Europe Trip---Paris

At this rate it might take me a year to write about our lil 2 week trip, and by that time I'm sure some details/fun thoughts would have been forgotten. Oh well, such is life.

So as we arrived in Paris, it took us awhile to find where we were staying. Mainly our fault, we didn't read the emails our host sent to us before and so we of course became the annoying guests who kept texting him "Where are the keys?" "What is the gate code?" At least he was nice and understanding. When we walked into our Airbnb place we were a bit....taken back. It looked just like it did in the pictures, just MUCH MUCH smaller. One other thing we found out about this apartment, the loft bed was easily the WORST bed in history, so we pulled up the sofa cushions and put them on the bed. Also the bathroom was sooooo tiny, that Tyler had to squeeze into the shower door sideways to get into the shower. Not really an apartment made for tall Americans, I fit in fine :D.
I had one anxiety attack during our stay in Paris, and I think part of that was because we felt so cramped in the living space. So I was grateful for Tyler and his patience...as always.

Ok PARIS.
The first day we were there and dropped off our stuff, we looked at the metro to see what was close and decided to go to Notre Dame before it closed. It was soo beautiful, the stained glass windows are so big and colorful--no picture does it justice. It was also free to go into, which we really like :D We walked around and followed our noses to a cafe area. I had some chicken curry with rice that tasted like cinnamon and a bit of desert--y, not like a dinner at all--it was soo good. Tyler had pasta. Our hostess was kind of annoyed with us because we were eating her food so fast, but 1--it was good 2--we were freaking hungry. After that we went to the Arch De. Triumph, as it wasn't on our list of things we had to see...but we wanted to try to fit it in. We at first thought we could walk to it....HAHAHAHAHAHA...however, by doing this we walked along the bridge full of love locks. Then we took the metro after we realized how much further we had to walk. We got in line to get passes to the top of the Arch, and we are soo happy we did since we didn't get ones for the Eiffel. Also the view is fantastic! We were up there at about 10pm so the lights on the Eiffel were on, they didn't sparkle though which they do on the hour...and these girls would not let us take a picture because they were waiting for it to sparkle. Just the start of the annoying people Tyler did not like in Paris.

Day Two
VERSIALLES. If I ever went back to France again--mainly the Paris region, it would only be to go to Versialles again. It is beautiful. We left fairly early, but the line to get INTO Versailles was still WICKED long. I actually cannot comprehend why it is so long....they should take a few notes from Disneyland on how to get people inside. It wrapped around I think 8 times total...and then once you were inside the gate (you get your ticket before you wait in line btw) its free and easy. It really was mind boggling why it took an hour to get inside.
Well the first time we walked in the inside area, then the outside gardens. We walked around the ENTIRE garden area - besides the Marie Antionette section, didn't care to buy tickets for that-- and did not understand why the fountains were not on, so we asked someone they said "Oh the fountains do not come on till 3:30-5:30" where it is not stated on the brochure anywhere----I could be mistaken, but I didn't see it. So we got lunch. The MOST AMAZING food OH MY GOSH. The gravy on Tylers food tasted like Thanksgiving gravy got a 10+boost of melt in my mouth and stay there. I ate every drop of that gravy with our bread rolls. So after lunch we decided to go to the BIG fountain and wait for it to turn on. 3:40.....it still isn't on. 3:50--still not on, I go ask someone why is this fountain not on yet? "Oh the Neptune fountain? That only turns on from 5:20-5:30"  (Do you see why Tyler is annoyed with the French yet? No offense to any french people I know...this was just his experience) So we walk around again, to all the other fountains and come back to Neptunes fountain at 5:10, we find a spot and the fountains only go on from 5:22-5:30, we timed them.
I think though that we made a really cool fountain video...but I also think I'm awesome anyways :D
After that Versailles closes up basically, so we left and decided to get off at the Eiffel Tower since it was on our way back. The line to just get to the first two levels to get tickets...was ONE HOUR long. No thank you. So advice-buy tickets WAY IN ADVANCE ONLINE. We still enjoyed strolling around the park and I THINK that was the night we decided to eat super fancy. (See told you, memories are jumbled now that I'm writing it months later)
Anyways, we had some really good food and sat next to a spoiled brat of a 10 year old and her grandma who was taking her for a 10 day trip to paris for her 10th birthday. She bought her granddaughter a $50 plate of food, and the girl ate just the fries. They were funny to talk to, see the other side of the extremely rich and have nothing better to do with life. Talking to Tyler we think we ate fish...and it was good, but that the restaurant was always out of something we were trying to order the first time.

Day THREE
The LOUVRE. I love museums. Love them Love them Love them. So first I will go over annoyances of this museum--This one is not free, its expensive and the audio guide that you download and buy on your iPhone does not contain all the audio portions unless you want to buy more portions, or buy the nintendo 3ds audio portion. The descriptions to ALL the artifacts/paintings are only in French. SERIOUSLY, one of the biggest museums of all time only in French writing. It opens too late and closes too early for you to ever see everything in one day. We did pretty good, all but two halls in one wing. We must be really bad tourists, because we didn't really find good food around the Louvre. Worst food days of the trip. Now to the good parts-- Beautiful artwork in the museum, seriously some of the biggest and most detailed paintings I've ever seen. They had similar artifacts to the British Museum as well. Some of the rooms were soo decorated it was like the whole room was precious. We really loved it, but were saddened we missed out on two hallways. They started to physically usher us out of the hallway we were in at 5:30 even though the Louvre doesn't close till 6. I was super annoyed with this. I was like but I have 30 more minutes!!! I could have seen everything had they not ushered me.

Next morning we were headed out to Berlin, our host got us a driver to take us to the airport, which was great since apparently the taxi's were boycotting that day and the metros would have been over ran.

Overall thoughts of Paris: We like the food the most, Tyler was annoyed by a lot of people---those especially who would talk to him in French, he would try to communicate with hand signals (he's a he man) and they would still just talk to him in French even though they understood his English, or they would ignore him and talk to customers who would then translate for him. I found Paris to be really really dirty feeling. I did not feel clean at all, and I showered every day--that also contributed to the anxiety attack I had. I think if we ever return to France, it will not be to Paris--or I would be there alone with Terra--and we will research more of where we want to stay even though our place was ok, it was wayy tooo small.