The trip. We left Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler a little after 11 o'clock at night to pick up Vedashree and head to Cologne to catch our tour bus. My host mom, Heike, had found a very cheap tourism service that would drive us to and from Paris, give us a hotel, breakfast, and have optional tours that costed more. We had booked the tickets several weeks in advance. Anyway, on the way we realized that Vedashree had forgotten her passport, so her host father (my old host father, Thomas) was an angel and brought it to Cologne for us. Our bus was about an hour late, so we left around 1.30 Saturday morning, but that was okay. We made a stop in Aachen (another German city right on the border of Belgium) to pick up the last of our crew and then headed for Paris! Of course, this was an overnight bus. And very uncomfortable. Vedashree and I shared a seat, and we spent most of the night trying to orientate ourselves so we could sleep. Also, there was a couple in front of us (Russian, we later found out) that kept trying to push the seats back, which didn't work because there wasn't any legroom even with the seats up. We probably argued enough with them that they hate us now, but whatever. It was rude of them to keep trying to push the seats ALL THE WAY BACK. I didn't much mind a little tilt, but when I can't move my legs at all for six hours, that's.... not cool.
We stopped about 60 miles out of Paris at 6.45 in the morning. We ate breakfast and cleaned up, then made our way back to the bus!! The tour guides gave the rundown of the weekend's program, and Heike, Veda and I decided to opt out and explore Paris on our own. We were let out somewhere, and it happened to be down the street from the Arc de Triumph, which we took a few minutes to photograph. We headed down to the subway and managed to easily find our way to the Louvre.
Sometimes I wish that I had done my exchange at 18, but most times I'm extremely glad I did it with 16 and 17. Why? Free entrance to pretty much everything, or at least reduced. The Louvre was an example. Once we were in, we did the basic tour: Mona Lisa (which I found kind of lame after all the hype), Venus de Milo, and the glass pyramid. I think we spent 1 or 2 hours there. It was so GORGEOUS! With so many epic paintings and such. It was also mindblowing to be in pretty much the most famous museum in the world.
After that, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. That was actually kind of funny -- we were walking from the subway station, were looking for the tower, and then suddenly BAM! There it was. Completely random, but still kind of cool. There were a ton of people there, of course. And there were so many people selling souvenirs! I thought Gettysburg was bad, but these people would seriously follow you around for ten minutes before they gave up on you. I even got called Lady Gaga and Veda Rihanna by one guy trying to flatter us. Uhmmm, no. Anyway, we finally made it to a line, which surprisingly we only had to wait in for 20 minutes before we were able to buy our tickets. Then another 10 or so minutes waiting for the elevator, and we were up! We only went to the 2nd level because we were kind of short on time and wanted to see a lot of Paris, but the view was still AMAZING! We took the normal tourist pics and then headed down. We looked around a little, bought a few little Eiffel Towers, and then ate lunch. I had a really disgusting hot dog which I couldn't finish, so I bought a crêpe for dessert. Yum. Oh, by the way, Paris is EXTREMELY expensive. My hot dog? It cost 5,50€ with fries. And the crêpe, which I only had with sugar, was 3,50€. Crazy.
The next stop was Notre Dame. It was pretty nifty, although the inside wasn't anything unlike any other church I've seen in Europe. I know that sounds snobby, but it's true! The inside was really cool, though. I'll always prefer the Cologne Dome instead :D
We took a break from sightseeing next to go SHOPPING! Yes. That was fun.
After the lovely three or four hours of shopping, it was time for dinner and Sacre Coeur. We ate at a cute little café, where luckily they had the menu in English as well as French. Because none of us speak passable French. Anyway, Veda and I had toast with ham, cheese, and a fried egg, while Heike had an omelet. It was pretty tasty. We then climbed a few stairs to get to Sacre Coeur, a huge church. It was very different from many churches I've seen on the outside, because it was rounded in a lot of places. The inside was also cool, because it was FILLED with candles. Really awesome. We hung out there and in the little part of the city surrounding it for a few hours until it was dark to get a few shots of Paris in the night, because Sacre Coeur is on a hill and overlooks all of Paris. The little city was adorable, exactly what I would imagine when I think of Paris. We bought ice cream and it was DELICIOUS!! We also sat on the steps for awhile and waited for the darkness as it ever so slowly got dark. It took forever, but it was pretty.
We headed back to the hotel after dark. We got there around 11 or 11.30. Our hotel was decent, I suppose. Our room was on the top floor, and the ceilings were sloped. Especially in the bathroom, where I kept hitting my head during the shower! One huge surprise, though, was when I went to go pass out on the bed. It rippled. It was a waterbed! I hadn't seen one of those in YEARS. Veda and I ended up sharing because we only had two beds in the room. I personally slept like a rock, but she said she woke up every time I moved because of the water moving :D. We slept through the night, and then ate breakfast in the hotel before being picked up by the bus to go to Versailles.
Versailles was... amazing. Epic. Overdone. Awesome. I can't really explain... I saw the room where Marie Antoinette lived! I had read so much about her when I was about 13, so actually seeing the place that I had read so much about was amazing. We spent a few hours there, then left to go get lunch (baguettes) and went along the street market. I bought a few gifts for people :)
Then we were picked up by the bus and headed back to Cologne. It was really a WONDERFUL trip. One of the best weekends of my life :)
Liebe Grüße
Signe
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