Day 2

Day 3: Paris - Almost 2am

How to see Paris in a Single Day

Today was a good day, almost a perfect day. Slept a full eight hours last night, woke up to the sound of Matt’s cell phone dying, and thought to myself, I’m in PARIS!. After a quick run through with Matt of what our plans were for the day, we groggily got up and out of our beds and did the normal morning stuff. Me, being the smooth guy that I am, cut my lip while shaving. I hate new crazy sharp razors! Luckily, my lip stopped bleeding before breakfast (45 minutes later) and so I didn’t have to look too dumb in front of everyone. After a quick breakfast of cereal, ham and eggs, we all packed on the bus to spend our first and only free day in Paris. So much to see and so little time, I doubted that we would be able to do it all. ¾’s of the bus got dropped off at the Eiffel tower, while the rest of us chose the Louvre. Took us forever and a half to get there, but when we finally did, one of the best days of my life started.

I’m a Tour Leader!

Catherine decided to join us (Me, Matt, Amy, Gaby and Stacey) as we walked through the labyrinth known as the Louvre. Little did we know that we’d be walking in circles even prior to setting foot in the galleries. We bounced between three ticket booths looking for one that sold the museum cards that grant admission to almost all the sites in Paris, but it seemed like none of them did. They kept pointing us to different counters, and when we finally found the desk where they were supposed to be sold, it was closed. I was about to call it quits cause I had already seen what I wanted to there (the inverted pyramid from the Da Vinci Code) and I didn’t really want to spend time trapped in a museum. I wanted the sights and sounds of Paris! Everyone gravitated to the information booth though, and luckily the guy we talked to spoke English and pointed us to the tourist office where we found what we needed. (GO EDNA!). Making our way back through the museum, we went directly to the “Lady of the Louvre” aka the Mona Lisa. We saw lots on the way (Winged Nike of Samothrace, art class did me some good!) and as we got closer, we saw more and more people. At least there were no lines/queues outside? Mona turned out to be… anticlimactic. Bigger than I had heard, she was still very dark, and pale. She looked dirty too. She couldn’t hold a candle to the other paintings and sculptures that we saw along the way. Been there, done that, bought the poster. We made our way over to the handicapped “Lady of the Louvre” aka Venus de Milo and I suggested that Catherine go up and give her a little hug, but she wasn’t too keen about the idea. It was almost lunch time, and everyone was starting to get hungry. There was still a lot to see of Paris, so we all decided it was time to leave the Louvre and get lost elsewhere. Making our way out of the Louvre, Catherine told me that I should be a tour leader or something… I’ve got no idea why, but I’ll take it as a compliment :) I think I’d make a damn fine tour guide though!

Out of the Louvre and into the City

As we walked outside, we got to see all that we had seen the previous night: IM Pei’s Pyramid- Out of place, but nice nonetheless. Must suck to have to clean all those windows. Place de Concorde- I got my shoes all dirty, and the damn fountains weren’t even on! Where's the blood and the guts and the guillotine! Nice obelisk though.

We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day as we walked down the Champs Elysees. Blue skies, big puffy clouds, nice trees, and parks everywhere you looked. Damn we were starting to get hungry... The Monoprix Aaron suggested was delicious. BAD STACEY! YOU LOST MY LUCKY RUBBER BAND! I still love you though :) Postcards were a rip-off, but the ham and butter baguette was tasty, filling too. The Monoprix was a beauty shop, convenience store, grocery store all rolled into 3 levels... how interesting. We ate right outside the Monoprix, taking in all the people as they walked by on one of Paris' busiest streets. After lunch, we made our way down to the Arc de Triumph, we had to hurry cause Catherine needed to get back to camp at four because she was going to the optional dinner that everyone else in our group opted out of. Getting to the roundabout, and none of us feeling adventurous enough to play human frogger, we decided to take the easy way under the road and arrived in the middle of an ocean of cars.

Good Exercise

After snapping a few shots of the arc and the flame (Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), Matt, Gaby, Stacey and I walked up the spiraling staircase which lined the inside of the arc. Catherine and Amy didn't have the Paris day passes, and so after I got to the top, I ran back down the stairs with Matt and Gaby's passes and smuggled the other two up the stairs. Holy crap... the stairs were killer. The first time up sucked, going down to fetch the other two wasn't too bad, but the 2nd time up.... I nearly died! Got a nice clip of the chaos in the roundabout, and it turned out that the view from the top was worth every drop of sweat. Walking back down the stairs the 2nd time, my knees started to shake. So much so, that I almost fell down had it not been for the railing. Seems like I have issues with stairs... read on to see what I mean. Finally exiting the arc's grandeur, we boarded a metro and parted with Catherine as we headed over to visit Quasimodo's crib.

