Paris is always a good idea!

May 12    

        The last week of classes was tedious, there was a religion paper, and a history paper due and I made it my goal to attend all of my final classes. So I was either in class or in the library, except for the one Wednesday afternoon when Kathleen and I decided to go to Cafe Bon Bon for some hot chocolate in order to make a stressful, unfortunate week a little bit better. Once the week was through, study week began, aka another week off of school where you're supposed to be studying but instead Kathleen and I go traveling. So on Tuesday Kathleen and I left for Paris.I was excited to go because there was still so much more of the city that I didn't get to see two years ago, and I got to watch Kathleen experience the beauty of Paris for the first time. We had a 7 am flight, which meant catching the airport hopper at 4 am, and because both of us held off on packing until the last minute neither of us got to sleep the night before. Everybody and their cousin was at the airport, and Kathleen and I didn't sit together on the plane so I slept. 

My oreo hot chocolate! Yum!

Studying hard or hardly studying

      When we made it to the city itself we navigated ourselves to our hostel, ate some sandwiches and then made our way to the Eiffel Tower. While the Arc de Triumph was technically the first Parisian landmark we saw, it didn't feel like Paris until we rounded a corner and saw the Eiffel Tower shooting up into the sky. With Kathleen in disbelief we sat in the gardens across the street and admired the tower's magnificence in the glistening sunlight while a man blew huge bubbles for children to pop in front of us. 

The Arc de Triomph

Kathleen's first impression of the first Parisian landmark she saw

There she is!

Friends who go to Paris together, stay together

Still can't get over that we're in Paris 

Wouldn't be a trip without a shoe pic

Looking up at the belly of the beast

      Growing hungry, we walked underneath the tower and to the other side to take some pictures and then to find food. After wandering our way through the streets of Paris to find food we stumbled upon a McDonald's and grabbed a snack and used their wifi. Refueled we decided to take the metro up to Sacre Coeur, a beautiful cathedral on top of a hill overlooking the city of Paris. Figuring out the metro system was easy so we bought tickets and hopped on the train that would take us to where we needed to go. However the first metro we get on does not start moving, instead it stalls for 15 minutes and we had no idea what was going on because all the announcements were in French. We decided to find a different metro route, so we got off and made a series of switches. When we were almost there the one station we needed to switch to the green line on was under construction so we were altered again. Finally after a lot of metro mishap we arrived at the base of the hill; from there we had to climb up a lot of stairs to get to the cathedral.

Look where I am!

Marveling at the beauty

Always travel Paris in pairs!

Finally made it. You weren't allowed to take pictures inside so this is it

Hello Paris!

    Looking out over the city is spectacular, especially since the sky was clear. Even though we were a bit sweaty and out of breath, we went into the cathedral just as mass started with a choir of French singing nuns. Mass was not that enjoyable because a ton of people kept shuffling around, taking pictures of all the chapels and alters that in the end we left because it didn't feel sacred. We sat outside on the hill beneath the cathedral as evening set in, while dodging every street hawker that tried to sell us beer or good fortune strings. Soon hungry we went down to the base of the hill and ordered a hot dog. We didn't know that it contained two weenies in a baguette covered in cheese. It was far too much for either of us to eat it all. After our French hot dog we went back on the metro, this time navigating it easier and made it back to our hostel by nightfall. After being up for two days we were exhausted and sleep came quickly. 

So good, but too much