Day 1: Arrival
Not very exciting. We left Oxford around 4, took a train to London, then took a train to Paris. We got in Paris around 11 or 12 their time, and took a taxi to our hostel. My first hostel experience was overall great. We got a pretty cheap price for a private room, and the facility was actually pretty good, plus breakfast (coffee or tea, french baguette, and jam) was included!
Day 2: Versailles, crepes, the Louvre
We woke up to the sound of demon children outside our window around 6 am. Apparently the hostel was hosting a ton of french kids around age 8-12 or something and they were freakishly loud way too early in the morning. Ah well they were our roosters for the morning. We then got up and took a train to Versailles. On the train ride there, we accidently got off on the wrong stop, that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. Just as the train doors were about to close a guy hops off and is holding the door yelling at us, "No Versailles! No Versailles! Get back on train!" So naturally we hop back on. Thanks to this guy we made it to Versailles. He is nice frenchy #1. Versailles was absolutely fantastic. The best way I can describe it is grandeur, ridiculous wealth, and ostentatious. The outside is architecturally beautiful, the gardens were huge and beautiful even in the dead of winter, and naturally the inside was absolutely dripping with wealth. Every single room was decorated with such amazing detail. Almost every room had a mural painted on the ceiling, some form of gold decoration, and gorgeous interior design. The tour was a little pricey, but included an audio tour which made it worth while. I'm including a picture from the outside, part of the gardens, and my absolute favorite part - the hall of mirrors, which was a huge long room with mirrors for walls and rows and rows of hanging chandeliers.
After Versailles we went to the area around the Louvre, got to see the Seine at sunset, and quickly grabbed a quick crepe for dinner, mmm. On one of the bridges that crossed the Seine river there were tons of love locks. Couples come to the bridge, make a promise of their love to each other, leave a lock with their names on it, and toss the key into the river. Precious. After seeing all this we went to the Louvre (for free thanks to student rates!) for two hours. The Louvre was.... overwhelming. There is so much to see! I remember hearing that if you spent 4 seconds on each painting, it would take you 3 months to see everything. What I spent the most time in was the wing with the Italian paintings from the 13th century to the 18th. They also had a wing with huge, I mean an entire wall huge, french paintings from the 19th century. I got to see of course the Mona Lisa (which was tiny!), Venus de Milo (which may not even be Aphrodite apparently), and two Michelangelo sculptures. My favorite painting for some reason though was one titled The Return of Marcus Sextus, which is incredibly sad, but captivating. You should google it. After the Louvre, Ashley, Lizzie, and I went and saw Notre Dame at night and met up with Jenny, a ACU grad who is studying in France. With her we went and ate and then headed back to the hostel.
Day 3: Bikes, Impressionism, Ice Skating, and Hostel mix up
We woke up (this time not to the sound of screaming children) and made a quick dash (literally) to the Eiffel Tower to make it on time to go on a Fat Tire Bike Tour, which is basically paying to rent a bike and take a tour of major sites in the city. It was so fun to get to ride around Paris on a bike. After the bike tour we went to the Musee D'Orsay which is a museum dedicated to Impressionist art, my favorite kind of art. Sadly only like 10 paintings of my favorite impressionist artist (Claude Monet) were there because all of his paintings were at an exhibit somewhere else in France, but I did get to see the works of Edgar Degas, Renoir, Edourd Manet, and Van Gogh. Overall, I really enjoyed Orsay more than the Louvre. After a wonderful dinner (I had a croque monsieur - which is a lot like a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top) with creme brulee for dessert, we went to see the Eiffel Tower at night, which was spectacular. We took tons of pictures, and then headed to the top. On the way back town the lift stopped at the floor above the ground floor and the lift lady said, "get off here for free ice skating." Jenny, Ashley, Lizzie, and I all looked at each other and then ran off that lift. Yes, I have ice skated ON the Eiffel Tower! Best experience of my life. I felt giddy the whole time, kind of an in the clouds feeling, like life is too good to be true. But it was real and it was great. Although that should have been a great ending to a great day... we got back to our hostel room to find a girl sleeping in Lizzie's bed and other people's stuff in our room. Well turns out, one person checking in does not reserve the entire room, just that person's bed. Our beds had been given away because Ashley, Lizzie, and I thought that when Jenny checked in, it counted for all of us. In the end the hostel guy (who was actually a very sweet man) gave us a low price for a 2 person private room and then we payed for a random bed in 2 other rooms. Since of course none of us wanted to sleep by ourselves with strangers, we naturally fit 4 people on a tiny twin bunk bed in a rather small room. We were all so tired by this point, it didn't really matter. But now, I've learned a great lesson, CHECK INTO YOUR HOSTEL! Mkay time for pics:
On our last day we woke up and went to mass at Notre Dame. Even though the service was in French and I had no clue as to what was going on, it was still a neat experience. Notre Dame is beautiful inside and out. I loved all of the gorgeous stained glass. After Notre Dame we booked it to a part of Paris called Montmartre which we had heard was artsy and Bohemian, which was so true. On our hunt to find the Sacre Coeur (a beautiful white building on the top of a hill overlooking Paris) we found a precious french pastry/bakery where I had the most delicious heavenly chocolate croissant. The memory of it still makes me drool. (TMI?) Well after our hike to what felt like the top of the world we found the Sacre Coeur and saw the beautiful overlooking site, but what comes next was even better. On our way to find the Moulin Rouge we came across a perfectly French area with speciality precious little french shops and a square of real life artists painting the most beautiful paintings. It was so french! If the paintings were in my price range I would have brought one home, they were breath taking. Moral of this story, if you ever go to Paris, spent at least a half day in Montmartre. We had to run through it in less than an hours because we wanted to see too much before our train left. The Moulin Rouge took awhile to find and was not as good as the movie, so my recommendation would be watch the movie instead. After this we had to say sad goodbyes to Jenny at the train station and make our way back to Oxford. Pictures (first four Notre Dame - first is the front view and the fourth is the back view, fifth is Sacre Coeur, sixth is an artist in Montmartre)
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