Pari Oue Oue Bougee (PARIS!!)

After we left Brussels we took the Eurostar again to arrive in Paris! (Yes that really is the Eiffel tower on the right, and its not even my best picture). I was immediately impressed. We got to our hostel and right after that, we went out to explore Paris. The first thing we stumbled upon was Notre Dame Cathedral. That is it up in the left! It is on a kind of island and it had a beautiful park in front of it. Unpleasant note: one of the guys on our trip was sitting there using the free wifi, when two women held up a petition and were blabbering at him in French. He set his phone down to talk to them and before he knew it they took his phone. Apparently people do that sort of thing with babies too. Like shove their baby (or fake baby) in your face to distract you. So clever.

Moving onto more pleasant things, we walked right by this bridge below that was the bridge of locks. The idea has spread to several big cities but it started in Paris. A man who was madly in love with either his wife or his girlfriend engraved their names on a lock, locked it to the bridge and threw the key into the Siene River. Now several people do that for anniversaries or if they are in loooove and it is packed with locks!

Right along the bridge we saw some street art and musicians and that was really fun to just walk across and hang out.

Above is just more pictures while we were walking around. This is another view of Notre Dame and a statue that was by the cathedral of Charlemagne. I unfortunately don't know much about him but someone told me he was a viking king that was responsible for bringing France together.

Shakespeare and Company is an iconic bookstore that we ran into while we were walking along. Unfortunately I was with a big group and I couldn't go in but it was cool just to stroll alongside. Maybe next time I go to Paris! (Hopefully)

I just thought I would surround my next commentary with some more beautiful pictures of Notre Dame. It had such gothic beauty and it was beautiful from every angle. Anyways, our next stop, naturally, was to get a crepe. A crepe tradition was started which we continued for the rest of the time we were there. Lemon crepe with some sugar on top and it was delicious. (We repeated with another lemon crepe the next day).

After, we walked around for a while just exploring that first night and we went to dinner, we did what we had to do. Obviously the Eiffel Tower was at the top of our list. We ambitiously set out for it from our hostel not knowing how long it was. It took about an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back. It was worth it! I didn't think I could have too many pictures of it so I included almost all of them. Enjoy! We looked up the distance when we got back and it was about 3.5 miles each way, so we definitely worked off all the crepes we ate in Paris.

(This is my favorite picture so I saved it for last!) Once we finally got to the Eiffel Tower we just laid out on the lawn and looked up at it, got some ice cream, (with slews of people offering wine, champagne? keychain? everywhere. It was illegal, as it should've been) Anyways that did not stop us from sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower and enjoying it. At the top right I got a picture of the light show we got to see at the Eiffel Tower. Every hour they would have a five minute light show and the whole thing would light up and twinkle. So beautiful.

The next day on the Fat Tire Bike Tour we ended up at the Eiffel Tower and the guide told us that the man who built it paid for the entire thing himself. Labor, construction, materials, everything. No one thought it would be worth it and the real estate right around that area was extremely cheap because everyone thought the tower would fall down on their houses. But he proved them all wrong and he made his money back on his investment after just 6 months. Amazing.

That next morning we got up and went shopping in Paris. When we finally got to the street the markets on it was a blast. I got several pictures but on the right is one of the market stands. LIVE crab (which some of us found out by picking up) and other fish, fruits, vegetables and just about anything you could want. So colorful and a really fun atmosphere.

At what felt like the center of the market there was a little band playing some pretty music and this lady dancing (who was hilarious). She had some moves and she was outwardly showing how much we inwardly just enjoyed the music they were playing. She was there a while kind of like a groupie.

Unfortunately I couldn't buy all the fresh fruit, pastries, fish and all that they had to offer but I settled on this one place. LOOK at those desserts. It was mouthwatering. I put pictures of what I settled on down lower.


French is rough and I am terrible at pronouncing so it was a really interesting experience. I kept saying "Anglais?" which I think is how you say English? in English but the lady thought I was ordering. So i just kept repeating that and she eventually understood what I was asking, but didn't speak English. This lead to me pointing, shaking and nodding my head a lot but we eventually communicated because I got what I wanted. Just look.

