BONJOUR PARIS!

Bonjour mes amies (Hello my friends)! Today, I will be writing about my field trip to Paris, France. Let me tell you, I was so excited to go on this trip; I can finally cross, “Paris” off my travel list and “See the Eiffel Tower” off my To-Do While Overseas List. Lets get this blog post started:

As most field trips, we had to wake up early BUT earlier than the last few trips. We had to meet at the bus stop at 6 AM sharp (we couldn’t be late because we all had a train to catch to head over to France). With my lovely sleep schedule, I only slept for 30 minutes before our long day of travel, which didn’t exactly hit me until we were walking the streets of Paris but I will get to that later. As a bunch of us sleepy USAC kids stand at the stop bright and early, waiting on the arrival of the bus, we were accompanied by morning Brighton rain. Normally I thought this would bother me, but no. WE WERE ONE STEP CLOSER TO GOING TO PARIS! Nothing could bring me down from that idea. 

A few minutes pass and we all board the bus joining the other campus students and we were on our way to the Chunnel station. At first the bus was full of chatter but about 10 minutes pass and the bus is pretty silent, full of sleeping twenty-something year olds. I guess I fell asleep at one point because I open my eyes when our coach pulled into a parking spot in the chunnel waiting area. I started to gather my things to get off the bus but than Mary told us to stay on the bus because we were about to board the train. STAY ON THE BUS? I was so confused but as our coach bus pulled out, it took a few turns and it drove INTO the freakin train!! I was so amazed by this, IT WAS SO COOL! My mind couldn’t wrap around how our giant coach bus fit into a train, it was such a weird concept to me. Once our bus was stopped and in our designated area, a few of us got off the bus to explore the crazy train. It was just rows on rows of different sections that had others buses and cars, it blew my mind. 

There were little windows but there was no point on looking out because we were in the chunnel so it was just pitch black. I left the group and went back on the bus to try and get some sleep. 35 minutes pass and I am still wide awake, but by this time we were entering onto FRENCH GROUNDS! Our bus drove on a highway through the countryside and with my relief, the French drive on the same side of the road as we do in the states. Our bus eventually pulls into a parking lot where to our surprise a wine warehouse stood before us. All of us excited got out to go check out some wines from around the world for a good price! You saw some people have a bunch of bottles and only spend $40 for some pretty decent French wine. Since it is legal over here for me to buy alcohol, I bought a few bottles but none of them were for me really, I got them as presents. I got a Chilean, an Australian, and 2 French bottles of wine and only cost me $20. I’m excited for the people to try it so I can see if it will actually taste good or not. It made me laugh seeing all of USAC people carrying boxes full of wine to the bus, I guess some people are planning to get pretty crazy. We all got on the bus again and stopped a little later to grab some lunch. Funny story actually… Chelsea, Kate, Tiana, Evan and I were all at this burger place and we had to wait for our orders to come out. As we stand there I realize that they probably were going to call out our numbers in French… panic ran across all of our faces once I said it out loud and to our dismay, they did. This nice French man asked us if we were Americans, hesitantly we said yes, than he asked a several more questions and helped us with some of our numbers. As they called his number, he had to leave us of course, but he said “Good luck” and walked away. How encouraging... With a few of us left for us to get our orders and me having very little French knowledge, we kind of guessed about the numbers that were being called. We all got our food eventually though; so no one was left hungry (thankfully). As we finished our lunches, we ran back to our bus (ran because it was dumpin rain) and we were on our way to Paris. 

Some more time passed and TA DA, the freakin Eiffel Tower, right in front of me. Although at this point I was just looking through my window, it was still A M A Z I N G!!! We finally get to Hotel Ibis and check in; everyone paired up and we had an hour to kill before our walk to our first thing on our schedule. I was roomed with Katie and luckily, Tiana was just a door down! Whooot party. The hour I had to myself wasn’t that hard to kill, I changed out of my nasty travel clothes and plopped on the (hard) bed. They were two single beds pushed together to make a bigger bed… I fell right through the crack, fun times. As we rested, we finally get to go explore the city with Mary and Becca leading the way for the night. We take a walk through the city for about 15 minutes before I finally see the Eiffel Tower!

I couldn’t believe it, the EIFFEL TOWER WAS STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!! I do not care how basic it is, I loved looking at the tower. IT was soooo beautiful. We walked right under it to go to our boat tour which lasted (I think, I can’t really remember) about an hour or two. It was really nice getting to take in Paris at night with good company. 

