Adventures in Paris....

This past weekend Barrett, Jacob, Gavin, Geoff, Savannah, and I set out to conquer the land known as Paris. Since we had a five day weekend we figured it was the perfect opportunity for our Paris trip.


Day 1:

To get the most out of our experience we decided to leave Wednesday night so that we could arrive in Paris early Thursday to begin our adventures. Geoff was the mastermind behind our travel arrangements/reservations and let us blindly believe that when we got on the train we would sleep until we got off in Paris. Um, next time I am asking questions before I board the train =) Our journey began in the train station at 8:20pm where we loaded up and took our seats. At 11pm we got off in some city (I can't remember the name) where we were to wait for our next train that would arrive 2 hours later. One thing you must know about the different train stations is that they are mostly open to the outside air and are not heated. It was rather chilly. But we took this opportunity to goof around, take silly pictures, and chat. 12:55am rolls around and its time to continue to our final destination. It was a very long night. Most of us have not yet perfected the art of sleeping in the sitting position. With stiff necks and sleepless bodies, we arrived in Paris 6 long hours latter at 6:50am. Paris provided us with a whole new level of freezing. It was very COLD!! Being so early, the sun had not yet begun it's journey over the horizon to take off the chill and prepare for the glorious day complete with blue skies.


My first impression of Paris was not what I expected. Everything I had ever heard was that it was not as great as you would think. The main description given was that it was trashy and stunk. Maybe the air didn't smell as bad because of the cold? The only smells we encountered where those of the subway systems. Yikes! Every once in a while you were hit with the aroma of soured urine. Other than that, I did not notice a thing. When the sun finally spilled over the horizon and painted the buildings with a golden glow, Paris suddenly came alive. Walking out of the subway we were greeted with the sight of some big Gothic Cathedral. It was beautiful. We never learned the name of it, but in the light of the morning sun, it was absolutely beautiful. As we took pictures and walked around something in the distance caught our eye. It was the Pompidou center! You see we have all had 4 semesters of architectural history so we have studied all these different buildings and where excited about the opportunity to see them in person!!! It was amazing! Then we spotted what looked like the bell towers of Notre Dame so we set out in that direction. I am pretty sure we spent an hour or two in there taking pictures. It was beautiful. I am in love with stained glass so I basically just sat there and starred at the beautiful windows and the light that painted the columns and walls with beautiful arrangements of color.

Our next adventure was to find the famous Eiffel Tower! At this point we had not seen any signs of it yet. As we walked we kept searching to see who could get the first glimpse of this famous icon. I was very excited as we wondered around. I just couldn't believe we were actually there. In fact it still doesn't feel like I spent the last 4 days and 3 nights in Paris! Then suddenly Jacob spotted it. We were finally there! After taking numerous pictures and paying 3,10 euros to climb the six hundred and eighty stairs to the highest point we were allowed to go, we found ourselves looking out over the beautiful city of Paris on top of the Eiffel Tower. The view was breathtaking!! Talk about a big city. The city reached as far as the eye could see. It was amazing! What a wonderful experience!

to be continued...