This is a few days late, but I'll try to remember everything.
We had to meet at Accent at 10 a.m. and me and Meredith were five minutes late. Kate took us through an orientation of safety, money, phones, etc. We had a 15 minute break so myself, Kaitie and Lauren ran to this little bakery and got sandwiches. I got a salmon, hardboiled egg and tomato sandwich that was delish! It was about 3.50 euro. Then we met back up at Accent and Adrien and Francois took us to the Bastille Metro, which is right next to this huge opera hall. He said most of the French don't like it because it is too modern looking. We then waited for the metro, which is pretty simple to figure out. We all crammed on and took the train to the Seine River.
As soon as we got off the metro everyone started snapping pics. I don't know what most of mine are pictures of, but the buildings are all really pretty. Such interesting architectural detail. We missed the original time for the boat tour so we had a little time to look around. I took some more pictures and eventually we got on the boat. The tour was nice because the weather was so sunny and warm, but there are so many trees blocking the buildings it was hard to see everything. There is also so much to see and so much information that it made it difficult to absorb everything the lady said. All in all it was a great experience. There are a ton of bridges that have such interesting detail so I have a lot of pictures of those. By many of the bridges are chain link fences so people can't fall in and they have locks all over them because couples come and put a lock on the fence and drop the key into the Seine to represent eternal love. I wonder how many of them end up breaking up.
After the boat tour, me, Lauren and Kaitie went back home and stopped at Accent so they could print stuff. I sat on the computer and talked to Adrien and Kate about wanting to go to the Eiffel Tower. We planned to meet another group of girls at 6:30 to go to eat then head to the Eiffel Tower to see it light up. The other group went shopping and didn't come back till later so we finally got to this restaurant down the street from our apartments at like 7:50. I had a bad migraine and wasn't feeling great so I wanted to eat and get going so I could rest later. I got a Madame Croquet (?) which is bread, ham, cheese and an egg of top. It came with fries and a salad. It was alright. I really want American food at this point. I rarely feel FULL after I eat here.
The waiter gave us directions to Gare de Lyon metro stop so we headed there with a little confusion. The metro had a poster for the Hangover 2 movie but they call it "Very Bad Trip 2" so that was pretty funny to see. We figured out the metro and got to the Eiffel Tower while it was lit up so we tried snapping a few pics. We decided to go up it and got tickets that were about 12 euro. We went through security and waited for an elevator up. We got to the first level and got off and it was beautiful. You could see so much of Paris and the whole city was all lit up. It was hard to get good pictures because it was so dark out, but some of mine turned out okay. We waited in line to go up even higher and by the other levels, it all kind of looked the same. I liked the first stop the best because it was so breathtaking. By the time we got to the top it was close to midnight and I was freezing and exhausted. The line down was a giant herd of people so we all smooshed into an elevator and began the walk back. Luckily there were a ton of people around so it wasn't scary being out that late. The metro was also really packed so it wasn't scary either.
We finally got back to Gare de Lyon and everyone was pretty crabby at this point because we just wanted to go to sleep. Apparently nobody knows how to navigate a map or read street signs and they all freaked out when we came out on a different side of the building than we went in. I tried to explain that if we pick one direction we will eventually be on the side we came in so I led the group and figured out where we were and got us home. Some people decided that complaining would help the process, so I explained that if you take two seconds to calmly look at the map we could get home. And we did.
We got home around 1:30 a.m. and I talked to Anthony for a little bit then went to sleep. I was beyond exhausted and still had a migraine so it wasn't the greatest night. People are very cliquey and it rude about it so I am trying to surround myself with nice people. I will save my next post for Montmarte and Sacre Cour.
Whoa a lotta names! Who are all these people?
ReplyDeleteAccent is the office that's right down the street from you?
That bakery sounds delish. I wish I had that right now! Or a madame croquet. I had one of those at Nookies and it was awesome! As for the portion size, well everything is bigger in America and that's why there are so many obese people here.
Maybe near the end of your trip you'll be able to identify the buildings in the pictures you took at the Siene tour. And you can show mom and dad around.
Do a lot of French people go to the sites you're seeing to hang around on lunch break or something or is it all just tourists?
The girls I mainly hang out with are Kara, Lynn and Liz so they will probably pop up quite a few more times. And yes, Accent is the office that is right by us.
ReplyDeleteWe have been talking about how there are no fat people in Paris and the people that ARE fat are tourists hahaha. There are a ton of French people everywhere. I keep asking if people have jobs or go to school because it seems like there are always a ton of people out. I suppose the hours are different? There is a fair amount of tourists, but there are a lot of locals too! All skinny and chic.