SPRING BREAK 4 of 4: PARIS

Arc de Triomphe

The Eiffel Tower!

Sacre Couer... my favorite so far!

Entrance to Musee du Lourve.

PARIS! PARIS! PARIS! It would be suspected that this would probably be my favorite city because of The Eiffel Tower, the crepes, and all of the shopping. And yes, these were my 3 favorite things in Paris but Paris was really not my favorite city. I'll admit that Paris had some cool things but it was so touristy and I didn't really like that about it. Anyways, we had departed Amsterdam at 9am and arrived in Paris at 5pm. A few of the girls and I decided what better way to start off our time in Paris than to head up to Sacre Couer to watch the sunset with wine, a French baguette, and Brie cheese! It was a great idea and there were even street performers up there, one guy climbed a light post with a basketball on his head, it was quite entertaining. Kristen and I then decided to do the Paris Pub Crawl to see what the night life was like, of course stopping for crepes with Nutella along the way! The pub crawl was lame so that pretty much ended our night.

The next morning began with the Walking Tour of Paris (the longest walking tour ever)... Paris is a huge city! Of all the cities, this was the only city in which public transportation was completely necessary. On the tour we saw of course The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Couer, Champes-Elysees, the Arc de Triomphe, Musee du Louvre, Musee d'Orsay as well as many other places throughout the city. After the tour was all said and one, we went to get a close up look at the Eiffel Tower and it really is amazing! If you saw my Facebook, you can see there's sooo many pictures, I just couldn't help myself. We finally made our way over to the Arc de Triomphe and were going to climb to the top but by the time we got there, they were closing because of some ceremony, it was a huge disappointment. Oh, I almost forgot, there was a quick rain storm so of course that meant a necessary stop for crepes although this time I spiced it up a bit by adding banana too! We then went shopping for awhile, spent a couple hours in the Louvre (it is the biggest museum ever and if you saw my Faceboook, I was obsessed with the Egyptian exhibition). After the Louvre... began our French Onion Soup catastrophe. Emily's sister had told us of a place with French Onion Soup but when we got there, it wasn't even on the menu. We then proceeded to go to other small cafes and we would sit down and get all excited because it was on the menu but when the waiter returned to take our order, we were continually told it was all FINISHED! :( We finally asked one cafe before sitting down and sure enough they had it. Although it cost 11.50 euro so that's like 15 DOLLARS for one small bowl of soup. Although by this point, we were starving so it was well worth it. Another thing I didn't like about Paris... it's sooooo EXPENSIVE! We then back to see the Eiffel Tower at night and at night, it's even more spectacular!

Day 8- Our final day! Kristen and I awoke early so as to not waste our last day in Paris. We started the day at Musee d'Orsay which is filled with artwork such as Monet's "Waterlillies" which is so beautiful. I preferred this museum more because of the incredible impressionist masterpieces but also because the museum itself is smaller and thus more manageable and easier to see. Although, I was very disappointed that you were not allowed to take pictures. You used to be able to but stupid tourists don't know how to turn off their flash and overtime, the flash ruins the paint on the artwork. People just need to learn how to follow directions and turn off their flash! We then did some shopping (well, rather window shopping) around Paris. I saw these boots that I loved but quickly put them back down when I realized they were 750 euro! It was fun though and we even went to a Flea Market where I then found boots for 10 euro but opted against buying them because I really don't need another pair of boots nor will I have any room in my suitcase! At the end of the day, we boarded the bus for the 15 hour ride back to Florence and we sprung ahead too, so we actually lost an hour along the way too. The bus ride back was a killer, I doubt if I slept at all. And I didn't eat dinner because I figured we would stop along the way but we didn't stop for 7 hours or until 3am and it was at a rest stop without food. Let's just say... I was gld to be back in Florence. Spring Break was amazing, I traveled through 7 countries (Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and then back to Italy) and saw 4 major cities (Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris). It was a once and a lifetime opportunity and so much fun. I still can't believe that I saw all that I did. Before coming to Italy, I never thought I would travel to all these countries. The bus rides and exhaustion were so worth it though.