Thankfully, on the way to Paris, no one sat in the seat next to me, so I had the opportunity to stretch out and relax. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I spent 3 years of high school taking French, so of course I knew little to no French!
I arrived at Gare du Nord around 1:30 and made my way to Gare de l'est and onto the train that would take me to the airbnb I was staying at. My host, met me at the train station and walked me to his apartment about a 15 minute walk from the train station. It was a fun situation, he didn't speak a lot of English and I can't speak any French, so it was a rather quiet journey to his place. Once I was able to unload, I sent a message to AS (who had arrived in Paris earlier that day, she'd been traveling Europe for some time with her bf and thankfully our schedules matched up!) and took off to the center of Paris!
I met up with AS and MS at Notre Dame. And let me be honest, I'm really surprised I found them! AS didn't have any cell service while she was abroad and had been sending me messages through the internet, but the church square where Notre Dame was located, didn't have any wifi. So I had to search through the mass of people in the square to find the two of them. Thankfully, I did!
The three of us were ready for a snack, so we wandered down the street until we found a cafe that had a restroom and was selling crepes!
After our bite to eat, we headed to Sacre Coeur, a basilica that sits on a hill in Paris, where you can see all of the city for miles! We took the metro to get there, and ended up in a really weird part of town. Every other store on the street was a hair place that sold wigs and different hair products. We made our way up the large hill (I wore the wrong shoes and there was a lot of stairs!) huffing and puffing. AS commented on how pasty white my legs were and I replied that they didn't get to see the sun very often in London because 1. there is no sun a good majority of the time and 2. it never gets warm enough to wear shorts!
Anyway, we had finally reached Sacre Coeur and because it was Sunday, there was a service going on inside the church, but thankfully, we were still able to walk around inside.
This is the lovely view from the bottom of the steps of Sacre Coeur.
After spending time on the hillside, we made our way back down to the main part of the city and just wandered. Around 6 o'clock we began looking for somewhere to eat. I only had one request, that they serve escargot! Because when in Paris right?
We ended up eating at a place right across from Gare du Nord.
Yes, this is how crazy big the exterior of their train stations are.
I got my wish! and while it may not look very appetizing, it was! The snails were cooked in some sort of garlic and herb sauce with lots of butter. And garlic and butter make anything taste better!
I even convinced AS and MS to try one:D
Afterwards, we agreed to meet up the next day at the Louvre! And went our separate ways, they to wander the city some more and me back to the airbnb!
The next morning (May 25) was another bout of luck. We had agreed to meet at the Louvre around 9. Unfortunately, we never really stated where, so I ended up getting in line before them and kept searching. To my relief I was able to spot AS while I was waiting in line and she and MS joined me and we headed in!
While I am not a huge fan of art, this museum blew me away! It was huge! You could have spent an entire day inside the museum and still not see anything! We made sure we saw the main pieces (yes the Mona Lisa was one of them)
She is quite tiny and I was a tiny bit disappointed.
We also stopped by Winged Victory and snapped a quick picture. I felt like we didn't see much, but we stayed in the museum for over 2 hours!
Afterwards, we left and headed to the park just east of the museum. We got the chance to sit in chairs surrounding a pond and watched baby ducks swim around.
We continued down the road towards the Eiffel Tower.
Before we made it to the Eiffel Tower, we stopped at a bakery to buy some bread, where I got to practice my French and then a grocery store to get some cheese, meat and peanut butter M&M's for me and wine for AS and MS. We arrived at the park where the Tower sits in front of and sat down for lunch. To our surprise, the French open was going on and to celebrate, they had a projector set up on a screen for people to watch. And hanging from the Tower was a large tennis ball!
We spent another couple of hours just sitting in the shade and listening to the commentary on the match.
After some tasty lunch, we walked along the Seine (I know! We didn't go up in the Tower! I had already been up to the 2st floor and AS and MS didn't want to wait in the long queue) We found the bridge that was used in Inception
We also found Lady Liberty!