Shit, more stairs

"I saw it! The Cathedral! It's that way!" Too bad Amy was in charge now. She took us around the back way, or was it the front? anywho, after walking for five minutes and not seeing it, I finally decided to speak up. "Wasn't it over there?" I asked. To which she replied, "Oh Henry, you're just mad cause you're not the leader anymore." Heh... so true =) So we turned a few more corners and came upon the Cathedral's side. Square trees, statues, the works. After making the best of our little photo op, we walked around to the front of the Cathedral and saw the giant rose window from all of our art history books, this in comparison, made the pictures in the books look as if they had been colored by a four year old. We went inside the Notre Dame, and were stunned. Candles everywhere, art everywhere, all bathed in the light of a million stained glass windows. Spending a few minutes walking down the dark corridors, we heard some hymns, but didn't see any signs of the hunchback. Increasing the intensity of our search, we decided to ascend up into the cathedral's towers. Up more stairs, windy, circular ones that only fit half of the length of your foot, we made our way up to the gargoyles to see if they had any information on where we could find Quasi. No intel there, their lips were sealed tighter than stone. My weak attempt at humor. The view from the top was as great as the arc's, but the architecture, the sculptures, the spires and copper statues... you had to see it to believe it. It was amazing looking down at all the specks of people in the courtyard, especially that little kid and his mom that waved back to me... made my day :) We went up to the highest point of the tower, and into the bell chamber, but it seemed like Quasi didn't want to play. Giving up our search, we descended the stairs and sat at Charlemagne's feet before deciding walk over to the Pantheon (huge but not too much to see) and then wandered off in search of a place for dinner.

Storybook ending?

Sensing that our time in Paris was coming to an end, we all decided to have dinner, Paris style. We found a nice little restaurant with an English menu and waited to be seated at one of the outside tables. The waiter was a PRICK. Stupid snobby French people. Heh, he turned out to be ok though after he realized that we weren't going anywhere, and that we were going to be leaving his tip. Chicken, steak and lasagna, not too Parisian, but still very good. The restaurant was in a nice little alley right next to a school and a fountain, under the trees and close, but not too close, to the bustling street. We really couldn't have picked a better setting. When we asked the waiter to take a picture for us, he pretended to run off with my camera... funny? I think not! I saw my first "squatter" toilet today... wasn't inclined to use it though. What the heck is PVR? 20% tax? We thought it might have been the fee to sit outside... no idea though. We ended up giving the waiter a 14 euro tip for having to put up with us... lucky guy.

A walk along the Seine at night

Dinner was PERFECT, this was dessert. We had to meet Amy at the Eiffel tower at 8:30pm (she left to see Sacre Cour earlier at Notre Dame), and so instead of the metro, we walked along the river for a good 90 minutes. The sights, and sounds, and almost getting run over numerous amounts of times for jaywalking... I was loving it! What the hell was that smell though?

The PERFECT ending

Finally arriving @ the tour, our feet killing us, we found Amy sitting, and we contemplated scaring her from behind. I thought better of it though, (she could totally kick my ass) and so we started our trip up the tower. The plan was to walk up the stairs, I mean we walked up everything else right? Getting our tickets, we were told that the stairs were closed, so paying 10 euro we took the lift up to the top in time to witness an awesome sunset. Send me that picture you took Amy! Seeing Paris light up before us, it only got better as the tower transformed into "Disco Mode." We must have spent a couple of hours up there, by the time we left, all was dark, especially the Place de Chailleau's right wing... someone's going to get fired. Grabbing some hot chocolate, and souvenirs we made our way down to rendezvous with the bus at 10:30. We were suppose to meet them at midnight, so we decided to leave a tad bit early, allocating a generous amount of "stupid" time, and boy, did we need it. Taking the Eiffel tour metro, yellow line to Charles de Gaulle, then blue M2 to Blanche... ETA 30 minutes. Took us 90. Getting to Gaulle was cake, but somehow we ended up on the teal metro that took us in the wrong direction to Kleber. Asking a guard with a MEAN dog, we took the metro back to Gaulle... On, Off, On and Off, that's what we did once we got there. We couldn't decide what to do, and were getting kind of antsy. Needless to say, neither Amy nor I wanted to be leader then. Luckily, some guy came to our rescue. Seeing us jump on and off the same train like 4 times, he jumped up out of his seat and shouted us directions from the door of the metro. "M2 is the other platform," he shouted in his broken english, so we ran over to it only to encounter a huge crowd. SUNSHINE COAST! We noticed these two really seedy guys approach us from opposite directions, and as I stared them down, they changed their course and laughed as they passed by each other... close call. The train arrived five minutes later, and it was already 11:50ish. We had five stops to go before Blanche, and were relieved to know that we would make it. We all found seats, unfortunately for Amy, she unwillingly found a seat on the floor. Damn folding seats, although it really did ease up the stressful situation.

STREET, RUN, MONOPRIX, BUS!

Too bad we forgot sortie. Getting off the metro, we ran... into a dead end. The exit was at the other end of the platform. See, we really did need our stupid time. Busting out of the metro station, we spotted the Monoprix we were suppose to meet at, but no Contiki coach! Oh crap =( Saw a lot of other coaches, but not one had our familiar 20140 on it. But then we saw others from our group.... holy crap, we had made it! At the rate that my heart was beating, you would have thought that I had just met the girl of my dreams or something... LOL, Did I really write that down?!?! Heh... everyone was sooooo drunk, fun times, the singing, the dancing, the absurdness on the coach that night... I definitely didn't want it to end. Everyone was going off about how much fun they had and stuff, but I had no regrets. I wouldn't have traded this day for anything. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end... and sadly, this is the end of my Parisian tale.