see everyone more and more each day. But i try not to because I dont want to plan it in my head...it should just happen how it is going to happen. I was looking at the road today and I was thinking about what side of the road we drive on in the US and then I was looking at cars on the road today and I literally couldnt see the difference at first. I mentally had to put myself in a car and act like i was driving to figure out what side of the road we normally drive on. Im going crazy. I cant wait to come home. I'm leaving on my last trip today (Tuesday) excluding Italy at the end. Im going to Prague for 5 days!! So there will be another very long blog after that trip too!
I only have 8 more days of class left in the semester and then Exams and then Italy and then home!!!! and it will be summer and I will get to wear shorts and tank tops and flip flops! I dont even remember what warm weather feels like...the closest to warm I have been is sweating from running through a train station with 3 jackets and a backpack on. I hope that yall are enjoying the sun and warmth...I cant wait to enjoy it with you! Soon enough I'll be sweating on my leather seats in my car and sticking to them while jamming out to Miley Cyrus and complaining about how hot it is outside...CANT WAIT!!! (I might add an ice cold Cherry Limeade from Sonic into that situation...Solid.)
Have a great week...I cant wait to tell you all about Prague! I love you all so much and I miss you so much!
Dont forget to click the pictures to get a better view!
Au Revior!
Ali
Me in front of Eiffel Wednesday Night...Amazing
Me underneath Eiffel
Me in front of city view from top of Eiffel
Me in front of GREAT river view
At Disney Paris with Minnie ears! (I didn't buy them daddy)
At disney in Alice in Wonderland Throne :)
Me in front of Notre Dame
Me on a spinning disk thing in a playground in the back of Notre Dame! HA!
Not exactly a good a cure for Virtigo the night before!
Me in the back of Notre Dame...Beautiful.
Me in front of River and Notre Dame
Me in front of river and the Lourve
Me in front of the Louvre
Me in front of The Louvre
Me and Mona...we are Best Friends.
Opposite Pyramids in the Louvre...where Mary Magdalene is buried...according to Tom Hanks :)
View of Eiffel from Louvre court yards
Me in front of The Arc de Triomphe on the Champs de Elysses
Eiffel at day time!
Girls in front of Eiffel
Eiffel
Me at Palace of Versailles
"Peaceful" Asians in Versailles :))) HA!
Me in the back of Versailles...Gardens and Fountains
Me in front of Basilique at Montmarte
Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge
Jeryn, me, Jessi in Eiffel Tower elevator
awful picture of me but the Crepe was awsome!!!
Jeryn, Emily, Me
Jessi and me on the Euro Star to Paris
Jessi, Kara, Me, Jeryn, Emily, Kiley at train station
I saved the best for last...I have better pictures of me in this restaurant...so stay tuned!
I Love yall so much!!!!
