European Tryst: Part One of My Whirlwind European Tour!

So when school was finished I immediately left for Paris. Beca, Rami, and I made it to the airport just fine, and checked in, and got through security but then we got to the gate and they said their bags were too big and they didn't get on the plane! I was meeting some girls from Italy there so I went on alone and they said they would find a way to meet me. I kept my phone nearby and spent the day touring with Nicole and Carly from the A&M program in Italy. We first grabbed a bite to eat and headed up to Montmatre - one of the places where Amelie, one of my favorite movies, was filmed. It is also home to tons of artists selling their works, the Sacre Coer, and Moulin Rouge. The only bad part was the creepy guys who would come up to you and try to sell you bracelets. They were ridiculously persistent and really really made me angry. They would even try to tie them on your wrists without permission. We then went to the Louvre because it's free every Friday night. We pretty much ran through only the main rooms. I saw the Mona Lisa and a few other items of note. I would have loved to spend more time there but the girls were very exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. Hazard of traveling with a group I suppose. The perk of my friends missing the plane was that I got a double bed to myself!

harry!

my travel mates

hector guimard!

my first view of the eiffel tower!

the artists

the sacred heart

me and paris

we were trying to step into the map!

the flowers had fallen!

someone famous lived here?

crepes!

the crepe man

moulin rouge!

we went back to the sacred heart, but the park below it - amelie!

cool subway station

inside the louvre

the lady herself!

me and mona lisa

lots of crazy artwork

outside at sunset

The next morning Beca and Rami made it! They took a night train straight from Barcelona. Nicole and Carly wanted to get started earlier than when they'd arrive so they went on ahead without us and I spent the day with Beca and Rami. We started off with croissants and then hit the Eiffel Tower! Some of the metro stops were closed so we ended up walking more than just a few blocks but we could see it through the buildings and were very excited! Poor Rami, he took sooo many photos of Beca and I in front of the Tower. It was really neat to see it though. We decided to then use a hop-on/hop-off river boat to get to all the other sites of note. We visited Notre Dame, these pretty gardens outside the science and natural history museums and finished up with another look at the Louvre and Champs Elysees. We saw a lot of stuff on the way as well. When we got off on Champs Elysees we saw some foutains over to our right. Beca was overjoyed because she really want to take a photo where Anne Hathaway threw away her phone during The Devil Wears Prada. Once we got there we weren't sure if it was the right location but just looked it up and low and behold...it was! So she has a picture of her throwing her phone in the fountain. The plaza where the fountains were used to be called Revolutionary Plaza and was were all the beheadings took places...including Marie Antoinette's. However, they changed it to be Plaza de la Concorde. We then walked down the Champs Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe. On the way we noticed a big Andy Warhol sign outside of a museum. Turns out they were having an exhibit! We decided to check it out and it was marvelous. Oh I'm getting to like his work more and more! After that we finally made it down the Arc and then went to spend the night with the Eiffel Tower and the lovely lady that she is.

our first good glimpse of the tower

here come just a few of our many many pictures in front of it

on the boat

notre dame!

check out those flying buttresses

at the gardens

not sure what she's doing here

we fed the ducks!

the kids kept fighting! haha

but apparently i'm the crazy one

back outside the louvre

whoop!

i'm a pyramid!

whoop! again

like a gazelle

plaza del concorde

andy!

arc de triomphe

the tower at night

it lit up at midnight! such a nice surprise

The next morning we left for Versailles. The train was a bit tricky. They run in a loop from the two different train stations in Versailles and we first got on the one that took the longest (both destinations say Versailles...very confusing!) When we got there, we realized the second word was different than our ticket and the sign for the train changed to say it was now heading to the other Versailles destination. This was before we knew it was a loop and we thought it would just go one more stop or so to take us to the Chateau. Well, it ended up going back the way we came to go through Paris and then end up at the Chateau after an hour and a half and we learned the stop we were at was still walking distance from it. Goodness! So we got off and ended up waiting at this tiny station for 45 minutes and then finally made it to Versailles. The palace was lovely but what really took the cake was the gardens!! They were fantastic! One of the prettiest, amazing things I've seen in Europe. I just can't believe that beautiful of a place at such a massive scale was for just one family! I sure hope they used it well. We wandered around for a bit, took some photos and then rented a row boat! Thanks to Rami rowing us gals around we had a lovely end to our trip. We then caught the correct train back to Paris and spent one last night with the Eiffel Tower.

on the train