My Weekend in Paris

Bonjour, mon ami! I just returned from a weekend in Paris, and boy, was it an adventure. We woke up super early to take a taxi to the train station, and I slept blissfully the whole way. When we got to Paris, we first learned to say "NO!" to anyone who asked us if we speak English. Then we made our way to a fancy-shamcy boat cruise. It was blistering hot outside, so being inside an air conditioned boat on the Seine River wasn't too bad. And the food was delicious!

Escargot. The sauce was so good it made me forget I was eating snails.

Steak and mashed potatoes. With tons of butter.

White peach gratin... mmmm...

After the lunch cruise, we made our way toward Montemartre for a walking tour. It was miserably hot, but our tour guide was very good, so it wasn't the worst experience I've ever had.

The third floor is where Van Gogh lived. 

The view of Paris from Sacre Coeur.

After our walking tour we went back to our hotel to shower and rest, since we had been up since 4:00 in the morning. We were scheduled to go to the Eiffel Tower at 9:30 but due to some complications (getting lost because we didn't have a guide with us) were late getting there. We ran to the line, which was very difficult to find, and they let us in, no problem. I was just happy I didn't have to climb any stairs this time. When we got to the top, it was definitely worth the hassle. Paris is stunning at night.

My friend took this picture of me by accident, and we couldn't stop laughing about it.

View from the top.

What a beaut.

The next day we started early so we could get as many things in as possible. We had a Paris Museum Pass, which let us in to a bunch of the museums for free and skip the lines. Which saved us hours. We saw the Hôtel des Invalides,  Musée de L’Orangeries (which has Monet's water lillies - they were beautiful), Le Jardin des Tuileries, and Sorbonne, just to name a few.

Some of my favorite things from Saturday in Paris was the Musée D’Orsay, which has an impressive impressionist collection, including Van Gogh, who is my favorite.

We also hit the Musée de Louvre, which I didn't get to go to last time. My friend and I got stuck wandering around the Renaissance paintings, it was kind of torture. But we did see the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo, and Ramses II. So that was cool.

Horus makin' shadow puppets on the wall again.

We also headed over to Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore that was a gathering place for authors like Hemingway. It is now a bookstore and a reading library. It's so stinkin' adorable, with little nooks and crannies all around that you can curl up and read a book. I loved it.

While trying to find the bookstore, we stumbled across what we think was the Latin Quarter of Paris, which was so fun to walk around. There were restaurants, and gift shops, and bakeries up and down these cute little streets. We decided to get some gelato from one of the shops, and then headed over to the Seine to sit and eat our ice cream. It was the perfect end to the day.

The next morning we went and got crepes at a cute little restaurant and then went to the Arc de Triomphe, which has some amazing views. It's almost better than the Eiffel Tower because it's central, so every direction has an awesome view.

Then we walked down the Champs Elysées and got my favorite treat - macarons! I got passionfruit, rose, and vanilla raspberry, and mmmm, they were delicious! I have to say, I think the rose one was my favorite. If you turned a rose into a delicious treat, that's what it tasted like.

Then we headed over to Maison de Victor Hugo, which was where he lived while in Paris, and they have now turned it into a museum. While trying to find the exact apartment, we ran into this, so feel free to listen to the lovely french music while reading the rest of the post:

The museum was really cool, and I found out Victor Hugo was not only a talented writer, but a decorator and furniture designer as well. We found this cool piece of furniture, which Hugo made for an auction to help poor children. He got 3 other well known writers of the time, including Alexandre Dumas, to donate their inkwells, pens, and a handwritten letter, and made this stylish table, complete with their names. Unfortunately, the table didn't sell in the auction, so Hugo bought it himself.

There was also his writing desk in his bedroom, and I found out that he actually preferred to stand up as he wrote. You can see from the chair next to the desk that there's no way he could have sat down to write at this desk. It was a very neat museum, and it was absolutely free, which made it even better.

After the museum, we headed over to the Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle for a quick walk through. We ended our trip by sitting by the Seine. It was such a great trip to Paris, but I am excited to be back in London for my last week!

Our photography assignment for the weekend was to find our name from letters and shapes around the city, so here's what I cam up with:

Au Revior!