Eurotrip 2K13: Paris

This past weekend I went to the City of Love and Lights… Paris! We took the train early Friday morning (6:30 am) and arrived in Paris around 1:30 pm. We got settled into our hostel and the area we were staying in, and then grabbed a quick linner (lunch and dinner) of Doner Kabob… gotta try the Doner in every city! Then we headed to the Notre Dame and walked around the shops in the area. We also got to sit in on part of a Mass in the Notre Dame which was so cool!

Then we headed to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time. It was so pretty all lit up! I got my VERY first crepe (strawberries, nutella, and whipped cream) under the Eiffel Tower… how cool is that?!

Saturday morning we got up early to make sure we got a full day in. We walked through an outdoor market selling all kinds of fruits and vegetables and trinkets. It was so loud because they were all yelling as you walked through, either yelling to buy their stuff or just yelling to yell.

We made our way to the Sacre Coeur, The Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the highest point in Paris.

Inside the Sacre Coeur

After, we headed to The Louvre. Turns out they wouldn’t let us in for free because our Visas are Swiss, and Switzerland isn’t part of the EU. So instead of paying, us college kids decided to come back on Sunday because the first Sunday of every month it’s free! But we got the classic Lourve pictures outside of course.

We stopped in a famous pastry shop called Laduree, which is known to have the best macaroons in the world. So of course I tried my very first macaroons here! I got salted caramel and chocolate, so good!

Eating my first macaroons!

Then we walked through the beautiful city and down the Avenue des Champs Elysees, the shopping street of Paris. It is arguably the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strips of real estate in the world!

Next spot was the Arc de Triumph!

We started getting hungry for lunch and looked around and all the restaurants we found were either closed or really expensive. We were confused as to why SO many of the restaurants were closed on a Saturday afternoon… we’re still confused by it actually. But we were all so hungry and then it hit us… there’s a CHIPOTLE in Paris!! YES! It happened. And it was so good.

After Chipotle, we walked around the shops surrounding the area and I got a fake Longchamp bag—so happy, I had wanted one and it was a great price! We continued our shopping in a famous “shopping mall” which was the most expensive mall I’ve ever been in. It had every expensive brand name store you can think of.

Rolex watch for 68,450 EUROS which is 89,224.58 DOLLARS!

Then we headed to the Eiffel Tower for a second time to make sure we saw the tower in every stage of the day. We saw it at night already, and went around 5:30 pm so that we could see it in the afternoon/evening as well! We casually popped champagne bottles in front of it… no big deal. We hung out drinking our champagne and eating French baguettes while watching the beautiful light show.

We were scared we weren’t going to find a good French dinner at night! We hadn’t eaten much French food yet and wanted to make sure we did! By the time we were going to dinner it was after 8:00 pm and a lot of the restaurants close early, but we lucked out and there was a small French restaurant right near our hotel that was perfect! Our waiter loved us, which was different from most of the French people, because he lived in America for three years and loved it. He was so sweet to us and brought us basket after basket of bread, a free appetizer of sausage/pepperoni, and free crème bruleet for dessert!

Also, my goal was to try escargot for the first time in Paris- and I succeeded! Me and a couple of my friends shared some for an appetizer and it was so good! It was in a pesto/garlic/olive oil and you don’t really taste the snail, it was delicious. Then for my entrée I had a really good salad!

Before & After

First bite of escargot!

That night we headed to really cool bar that had 600 different types of shots! Some of the shots we tried were: Boy Scout, Finding Nemo, Fire, and Harry Potter!

Sunday morning we headed back to the Louvre! Considering it was the first Sunday of the month this was to be expected… but the line was crazyy long! We decided to suck it up and wait in line (that said it was supposed to be over an hour and a half wait) but luckily it only took us 30 minutes to get in! The Lourve was absolutely amazing, so much beautiful art. I loved all the different paintings and sculptures from all different civilizations, and I thought the Egyptian artifacts were especially cool.