I haven’t really had the opportunity to write a comprehensive post about Paris yet, so this may be a long one. All of the keyboards we found in Paris were set up with the French keyboard setting, which made it really insanely hard to type when you are a lightning fast typer on the normal American setup, and we just plain never had enough time to do posts since we had so much to do in Paris.
The Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, which we both saw on Saturday after getting in on Friday night/Saturday morning, are both spectacular to see in person. The Notre Dame is in a great part of town full of historic buildings with streets lined with French flags. There are lots of cool little shops and creperies around everywhere, and you can walk in no time to the Louvre from it. The cathedral itself is really cool looking. Great gothic architecture, lots of pigeons outside and best, not a lot of tourists! Yay! Inside the cathedral there are a lot of candles around to make offerings and prayers to the different saints, and there is this really cool stained glass window inside. We were inside with enough time to see a little bit of a sermon, cool looking catholic people all decked out in the robes and everything, but the operatic hymn singing was too much for us to handle. One note about our first impressions of Paris: there are no public bathrooms ANYWHERE. Not in the stations, not on the streets (or at least none that are working or open). Very frustrating, as we discovered on multiple occasions, one being scattering around the Notre Dame area trying to find a toilet.
The Eiffel Tower is really cool both during the day and at night, when it lights up blue. You think it’s a lot closer than it is when you’re walking, but it takes FOREVER to walk to from the Louvre. Thomas and I both were like, oh it can’t be that far from here, let’s go look around and then 40 minutes later we were there. It took forever. The lines are insane to go up the Eiffel Tower, especially when we were there because the sun was just starting to set. We found a cool spot 10 minutes away by walking where there’s a long park with lots of grass to see the tower, perfect for picnicking or something, and sat down for at least an hour watching the Eiffel Tower go from daytime to nighttime and lighting up. It’s a pretty cool sight, and was really relaxing since you just get to soak in the nighttime and the atmosphere. Wow, I’m in Paris looking at the Eiffel Tower. Really really cool.
Our whole day on Sunday was spent recovering from my sickness in the morning, which kept us at our hotel longer than I think either of us anticipated, and traveling to Versailles. Now let me note this for future travelers to Versailles: DO NOT GO ON SUNDAY. The lines are absolutely insane at Versailles on Sunday. The trip there was really easy. Hop on a train headed to Versailles (one of the RER trains, regional transit), and get off at the last stop, walk for 5 minutes and you’re there. Once you get to Versailles there are tons of African men outside trying to sell you Eiffel Tower statues that light up, keychains 3 for 1 euro, all different kinds of stuff. Then you get through the golden gates and discover the line to buy tickets, and want to shoot yourself because the line is so long. Let me say that we have stood in many long lines to get into places in Europe, from Italy to Spain, but this line was by far the longest and the slowest moving. At least an hour and a half passed and we were finally with tickets in hand, headed to the royal palace and through the gates. Then, I had to go to the bathroom. Another line, at least 20 minutes waiting, and I was done with lines for the rest of my life. Too many lines, too many people. Kill me. The palace itself is fine. It looks a lot cooler on the outside than it does on the inside. The inside has a lot of old paintings and furniture including Marie Antionette’s bed, but the rooms are so ’set up’ and fake looking that it takes away from a lot of the impact the antiques should have on you. That, and there are SO MANY damn people inside to look at everything you want to scream, since no one knows how to move over or walk properly. So frustrating. We got outside to look at the gardens, but realized we didn’t have a ticket to go down to the far lawns and opted against the long ass line to buy tickets and just headed back to the train station for Paris. Versailles was a big let down, but it had to be done. After Versailles we just headed back to our hotel since it was getting late, laid down, and watched MTV Austria when all of a sudden Jackass came on MTV! For those of you who can appreciate the amazingness that is Jackass, this was quite the moment for Thomas and I. It was especially funny since the episode that was on was set in Paris, including a Metro stop bench that we had seen before. Very funny.
Monday was our Euro Disney and Louvre day, so we woke up really early to get going and beat the crowds at the Louvre. I was very disappointed since McMuffins aren’t sold until 8 in the morning, so I didn’t get breakfast. Very sad. We made it to the Louvre right as it was opening, bought our tickets with no line and no hassle and started walking around the museum headed for Mona (the Mona Lisa). Turns out I read the map wrong inside of the Louvre and we started from the complete opposite end of the museum, but it all worked out fine since we got to see all of the artifacts and art in all of the other areas before seeing the Mona Lisa. There is a LOT of stuff inside the Louvre since the building itself is massive AND there are 3 floors of things inside. It’s really clean and really well organized, since they give you a map to get around and show you where everything is. There’s Egyptian art, Mesopotamian, Islamic, Greek, Roman, French, sculptures, paintings, mosaics, everything. Even a Medieval castle wall. Yes, parts of the castle are in the Louvre. It’s pretty cool. The Mona Lisa itself is in with all of the Italian art and paintings, and is in this room with absolutely MASSIVE paintings that take up entire walls. The painting itself of the Mona Lisa is on this wall and is the only painting on the entire wall. People make it sound like it’s insanely small, but Thomas and I both thought that it was a good sized painting since it was a portrait. You can’t get very close to it since it’s blocked off, but that’s ok since you can see it pretty well. We got our picture of Mona and went on our way to the Metro since we were done, and headed for Euro Disney!
