A Weekend in Paris

Oh Paris! I love this city. I didn't think it would be so fantastic, but hey, there I go. So here is the trip. Friday, we left later in the evening, not till 9pm. In an attempt to save us some money, we only had to spend 2 nights at the Hostel. So we drove (on a sweet super-delux coach) to Dover, boarded a ferry (at about 1 am) and crossed the Channel. We arrived in Callais and continued to drive. Nobody got much sleep, it was kind of painful. But we arrived in Paris ready to hit the streets. Since my friend Erin had already been to Paris, she was our unofficial tour guide. We bought day passes for the Metro (the subway system is super cheap in Paris btw)and headed off towards the Sine river.

We had a few hours to mess around, we went to Notre Dame first, and it was so gorgeous! I can't believe the intricacies of the glass windows and the ceilings (yay for flying buttresses) We spent some time sitting in the cathedral and just listened to the music and enjoyed the beauty. When we were done there was still time to spare and of course the second thing we did was to find somewhere to eat! We found a great little place and had some dang good food. My first food? A ham and cheese sandwich with a runny egg on top. It was actually really nice. I was so hungry that I would have eaten almost anything. We got some shopping done as well (some of you will see what I bought first hand....) and wandered around a little looking at awesome little shoppes and picking out where we wanted to eat that night.

After we checked into the hostel, we took a little nap, well worth it, we were SO tired. Then got up and got changed for a night out in Paris! We went back to the same metro stop, and went down to this awesome food boulevard, we found some fondue and can I just say, I love cheese. We then had some time, we wanted to go to the 'club night' that had been planned for us, so we get back on the metro, travel across town, and finally find this place. It was a dump, it was just some seedy 'Irish' pub, so we decided not to stay, Lauren and I went to the Eiffel Tower. It was too late to go up to the top, the last lift goes up at like 11, if we hadn't gotten lost in the Metro, we would have made it......oh well. We had fun taking pictures and just seeing the sights.

The next day we got all geared up for the Louvre. I really wasn't feeling it, but the girls wanted to go so I went along. I LOVED it! I can't believe how cool it was, definitely something that would take days and days to see, but my friends are kind of art nerds, so we got to see the good stuff. We spent like 3 hours there, then walked down the Champs Elysees and ate a late lunch. I had an omlette, it was great. Then we went to this pastry shoppe that Erin had been to last time, its called Laduree. (see picture)
Raspberry and rose creme
Chocolate. Need I say more?

It was so yummy! Totally worth the extra Euros. By the time we were done here (they took a really long time) We started walking closer to the Arc de Triomphe. It was definitely a sight to see at night! We then walked down to the Eiffel Tower.

We waited for about an hour in the queue, then we got on the elevators. I do want to say that someday, I want to climb up the stairs, but preferably in the spring, it was way too cold.

So thats basically it, we went back with all these grand plans to get up early and see more Paris, but we all slept in until about 2o minutes before we had to be out. So we stopped in a little shoppe to get some snacks for the ride back, then once we got to Callais, the bus driver stopped at what I can only describe as a Wal-mart for liquor. So I got some French croissants and some brioche. I'm a total French snob now.

So thats Paris. Sorry this blog took so long, I had a lot of due-dates. But if you want to see more pictures and don't have me on Facebook, here are the links to my albums!

The Louvre: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094134&l=15d52&id=63207680
Paris 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094102&l=2c613&id=63207680
Paris 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094135&l=20f76&id=63207680

Love you all!!
Suzzy