Exploring: Paris

How I haven't blogged about Paris until now I have no idea. Well actually I do, it's called University, I go there three days a week and I'm pretty sure it ruins lives. Thankfully I'm on Christmas break until January 27th (not without a mountain of work however), so if you've been keeping up to date with my Paris journey you'll know we're onto the last part (sob), and if you haven't you can read parts 1 2 and 3.

So on Saturday after a failed attempt at trying to whiz around the studios, Caitlin and I headed for the train station, which is conveniently right next to the parks. We decided to use those self-serve machines to buy our tickets. This was mistake number one. Mistake number two happened just before we got to the platform, after frantically searching for a stop that sounded something like The Eiffel Tower, we couldn't find anything remotely close and were incredibly confused. We decided it would probably be wise to go and seek help from the tourist information guy, rather than get lost in Paris - we were only in the city centre for one day remember. The tourist man was very helpful, instructing us that we'd bought the wrong ticket (obviously), which could only get us to the centre but not around it or back. He did however tell us what ticket to buy, where we needed to go and his English was thankfully very good. Caitlin picked up a map and we set off.

We sat on the train for what felt like forever (I'm pretty sure it was a good hour +), we studied the map (our literal survival guide), got harassed by a man playing an accordion, and got forced into giving a "homeless" man some money after he gave us a card which told us, in broken English, that he needed money for food or a train ticket. We finally made it to the Arc De Triomphe and were greeted by a clown. I mean seriously, this stuff only happens to us. I managed to grab some photos (not of the clown), and we walked down The Champs-Elysees, admired all the expensive shops and headed back to the train station. We bought the right ticket this time, and by this point had pretty much mastered the map - so we knew where we were going, sorta.

Our next landmark to visit was of course the Eiffel Tower. I had been wanting to go to Paris for forever, and nothing prepared me for how amazing seeing the tower in person was. I'd heard a lot of people say they were under-whelemed by it and my question is HOW? We waited in a nice long queue for an hour and a half, and took the lift right to the very top of the tower. It was incredible, seriously. When I was taking some photos at the top, a nice French man offered to take Caitlin and I's photo. He took my camera, took about twenty photos of us, and then started taking photos of other tourists. I got a bit concerned, asked for it back, and spent the rest of my time trying to avoid him at all costs. At least he takes good photos, so thanks Sir!

We hadn't anticipated just how far away everything would be, and had stupidly booked a reservation for 7pm back in Disney. We decided it was worth not making it, so we headed to take some quick photos of the Notre Dame and the River Seine. We spent a fair amount of time looking for a connecting train station, before accepting that we were going to have to backtrack our steps in order to see the Louvre Pyramid. By this point it was getting pretty dark, and once we got off at the right stop I foolishly thought the Louvre would just be right in front of my face, shockingly - it wasn't. We wandered around for a while, slightly lost, and just when I was about to give up I could see the lights shimmering in the distance. It was beautiful and I was even happier that we ended up seeing it in the evening.

Now I have a thing for lights, and had already pre-warned Caitlin that I was not coming all the way to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower Light up. We made our way back to the Eiffel Tower, and can I just say that it was so so worth it. I must have taken the same picture 50 times, and I literally couldn't believe that I was in Paris, staring up at the Eiffel Tower, which proceeded to sparkle and light up the sky. I don't cry very easily, but I really thought I was going to when that happened.

We ended our time in the centre by grabbing a donut - this is blog worthy because a) it was amazing and b) it was the first food we'd had since breakfast. Then we headed back to Disney, which was a long and pretty cold ride home, before deciding to go into the village for some food. We ate at a really posh Steakhouse and it was unbelievably good. And unfortunately, that brings me to the end of my Paris trip.

I apologise for this being the longest post in the world, but I literally couldn't bring myself to break it down into another part. Analysing my trip in detail is hard enough because it's making me miss it, and Saturday was by far my favourite day of the whole trip. But thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Here's some more pictures:

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