Euro Disney (otherwise known as Disneyland Paris) is located off of the RER A, at the last stop on the line. It’s insanely easy to get to from Paris and pretty cheap, since it cost a grand total of 10 euros for both Thomas and I to get there. You get off the train, head toward the Disneyland Paris sign, and boom. You’re there. Disneyland Paris is a lot like the Disneyland in Anaheim, but obviously all of the signs are in both French and English. They even have 2 parks there like the Disneyland in Paris; Disneyland and then the MGM Studios with more rides. For the most part they have all of the same rides; Indiana Jones, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, etc. The only difference really is that Indiana Jones isn’t a ride, it’s a roller coaster, and Space Mountain is also more of a roller coaster. Kind of sucks, but it’s alright. We made up for it by going on a NEW ride (one that neither of us had seen before or been on at either Disneyland or Disneyworld), and that was the Finding Nemo ride at the MGM Studios Park! It was the best ride of the day by far, even with the long line. It’s an indoor ride kind of like Space Mountain, but with a lot of the Finding Nemo stuff inside like jellyfish, the monsters with the light bulbs coming out of their heads, etc. Thomas and I think they should build it in California. We would definitely go! The funny moment of the day was my face on the on-ride picture from Space Mountain. I looked like I was being electrocuted. Thomas and I nearly peed our pants laughing so hard at the picture, I swear. Disneyland Paris closed at 11, so we left right around then and hopped on the train back to Paris and our hotel, making it back into our room about an hour or so later. Disneyland Paris was definitely worth it, but our feet hurt so badly afterwards because we had such a long day. Mine felt like they were CONVULSING they hurt so bad.
Our most frustrating day in France was going out to Caen to try and see Omaha Beach. Let me preface by saying Thomas and I went with no idea and no agenda of what to do when we got into Caen. We had directions to get to the Museum in Caen, but other than that had no clue how to get to Omaha Beach or the American Cemetary in Normandy. Turns out it’s a lot harder than we thought it would be! First off, the bus to get to the Museum never came to the spot it said it could come to. We had a limited amount of time in Caen, so Thomas and I went on a gut and took a regional train up to Bayeux, which is a lot closer to Omaha Beach. Bayeux is an insanely small town and has a lot of ads for Omaha Beach everywhere, but getting a private tour was too expensive and more than that, we didn’t have enough time to waste to go on a private tour. We walked for 20 minutes to a WWII museum to figure out how to get to Omaha Beach, got instructions for a bus, and walked back to the train station, but the bus never came at the time it said. Story of my life. We both looked at a clock, looked at each other, and caved to take the taxis that were at the train station since we were running out of time and had to see the beaches.
The taxi ride had a fixed price so it wasn’t too steep of a price. We knew we weren’t going to come out all of this way to not see anything, so it was worth it in the long run. Right when you get to the American Cemetary there is this great information hub with videos, interviews, information, like a miniature museum for information all about D-Day and the days leading up to that day in June. It’s really well set up and the people who work there are super helpful. We got a timetable for the bus and the leaving spot, so we were set for getting back! Sweet. The pictures are all fantastic inside of the museum, and there are all different kind of personal stories set up inside with quotes from Eisenhower and different officials and people involved with WWII. From there you can go into the American Cemetery where there are rows upon rows of crosses each laid out with different plot letters and row numbers so you can find the exact one that you want to find. It was really cool seeing the cemetery since you see it on so many movies and everything, being there in person makes it so much more powerful. The cemetery is right on the cliffs looking out on to Omaha Beach, which is a really nice beach minus the fact that thousands and thousands of American soldiers were killed there. We didn’t have enough time to go down on to the beach itself since it’s a 10 minute walk down but 20 minute walk back up, so we walked out of the cemetery and headed over to a different part of the cliff where there was a bunker! Yes, a real bunker near this little monument. Thomas and I walked down the steps into the bunker, and there was nothing inside but it was still really cool to be inside a bunker. After a couple more minutes we headed to the bus stop and got on the bus. 3 euros to get back to the train station. Geez, why couldn’t we have found the bus before!? Haha. We got back to the station, got to Caen on the train, and then got on our train to Paris. Easy.
After we got into Paris we went to go and have dinner but ran into a little issue since there wasn’t a bathroom around ANYWHERE. I literally was about to pee my pants I needed a bathroom so badly, but luckily we found a pub just in the nick of time and they let us use their bathroom. Thank. God.
We left Paris this morning at around 12:10 and got into London at about 1:30 local time, so 2:30 Paris time. The train was SO fast, we didn’t even realize we were in England after going under the English Channel until we saw people driving on the wrong side of the road! Crazy. Our hostel is RIGHT near the London Eye, which is really cool, so we’re going to go and explore tomorrow and look around. We’re just happy to be in a country where people speak English. What a relief, no language lost in translation.
Overall people in France are pretty cool. People try and make it out like they’re really mean but I think they’re more indifferent than anything else. Waiters don’t go out of their way really to try and help you, but it’s not like they’re angry or rude or anything. Just indifferent. Waiters are a lot more hands off too. They come, get your order, give you your food, and give you the check when you ask for it. No overly happy anything, annoying chatty moments. Just in and out, do your job, thanks for the money, now get out. People we did talk to from France are pretty cool, not that they’re warm and sunny but if you need help they’re ready and willing if you ask. If you TRY to speak French they seem to be a lot more willing, since you’re making the effort. Like at Disneyland Paris I asked for my ticket entirely in French (broken, I’m sure… ‘Deux a Paris, merci’) but even then the lady was really nice and gave me the tickets no problem. Paris is a busy busy city, and there is entirely too much to see even in the days that we were there, but what you DO get to see is pretty awesome. Oh, and the Metro going everywhere isn’t half bad either.
We’re excited about being in London with people who speak English and will be here for 4 days, with easy internet access so most likely postings won’t be in these huge globs like they’re novels. Nope, more easy since I can post them more often. After London, I believe it’s on to Manchester and then Glasgow. I have no idea when Thomas is going to be home but that’s not at least for a week and a half or so, so I’ll post when we’ve parted ways and I’m solo in Scotland.
We’re off to find food so I’ll post more later.
Bye!
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