Paris-- The City of Love

I am sorry that I took quite a break from finishing free travel blogs. I put my Greek instrumental music in to inspire me to finish this, along with the fervor to pick pictures to print for my album. It is so good to hear that familiar sound-- it causes my spirits to be lifted.

Paris was the first city where we had to continually hop on and off trains in the middle of the night to get there. On our first train, we were accompanied by very cute soldiers. Two weeks with no boys in our group made us quite giddy-- we acted like we hadn't seen attractive boys before. It was a fun start to the romantic feeling that Paris would bring. We barely made it to our 2nd train and had to hop on the closest cart, even though it was far away from where we would reside. The train took off and so did we-- cart after cart until we made it to the lowest class seating. We walked through carts that had bars and rich people, smoking their cares away in first class. We made it to our lowly seats, which were packed with people. You could hardly move at all. "This is going to be a fun ride," I thought. Little did I know it would be indeed. Our cart split from the rest of the train that was going a different direction, but something went wrong with the train that was supposed to attach to us and take us the rest of the way. We sat, cramped together in a lone cart on an abandoned track until the problem was fixed an hour or so later. It seemed like a scene from a horror flick. Luckily, it ended well-- not like an Alfred Hitchcock film.

When we first arrived in Paris, we sat in a cute park near our hostel. There were little kids running around, playing in the fountain and enjoying the sunshine. Interesting to us, most of the little kids were out with their fathers. It was so adorable to see the dads chase their children, twirl them in the air and enjoy their company. In our hostel, we roomed with this sweet Spanish lady named Fatima. Though we could barely communicate with each other, we found this friendship that reached passed a language barrier. I helped her write e-mails in English and we laughed as we tried to understand each other. She was such a sweet lady and I enjoyed the few nights we got to know each other. That's one of the cool things about traveling-- is finding people that you will never see again in your life, but they somehow leave a small footprint on your heart.

We went on a night tour that night, part of the free tours that we had found in Berlin. Our tour guide's name was Jay and he was this hip, Bohemian guy who was very theatric in the way he told Paris' history. We saw the Moulin Rouge and learned about its start and transformation after Zegler got a hold of it. We saw where Van Gogh lived while in Paris and learned of his troubling life. We saw Picasso and Van Gogh's favorite restaurants-- Picasso, too poor to pay for his meals, offered the owner murals in exchange for meals. Later, the guy became very wealthy for having so many Picasso originals. We met up with Bethany, Melissa, Sarabeth and Noah for this tour and we ate with them afterward at this little restaurant. We ate spaghetti, salads and fruit for dessert. On the way back to the metro, we walked through Paris' "Red Light District." Though not as notorious as Amsterdam's, it was still quite a culture shock.

The next day we took the day tour with Mary. Mary was, by far, our favorite tour guide of the free travel trip. Of little stature, she had a booming personality and a love for history and theatrics. She put her miming skills and acting skills to use and combined them with history. I couldn't help but think what an AWESOME teacher she would be-- I would have never fallen asleep in her class! We met at the St. Michel fountain, which is in the Latin quarter. Lacey was wearing her "I Love Jordan" shirt that she bought in Jordan and this guy came up and asked to take a picture with her! He was from Jordan-- we enjoyed talking to him about our visit there! He was in our tour group. We saw the Notre Dame, which took 200 years to build. We found out that Napolean basically thought he ruled the world and he was always crowning himself and taking charge of everything. Mary covered thousands of years in history in one, big miming show. It was amazing-- she talked so fast and her hands were flailing and all of our eyes were glued to her. We didn't go into the Louvre until later, but Mary showed us the outside of it and told us that if you looked at everything in the Louvre for only 3 seconds-- it would take you 3 months! Isn't that amazing?

We saw the obelisk, which was a gift from Luxor, Egypt-- we were so excited b/c we had been to Luxor too! We walked down the Champs Elysees and saw the Arc de Triumph, which Napolean wanted finished for his wedding. I think the most fascinating part of Mary's speech came at the end when she spoke of WWII. A few things in Paris were destroyed, but why not more of it? Hitler hired VonHelton to destroy Paris, but when he got there he fell in love with the city. Hitler ordered him to burn it to the ground. In a series of circumstances, VonHelton ended up saving the city from total destruction. We went into a Louis Vuitton store just to get a glimpse into the life of the rich and famous. I saw a keychain that was 162 euro-- that's when I decided I'd better stick to Old Navy.

We went to the Monet museum to see the water lily paintings of Monet. We also went into the Musee d'Orsay where we saw more Monet, Van Gogh and Degas. Alana got to see Degas' ballerina sculptures and paintings and she fell in love. Though I am no ballerina, I was most impressed with his work as well.

My FAVORITE night of the whole trip is when we laid in the lawn in front of the Eiffel tower waiting for it to light up. It was so beautiful and romantic. The only thing that risked ruining the atmosphere were the annoying guys that sell plastic, light-up Eiffel towers. They won't leave you alone! One guy kept bugging us and we firmly told him, "No!" He pathetically said, "Why not?" and Danielle, not missing a beat, goes, "BECAUSE I'M LOOKIN' AT THE REAL THING!" We laughed so hard and looked over to find this guy, who apparently understood us, laughing as well. He continued to laugh at us the whole night. He was cute in this gruff, world traveler kind of way. I should have talked to him-- it's Paris, the most romantic place on earth, for goodness sakes!

It was then that it happened: the moment we had all been waiting for. Blue lights flickered up and down the Eiffel Tower and this collective "awww" swept the entire lawn. Being girly-girls, we screamed--and Mr. World Traveler Cutie began to laugh at us once more.

It wouldn't be a trip to Paris without going into the Louvre. Though I had been in there before, it was more meaningful now that I was more familiar with the works of art inside of it. We went to see the Code of Hammurabi since we had studied about it in DiMy's class-- it had been moved to another exhibit. We were ticked! We took sad face pictures by it. We hit all the hot spots-- the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Mona Lisa and the huge Miracle at Cana picture.

Danielle and I left the Louvre to go see the Palace of Versailles, where Marie Antoinette resided. We looked through the royal gardens and could tell the weather was about to get ugly on us. The fountains and landscaping were fit for a queen! As we headed back to the train station, it began to POUR. I didn't have an umbrella and laughed at my inability to do anything. I finally stopped when we made it on the street of the train station and held up my hands, raised my face to the skies and let the rain fall freely. It is during that point where you realize you have no control over your situation that you laugh like you've never laughed before. Danielle probably thought I was a total weirdo, but I stood there for a few moments laughing and crying at the same time. We made it back to our train though and froze all the way back to our hostel.

The next morning we took a plane to Dublin, Ireland-- our final stop.