The 1st thing we did was find some food. Along our main street, there were a couple little restaurants that had glass displays of a couple pastries, pizzas, and long paninis. Even food at these little places were sort of expensive! We grabbed some pizzas and pastries and headed to a church courtyard across the street where we found a bench to fill our stomachs for the long day ahead. Then we walked back down the street to check out Notre Dame more fully. It's a magnificent building on the outside, and thankfully it was free to go in so we could admire the ornate inside also! I really can't begin to describe it, but don't worry I took plenty of pictures! While I was there, I felt like I was in the Disney movie Hunchback of Notre Dame and kept looking for Esmerelda and Quasimodo and the gargoyles to come to life.
After Notre Dame, we literally just wandered the rest of the day. There are so many beautiful old buildings in that part of town, and slightly following our map, we walked to or by as many as we could. Once again, I really can’t describe the feeling of walking through Paris, taking in the sunshine and the sights of ancient churches, buildings, statues, fountains, bridges, and the people bustling about at the flower and bird market or riding their bikes or having a conversation at a quaint little restaurant on the corner of a building. I have no clue what some of the buildings or monuments we saw were called, but we made sure to see all the famous sights in that area, including the Louvre, the mini Arch de Triomph, and the Grand Palace. The Louvre was one of my favorite spots, even though we didn’t even go in. The building has 2 huge courtyards, and keeps going on forever it seems. There’s a big glass pyramid and fountains in the middle of one of the courtyards, and a mini Arc de Triomphe at the end, and you can see the Eiffel tower in the distance. We found a little cheap restaurant near the Louvre where we ate and waited for the sun to set so we could get pictures of it all lit up. We also got banana and nutella crepes at a street vendor, which were amazing! Then we headed back to our hotel to crash after a long day of traveling and walking.
We got up at around 8 the second day, and after we got ready, we headed downstairs for breakfast, which every morning consisted of a long piece of bread, nutella, cheese and jam to put on it, a small cup of fruit, and orange juice and tea. Then we searched for the bus stop and rode a bus to the Eiffel tower area. We walked through the 2 big museums down to the Eiffel tower, took a ton of pictures, and then down a skinny island to see the original Statue of Liberty, which was very tiny and anticlimactic. We then walked to the authentic and supposedly cheap French restaurant that mom found online, and had a meal of sliced beef covered in this green herb sauce and fries. It was pretty good, but not my favorite, and we actually got 2 servings which filled us up. Then we headed to see the real Arc de Triomphe, which is at the head of Champs Elysees, the well-known main street where you can find normal mall stores, but also Chanel and a 4 level Louis Vitan. After we walked down Champs Elysees and went in some ridiculously expensive stores, we walked to the Hotel des Invalides, and then back to the Eiffel tower area to wait for the sun to go down. We were going to try to go up the Eiffel tower that night, but after seeing the lines and talking to the guy at information, we decided to buy our tickets online to bypass the lines for the next night. So instead we just admired it from a distance and took a ton of sweet pictures. When we finally got back to our hotel, after dad got us lost a couple times and I became the navigator, we again were wiped and fell asleep quickly.
Tuesday morning after our usual breakfast, we got on the metro and took the 30 min ride out of the city to Versaille. It’s a huge palace, another one that seems to go on forever, and has gardens, and lakes, and fountains (including the famous one with the horses coming out of the water) beyond what you can see. I could definitely get used to living in a place like that with gardens and paths to explore all day. We got some paninis at a quaint little restaurant in one of the gardens, and then headed back into the city. We took the metro to the northern part of the city, saw the big windmill at Moulin Rouge, and then got lost trying to find Sacre-Coeur. But getting lost turned out to be a good thing because we got to see the real side of Paris where the tourist don’t usually wander, found a cool huge cemetery where I’m sure a bunch of famous people are buried, and an awesome pastry shop where we got a real French croissant, a chocolate pastry, and a strawberry pastry. Before this trip, when I envisioned Paris, I saw people always walking around eating bread and pastries, which they could get on every corner. But this is not so! They do eat a lot of bread, but it was difficult to find an actual pastry and bread shop, and we only found croissants at that one shop. It just makes me appreciate living in Bucharest so much more with our pastry shops pretty much every other store with windows on the street, and all the delicious things you can get with only 1 lei (about 30 cents!). So we finally got to the top of this hill near Sacre-Coeur, and found this amazing little square where all the artists had their easels set up showing off their artwork for you to buy, or for you to sit and have your portrait made. The whole scene was so picturesque and I wanted to buy so many of their gorgeous paintings of Paris. Just down the street at Sacre-Coeur, was an amazing view overlooking the entire city. That is one of the places that I wish we got to go back to at night. We got to go in the church, but they strictly enforced no cameras to my displeasure. Then we made our way back to the metro and back to our hotel to bundle up for that night’s adventure to the top of the Eiffel tower. We found a little restaurant that served the French onion soup I was told we had to try, and they were right, it was delicious! Back at the metro, we met an American girl named Kate who was heading in the same direction so we ended up chatting. Dad took us on the metro the wrong direction, and then we had to wait at the Eiffel tower for another 45 mins, so we actually got chatting with her for a couple hours. She had just finished up a semester in Istanbul, Turkey and had been literally backpacking across Europe for the past 2 months! She told us all about her journeys and this website call couchsurfing.com that connects you with free places to stay with people all over the world. Dad and I were taking notes, and I would love to have an adventure like that, as long as I had a friend to go with me! I’m available in the fall if anyone would like to join me, no joke! After we said goodbye to her, we cut to the front of the line with our special tickets, and took the elevator all the way to the very top of the Eiffel tower! You can see so far from up there and the city is gorgeous all lit up at night! I took way too many pictures as usual, and a couple asked me to take their picture also. We started chatting with them, found out they were from New York, and heard their life stories in the next 2 hours that we stood at the top of the Eiffel tower talking with them. Thankfully it was only windy and cold on one side, and we were pretty sheltered for our long conversation overlooking the city. I absolutely loved meeting all these awesome people, far away from home, and just randomly getting to know each other. We then took the bus home, packed up our stuff, and got to bed really late.
I had to wake up at 5 am on Wednesday to get ready and make it down to the metro by 6, and get to the airport 2 hours before my flight at 9. I slept most of my 1st flight and was once again thankful no one was sitting right next to me. I had a short layover in Dusseldorf, Germany, and when I boarded, we had to go down some stairs to a bus which drove us to the middle of the airport to a tiny plane, which we walked up the stairs like famous people do to board their private jets. But this was no jet. My head pretty much touched the ceiling in the aisle and there were only 2 seats on each side. And once again, due to my awesome seat picking abilities, I had the row to myself. When I landed in Bucharest, we got off the way we got on the plane, and again took a bus to the airport. Then I jumped on the bus and headed back to the Graef’s house to tell them all about my trip!
It was an amazing experience and I definitely want to go back and explore some more. But next time I’m not going with old people who can’t keep up with all the walking! Haha no offense dad and mom! It was a great visit with my parents, and although we were all exhausted and kind of sick of each other by the end of it (and me and mom were annoyed with dad navigating us in the wrong directions and looking at the map at every stop), I’m so glad they actually came to visit me and see what my life is really like here! It makes the 8 months away from home not seem so long now that I got to see them in almost the middle of it.
Pictures will come soon hopefully! I took a total of 1,576 in the 2 weeks with my parents...and I'll probably take another 1,000 in Rome this week. So I'll post them when I get a couple free days! :]
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