Not even 24 hours passed and I knew that this trip was going to be great. After the boat tour, we all split up into different groups to find food; Joel, Josh, Katie and I wandered to find a place that could fit all of our food needs and we found a cheap kebab place where we got some chicken kebabs and pizza (I also got a strawberry soda and it was terrific, I am craving it right now to be honest). 

Us four decided to head back to the hotel and pop a bottle of wine and try to find a cheesy French soap opera, but we settled with Teen Wolf, which is a show that I love so seeing it in French was pretty rad. It was also the season finale when a whole bunch of aiuwehfoajef happens and it toyed with my emotions (I don’t want to spoil it because I think you should watch it if you haven’t already). Before I knew it, I was out and my alarm was ringing for morning. Let me just tell you, the breakfast that the hotel provided us was SO delicious! REAL French croissants and crepes, with nutella and some bomb hot cocoa. Right after we fuelled up on food, we headed to the tower so we can avoid the long queues (which we did happen to do)! 

Micah, Katelyn, Hannah, Josh, Evan, Angela, Katie and I decided to be champs and take the stairs all the way to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. I honestly didn’t think it was going to be very hard, man was I wrong. Many many steps later, we finally made it to the first floor. The first floor had a glass bottom section where you can stand and looked down. To be honest, I couldn’t stand over it very long without feeling like I was about to faint. Than 500+ steps later, we make it the second floor and my legs were straight up noodles. 

Blurry pic of us taking a break.

The first floor to the second floor are such a hug difference in views, I was fairly surprised.  But all three floors were magnificent and I was so blown away. 

View from Second Floor!

We got to ride up and down in a really small elevator to the top which made it almost feel like the willy wonka elevator which was pretty cool. 

Riding the elevator down!

I didn’t want to leave ever but sadly of course we had to go back down to get the day goin. The 10 euros to go all the way to the tippy top was definitely worth it. 

After we got our free time to go up the tower, we all joined back together on the bus to head over to Notre Dame. On the drive there we got to drive by a few places like the Opera house where Phantom of the Opera was written, I kinda nerded out because my sister and I have watched that a few times so it was neat to see where it was written. We went to the town where Moulin Rouge stood upon, but to my opinion it wasn’t that great (as it was talked about). When Mary stopped the bus to show us, I looked around to see what she was talking about it and I looked right passed it. We got to have some free time to wander around the area and grab some lunch. I did some souvenir shopping and grabbed a bite to eat at Subway with Katie, Kate, Chelsea, Tiana, and Angela. Afterwards, we came across a chocolate shop where they also sold biscuits and they gave us free samples. SOOO GOOD. It was also the only free thing I have gotten on this entire abroad experience (besides free pens). Anyhow, back to the biscuits, Tiana bought some raspberry ones and they were soooo good. Writing about them right now makes me want them so bad…like right now. Mmmm. As we all pile back onto the bus once again, we head to our final destination before our free time for the rest of the night.

Notre Dame

We arrive at Notre Dame and we get in a long queue and wait for our turn to enter the infamous Cathedral. Let me tell you, it was so beautiful. It was also cool to see that people were praying and you also get to see so many prayer candles. It was supposed to be quiet inside it but of course with many tourists, lots of chatter was present. In the midst of the chatter over the intercom they play an audio where a person “shushed” and it scared me because it was a creepy “shhhhhh” and it made me look around. It made me laugh because no one else was reacting to it, so I guess it was normal. It even did it a few times than it finally stopped. So you don’t think I am crazy, Micah also said that she heard it too and she thought it was creepy also. 

So Notre Dame Cute Selfie (yay! bad joke.)

After walking through the entire building it is now time for free time. Evan, Katelyn, Hannah Katie and I decided to go to the Catacombs of Paris during our free time. We had to take the underground to get there and it was pretty fun with Hannah and I very patchy in our French trying to navigate our way through Paris; when majority of things were written in French. We were worried that the Catacombs would close early because Katelyn’s tour guide booklet said it that it would, but we were hoping that it had changed since than and to our surprise, it did. We stood in queue for about an hour or so and we finally made it to the cash point to enter the tunnels. OH SNAPS, I WAS ABOUT TO ENTER THE CATACOMBS. We entered the catacombs by going down these tiny spiral stairs; which led us to this room with the history of the tunnels, how it was created, and so on. We finally started our way through a tunnel, which was very claustrophobic. I kinda had to duck down in some parts too! It was long and very twisty turvy until finally we got to the bone section. It was lit up with lamps and it was rows and rows of bones. 

