Euro Adventure Day 5 - Paris

(refresh yourself on my trip here: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 4.5)

We hit the ground running once again once we arrived in Paris. Through our bus windows we saw the Operá District with its stone buildings, gold accents and antique look then dropped off our luggage at the hotel.

our hotel, a Novotel, from the outside

We had just enough time to take a quick bathroom break and deposit our luggage into a storage room before walking about a mile to the metro station for our first metro experience, which was relatively painless before emerging in front of the Louvre.

Dustin, the metro model (because what's more Parisian than a camo Browning jacket?)

my ankle, sans Boot, in the Metro

We only had 45 minutes there, so obviously we didn’t attempt to explore the museum, which is WAY more ginormous than I even realized. We quickly navigated through the place long enough to see the Mona Lisa, which was so small. I was incredibly surprised by how little it is and how despite it being such a BIG deal, it is really just a painting (albeit a good one) of a random woman nobody knows.

the view of the Arc from the Louvre

i told you it's HUGE, this one is one "wall"

... and the other

...and the other

the pyramid, which comes to another point inside in the museum

see? (via)

Vivian & me

the "kids"

We took a minute to eat some lunch in the museum’s cafeteria then took the metro once again to get closer to the Eiffel Tower.

our first glimpse of the tower at the Louvre

in front of the Eiffell lawn

there was a couple taking wedding pictures on the lawn

We didn’t stay long at the tower since we knew that we would return later, so we decided to walk around and shop in the Opera district. We sadly didn’t hit the famous street with all the nice shops or go to an area with fun boutiques, we went to a touristy area with gift shops, I was disappointed, but I guess when you have that many students with you, you don’t really have a choice.

We took a quick look at the tower before going to get dinner at Le Paris Orleans – which was no where near as yummy as we were hoping it would be.

some kind of beef/rice combo dinner that tasted like just plain old stewed beef from home

a brothy soup that needed LOTS of salt & pepper

After supper we went BACK to the Eiffell Tower and most of us enjoyed a night boat ride through the city. In my opinion this is the way to go when it comes to site-seeing. They had little phones you could listen to if you wanted to hear the guided portion of the trip, or you just enjoy the city of lights at night.

those, my friends, are apartments. can you imagine the rent?

mean faces on the bridge that are supposed to keep away evil spirits

the Alexander III bridge, which was built for the Worlds Fair 

more of the bridge

the steeple at Notre Dame

a dinner cruise boat (which I want to do next time I get the chance to visit)

I think this is an embassy building? (I was too enthralled in the sites to listen too well to the guide)

Mrs. Vivian listening to the guide

We got off the boats just in time to see the Eiffel Tower lit up in the light show that is every night at 10 p.m. I may or may not have cried. It is just so beautiful and I felt so unbelievably blessed to be able to have such an opportunity, especially for free.

because why wouldn't there be a tractor in Paris near the Eiffel tower? I felt like I was back home.

b-e-a-utiful

I really couldn't get over how much prettier it was at night

really sorry the video is sideways, it wouldn't let me fix it. Also, please note how many times someone says "Friday the 13th" (the day I recorded it) and also how country we all sound, haha - especially Molly who says "it's Friday the 13th ya'll". 

We reluctantly went back to our hotels and straight up COLLAPSED. All of us were so exhausted that everyone went straight to shower, get ready for bed and sleep.

so happy top see a more modern room! 

and a nice bathroom, where I took the second best shower of my life (the absolute best shower will always be the one after having Sawyer)

I was ecstatic to see a REAL hair dryer after the crazy one we had in Rome

Stay tuned for Day 2 of Paris - also known as the final day of my Euro Adventure - I will hopefully post it soon!

Euro Trip - Day 4.5 (Riding in trains with creepers)

I am going to dedicate this entire post to our train ride to Paris from Milan, because it was quite the experience.

The ride to Milan was pretty uneventful, it took about 5 hours, which was a little tortuous since a loud voice came over the speaker on the bus and yelled that we couldn’t eat on it…

It was weird to see the fashion capital of the world, but not be able to actually SEE it since it was 11pm, we were stuck on a bus and immediately went to the train station upon exiting the bus.

The train station was very nice, however we had to pay 2 euros to use the bathroom, which was interesting to say the least.

Milano Centrale
via

The students entertained themselves in hilarious ways though. Mainly using the moving sidewalks.

the "Titanic" on the moving sidewalk

the "Pensive" pose

the Milan station

Our train left the station at midnight and we boarded our train in the dark. There were six of us per couchette, and that was about 4 more than the couchette should really be made to hold. I couldn’t even get enough space between the entrance to the couchette to the wall of the hallway to take a picture (the hallways were just wide enough for one person to get through) so I grabbed this pic off the web. Crazy, huh?

via

There are a row of seats on each wall that seat three per row. Then beds fold down from the walls allowing for a VERY narrow “aisle” between the beds. Our luggage had to be stored under the bottom bunk or in the stowaway area over the doorway and windows.

The bad part of this was if we wanted something from our suitcases we all had to get in our bunks except the person who wanted their stuff so that there was actual room to get a suitcase down and access your necessities. Not to mention you couldn’t even sit up in your bunk since it was so close to the next bunk.

After we got all our stuff inside the room (which was a task in itself) I went with Mrs. Vivian to the restaurant car, which was about 3 cars over from ours.