I got this delicious quiche and my favorite part of it all this peach pastry thing. It had fresh peaches on a kind of flaky pastry with peach juice and sugar on it. It was delicious. I put a picture of it half finished so you can see what it looked like halfway through. I am sure you were wondering.

FAT TIRE BIKE TOUR was so great. That is what we did in the early afternoon. Really funny story on how we got there though. We were just shopping and we were on the other side of Paris when we realized that we needed to get over there, but we thought we allowed plenty of time. When we got down there it was confusing because the trains and metros were on the same maps. It was making us late. But while we were down there, a really nice guy (I think his name was Lucien?) asked if we needed any help and turns out he was going to the Eiffel Tower too (which was where we were supposed to meet for the tour).

Now I realize this could've been risky, but we were desperate and careful, obviously. He knew his way around Paris and we basically had to sprint from each metro station and he was so nice, he ran with us. At one point it was ironic because we were running through the underground and it felt like movie theme music was playing for us. All perfect. Funny now, exhausting and worrisome at the time.

Anyways, we barely made it onto the right metro, and when we got off we all ran really hard to meet the group and we made it! Our friend Lucien was so sweet and put up with our craziness and got us there on time. Thanks so much to Lucien because it was so much fun. Bre called him our guardian angel. Oh that picture is my bike which was named Gem.

This is the first stop on the Fat Tire Bike Tour. It is a church that holds Napolean's tomb. It is so huge that it below an open entry that you have to bend over to be able to see the whole thing. The tour guide told us that he designed his tomb that way so people who went and saw it had to bow down to him. Supposedly Hitler went to see Napolean's tomb and just when he was about to bend over he stopped took out a mirror and used it to see the whole thing. But as he was leaving the place he dropped his scarf, turned around and bowed to pick it up...in the direction of Napolean's tomb. Now this could all be an entertaining story he made up but it was indeed entertaining so I thought I'd share.

Bottom left is the other side of the building which used to be a military hospital but is now a musuem. It was built by Louis the 14th, where he has put an engraving of himself on the building and they used it to nurse all of his troops to health. In the front there are canons that are directed at the Royal place across the bridge.
It was supposedly like a challenge for the royalty to do a wrong against them because they had weapons ready to use against them. Interesting.

On the top right is some of the ornate statues that lined the bridge between the old military hospital and the palace across the bridge. There are our bikes! He said that this beautiful bridge was built in honor of peace with Russia. On one side the statues are warring figures and on the opposite there are people celebrating peace. Ricardo (our tour guide) said that several movies have scenes here and people get married here or take pictures often. On Saturday we saw at least 5, all at one time!

This is a terrible picture of the Place de la Concorde. He mentioned Devil Wears Prada, because Anne Hathaway tossed her phone in the fountain here, which I didn't get a picture of. Where that tall pointy statue is (its a Egyptian statue) is where Marie Antoinette and Louis the 16th (it could be an earlier one) got beheaded. There's also a hotel here where it costs 13000 pounds a night to stay at and it is where the winner of the Tour de France can stay for a week, free, with their country flag hanging above it.

After this we rode our bikes into the gardens behind the Musee de Louvre, which we went to the next day.

Below is a mini version of the Arc de Triomphe that is behind the Louvre. On the top of it there is some statues that originally were stolen from some Italian musuem that they kept in Paris. Eventually when they reconciled though they gave them back and these are just a replica of the original that they used to have. That was kind of funny.

After the Fat Tire Bike Tour we went out to dinner and I shared this pizza with Hallie. It was Ham, Cheese and it had egg on it. They really like putting eggs on most everything seems like. It was delicious!

Below are very few pictures I took of the Louvre. That was a really cool experience, because in the first rooms we went into, some of the art was from 450 BC. It was almost unfathomable. On the right is the Venus de Milo and we also got to see the Mona Lisa. It was so massive and almost overwhelmed me there was so much to see. Someone told me that if you looked at every painting for 30 seconds, it would take you 5 years to see everything!

Its not the Eiffel Tower but what we did when we got back Sunday was pretty great. Chicken and cheese nachos, salsa, Dr. Pepper and Oreos and peanut butter in honor of the Parent Trap (which we watched). Perfect way to end a fantastic weekend in Paris.