A Wonderful Weekend in Paris

Hi Everyone!

This past weekend, I traveled to Paris, the city of lights. It's so crazy to go to a place that you see on TV and dream about going to.  I was skeptical about it, but it was honestly so amazing, and it's definitely in my top three places that I've been so far in the semester.  I am also so fortunate because I get go again and share it with my family. Okay, I'm going to stop being sappy and tell you guys about this wonderful weekend. 

Wednesday, we left the manor around noon to drive to the Grantham train station to catch a train to London.  The ride to London was only an hour, and we arrived at King's Cross Station (yes the one in Harry Potter; and yes it looked very Harry Potter).  We walked across the street to St. Pancras to catch the Eurostar to Paris.  I believe the Eurostar goes up to 200 mph and crosses the English Channel via the chunnel. 

When we finally got to Paris, we checked into our hotel, and it was really nice.  The hotel was super clean and pretty nice, but the area of Paris it was a little sketchy.  We were also too scared because we all hardly knew any French.  We ended up knowing more than we thought; we were just too scared to actually use the first night.  So, instead having dinner at  a Parisian cafe, we went to a KFC down the street from our KFC. And, yes, French KFC is pretty good. 

The next morning, we were rested with the day of travel behind, and we were feeling more adventurous.  We got onto to the Metro, which is like the tube in London, but dirtier and more chaotic.  We ended up at Tuileries, a palace with really really pretty gardens.  We were walking along, and to the right, we got our first glimpse of the top of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. 

After Tuileries, we walked toward the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees, a shopping street.  We found a small cafe for lunch because we were all starving.  I tried escargot for the first time and really liked.  Snails are delicious!

We went to the Arc de Triomphe, which you go in a tunnel under the street to get to, and we climbed up hundreds of stairs to get to the top.  The climb was worth it for the view though.

Afterwards, we bought some macarons, and got on the Metro to go the Eiffel Tower.  We took the cheesy pictures by the Eiffel Tower, and sat in the grass for a while laughing, talking, and eating our macarons. 

I had French onion soup at the cafe that we went to a little ways from the Eiffel Tower.  When we walked out of the cafe, it was dark, and the Eiffel Tower was sparkling.  We looked at it a bit more at night, and then walked back to the Metro station to go back to the hotel.

Friday morning, it was raining, but Paris was even beautiful in the rain. 

We went to the Louvre, which is an art gallery that used to be a palace.  We saw the famous Mona Lisa.

Then we went across the street to get crepes at a cafe. I had a chocolate and banana one, and it was so good. 

We then took the metro and walked a little to get to Notre Dame.  It was a beautiful cathedral, and we made a wish at point zero, which is the point where they measure all the highways in France from.  We went to Shakespeare and Company, which is a bookstore that used to be a cafe where famous authors like Hemingway and Fitzgerald were regulars.  We went to another cafe for dinner and ordered escargot again because I swear it's so good!

Saturday morning, we went to see the Moulin Rouge, and we walked around in Montmartre, which is the neighborhood that it's in.  We came across all of this tombs, and the cemetery was huge and very unique. It was very interesting to see.

We went back to the cafe that we had had crepes at the previous day for lunch, and it was delicious just like every other meal that we had in France.  We went to the love lock bridge, which was awesome.  We got on the Metro to go back to the Eiffel Tower for our last afternoon there.  We kind of got lost walking around finding a place for dinner, and we ended up stumbling upon a cafe where the table we sat at outside was practically right beside the Eiffel Tower. 

We got really good crepes from a crepe stand by the tower and sat on a bench to eat them.  When we were leaving to go back to the Metro station, we stopped and just looked at the tower for a while because it was just so crazy to me that I was there right in front of it; I almost still can't believe that I went. 

Sunday was our travel back home.  Traveling back home is always a great time for me to journal and reflecct on all of the amazing things that I did that weekend.

Thank you so much for reading my incredibly long post this week.  Next weekend, I'm doing London take two, and I'm so excited! See you soon!

I'm going to close my blog post this week with a quote from one of Audrey Hepburn's characters that has become so true:

"Paris is always a good idea."

Love always,

Alexandria

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