Sunday, May 27, 2007

Bonjour Paris!


Bonjour! I spent the past four days in Paris being the ultimate tourist with a map in one hand and a museum pass in the other. If I were to give a synopsis of my whole weekend it would take pages and pages of this blog so here is the condensed version:
As soon as we arrived we checked into our hotel which was the cheapest hotel you could find in Paris but it did the job. Then we raced over to see the Arc De Triumph which is a huge arc right in the middle of the city and there we bought our 4 day museum pass that allowed us to get into every museum and site in Paris (except for the Eiffel Tower). These four days were filled with non-stop walking and my feet still hurt!!! We were able to go to the Louvre where we saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus statue and Napoleon's Apartments . . . along with many other things there. It was amazing! On our way to the Louvre we found a bakery (one of MANY) and got a croissent for breakfast. It was by far the best croissent I had ever had in my life and Whitney and I were hooked! Everyday we ate at least 3 croissents which were in all different flavors! My favorite was the chocolate almond one! Amazing! Whitney and I also fell in love with their crepes and ice cream!!! We definitely ate our way through Paris but we needed the "nutrience" since we were walking everywhere!!!
We of course went to the top of the Eiffel tower which was quite a feet for me since I am afraid of heights! There are three levels on the Eiffel tower and as we slowly creeped up to the top on the elevator my heart was falling into my stomach and I was holding onto Whitney for dear life! Once we were at the top I let go of the fear and had a great time! Someone was proposed to up there right beside us which was really cute but made me miss Matthew that much more!
On Friday we took a trip to Versailles where the huge palace and gardens are . . . it was unbelievable! The Palace itself was as big as BYU campus! It was so fun to see Marie Antoinette's apartments! We then walked out to the gardens which really is not a garden . . . it is more like a back yard the size of Disneyland! It was gorgeous!!! We had so many things we wanted to see in the gardens and the walks were torturous up and down stone steps under a 95 degree sun scourching us! We were sweating like crazy from the heat! At one point we decided to rent a row boat that was available on the lake in the garden (when I say lake, I mean a perfectly squared "cross-like" deep pool the size of Jackson lake!). It was insane! Since it was only Whitney, Peter, and I and Whitney and I are girls . . . Peter rowed the boat. Poor guy: he rowed this boat in terrible heat on a lake and he was dripping sweat!! While he was doing this Whitney was reading a book at one end while I was being the back seat driver telling Peter where to go! Haha it was pretty fun! The best part of the lake were the adorable baby swans we were able to get really close to!
On our last day we spent the morning at Notre Dame. Our museum pass allowed us to ender the staircase section which was appoximately 700 stairs leading up to the very top of The Notre Dame! It was a tough hike but so worth it! Right when we got to the top it reached noon and all the bells went off which was very surprising and exciting!
By the end of our trip both Whitney and I were more than ready to return to London. Although Paris is gorgeous it is dirty and very difficult to get around due to the lack of English! We were worn out by the end of the weekend and had enough of museums, walking walking walking, and French! However, we do wish we could bring the bakeries with us!

1 comment:

Matthew and Chelsea Abinante said...

I'm glad you had a great time!