I'm sure you're wondering why there's a Statue of Liberty in Paris, well I can tell you! She's actually not known as the Statue of Liberty in Paris. She doesn't really have a name in French. But she's a symbol of friendship, freedom and peace between the U.S. and France. So while I cannot say I've seen the Statue of Liberty in New York (yet!), I can say I've seen her sister in Paris! Interestingly enough, she sits on a small little island in the middle of the Seine AND it's right next to the Inception bridge.
MS was nice enough to pick each of us pretty flowers that were growing on that little island, so of course we had to take some pictures.
Our next goal was to see the Arch de Triomphe, which sits right in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle, which is this HUGE road that leads to a roundabout with no lights which people just drive onto. We didn't go up into the Arch, but stopped for a picture none the less.
Can you just see the chaos that this would cause? Somehow the French have got it down.
Continuing down Charles de Gaulle, we found ourselves at Ladurée!
I don't even think I can begin to describe this place! So I'll just post pictures.
Mostly known for their Macaroons, Ladurée is a shop/restaurant in Paris that sells amazing desserts! While I felt kind of bad for dragging AS and MS to the shop to wait in line to pick out treats, I'm sure they didn't mind once they got their desserts!
From there, it was time to say goodbye. We both had an early morning, they were off to Italy and I was going to Disneyland Paris! Thankfully it wasn't a painful goodbye since I'd see them again at home soon!
Tuesday, May 26th, was a bit of an early morning. Disneyland opened at 10:00 in the morning and you bet your butt I wanted to be there when it opened. I woke up at 7:30 to leave at 8 to catch a bus and then a train to Disneyland. It was pretty nice because there's a train stop that takes you directly to the park! Thankfully, it was a beautiful day, the weather was perfect and I didn't get lost!
My first ride of the day was Phantom Manor or the Haunted Mansion, just Frenched! To be honest, the ride in France was a bit more scary: meaning, I'm not sure if I would recommend it to kids younger than 8. There were periods of time where I was sitting in the complete dark and the graveyard scene where everyone is dancing and such, was a bit more gruesome, the skeletons a little more lifelike. But it was fun to hear all of my favorite rides in French!
My next ride was Thunder Mountain. And it's still called Thunder Mountain! The only major difference is that they took my picture! (Maybe they do that now on the new Thunder, but I haven't been back since they reopened it in Cali). After that it was a quick walk to
This ride was really different than the one in Cali: 1. I walked right onto the ride! I didn't have to wait at all! 2. The ride was an outside roller coaster with a loop-de-loop! 3. It lasted less than a minute.
Next was Pirates of the Caribbean! This ride was almost the same, except it was backwards! We sailed through the chaotic town first, before floating through the skeleton ship. And then I moved onto It's a Small World, which of course was the same, but the song was in French!
After Small World, it was time for lunch! I headed back over by Thunder Mountain for some Mexican food. I got a taco salad and let me tell you, the French don't do Mexican food very well. So, I was a bit disappointed in my lunch as well.
After the rather disappointing lunch, I decided to leave Disneyland and head over to Walt Disney Studios Park, this is France's version of California Adventure! Some of the rides are the same, whereas some are completely different. I started with my favorite ride:
Yes!!! They had the Tower of Terror in France! As you can image, everything about this ride was the same. The best part was once we sat down in the elevator buckled in. The attendant gave his instructions in French, after he finished, he then said "Does anyone speak English?" Several people rose their hands (I was not one of them, I have the instructions memorized for that ride!) and he simple said "Good luck" smiled and closed the doors.
My next ride was the newest ride at Walt Disney Studios which was the Ratatouille ride! This ride, because it was new broke down quite a few times, so I ended up waiting in line for about 25 minutes while they fixed the ride. I think the best way to compare this ride would be like the Toy Story ride in California adventure. You were placed in little rat carts and had to escape the kitchen with Remmy. I got a bit sick on the ride, but I pressed forward!
The next stop was another ride that California Adventure didn't have, which was Crush's Coster. A fun little ride where you sit in upside down tortoise shells and ride the EAC. This was all inside, so imagine a Space Mountain, however the shell sits 4 and the 2 people in the back are facing backwards. So during the entire ride you are spinning and flipping from forwards to backwards, so to say the least, I was very sick getting off the ride and couldn't do anymore moving ride for another hour or so.