This is where it got interesting.

Apparently a few people boarded the train with a train ticket but did not have their passports. So, they were told they could ride in the restaurant car all night so that the Swiss patrol could look at their tickets when we crossed the border. Apparently this meant to them “please drink all the alcohol available for purchase since you will have to sit here just about all night.” Well, one of the super sketchy non-passport-holders kept staring me down. By this point I was enjoying a beverage and just hanging out with Mrs. Vivian, two students (Morgan & Dustin) and Morgan’s dad, Michael. Well, the power went out (as it sometimes does in trains apparently) JUST AS THE CREEPY DUDE THAT KEPT STARING AT ME WAS WALKING BY MY BOOTH. My first reaction was to put my hand over my wallet to avoid it being snatched and my second was to prepare myself to kick, bite or punch my way out of a sneak attach. Luckily, the power came right back on and homie kept-a-moving.

I returned back to my car and the other five girls and I surprisingly went right to sleep, all the walking was actually good for something I guess. However, it was pretty hot in our room so we decided to open our window.

Well, when we hit the border in Switzerland apparently the weirdo non-passport-holders were asked to exit the train and they were NOT happy. Through our open window we could hear yelling and all sorts of sounds that made us shut our window very quickly. Sadly, we did not have curtains on our windows and the bright lights of the Swiss station woke us all up as we sat there for over an hour before setting back off to Paris.

When we woke up the next morning, we were in Paris! It was pretty crazy to think about considering we had started the previous evening in Italy. We quickly attempted to freshen up since we had slept in the clothes we had worn all day yesterday (no room to change and the bathrooms were more than gross the previous night). Poor Ashton had to say goodbye to her flat iron which was fried by the outlet in our couchette.

Once we walked into the Paris station we had a few minutes to grab a bite to eat and collect ourselves before taking another brisk walk to our bus. I grabbed a delicious hazelnut muffin from a place called Millie’s, which was funny considering there is a delicious home-run grill called Millie’s in my hometown as well – only their menu consists of things like cheese biscuits, bacon and egg sandwiches and pancakes for breakfast. I also enjoyed two Red Bulls from the vending machine.

the Parisian "Millie's"

delicious hazelnut muffin

isn't the Paris train station pretty?

busy little station

I did learn a few things about traveling on trains though:

1. Be aware of your surroundings, there are a TON of people on that train and some of them may not be nice.
2. Lock your doors, because those not nice people may want to pay you a late night visit, or steal your things.
3. Close your shades, that way people can’t peek in on you, and won’t know that there are 5 young girls and one chaperone in her mid-20s in one car with no strong men to protect them.
4. Get all your necessities out of your bag before you stow them because getting them back down is very difficult.
5. Take earplugs, the walls are thin.
6. Dress comfortably the day before, or go ahead and change clothes in the train station, bathrooms aren’t always clean on trains and you definitely won't have room to change in your couchette. 

Euro Adventure - Day 4 (finally)

Now I just know you have all been on the edge of your seats awaiting my next post about my European Adventure. In case you're just stopping by (or if you have already forgotten about the trip since it has been entirely too long since my last real post), read about it here and about the other days too (1, 2 and 3). 

Anywhooo, day four of my adventure began bright and early with packing up our stuff and boarding the bus to Florence, Italy.

Once we arrived, we of course had to walk about a mile from where our bus dropped us off to where we would begin our tour.

After a little shopping, we met our tour guide... whose name I cannot remember.

We got to see the outside of the beautiful Baptistery of St. John and the Florence Cathedral, called the Basilica of St. Mary of the Flower.

the front of the cathedral

The cathedral is made of marble and has intriciate statues, the twelve ones at the top are of the twelve disciples, the statue in between the disciples if of Mary with baby Jesus. 

the front of the Baptistery

the Baptistery doors

the cathedral belltower

 After seeing beautiful architecture of the Basilicia, Baptistery and Belltower, we set out to enjoy some of the other beautiful scenes. First, we had to rub the nose of Porcellino, the statue of the bronze Florentine boar. Supposedly it works kind of like the Trevi Fountain, if you rub his nose it means you'll return to Florence, but there's more. If you put a coin in his mouth and make a wish it should come true.

one of the Canadian guys rubbing Porcellino's nose

left a permanent mark on Florence. A lot of people had signed the bridge,  so I decided it needed the names "Lauren, Josh & Sawyer" on it too.

beautiful views

more beautiful views

being obnoxious Americans. me and Dustin

lunch in Florence

lovely. famous American figures as the lord and his disciples  at the Last Supper.  a picture in our  lunch  restaurant

is it just me or does that statue have serious camel toe?

the famous statue of David, which by the way is a COPY!? did anyone else know the original is in a museum?

One thing about Florence? I was very sick of seeing marble penis everywhere. I swear, would have been so hard to put some clothes on these folks?

After sight-seeing, we visited a leather shop and saw a leather-marking demonstration, however I used the moment to take off the giant boot, so I was at the back of thte line. Therefore, I had to take a picture in the mirror. 

We finished the day with a 6 mile walk to our bus, I am not even kidding. The bus then took us on a nice long ride to Milan where we boarded the train to Paris.... but I will tell you all about that part of our adventure tomorrow!