Paris Weekend, continued
Saturday morning I wake up, get ready, head back downstairs
with all of my stuff (because the room I ended up in at 2am wasn’t where I was
staying the whole weekend), and continue my scavenger hunt for beds. This time, I get the help of one of the BSP
leaders, which makes life way easier! I
get the right room, put my stuff away, and grab breakfast before heading off to
Versailles for the morning. Even though
we had to get back on a bus after having been on a bus for so long just the day
before, we figured getting to see the Palace at Versailles would be worth
it! As we are getting to the town, we
notice black smoke billowing up above the trees. We are looking to see from where it comes,
and then we see that a car is on fire (not a little fire, a fully engaged ball
of fire) in a parking lot! It was completely random!
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| Gates at Versailles |
We arrive at Versailles and get in line. We stand in line. We continue to stand in line. Impressively, though, the line seems to have
organized itself into a serpentine line that works quite well and moves in an
organized way almost like the Temple Grandin livestock lines do. There are no barriers keeping people in line
or indicating where the line should be.
There are no workers directing traffic, but still the line remains
organized. Clearly, we were in line a
long time, because we had time to discuss this at length!
Once we finally made it into Versailles, I saw the gorgeous
gardens through the windows, but we didn’t have time to walk through them. The rooms were elegant, plush, and
ornate. It was crowded, but overall the
crowds moved well. The only real
bottleneck was in the Queen’s bedroom.
We probably could have spent longer at Versailles, but we had limited
time and needed to get back to Paris for afternoon activities.
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| Gardens at Versailles |
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| Gardens at Versailles |
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| Gardens at Versailles |
One of our group members really wanted to see the catacombs,
so we had decided to head there upon arrival back in Paris. We had checked the website, mapped out our
metro trip, and planned the rest of our day around that activity. We start our marathon metro trip across the
city, and the bad luck starts. First, we
realize that we had been looking at the wrong blue line, so one member of our
group gets on the train thinking that she knows the right stop before we can
tell her it’s not the right one. None of
the rest of us can fit on the train, so she’s on there by herself going to the
wrong stop. Another member of our group
gets groped on the train and has to get off and catch the next train because
she can’t get back to our car. I almost
get pick-pocketed walking down into the metro station the ONE time I have my
bag on the back of my body instead of on the front of my body! After riding an extremely crowded metro train
for an hour, we arrive at the catacombs at 4:15. They stop letting people in at 4. Now, their website says they close at 5, but
it says NOTHING about the fact that they don’t let people in after 4. So, back on the metro, we go.
We headed back across the city to the Hard Rock Café for
dinner because one of the girls in our group had that on her list of “must-do”
things. By this time, we were all tired
and ready to just sit, eat, drink, and enjoy some music and each other’s
company for a while. After dinner, we walked back toward Pont Neuf and around the Louvre, where we were able to see the Arc de Triomphe off in the distance.
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| The Louvre Pyramid at Night |
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| Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in front of the Louvre (NOT the Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile which is actually off in the background) |
That night we did make it onto our boat trip on the Seine,
which was a highlight of my trip! I
enjoyed seeing all of the people just sitting along the river banks waving and
hanging out. I loved seeing the bridges
and the Eiffel Tower from the river.
When it was over, we sat on Pont Neuf again waiting for the Eiffel Tower
to light up and sparkle again.
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| Eiffel Tower View from the Seine |
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| Michelle, Amanda, Me, Christina, and Liz on the boat trip! |
We had a little more bad luck on the metro ride home,
because one of our group didn’t make it on the train and got left on the
platform. We got off at the next stop to
let her catch up with us, and it’s lucky we did! In the next tunnel after we all were together
again, the train stopped and the lights went out. I’m sure if any of us had been alone on a
subway train in Paris at 11:30pm in a tunnel when the lights go out, we would
have freaked out just a little bit!
However, we were all 5 together, and now it’s just a part of our
adventure.
Sunday morning, we got up, checked out, and headed off to
the bakery for breakfast. We also went
to the coffee shop across from the bakery for some incredible café au
lait. The owner gave each of us a chocolate
bar to go with our coffee, and I actually melted mine into my drink. YUM!!
I ended my time in Paris by sitting on the canal by myself journalling
about my trip and listening to music and the city while others in my group went
to Moulin Rouge or back to the catacombs.
After another bus, ferry, bus trip, we finally arrived back
at “home” in London around 8pm Sunday night.
I can honestly say that there were parts of Paris that were
beautiful. I am glad I went because I
would have always wondered, but I don’t really have any need to go back. Our little group laughed and had good times,
but we definitely like London much better than Paris!!
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