It was quite a sight to see, especially since it was my first time seeing real bones. I can’t really think about how long it took us to get through the entire thing but I am just thankful they made it easy for us to get around, closing off areas so we don’t get lost. It was crazy to think what we saw was a very small portion of the entire catacombs! Once we made it through our whole tour, it was the moment I was dreading… going back up steep, spiral stairs and in case you were wondering, they were as awful as I thought they were going to be. It also left us not on the same street we went in on, so we were kind of sort of lost (sort of). 

We eventually found an underground and rode it right to our hotel. Katie and I went to our room to look onto my laptop to try and find a restaurant that can fit both of our needs (her being vegetarian and both of us wanting some form of French food). We looked into the hotel restaurant but their foods were too exotic for us like neither of us were feeling having pigeon and chips for dinner. We decided to walk around a bit to find a place on foot, but to our dismay the menus were all in French so it was quite interesting and took a lot longer than we wanted. We came to this small café, where they had menus available in English, HURRAY! She had ratatouille crepe and I had a smoked salmon crepe with some sort of French sauce. 

IT WAS SOOO GOOD. I even tried some of her ratatouille and it was delicious. We got desert as well which was a banana split but instead of strawberry ice cream it was raspberry, I was quite happy. We scarfed our food down so quick that our stomachs wanted to explode from being so full. Later that night, we joined a few friends down in the lobby to hang out and drink a little wine. Katie and I were antsy for adventure so we decided on wanting to go and ride bikes to explore the streets of Paris; we had the lovely Micah to join us. Sadly, we discovered that to rent bikes, we had to give an 180 euro deposit and none of us were really up for that. Instead we decided to walk the rest of the way to the Eiffel tower and sit in the field of grass, where we luckily were surrounded by drunk teenagers . We found a spot away from them and sat right down.

 We talked about life, boys, and random things and just admired the night sky and tower right before us. We even got to experience the twinkling tower at midnight and watch it twinkle until the entire tower’s lights shut off so we made that our queue to head back to our hotel rooms.

 It was a great last full day in Paris before our journey back home. The next morning was another early wake up but I was super stoked to have the hotel breakfast again. Filled up with yummy croissants and crepes, we were on our way to fulfil our last day in Paris’ agenda; but this time, a little different and had our packed bags with us. Today we had the agenda to head to the infamous Palace of Versailles and I was so so so so excited. Just as we pull up I was surprised how big it was. 

Small part of the Palace!

When we bought our tickets, I was kinda mad because apparently you can get in for free with our student visas WHICH I HAVE, so I spent 18 euros to get in. LAMEEE. Whatever, like Katelyn said, “we are helping preserve history.” Le sigh. Going through it was pretty neat but I was a little disappointed, maybe because there was sooo much hype about it.

It was really neat seeing all the paintings and all the stuff inside though! I explored the garden some (which was WAAAY bigger than the palace, it was crazy and pretty sweet)!

Joel & Katie being silly!

 Katie had surprised me with a French Vogue (which I collect every where I go) and it made my day. I also bought me some Laudrée Macaroons and they were sooo good, even better than I ever imagined. They packed it themselves so I didn’t choose the flavours but by far my favourite flavour is blueberry. 

Sadly, our free time at Versailles came to a close and we had to pile back on the bus to head back to the UK. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep right away and I am pretty sure the entire bus was out from being so tired. We than stopped at a rest stop to grab some lunch which is where I settled for some French fruit juice, crisps and a tasty baguette sandwich. Once I finished eating, I knocked back out and woke up when we were about to enter the chunnel. I fell asleep for majority of the way back to Brighton which I was okay with. Once we got home, I sat down and drank some breakfast tea with Tiana and Katie because we missed some good British tea. I end this blog with a picture of the Eiffel tower because, hey why not?

Evan, Katelyn, Hannah, & I being hella touristy.

Now Playing: Yellow Flicker Beat – Lorde (From the Mockingjay soundtrack)

That is all for now folks, CHEERS! Amanda x

P.S. My photo blog is in the works, so stay tuned!