The City of Love!

That's it, I'm not leaving Europe! I love it here!

This past weekend a group of nine of us traveled to Paris. It is the most amazing city I have ever been to!!! To truly understand what a great weekend I had I have to give you the play-by-play.

Thursday
We left straight from class for the bus station to take a 4 hour bus ride to Paris. The bus was a bit late and then we ran into some traffic in Paris so we didn't arrive until midnight. The metro closed at 12:45 and our hostel was a long ride on the metro. After buying tickets we realized that the ticket machine to enter the metro was closed so we just went through anyways. By the time we got to the station where we had to switch metro lines it was almost 12:45 and the corridor to the next platform went on for MILES. Needless to say after sprinting what felt like a mile we barely caught the last train and Mamie had to throw her body through the train door so the last person in our group could get in. Needless to say it was a very "exciting" way to start the weekend.

Our hostel was on the outskirts of Paris in a less than great area of town, but after our eventful trip to Paris Katie, Sean and I decided that a bottle of wine was necessary to celebrate.

Friday
Marathon siteseeing! The first stop on the list - the Eiffel tower. We arrived bright and early (although it wasn't very bright) to avoid the lines as all good tourists do. One little thing I didn't mention to the group was my extreme fear of heights. Fun times. Needless to say I didn't get too close to the edge. Afterwards we took a boat tour through Paris on the Seine River. The next stop was the Musee d'Orsey. So amazing! Afterwards we made our way to Notre Dame but were distracted by a wine and food festival on the river banks. We tasted tons of wine and cheese and had a great time. After we finally saw Notre Dame we headed to the Arc de Triomphe, the Grand Palais (Crystal Palace) and then the Louve. After such a long day of walking we had a marathon reader's digest version tour of the Louve. We saw the highlights (the venus di milo and the mona lisa). Finally dinner and meeting up with Katie's friend from home who was studying with Paris. Never in my life have I seen so much in one day!

Saturday
We woke up early to head out to Versailles. I didn't realize how HUGE it was. Good times. We got back to Paris for the afternoon and spent it in Montmarche (sp?). What an amazing and vibrant part of Paris. I could definitely get used to that. Sacre Cur (The Sacred Heart) is a large beautiful church at the top of Montmarche and in the hill sis Moulin Rouge (which took us forever to find!!). We all ended up sitting on the steps in front of the church and drank cheap wine while we listened to a group of French guys jam out to American songs. GREAT TIME!!!!! We became their groupies for the night and followed them to Notre Dame after dinner and found the most amazing crepe stand.

Sunday
Back packed down the Champ Elyse and then left Paris for another long bus ride.

What a GREAT first trip!