Long weekends in Boston normally consist of grand ideas and end up being us sleeping in late and actually making breakfast. Long weekends in England are something slightly different. Last weekend we packed up our bags and left the bad food and the cold weather for Paris.
We left on Friday on the Eurostar train from London on a two hour journey under the chunnel to Paris. In the United States the concept of riding a train to get to a destination two hours is practically unheard of. One of the largest differences I have seen in Europe compared to that of the US is large availability of public transportation which allows for easy travel anywhere without worrying about cars or gas prices. Being a city girl at heart and never really fond of driving makes me wish that they had this type of easy public transportation in the US. Not to mention the metro in Paris comes every five minutes and tells you when the next train comes something that I will surely miss when I go to ride the T again.
After arriving in Paris around 9:00am, we were going non-stop for the next three days. The first day we did a four and a half hour walking tour in which our comical tour guide basically showed us all of the downtown Paris. We saw everything from the Arc de Triomphe, Grand Ballet, Peite Ballet, Eiffel Tower and the Opera House. Along the way the tour guide gave us the stories behind the places (people at home be prepared for useless Kathleen stories). After a long day of walking we ate on the Champs Elysees at a cafe on the sidewalk and had a delicious meal of strictly non-English foods of pasta and crepes. We went on our way to separate hostels and got settled and then decided to meet at the Eiffel Tower. We met under the blue and yellow lights of the Eiffel Tower illuminated for the Tour de France. We took a bunch of pictures got chocolate crepes and then decided to call it an early night since we were exhausted.
The next day we decided to be absolutes tourists and do all the major sites. After moving our luggage to the other hostel we met up with everyone at the Louvre. We decided to all go and see the Mona Lisa and then split up from there. The Mona Lisa is one of the most poorly placed paintings I have ever seen. Here is this great work of art that millions of people come to see a year and it is completely dwarfed by the largest painting the Louvre has the covers the whole wall from pretty much the bottom to the top of the cathedral ceiling. Despite the minor detail I still thought the Mona Lisa was pretty cool and definitely a thing you must see. From there I went to see the French Art, I saw The Coronation of Napoleon and Liberty Leading the People(aka the Coldplay album cover). From there I went to see a bunch of the Ancient Egyptian artifacts, which I found the British Museum to have a more impressive collection. I went into the British art hall and found a bunch of the paintings that I had been learning about in class. I really liked being able to go around by myself and see that things that I wanted to see since no one else wanted to spend two hours in the Egyptian wing. After that we met up and went to go get lunch which took two hours (got to love group traveling). We went to the Notre Dame after that and sat down for a bit. There I talked to a family from San Diego that was traveling around Europe. I gave them suggestions about where to go in Barcelona and to make sure that they check out the chocolate con churros. We split up from there and decided to get changed and go to the grocery store to get food for the picnic at the Eiffel Tower. Baguettes, prosciutto and brie cheese is what we nibbled on as we watched the sun set and the Eiffel Tower light up blue. We took some jumping pictures had some more crepes and then headed back to the hostel for the 2:00am curfew.
The next day Vic, Brian and I were the only ones that had some time before our train so we decided to go exploring for a bit. On Amanda's suggestion we made our way to the Marais which is the Jewish section of Paris. Where all the streets were deserted on our walk there as soon as we turned the corner we found tons of restaurants that had bagels, falafel and shwarma. We got some bagels and frozen yogurt and ate outside enjoying the warm weather. We unfortunately didn't have time to go and see the Statue of Liberty. May be next time...
That's all for now
Au Revoir
KP
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