Blabbey Road: Day 11: Rome is Hot, Paris is Haute

Tuesday

17 September 2013

It has been exactly one month since I was in Paris. I don't even believe it when I type it out. I'm so behind in documenting everything I've been up to. I'm determined to finish writing about Europe today. Here are the tales of my time in Paris in the shortest summaries I can give.

Day 1: We got on the Paris Metro system to tour the city. The metro in Paris is way cleaner than Rome's, but is 300x more confusing. When we got off the metro we were at the heart of Paris. I don't know what exactly what the place is called, but it's in every movie about Paris. The Eiffel Tower is in the distance, there's a fountain, you can see the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre is off to the right. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It was definitely an out of body experience. We went to see the stained glass at Sainte Chappelle and then went to the Notre Dame.

I've discovered that it's very hard to take pictures of stained glass. The Sainte Chappelle is home to the oldest and purest stained glass in the world. If you ever go, go to the second floor to actually see impressive stained glass. The first floor is underwhelming.

I have a million pictures of the Notre Dame, but this is the only one with me in it.

I ate lunch in the Latin Quarter (where all the Parisian students hang out) and got my first crépe in Paris. Then I went to the lock bridge overlooking the Seine and kept pinching myself. Paris is so pretty. Rome was hot and is very much a city of the past. Paris is great because all the architecture is gothic and old, (but it's light gray and classy looking, where Rome looks ancient and yellow if that makes any sense), but everything is very cosmopolitan. Everyone is beautiful and dresses like they're on a runway all day everyday. Paris is another place where I felt like I was on a movie set all the time.

This picture does not capture how incredible it feels to be standing on a bridge over the Seine.

Later that night we took a bus tour with our trusty driver William and drove past all the famous landmarks. That was another awesome thing. Paris in the day is amazing, but Paris at night is like nothing I've ever seen. The nickname "City of Lights" is well deserved. We drove past the Arc de Triomphe, passed by the Louvre, the opera house that was the inspiration for Phantom of the Opera, and the Eiffel Tower.

(Sidestory: it was Fashion's Night Out in Paris that night, which basically means people wear designer clothes and walk around which is basically Paris on a daily basis, but with more famous people. On our way to the Eiffel Tower, our professor pulled a prank on the One Direction fans in our group by announcing that Harry Styles was walking to the left of our bus. The sound of 30+ girls inhaling is so funny. This set the perfect giddy mood for the Eiffel Tower).

Our bus driver is such a saint. He dropped us off at the tower right as it did it's cheesy twinkling. We were all so excited from being in Paris and at the thought of seeing famous people and we ran to take pictures in the 15 minutes we had before the bus was leaving. There's another long story involved here, but one of the girls in our group got her first kiss in front of the tower as it was sparkling and some girls got pictures and video of it. The combo of romance, first kisses, and the Eiffel Tower made this one of the best nights of the whole trip! It was so fun and I wish I could relieve it over again!