Paris

I'm going to go ahead and start off by saying this was probably the biggest failure of a trip so far, but in a good way (well, some good ways). Not that it was a bad trip or anything, but rather that it could have much more closely lived up to its potential. I think it's partly because of what I didn't get to see (due to time and other factors), the high expectations I had for the city, as well as some random events that happened throughout the time there that probably shouldn't be included in this post.

We started out the train ride thinking of stuff to do in Paris, using a combination of guidebooks and stuff we already knew about the city. The guidebook suggested going to Chinatown during the time period of Chinese New Year and, to our pleasant surprise, the day we left happened to be Chinese New Year! Unfortunately, by the time we checked in, ate, and looked around at Sacre Coeur, it was pretty late and nobody wanted to go check it out anymore, so we decided we'd do it sometime in the next couple days (which ended up not happening).

On Friday, we took the same free tour that we took in Berlin. It was pretty good, but I think the Berlin one was better, probably because the city has a really unique history. Afterwards, we ended up eating a little, seeing the Eiffel Tower, and going out that night.

The next day, we went to get train tickets to head back and found out that the only available tickets were for Sunday at 10:39 AM, which was a lot earlier than most of us wanted to return. I think it was partly because the lady hated us because we were tourists. With some trains (like the TGV, which is pretty much the only train that runs directly from Paris to Metz), you have to make reservations to ride the train, and they only have a set amount for Eurail pass users. You cannot find out whether or not these reservations are still available any other way (as far as I know) other than to ask the people at the counter. So, we tried to find out which trains were available for Sunday and Monday, and she flipped out. We spent most of the remaining day at the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower at night, which was pretty cool. For those of you who don't know, my sophomore year, one of my roommates, Vincent, was a foreign exchange student from Paris; so, Saturday night/Monday morning, I went to his place, which was awesome because I hadn't seen him in like a year and a half. Since the train was earlier than anticipated and I still hadn't seen everything I wanted to, I woke up early to go see the Arc de Triomphe but, unfortunately, when I arrived at the train station to switch stops, I found out the line I was supposed to get on was closed. I ended up going back to Vincent's for a little while and left to meet with people before we went to the train station.

Next time I go to Paris, there are a few things I'd definitely like to check out:
Versailles
Arc de Triomphe
Notre Dame
Champs-Elysse
Orsay Museum

Wait, so why was it bad in a good way? Well, now I have (get) to make another trip to Paris, which I can't complain about. Also, I figured out more things about planning trips and such to remember for the rest of the semester!

Sacre Coeur and the view from there

I'm pretty sure in order to be a cool European city, it's a requirement to have a river flowing through it...

Trees that reminded me of Hanukkah candles

Eiffel Tower during the day...

...and at night.

And the view from the second level?

The Louvre

Other cool scenes from the city

Weekend Picture Count: 175
Trip Picture Count: 948

PS: Watching the Super Bowl in France was really weird. French commentators + no American commercials. I'm pretty sure the commercials here the entire time were blooper reels from NFL games.