To begin, Meg and I got to the Granada bus station Thursday night, and pretty much about 15 people from our program were all headed for the Madrid bus station as well, all of us going to different places. That awesome bus ride was about 5 hours, so we got to the Madrid airport around 6:30 am and our flight wasn't until 1 pm. Meg, Dana, Steph, and I uncomfortably slept on the cafe tables at the airport until it was late enough to go to our gate.. where we then slept for about another hour, and then finally it was time for our super comfortable Ryan Air flight!
We got into Paris around 3, and instantly got a taste of how expensive Paris can be. We payed 15 euro for about an hour bus ride into the middle of the city. We found our hotel (Hotel de Mediterranean: a 1-star hotel! Which, we prefer to think of it as, a classy hostel.)
The one catch about our trip is that whole group of us contains eight of us (until Mateo went to his friend's place, and we had 7): me, Meg, Dana, Steph, Mateo, Jake, Ryan, and Matt. And, we decided that to save money, we would book a 4-person hotel room.. So you can imagine how cramped that was! Not to mention we were pretty sure that the people at the front desk were on to us and were not happy about it.. (more about that later)
So we got up to our room, set all of our stuff down, then the girls all walked down the street and got our groceries for the weekend! By the time we were at the hotel, it was around 5-6ish, so we had to hurry up in order to get to the Louvre between 6:30-8 because that's the only time that it's free to enter for students. So we ate our sandwiches on the go and took the 45 minute walk to the Louvre! And let me just say, it was totallyy worth it.
We learned, later in the trip, that if you were to look at every single work of art in the Louvre for exactly 30 seconds, you would have to be in the Louvre for 3 months straight without taking any breaks. This place was HUGE, and even though we felt like we saw so much, we really only saw just a fraction of it! Here are some of the things we saw:
The entrance with the gorgeous pyramids and fountains.
The main entrance inside.
So many pretty statues.
The imfamous Mona Lisa. Really small in real life!
Gorgeous.
SO many paintings.
Lots of Egyptian statues and Hieroglyphics (sp?) too!
After a couple hours, we got back to the hotel and decided that we were going out for the night! Another amazing part about this trip.. Just by coincidence, a bunch of U of I people from the Rome study abroad program were in Paris for the weekend, too! And not only that, but they were also in the SAME HOTEL! So I got to see a bunch of my good friends like Gwen, Maggie, John, Tom, Danny, etc. It made everything a lot more fun!
Me and John!
Tom, Gwen, and I!
I was so happy to see everyone! I even got to see Christine briefly the next day at Notre Dame! We all went out together that night, but didn't actually make it to any bars. Let's just say, this evening and the next morning, seemed a LOT like the movie, "The Hangover". Whoops!
The next morning, our group of 7 (Mateo stayed with other friends the next couple days) took a train to Versailles, which is absolutely beautiful. It's basically a whole city of beautiful palaces and gardens that kings and queens of France have stayed in. Usually people spend the whole day here, but we woke up somewhat late and only spent a few hours. That's not to say we didn't have a great, and also hilarious, time, though! We walked around til after closing, so we got to see a ton. And to top off the evening, one member of our group decided to day drink this day.. and a little too much at that. Jake ended up taking a swim in one of the famous Versailles canals. By far, the most HILARIOUS experience of my study abroad semester so far. This was QUITE the interesting day.
The front gate to the main palace.. As you can see, it rained a little this day.
The main palace.
Just a small part of the gardens.
Shortly after our friend rode his bike into the canal because "he didn't see that there was water there". Hilarious.
After our train back to Paris from Versailles, we were all super hungry and wanted something quick/cheap to eat, so we went to McDonalds! Definitely hit the spot. After that, we got ready back at the hotel, met up with everyone, and some of us decided to stay in and some of us went out. Jake and I headed to one of the huge clubs in Paris, Club Rex, with the Italy group, but cover to get in was 15 euro, so Gwen and I decided against it and hit up some of the cheaper bars instead! We made a couple French friends; some super nice, some SUPER creepy. We just ended up having a couple of drinks, exploring the town, then we headed back to the hotel.
