Rob’s European Vacation 2009

So I woke up and took my shower on Day 2 and went down for breakfast where I met Kristin and Warner.  We all agreed that we’d hit up the free tour at ten so we all showed up and were waiting around when the receptionist lady told us the tour wasn’t picking us up and we had to meet them at 11 in front of the fountain at St. Michele.

So after we were told that the tour wasn’t going to pick us up, a group of us, probably about 20 people large and mostly American students headed towards the Crimee Metro Station.  Apparently with my excellent sense of directions, I became the leader of the group.  We got to the Metro and because there was no attendant people were hopping the stalls and pushing in with others.  Being foreigners in a foreign country and not wanting to risk going to jail or anything like that we all decided to be good and pay for our tickets.

We ended up at the St. Michele stop and waited around for our free tour.  The tour guide was from England and was actually pretty good.  They worked purely on tips and anybody knowing me would probably be surprised to know that I actually gave me a 5 Euro tip! Haha.  So the tour covered Il D’City, Notre Dame, statues of Henri V, the Louvre, the gardens in front of the Louvre, Place D’Concorde where they executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Champ D’Elysee and the Arc D’ Triomph.  Forgive my French spellings as I have no idea how they’re really spelled out.

So after the tour Warren, Kristin, Maureen (a new friend) and I struck out to tackle the city.  We walked over to the Champ D’ Elysee and up to the Arc D’ Triomph.  Then we went inside and walked up the tons of stairs to get to the top.  Wow, what a view!!  You could see all the way down to the Louvre and over on the right was the Eiffel Tower.  Just beautiful.  I also had no idea that it was so big on top…we all thought that even at night it would be that much more gorgeous.

After the Arc we headed back to the metro and went down to Notre Dame because they hadn’t been there before.   I don’t think I could get sick of that church though, it’s sooo gorgeous.  I was thinking that I wished A was there with me to share in this…I know she would have enjoyed walking around the city with me.  Anyways after Notre Dame we headed back to the Metro and caught the trains to Montmarte.

We got off the metro and walked up this hill to the Sacre D’Cour.  I know I say everything is gorgeous but it really is!!  So the church is made up of this white stone and is very distinct.  Not only that but it’s on the tallest hill in Paris and completely over looks the city.  So we entered the plaza in front of the church and past a whole bunch of Africans that had the infamous bracelet pitch going on full steam.  Normally they try to be persuasive but these guys were down right pushy and kind of scary.  First they blocked the only entrance into the plaza area below the church and were very very in your face and demanding.  You just had to keep saying no and keep moving.  The minute you stopped you might have been surrounded and that’s just not a place you want to be.  If you guys don’t know what I’m talking about, throughout Europe are these groups of men at the major monuments and typically they’re Africans who hold thread to make bracelets.  What they do is get tourists to “hold” some strings while they make them a bracelet…well by hold I mean they wrap the strings around their fingers so when they’re done with the bracelets they won’t let go until you give them money..and I’m talking like 20 Euros.  Bastards!!

So yeah the church was beautiful.  At this point we were all tired from our four hour tour and visiting the numerous monuments.  We decided we’d walk back to our hostel which should be about a 25 minute walk.  Well it was about 25 minutes…in the ghetto!  It wasn’t that but still not the kind of place you really want to get stuck in at night, by yourself.  So we kept walking until we got to the canal that our hostel was on and found a really nice restaurant to eat at and since it was POURING outside it was a perfect time.  I actually didn’t end up eating anything but they had duck which looked really good…but I was just happy I had wifi on my Ipod Touch, haha.

After that we all headed back and I talked to A again until it was time to go to bed….

Tags: 1, Europe, Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 7:35 am and is filed under Europe, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.