Paris in one day... of course it can be done!

Chris and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe

Wow, I am exhausted just thinking about Paris! Brief overview, we arrived in Paris at 3:30pm on a Saturday afternoon and left the city for the airport at 10:00am Monday morning, so basically we did the city in 1 day and boy was it a long, adventurous day!

So the purpose of going to Paris was to celebrate my friend's 21st birthday, but finding her was one of the hardest tasks ever lol! So we arrive at the airport at like 1:30pm, take an hour bus ride, walk in the opposite direction of our hostel, walk back to the train stop, walk in the right direction and eventually find our hostel about an hour later! We stayed at Oops! Hostel and as sketchy as it sounds, it is actually a really nice place, has breakfast and is rather close to the metro if you can figure it out and make the right connections (which don't worry, we did in the matter of like an hour)! So our friend who was staying in the same hostel had gotten there only 20 minutes prior to us because his train was delayed, so we did not feel so bad that we got lost!

Sam and I in front of The Louvre

So we set our stuff down, ask the front desk the best value for the metro tickets, found our way to the closest line and headed off on our Paris adventures! We were suppose to meet our other friends at the Arc de Triomphe at 3:30, so roughly an hour and half late we made it there, spent 20 minutes searching for them until we finally figured out how to get to the middle of the roundabout without getting hit and found them haha. So we saw the Arc, then headed down the Champs-Elysees, of course not buying anything, but it was decorated for Christmas. I love how Europe goes straight from Halloween to Christmas, because they obviously don't have Thanksgiving lol... So after wondering around, we headed off to find the Longchamp store, which happened to be like a 2 hour walk away from where we were only to discover that the girl that really wanted one could not find one she liked, ugh, but oh well other people did make purchases! So after our long walking adventure we finally got to this tiny little restaurant which had some of the best bread I have ever eaten in my life! Also, they served French fries with everything... most definitely assumed that the term French fries was American, but whatever haha. After eating we just ventured back to the hostel where we drank a little cheap champagne, and cheap it was lol... Since the group we met up with had to leave early the next morning (they had been there since Thursday), they headed for the airport and we went back to our nice little hostel and called it a night because we were about to do all of Paris in one day, and in one day we did it in!!! 

Mona Lisa

Okay so prior to going to bed I set my alarm for 8:30 since we were going to head out early and meet up with Chris since we were in different rooms, turns out Tesco mobile phones don't change their time automatically, so we most definitely were an hour late, but it was okay, because Christ got his breakfast and they still had some when we got down there. The French really like their bread, so we had a roll and a croissant with butter and jelly as well as a bowl of cereal with room temperature milk. I didn't die from it, so I guess I am okay, but will probably not invest in drinking warm milk again lol... Anywho, so we checked out and headed our on our adventure... 

We got in the underground and were trying to figure out how to buy these passes (didnt help chris thought it would be fun to do it in German, don't worry he speaks it fluently, but it did not help when no one else understood it lol), but this little machine is tricking and the line was building up behind us, so we let like 5 people go ahead before we eventually got the machine back and found these great all day student weekend passes for 3.40! We must have used that little guy like 50 times that day, so if you go to Paris on the weekend most definitely invest in it. So we bought our tickets and headed to The Louvre to see Mona. Everyone has told me that it is like an 8x11in painting when in reality it is at least double that size, so I found it to be really cool. Obviously the Louvre could take days to go through, but we spent about 2 hours wondering and seeing everything famous that we could before meeting up with some friend at none other than Starbucks! It is weird because there is a whole wing of the Louvre that is more like a shopping mall than art museum! So from here we hopped on the metro to go to Notre Dame. Turns out there are multiple Notre Dame stops, make sure to get off on the right one, because the other one is not too exciting lol! 

Notre Dame

So we made it to Notre Dame, did a walk around, took some pictures like you are not suppose to, grabbed some lunch did some touristy shopping and headed off to Musee d'Orsay. It was like Americans were trying  to find other Americans because everywhere we went, they would always talk to us even though we were trying to mind our own business. We had to wait in line to get into this museum and of course there was a weird American in line in front of us traveling by himself, so as soon as we got in, we ran away from him. So it was cool to see some Van Gogh and some Monet, but it sucked because they do not let you take pictures, so we were done in like 10 minutes. It is a cool museum because it use to be a train station, so there is this giant gold clock and some cool paintings, but nothing too special. There is a great little crepe place right outside though, so totally worth a visit just for that haha

From here we headed back to our hostel to grab the bags we left there before meeting up with our friends again to have dinner and then go to the most recognizable landmark in Paris, the Eiffel Tower! So after wondering around because none of the menus of the first 10 places we walked by had a good enough "selection" (all were the exact same, these girls were just being ridiculous) we finally stopped and ate at some side street restaurant. Of course some French fries came with everything lol. We ate quickly left that group of people going to the airport and headed for the Eiffel Tower. Although we did not go up, we saw it light up and got tons of amazing pictures! It was so tiny until you were underneath it, then it was huge and beautiful! I would have to say that Paris was one of the most beautiful cities I have been to(although they do have their slums too, as seen on the train to the airport)!! 

So after being beat from a long day of hitting up all the major places in Paris, my roommates mom was very nice and paid for a hotel for us to stay in opposed to our original option of the airport, so we all went back to this little (not 5 star by any means lol) hotel where we gathered around and started to watch the most pornographic film I have probably ever seen. I mean it was on normal television and everything, it was fabulous because there were like probably 6 of us in there watching it haha!! We ended up calling it early because we had to catch the train back to the airport early! 

The Eiffel Tower at night

So we get to airport the following day only to discover that our flight in delayed and moved to a different gate (like 2 down, but still moved lol). Anywho I was having issues with time this weekend. While sitting in the airport, I got my watch stuck in my hair, so it stopped the time and I did not realize it. My roommate and I went and sat down because we thought we had an hour to board when in reality we only had like 10 minutes... We were lucky that I discovered that everyone was lining up otherwise we would have missed that flight home and been stuck in Paris, not that i would have minded

Oh man, but overall it was an adventure for the books! I cannot wait to go back to Paris! If you are going any time soon I have a few tips below and if not, make plans to, because it is totally worth it, even if you only have a couple days, GO!!!

Well, until my next adventure, Slàinte!

Paris advice:

*Stay at the Oops! Hostel

*Buy a youth 1 day metro pass for the weekend! Totally worth the 3.40!

*When the metro beep comes on, don't try and run to make the doors, they slam hard and fast and if you get stuck in them, it hurts, this comes from experience!! 

*Be aware that their tv is like porn

*Eat crepes

*Go to the Louvre, it is much more than just a museum

*See the Eiffel Tower both during the day and night

*Be prepared to pay for food, but don't worry it is all good!