We hopped off the train with the girls and split up at the metro. We were headed to Place de Clichy to check into our hotel and planned on meeting up with the other girls at 4 at the Disney store. We were able to find our metro stop pretty easily and with only one transfer. Poor Zane had to drag my massive bag and his up several flights of stairs though (we found the escalator later). It took us a while to figure out where our hotel was though. We had to ask a few different people and finally the last guy google mapped it for us on his phone and told us it was around the next corner. It seriously was two blocks away from the metro stop (which made us both very happy). We finally got to the front of the hotel and it had a beautiful facade. The lobby was also nice, they had a glass table with little fishy inside. We checked in and to get to the fourth floor we had to go up one at a time (max of 1 person with 1 luggage or 2 people) to get to our room. I went up first and I spent forever trying to get into our room. The light went out and I couldn't see a darn thing and then Zane came up and opened the door right off... Our room was pretty ghetto. It was like staying at a hotel in the old strip in Vegas; gets the job done, but you don't want to pay more than $35-40 a night (and yet we were paying more than twice that for this place). I would upload a picture for you, but apparently I didn't take any. Let's just say I wouldn't go into the bathroom without my flip flops on. After getting our things in we left pretty quickly to meet up with the girls. We needed coins to buy more metro tickets so we stopped at a conveince store to buy some drinks first (this just added to our tardiness). We were able to get to the Champs Elysees stop without problems. When we finally stepped outside though, we were extremely overwhelmed. Everything was so big and we had no idea where to go. We found an info booth and the lady was able to tell us which way to go, so since it was already after 4, Zane dragged me (I swear I was flying behind him) to the store in just a couple of minutes. We found the girls who luckily hadn't been waiting for a long time for us. It became our mission to help Kate see as much as possible in the hour before we needed to have her back to the train station. I'm very disappointed that we only were able to get her to see the Arc de Triomphe and the spire of the Eiffel Tower. Zane and I hopped on the metro with Kate after that, so she wouldn't have to try to get back to the train station alone. We met back up with Pam, Malorie, and Kristy at our meeting spot and walked around aimlessly waiting for Cathy to arrive. We finally decided to head back towards our meeting point because we hadn't heard from Cathy in a while and sure enough she was there and her phone had died. We went to eat at one of the restaurants on the Champs Elysees and were able to dine outside. They had the menus in English, which was nice, unfortunately we didn't have a waitress in English. She seriously messed everything for Kristy up except for her wine. She tried giving her a ceasar salad instead of goat cheese (they looked completely different) and veal instead of scallops. We asked for more tap water and she brought out a bottle of natural water that we turned away, but she came back and said it was included for us. Pam and Cathy had also ordered the same main course (even though they came out at separate times), yet Pam had fries and Cathy had noodles (tell me how those are the same?). After a long night with this woman who luckily didn't understand the things that were being said about her at the table, we got the check. She freaking tried to charge us for the water and the ceasar salad!! And added another 5 Euros without specifying what it was for. We naturally just asked for the manager that had already been to our table a few times and spoke perfect English to come and help. She was able to get the tab right and we were finally able to leave. We were tired, so we ended up splitting off from the girls (Pam and Malorie were staying with Kristy for the night) and going back to the hotel for the night.
26 June 2011
Pam, Malorie, and Kristy took a taxi to our hotel and met us around 930. We took Pam and Malorie's bags up to our room, while Malorie checked them in. We then set off for the metro, making a quick detour to find the Moulin Rouge, since we had yet to see it, even though it was only 100 meters from our hotel. We hopped on the metro and went back to the Champs Elysees in search for the "hop on, hop off" bus tours. We were able to find a stop right around the corner at the Grand Palace. While we were waiting for the next bus, Zane and I decided we couldn't afford to pay approx. $75 for the two of us to go on it, so we were just going to meet Pam and Malorie at the hotel at 6. (They had to leave the next day, so it really was the best way to see Paris in a day). Zane and I walked around and before the girls even got on their bus, I found the Eiffel Tower!! :D I was so very excited!! Poor Zane probably had a bruise from me getting so excited and trying to get his attention. I took several pictures before we crossed one of the most beautiful bridges in search of the Eiffel Tower. We stopped in a store to get drinks and a bakery to get some large pain au chocolat (it was a large baguette like thing with chocolate chips, so I don't know what else to call it). We made it to the Eiffel Tower in pretty good time! When we were walking around to get different pictures, I spotted Kristy and ran up to all of the girls to say hi! Out of the thousands of people that were there (apparently Sunday is one of the busiest days) we still ran into them! Zane and I walked across the Seine and went up to the Palais de Challiot to take amazing pictures of the Eiffel Tower and see some basketball show down going on. We sat in the park and cooled down before heading to the Louvre. It was a nice walk, but I was wearing flip flops, so we occasionally sat down to give my feet a break. On one occassion this man tried claiming that he "found" this gold wedding ring on the ground