Paris je t'aime - France Round One

  Paris stole my heart.

I have been looking forward to going to Paris since the last time I left probably 15 years ago and with each French class I took and every classy French movie I watched this desire to return grew. However, I was somehow surprised that the City of Lights lived up to my expectations and my own idealized memories. It was a whirlwind of a trip that was painfully short, but just long enough to remind me why this beautiful city is the object of so much romanticizing. It was perfectly lovely. 

Four of us hopped on a train on a Friday night and arrived at our hostel in time to meet Clay, the overly enthusiastic Canadian guy in our hostel room, who proceeded to tell us all about his experiences in Amsterdam. He spoke with a distinctly Canadian accent except for when he said "Amsterdam," which came out in the most New-York way possible sounding more like "Ayum-staa-dayum." I didn't know that word could be that many syllables long. The hostel served breakfast of entire baguettes with Nutella packets. It was going to be a good day.

We started making our way to the Eiffel Tower taking the most roundabout way possible in order to see as much of Paris as we could in our limited time. We saw the Louvre and the Tuileries then walked down the Champs-Élysées to L'Arc de Triomphe. We stopped in the delicious La Durée for some Macarons. If there's one thing I can do in French it is order food. I may be more timid than I should be when talking to people on the street or asking questions, but put a rose petal macaron in front of me and by golly I'm fluent. After risking our lives to take pictures in front of L'Arc de Triomphe, we made our way to the Eiffel Tower stopping only for a nutella crêpe on the way. This was a big food weekend for some of my travel buddies who had never had a crêpe OR a Prince Cookie before...we fixed that real quick. 

When we got to the Eiffel Tower, we were disappointed to find out that only one elevator was working because of construction of some kind and that the line to go up to the top was over two hours long. Having a very limited amount of time to see the city, we decided that we couldn't spend that long in line and would rather see other things. With a heavy heart I walked away from La Tour Eiffel. We enjoyed the rest of our day eating some authentic French food and walking around the gorgeous city and saw Notre Dame by night, which was breathtaking. We were about to head back to our hostel, but decided that since we did not get to go up the Eiffel Tower, we would at least walk by it at night to see it lit up. When we got there at about 11:30 pm, we realized that the elevator was still creeping up the side of the tower! We broke into a run hoping to get there before it closed down for the night. There was no line whatsoever and we practically walked straight onto the elevator...We spent midnight on top of the Eiffel Tower. Talk about a romantic comedy waiting to happen. I was just waiting for the male lead to pop around the corner with a dozen red roses and a cheesy song to roll us into the credits...needless to say THAT did not happen, but it was quite a fairytale anyway. It's not a bad way to start April if you ask me. 

The next day we took a train out to Versailles. We did not know this when we were planning, but April 1st is the opening day of the fountains in the Versailles Gardens, so it was probably the busiest day of the year. We spent so long waiting in line that by the time we got to the Palace, we realized that we wouldn't have time to do both the Gardens and the Palace itself. This was a huge letdown, but we couldn't really complain. We wandered around the beautiful, vast Gardens for hours and enjoyed every second of it. We sat on the edge of the biggest fountain bathed in sunshine and watched it turn on for the first time this season. It was magnificent! Once again I felt like I was in a movie. I know it's the wrong country, but I was waiting for Mr. Darcy to walk up beside me in the Gardens. A girl can dream, right? 

It was a short trip, and a few more things went wrong than we would have liked, but all in all you can't beat Paris in the Spring. Luckily for me, I have the great fortune to go back to France in about a week! My internship in London is about to wrap up, but instead of crossing back over the pond just yet, I'm going to head back to France with the wonderful company of my Aunt Swannee. 

La vie est belle!