Because I was feeling under the weather after the last ride, I made my way to a little theater show that was going on called Animagique. A little show that had the characters, Mickey and Donald go on an adventure through different Disney movies and sang songs. After that I took a studio tour, which was very much like the studio tour at Universal Studios.
I was feeling much better after the studio tours, so I made my way to the Rockin Roller Coaster with Aerosmith. This line took about 1 hour and of course the second I make my way up to the gate and am the next person in line, the ride stops. But the workers tried to keep the positive energy up, which I'm sure everyone was grateful for. When we finally got to go on the ride, it lasted less than a minute of course! This ride was exactly like Space Mountain, it just had Aerosmith playing in your ear the entire time.
By the time I finally got of Aerosmith, Walt Disney Studios was closing. So I left and headed back to Disneyland where I saw a wonderful Disney Parade going on.
Then I went to Fantasyland, where I rode Peter Pan (which STILL had a long line), Pinocchio, and Snow White. Those rides were exactly the same. I also went up in the Castle! Yes! It told Sleeping Beauty's story and you could go outside and see over Fantasyland!
Afterwards, it was time for a snack. Now being in Disneyland I had been DYING for a churro. But apparently, thats only a California thing, so I got the next best thing at the food stand, which was a crepe!
I know, how cliche! And no, I did not go on Star Tours, I would have thrown up my delicious crepe with Nutella.
But I did venture over the Buzz Lightyear and got a level 7, which I had never done before! I then wandered a bit around for some souvenirs and just to look around the park. They also had a Autotopia, but the queue was pretty long for that, so I skipped. They also had a Space Mountain, but it was closed for renovations. After walking around, I was pretty tired, so I decided to take a ride on the train that goes all around the park. Of course, this was the WRONG decision to make, apparently there was only 1 train circling the entire park, so it took an HOUR for the train to make its way around and then pick me up, and then another half an hour to go around the park again! By the time I was done on the train (which there was no dinosaurs, but there was a grand canyon), it was time for dinner. So just stopped on one of the stores on Main Street USA to get a hotdog and some crisps for dinner.
Once I was done with dinner, it was time for the fireworks, which would take another hour, so I sat down to reserve my spot!
15 minutes before the fireworks started, I realized that the trains stop running at a certain time at night. I couldn't remember what time that was, all I knew whats that I couldn't get stuck away from my train station when those trains stopped running or I would have to walk in an unfamiliar area in a foreign country. The fireworks started at 10:30, weird that it wasn't dark enough for them until then, and so I left at 10:15, hoping I would be able to get back to the airbnb before the trains stopped.
Thankfully, I made it. I took a bus and then a train to the correct stop and I got home around 11:45.
The next morning, May 27th, was my morning to sleep in! I slept in until around 9:30 and then stopped in the Starbucks at the train station for some breakfast and then went off to explore Paris!
My first stop was to find some fabric for my blanket, which I found easy enough close to Sacre Coeur. The entire street was lined with different sorts of fabric shops and the people were really friendly.
I then walked until I found Moulin Rouge. Which I would suggest maybe not to walk around in that area. I ended up accidentally walking through the red light district of Paris! Oops!
This is where the Cancan originated!
I continued to walk south, until I hit the Seine and walked past Notre Dame again. I continued along the river for about an hour and passed lots of these:
Not only were people selling books, but they were also selling different baubles or artwork. It was nice to look at.
Afterwards I continued to walk for another couple of hours until I headed back to the train station and to a small grocery store where I bough my linner (lunch and dinner) for the day and then headed back to the airbnb to pack up and get ready to head back to London.
My train the next morning left for London around 10:45 and I ended up back in London around 11:30! While I was on the train I sat next to a little boy, who's mother was on the other side of the isle. He enjoyed telling me about all of his toys while his mother apologized profusely. I was quick to reassure her that it was fine and that he wouldn't be a bother during the train ride.
