This post is referring to my trip back on July 17 – 21st, I finally got around to finishing it. There will be more posts to update you with my recent trip to Holland and Belgium.

I don’t even know where to begin with my extended weekend in Paris. It was quite the trip with a lot of picture taking. I suppose it would only be right to start it from the beginning. Thursday, I might have skipped some class time because well, it’s really boring to be honest and I’d rather sleep on something comfortable then a desk. After making breakfast of Eggs and lots of British Bacon, I packed my shit and rushed it to the train at St. Pancras International where we caught a Eurostar Train to Paris Nord Station. We took one of the fastest trains to Paris and it took roughly 2 and a half hours. I’m not going to lie, at first I thought it was pretty cool to see cars driving on the right side of the road again, but I was still too scared to talk in English in front of French people. It was a problem, but we eventually got over ourselves and decided that if they hate us already then why not butcher their language too.

Alright, so maybe it might be a stereotype that the French hate Americans, but you can never be too touchy on the topic of that. Once we arrived to our destination we jumped on the Metro to get to our hostel. While on the topic of the metro I have to make a complaint for their ticket machines not taking bills of any sorts. We had a many problems with not having enough coins to purchase tickets it was insane. Some future advice for anyone going to Paris and using their Metro system, their ticket machines also don’t take our Credit/Debit cards. Much like the UK their debit/credit cards have a tiny chip on them known as a “Chip and Pin” that allows them to make purchases without having to use the magnetic slide bar. Therefore, our debit/credit cards are unacceptable for their systems sometimes. Especially at restaurants or Shops it’s a safe bet to ask if they take a credit card that you need to “slide”.

You also have to manually switch open the doors to get off or on the Metro. It was slightly ghetto not going to lie.

Enough of the topic of Debit Cards and Metro systems, when we finally arrived at our Hostel we were pretty much in the middle of a rather ghetto and sketchy area of Paris. Granted, we just accepted it for what we paid for and went on with our adventures anyways. The hostel was alright, and kicked you out of your room everyday from 9am – 3pm for “cleanings”. This is why we locked out luggage to the bed… I know we’re paranoid.

That first night we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower at night, and I’m not going to lie when we got off the Metro it was a total “O.M.G.” moment. It’s true, Paris’s monuments are totally worth going to see. When I got to London it was really cool to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and that jazz, but it just didn’t have the same effect as Paris. That first night we arrived and took the metro towards the Eiffel Tower and it was truly a magical moment. Once the metro got out from underground everyone rushed to the side of the train to check out the Eiffel Tower as we passed. It was most definitely an O.M.G. moment if I were to ever have one.

The next day in Paris we actually left the city and took a train to the city of Versailles. Naturally, Paul and I were all pumped to see the palace at Versailles because of the movie Marie Antoinette. The palace was really plain in the front and had scaffolding covering most of it, which I’ve come to learn to accept that there will always be construction or tourist blocking all your pictures. Even though the outside was rather disappointing the inside was far from disappointment. Versailles is a huge palace with hundreds of rooms, and every room we saw was intricately lavished from the floor up. We recognized some of the rooms from the movie, no lie. We were pretty excited, haha, it was kind of sad. The back of the palace consists of a shitload of gardens and fountains… it had to be at least more than a couple mile radius. It was intense and we took plenty of pictures of ourselves while we were there. It was truly well worth the visit… and it was kind of nice to get out of Paris.

Once we got back into Paris we went on a free tour with a company that hires volunteers who pretty much love the city so much they’ll give free tours for only tips (http://www.neweuropetours.eu/) . They have these tours at most of the major cities and from my experience they’re really good because the tour guides have to work for their tips and are wicked into it. The walking tour allowed us to get a good idea of the history of the city, but also helped us figure out where everything was. I feel like I learned a lot, but also remembered a shitload that I learned in history class during high school. I guess you really do remember that stuff. After the tour we only thought it would be appropriate to go see the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs D’Elysee which is the biggest shopping street in Paris. It’s pretty much their equivalent of Fifth Avenue in NYC. The Arc de Triomphe is the center of that infamous 9 lane rotary where 5 major streets meet up. Supposedly, there is an accident every half hour so Paul and I sat around to speculate. Sadly, there were no accidents, but we could definitely witness why this exaggerated statistic is possible.

On Saturday, we decided to hit up the museums and churches. We hit up The Louvre and it was well worth the entrance fee. We got to see the Mona Lisa and it wasn’t as small as I thought it would be. Afterwards, we went to see Saint Michael’s Cathedral and then Notre Dame both shared the common gothic style of architecture and were really cool. We took a break at a park and the whole time I was there it reminded me of the movie The Happening for people who don’t know what it is it’s M. Night Shyamalan’s newest movie. Let’s just say the weather was really nice but lots if wind and rustling leaves…

We then decided to be stereotypically French and get baguettes, cheese, and wine and eat it in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was a picture perfect moment… as in we took a bunch of offensive stereotypical pictures of us in front of the Eiffel tower. We were pretty exhausted that night so we went to bed early.

On Sunday before we left, we decided to go check out the Catacombs underground. Ever since my friend told me about them when she went to Paris I’ve wanted to check them out. It runs miles wide under the streets of London, and they’re pretty much crypts. It was way creepy and that was only the path to the actual tombs. When we got to the actual tombs it was something out of a horror flick with rooms full of bones and skulls. I was told that there is an accumulation of about 6 million bodies worth of bones down there. Definitely a holy shit moment so it was probably a good thing they told that to us after we got out.

We decided to leave to catch our train before we left, but with some miscommunications we missed our train. Therefore, with Paul working his magic we were able to get a new ticket at a reduced price but still mad expensive. At that point though, I just wanted to get the hell back to London.

To sum everything up I thought Paris was an okay city, but was rather trashy and reminded me of NYC. It is okay to visit, but I don’t think I would ever want to live there. I was just really happy to go back to London by the end of the trip. The people were rather French, and err… yea to say the least they weren’t the friendliest people nor were the downright rude.

Sorry I took a while to update, but I’ve been mad busy. There will definitely be more posts too in order to bring you up to date. I’m trying to get some pictures onto Facebook, but my internet has been crap sooo worst comes to worst I will upload them all when I get back.