J'adore Paris!

Last Wednesday evening I was talking to my friend Dani. She mentioned that some of the girls in our programme had found a good deal to go to Paris on a night bus that weekend. (Yes, my first response to night bus was to think of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter). So I turned to her and said "We should go." So we did. We bought tickets and made hotel reservations Thursday and left on Friday. We left Cambridge at about 6:30 p.m. and took a bus to London.

We saw this double rainbow before leaving Cambridge. It was fantastic.

Once in London, we got on our next bus to Paris. Dani and I watched Breach on her iPhone and then tried to sleep. But our sleep was interrupted by having to get off the bus once we got on the ferry. So we wandered around the ferry, bought a big bag of m&m's and read random facts on her iPhone. And took a lot of pictures. There really isn't much else to do when you're stuck on a ferry at 3 a.m. Once we returned to the bus, we finally got some sleep. Once in Paris, we needed money so we went in search of a bank. I took French in middle school and high school and one semester in college, but conversation has always been the hardest part for me. So I was pretty proud of myself when I asked somewhere where a bank was and she answered and I understood. The next step was to find our hotel. So we bought metro passes and made our way to the hotel to check in.

Dani and I in the metro station.

Spending the night on a bus leaves you feeling pretty gross. So once we got to the hotel and could change, we all felt a lot better. We left the hotel to meet up with more people at the Louvre. On the metro, I bumped into a lady and said "Sorry." She thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She corrected me and said "Pardon" and then laughed for 5 minutes. I didn't think it was that funny that I spoke my native language, but apparently it was. We didn't go inside the Louvre, but we took our picture in front of it. Someday I will go back and actually go inside of it. Someday...

Dani and I in front of the Louvre.

Once we finally had everyone together, we went to find lunch. Dani and I had already eaten on our way to the hotel so while everyone else was getting lunch we went down the street to get crepes.

Nutella crepes. It doesn't get better than that.

After lunch, we split up and Dani, Megan, and I went to Montmartre and Sacre-Coeur. We went to the square there where artists gather and paint and sell their artwork.


And then walked around Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. It's beautiful and at the top of a hill overlooking the city.


Then we went to Champs-Elysees, the famous avenue in Paris. It's also where Le Tour de France ends every year. Le Tour de France ended on Sunday so it was all set up for the finish.


Then we walked up Champs-Elysees and saw L'Arc de Triomphe


And then went to the Eiffel Tour.



And decided we were hungry so we went to a grocery store and bought dinner and ate on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tour.

Ice cream and cookies.



We were all pretty exhausted at this point so we headed back to our hotel to sleep. And decided to sleep in until church the next morning.

Dani and I had baguettes for breakfast on Sunday.

After church, Dani and I decided to go explore the Tour de France craziness. We had heard mixed reports about when they would be riding through Paris so we figured we'd go early so we wouldn't miss them. Even though we were about 3 hours before the cyclists came through the metro and street were already pretty packed. We found a spot to stand on the side of the road and waited.... and took some pictures.

Dani and I bought Tour de France shirts.

So excited!

About an hour after Dani and I found our spot, Megan and Laura joined us.
Tour de France crew.

After more waiting, a parade of floats and cars advertising for the various sponsors, and more waiting, finally, the cyclists came. They loop through Paris eight times before finishing so we got to watch them ride by several times. It was pretty much incredible. We were standing right along the railing lining the street and the cyclists rode on our side of the road so they were about 4 or 5 feet away from us.


Here's a video of one of the times they came by.



So basically Le Tour de France was the highlight of the trip. It was so great to be there! After it was all over, Dani and I went to go see Notre Dame. We ate at a cafe near Notre Dame which was delicious. (Maybe partly because we were starving and had been standing in the heat for 4 hours). Then we walked around outside of Notre Dame; it was beautiful.



It always amazes me how beautiful the buildings are and how much time they must have put into building them and how smart they were to engineer them so they are still standing today.

After one last crepe, we headed to the bus station for a long ride back to home to Cambridge. I love saying that.