Pari

Thats been two weekend trips now! ah can't believe its gone by so fast. Paris seemed unreal to me, it never really hit me that i was at the Eiffel tower, or right near the mona lisa. On the first night we had better luck at finding our hotel, but still struggled with the european way of titling streets, for they are on the sides of buildings and not signs in the middle of the intersection. Our hotel was named Hotel Andre Gill, it was a small 6 story family owned, was no ritz, but was perfect for a group of backpackers. Once we put are stuff in our rooms, we headed out to a fondu place that a friend suggested. We ended up going to this place with about 11 of us, which i soon realized later on in the trip, traveling with 11 people in europe is not fun/stressful. This fondu place was very tiny fit about 20 people total. The walls were filled with writing and they served the wine in baby bottles, which was fun, the food not so much. The next day we decided that to be able to accomplish as much as possible without stress of subways we would take the hop on hop off bus tour, which worked perfectly. We first stopped at the Louvre, which we lucked out cause there was no line, and small world i ran into a friend from Miami that wasn't apart of our program, but traveling in europe for the summer, funny how that always happens. People kept telling me how small the Mona Lisa was and how im going to be so shocked, but when i saw it i thought it was decent size, i was expecting it to be like 8x11, but i would say it was a portrait size painting. We next headed to the Notre Dame, which we grabbed lunch, more bread and cheese, at a cafe called Quasimoto. We brought out our child side at a park near the Notre Dame and played on a swing and some turn table, which really fascinated us. We were then off to the Arc de Triomphe, but got side tracked a bit before when we stopped to shop a little bit. We ended our bus tour at the Eiffel Tower just at sunset. We decided while we are still young and can, to climb the stairs of the Eiffel, which wasn't too bad. As the sun set we grabbed some pasta, wine, nutella, and bread and enjoyed a beautiful evening in the Eiffel Tower Park, where there were a bunch of groups having picnics. Have to admit i ended up buying a tourist paris sweatshirt because i got cold, otherwise great experience, definitely suggest doing Eiffel Tower Picnic.

The next day we didn't have anything planned because we wanted to spend the morning walking around, going to more shops and getting our souvenirs down. Then in the evening we were suppose to go to Belgium, Bruges... this would be the first of travel hiccups. Apparently the train ride from Paris and Bruges is very popular and books up, so at around 2:30pm when we were standing in line for tickets, we realized they were all booked and we were stuck in Paris for the night ( i know doesn't sound bad, but when you are hotelless on a saturday, it becomes hard to find open hotels.) We did luck out and ended up finding a hotel right near the train station where we were able to catch a train early Sunday Morning. That was a stressful afternoon but we found a hotel and were all safe, so worked out, i guess i won't be making it to Belgium this trip.

It was a very relaxing weekend and we were able to get a lot done, I think i would want to go back to Paris and actually enjoy the city and explore the non tourist spots to experience more of the culture, maybe i'll go back with my future husband :) . Next week we leave for Spain!! Hola!!