Summer Vacation 2016 Paris Day 1

Hey guys,

For our first day in Paris, we woke up super early in London and headed to the train station. We took one of the first trains out in the morning (which was around 7 something) and made our way to Paris! I literally wanted to cry. I could not believe that I was finally going to Paris and I told my mom and sister that I may cry when I see the Eiffel Tower (which I didn’t, I just teared up a little haha). This has literally been a dream of mine since I was in 6^th grade. I spent all 4 years of high school taking French and learning all about French culture. I then continued on by taking two more semesters of French in college just for the fun of it because that is how much I am obsessed with France and more specifically Paris.

Anyways, the train was pretty nice! We sat at a table that had four chairs, 2 on each side facing each other. We ended up having to sit with another woman but thankfully she was extremely nice and really friendly. We ended up talking throughout most of the trip, which definitely helped to pass the time. The duration of the train ride was about 2 and a half hours.

Once we got to Paris, it was pretty scary because when you are trying to exit the train station, a large group of men come walking towards you speaking in French asking you if you need a ride on their motorcycle to your destination. Although I don’t really see how this would have worked for us considering we were 3 girls with very large suitcases. The whole situation was very overwhelming and I was just standing in the back telling my mom and sister to just ignore them and keep walking.

We eventually made it through and we were able to find the line for the taxis, which was very similar to NYC airports and a couple other cities that we have been to. So other than people speaking in a foreign language and asking if we want to ride on their motorcycle, not that much is different (my dad kept saying we would have major culture shock and everything would be so different, that’s why I have to add that).

We waited in line for a taxi and we eventually got a Mercedes so this was a little different from NYC because in New York you are told to avoid those cars if you don’t want to be charged a ridiculous amount of money. However, almost all of the taxis in Paris were extremely nice high-end cars and they charged quite a bit more compared to NYC.

Our first stop was our hotel so we could drop off our luggage and see if our room was ready. Thankfully it was and we were able to just head straight to our room, use the restroom, and refresh a little before heading back out. We also needed to find a place to eat so while we were in the room we decided to use the Internet to look up somewhere to eat. Eating in France was something I was very nervous about since I am such a picky eater and every year in French class we would always have a French food day where people would bring in French food to try. I almost never ate anything that people brought in except for some of the desserts and so I was really hoping for an America food chain restaurant and thankfully we found a Hard Rock Café, which was great because we always try to eat at these if they have them in a new city we are visiting.

We left our hotel room and asked the front desk/concierge how to get to the Hard Rock Café. He told us where the closest metro station was and which metro to take to get there. We got a little turned around when we got off of the metro but eventually we found the Hard Rock Café and we were able to enjoy our lunch. Our waiter ended up being from Canada and so he spoke perfect English, which was really nice. We talked to him a little bit about living in Paris and at the end of our meal he helped us out by telling us the best way to get to the Eiffel Tower. (Our waiter’s name was Nick and if you ever take a trip to Paris and eat at the Hard Rock, you should totally show him my picture and tell him I sent you! Then leave a comment letting me know if he remembered me or said anything haha, not likely).

After lunch, our next stop was the Eiffel Tower! We took the metro (I forgot which one but it was definitely not one that I would recommend) and we had to walk quite a bit before we were even able to see the Eiffel Tower. If you are traveling in Paris and want to get to the Eiffel Tower by metro, I would only recommend the Trocadéro stop because it literally lets you out across the street from the Eiffel Tower. When you get off the metro, there will be tons of signs pointing you to the Eiffel Tower and if you follow them you exit the metro station, walk straight for a little bit and then turn left and you will see the Eiffel Tower. It is seriously the most magical experience no matter the time of day or the weather.

We eventually kept walking and we found the lawn that is right in front of the Eiffel Tower but unfortunately it was not as pretty as it normally is because of the Euro games that were going on. The Eiffel Tower was set up as one of the viewing areas and because of this people came down to the Eiffel Tower every night to drink their beers and watch different European countries play soccer or football or whatever you prefer to call it.

We stood there for a little bit and took pictures of us girls and took some selfies with the 3 of us. Then we decided to walk around a little. I didn’t really want to go up the Eiffel Tower the very first day, mostly because you can’t actually see the Eiffel Tower anymore if you are in it but I do kind of regret not going up the Eiffel Tower more than once. My mom really wanted to go up it once during the night but I wasn’t really the biggest fan of that because I wanted to be able to see the whole thing twinkle. Although I do think that it would have been cool to see what it looks like from inside the Eiffel Tower while it twinkles.

We walked under the Eiffel Tower and to the right of the Eiffel Tower to take more pictures of it. We went to the park that is to the right of it and found some benched to relax on while taking in the view of the Eiffel Tower. Next we found this cute little area that was near a pond and it had some pretty flowers that I took some pictures of. One thing we didn’t really do was, take enough pictures of us in front of the Eiffel Tower. We took a few but in my opinion, none of them were good enough. I’m really picky when it comes to pictures and so next time I go back, I plan on taking a lot more photos in front of the Eiffel Tower.

We walked next to the Seine to check out the flooding and I could not believe how badly it was flooded. I thought people were just over exaggerating on the news because that’s what they always seem to do but since I had learned so much about Paris in all of my French classes I knew that it normally didn’t look like that and that it really was that badly flooded. Since it was flooded we walked up above the Seine rather than down next to it. During our walk we took more selfies and more pictures of the tower from different angles (I don’t think the Eiffel Tower has a bad angle haha).

There were some pretty amazing houseboats along the Seine and I definitely think it would be really cool to stay in one for a little bit if waking up to the Eiffel Tower was my view every morning.  

We also spotted a hot air balloon in the distance while walking next to the Seine.

We ended up walking around the area for quite a bit and then we decided to look for the Statue of Liberty. Some of you may not know this but the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty were both built by Gustave Eiffel. He actually gifted the United States with the Eiffel Tower and because of this there is a miniature Statue of Liberty in Paris a few bridges away from the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately we were unable to actually get to the Statue of Liberty because it sits on an island in the middle of the Seine, which was currently flooded at the time.

We were so exhausted after walking so far away from the Eiffel Tower that ended up taking a taxi back to our hotel, which was when I took this picture of the Arc de Triomphe.

Thanks for stopping by!

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XO, Steph