Bonjour! Demetra here, and FINALLY! I am going to blog about a city that had captured my heart and soul at a very young age: Paris, France. The first time I had visited Paris I believe I was Fifteen. The hotel we resided in for the few days we were there (we were going to be spending the next few weeks at our family’s house in Greece) was the Hyatt Regency Paris Charles de Gaulle. It was absolutely beautiful. Even tho we did not stay in Paris very long, we were still able to hit all of the major sites: the eiffel tower, the louvre, the arc de triumph and Champs-Elysees. The Louvre is a MUST SEE if you are in Paris, no matter how long the line in! Fun Fact – my mom actually works with a man who has a painting hanging in the Louvre, yeah, I am jealous. We took one of those buses around the city, saw Eva Longoria’s wedding (weird, I know) and ate A LOT of croissants.
BUT, this entry is not about my visit to Paris when I was a kid, it is about my more recent visit within the last year. Two friends, Sarah and I all boarded a train from London to Paris one Friday night. We then took the Metro to our hostel, St. Christopher’s Inn. (GREAT hostel, really laid back and fun vibe – perfect for college students). But, we had booked separately so unfortunately Sarah and I were put into rooms with a bunch of people we didn’t know -_-. We arrived in Paris pretty late and wanted to go see Disneyland Paris the next day so we went straight to bed, UNFORTUNATELY my phone did not adjust to the time change so I woke up an hour late….
The next morning I woke up and met the girls downstairs in our hostel… where they informed me that i had overslept – aka my alarm clock was late. oops. We then ate the free breakfast with the hostel and hopped on a metro train to disneyland paris. I can’t say much about Disneyland Paris, it was definitely a cool experience but honestly has nothing on disneyworld in Florida or the one in California. As a kid my parents always had the fast passes so I guess I never realized how long the lines really are, we only had the chance to go on a few rides and see a few things, if one was going to visit Disneyland Paris (or any other theme park) I would recommend buying a fast past, it’s so worth it. After Disney we went back to the hostel to meet a few of our friend Megan’s friends from back home for dinner. We had reservations at La Brasserie Bofinger, a very elegant Parisian restaurant. We all had wine, and tried the escargot. I had the salmon with vegetables and potatoes, it was lightly cooked in what I believe was butter and it was so delicious. I wanted to visit the Moulin Rouge but unfortunately everyone was tired 😦 (Looks like I will have to take another trip to Paris!!!!) We went back to the hostel and Sarah and I sat at the hostel bar to charge our cellphones because we had forgotten to bring adapters..
* Not everywhere in Europe uses the same type of adapters… England uses a different type from France**
We decided to have a beer before we started getting hit on by some weird (homeless?) guy, I shot the bartender a “save us” look and he pulled two seats up by the bar. Sarah asked him if he could bring us a pitcher of water, but before he could give us the glasses Sarah was drinking out of the container… WHAT ARE YOU DOING, he yelled, that has bacteria on it! Oops.
The next morning we all woke up around eight A.M. We had so much site-seeing to do. The first stop was Notre Dame, the big beautiful cathedral that (if you don’t know anything else about it) can be recognized from that Disney movie with the Hunchback and the gypsy. We then walked over to the “Love Lock Bridge” where (sorry Parisians!) we all put a lock on the bridge. We then journeyed over to the eiffel tower but the line was three hours.. and we had to catch a train home that night.. so unfortunately we did not head to the top. We then walked to Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triumph. We had lunch and bought macaroons at Laduree. I had a fancy sandwich with very fat frites. It was so good! I almost thought the food was better than the macaroons. Sarah did not feel well so she left to head to the train station early, I went to meet her later with a friend who had an earlier train home. After some confusion with a cab driver, including the closed Longchamp store, we walked past the Louvre pyramid and found the metro to take us to the station to go back to London. I could not get a hold of Sarah and assumed she had gotten on an earlier train (WORD OF ADVICE: unless you want to pay insane bills chances are you will not be able to contact your travel companions when traveling, I used gifgaf to communicate in London and it was great but only for England, Scotland and I think Ireland, it did not work in Paris – and Wifi is more rare than you would think) Anyways… I ended up getting on a train and found out Sarah wasn’t on one until later, and I didn’t find this out until I was in St. Pancreas Station. On the bright side Sarah visited Paris TWO more times so she definitely got to have a better experience than this unfortunate one 🙂 If I were to go back to Paris/France (which hopefully I will I do hope that I will be able to visit the catacombs, Versailles, and the Moulin Rouge.
Sites I would recommend when one is traveling to Paris///FRANCE:
The Eiffel tower – DUH
The Louvre
Notre Dame
Arc de triumph
Versailles ( I know not in Paris)
The Moulin Rouge
Catacombs
Champs-Elysees
The Seine
Pont Neuf
Sacra Couer
You NEED to have coffee and a croissant I don’t care where you get it from and it needs to rain at least once while you are in Paris. These are essentials.
I seriously adore Paris, and I know that most people give the Parisians a reputation for being rude and snobby but they really aren’t. If you are polite and attempt to ask the French if they can speak English (in French) then they are actually very kind. All you need to learn is one phrase. I mean you would act the same way if a bunch of French people kept coming up to you in your home town speaking French and not English.
Unfortunately I will not be blogging as much for the next few weeks because I am traveling to London, Amsterdam and Munich, BUT I will have much to write about when I return home x 🙂
Runaway Blond 