next to us and insisted on giving it to Zane. He walked away and within 30 seconds came back asking for us to give him money for food (I thought he was asking for a cigarette) and when we tried giving him cookies, he just took the ring and walked away. I decided we weren't going to take any more breaks until we got to the Louvre. We were able to walk through the beautiful gardens leading up to the Louvre and walked around and looked in. I even got to put my feet in the water in the fountains around the building. We then took off towards Notre Dame. It was absolutely beautiful. I loved the facade and the color of the building even more than the one in Strasbourg. We wanted to hear the bells go off, so we found a place in the shade to wait and right after the bells went off and we were getting up to leave, guess whose bus came by? I ran and yelled Puh-mel-uh! Knowing that it would get their attention. We waited for them and were able to go inside of the cathedral and grabbed some lunch afterwards. We then agreed to meet up with Pam and Malorie (Kristy's husband was coming in, so she had to meet up with him) at Sacre Coeur at 6pm. They hopped on their bus and we made a quick detour to see the flying buttresses in the back of the cathedral before taking off. We walked for what seemed like forever and finally made it into this mall (on the map there is a mall at the bottom of the hill where Sacre Coeur is), so I thought we were finally there. When we made it out of the mall and still couldn't see it we found our coordinates on the map and realized we weren't even close, we were barely halfway there. We asked a few people and ended up finding the nearest metro stop and just hopping on. We had to climb what seems like the hill of death just to get to at least 100 stairs to get to the top and we were late. It was about 6:15 and we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find the girls. We went into Sacre Coeur (and they were having a service going on, it was really beautiful, but really awkward), found painters square, and watched this amazing guy juggling a soccer ball with his feet while hanging by his hands from a light post. We were going to just head back to the hotel to find Pam and Malorie, but I wanted to go down a different way. We were looking down at the crowd when the girls spotted Zane and were able to grab his attention (I still hadn't managed to see them). We were able to meet up and go back and tour everything. We went back to the hotel to let the girls check in and clean up a bit before going back out to find Hard Rock Cafe (Pam collects something from each of them). We walked there and on our walk we were able to find the Opera House (which I thought was absolutely beautiful). We were in and out of Hard Rock in minutes and found the nearest metro stop and headed towards the Eiffel Tower.We were able to get a nice spot on the grass and admire it all lit up. Zane kept saying when is it going to be all lit up and I thought he was crazy. But he insisted that white lights would come on. We pulled out the Top 10 Things to do in Paris book that Pam and Malorie gave us and it said that every night on the hour after dusk the tower lights up like a Christmas tree and sparkles for 5 minutes. We didn't have to wait much longer for Zane to prove himself right. It was absolutely beautiful. I don't think I could ever get sick of looking at it. I was so happy we stayed! After that we headed back towards the hotel and grabbed some big bacon burgers from Quick/Quality burger and peaked at the Moulin Rouge all lit up before calling it a night.
If you were able to make it through all my gruesome details...
This morning we said goodbye to Pam and Malorie before taking off on our hunt for Zane's school. It took us a little while to find it, but we managed to stumble upon the school. We found K-Rae on the 4th floor. She had lots of apartments to choose from and all of the answers we were looking for (but she is still no Gianluca). She set up our appointment to meet with the apartment we were most interested in at 7pm and printed off a map for us. We went back to the hotel and did some laundry really quick, so we could pack for our trip to Rome (our backpacks could only weigh 10kg). It took longer than we expected and we finally had to break into the third suitcase in order to get everything to fit (we didn't realize how much we relied on our backpacks). We then made our way back to the school and were able to store them all under one of the tables in K-Rae's office. She then showed us how to get metro passes and a place to get a cell phone for our stay in Paris. We didn't have anything to do for another 4 hours, so we made our way back to the hotel to take a nap. We ended up waking up at 6 and had to sprint out of the hotel to make sure to make it on time. When we got off the metro, I realized that I didn't have the map in my purse because I had taken it out to look at it in the hotel. We started to panic, and decided to head towards the school to see if we could get K-Rae's number. The people there didn't really know what to do and the lady that could speak English was actually having her first day on the job and said they couldn't give us her phone number. We tried asking if we could online, but she just kept talking and wasting time. We pretty much started jogging down the street looking for a McDonalds. We finally found one by Bastille and logged on and found K-Rae's number. Luckily, we were the first students to check in and she remembered exactly where we needed to go. We somehow managed to get there in just a few minutes, but we didn't see anyone waiting at the front door (it was just after 7). When I called K-Rae back to double check, this nice woman asked if I was Jenny. HUZZAH! We found Stephanie! She gave us a quick tour and we loved it! She gave us the keys and set up a time to meet up with her after our trip to Rome. We were ready to be done with the night, so we ended up just going back to the hotel for the night.
You should do an "After We Returned To The US" blog
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