The next morning, the guys all woke up super early to rent a car and head down to Normandy. The girls decided to stay in Paris and catch one of the walking tours instead. Unfortunately, because we got a little lost that morning, (SOMEONE went for a swim with our only map...), we missed the 11 am tour. So we walked around, checked out Notre Dame, got some Subway, and went souvenir shopping until around 1pm, when the next tour began.
This tour was really great! We learned so many things about Paris that you couldn't learn just by walking around yourself. Paris is absolutely beautiful.
Notre Dame church.
The plaza we met at for our tour.
Pretty river that I don't remember the name.
A HILARIOUS bridge. Note how funny the faces are. Our tourguide called this "the first facebook". A long time ago, King Henry threw some type of a banquet (basically a party) where everyone drank a lot. Shortly after, he had an artist make this bridge with all of the faces of his drunk friends. Hilarious.
Bridge with locks all along the fence. Similar ones in Budapest, where you put a lock on it to stand for everlasting love that you have with a person. Only difference between this one and Budapest is that for this one, the Paris police cut them down once a month. Another fun fact: this is the bridge where the final scene in Sex in the City was filmed where Big swept Carrie off her feet. Cool :)
The tour took us back to the Louvre, during the day!
Jardin des Tuileries
Adorable park.
Most expensive hotel in Paris that ALL the celebrities stay at, such as Beyonce. The only way to stay in this hotel for free is if you win the Tour de France bike race, and you also get to fly any flag that you want off the roof for the time you're there. Lance Armstrong stayed there several times and flew the Texan flag. Pretty cool!
Pretty museum.
There's the tower :)
After the tour, all the girls checked out the Eifle Tower. And yes, it's even prettier in real life.
<3
The man who invented the tower himself. He made it for a French festival, and because he didn't want it to be torn down afterwards, he put a radio station on top of it. And it is still there today.
After the tour and our visit to the tower, we were all freezing, so we took the metro back to the hotel and showered, ate, and warmed up! We were excited because it was our last night in Paris, and the plan was for the guys to come back around 10, then we'd all head to the Eifle Tower for the light show at night and eat some famous French crepes. And that is EXACTLY what we did. We got there a little after midnight, so we only caught the end of that show. So we decided to eat our crepes first, then watch the 1:00 show. It was beautiful and the perfect way to end the trip :)
Pretty much the BEST crepes EVER. That is pure joy on our faces right there. We let these be our entire dinner: First crepe=chicken and cheese (that one's already gone at the time of this pic. Was used as our dinner portion), then for dessert, we had chocolate and banana. Literally, amazing.
The girls
Actually got the boys to take a nice pic.
The whole group! These people literally made this trip so amazing.
That night, we hung out around the Eifle Tour til roughly 1:15 ish. To our dismay, since it was a Sunday, the Metro was no longer running, so we took a cab back to our hotel! We knocked out pretty early that night. The next morning, some of the guys woke up early to go on the walking tour, and Meg and I woke up about an hour later because we had a bus to catch around 11:30 that morning.
Sad to leave because it was a blast, and Paris was SO beautiful. But happy to get out of this somewhat disgusting and cramped room, and to head back to warm, comfy Granada! Luckily, we made it the whole way without having to pay extra for having so many people in one room. Dana, Steph, and Matt did have to argue with the guy at the front desk for a while to try to convince them that we only had 4 people, but they did a good job lying! Luckily!
Meg and I got back from our flight and that bus ride in good timing, around 1 ish Monday night (we didn't have class this Monday). The other group all came back together a little later that afternoon, and they're flight was delayed.. Causing them to take one the next morning.. Also causing them to miss their bus.. Took them 21 hours to get home. So I guess we got pretty lucky!
It's nice to be back in Granada now. But we got Dublin next weekend! I'll write again then!
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