Whoops, I head to Paris and all of a sudden I'm way behind on my blog! That's totally an indicator of just how crazy this trip has been. Let me explain:
In Berlin, I realized that the YSAs had all left for this Conference down in Switzerland, so I just missed most of them. Luckily (for me, not for them) both Yasmin and Farah had to stay in Berlin to work, so I got to see them. We met at the station at Südkreutz (after a few difficulties) and then headed over to Ikea to have dinner and catch up. It was cool to get a chance to talk to and see them in a setting where I wasn't a missionary, just a friend.
All to soon, I had to leave for Paris. I caught the last train to Paris and planned to sleep all the way there. That is, until I saw my seat. The Basel-Berlin sleeper was nice and way luxurious. This train was set up with the “seated” spots just like a normal train- 6 seats in a room facing each other. Of course there were “laying” spots, but those were sold out by the time I checked. :( We left at 8PM and were scheduled to pull in at 9:30AM the next morning. I got maybe a total of 45 minutes of sleep.
I made one last-ditch effort to make it to Marseilles. Once again, had I not needed a reservation, I would have made it no problem. Because I didn't have one, I was in Paris for the day waiting for Noah to show up that afternoon.
It took a while to figure out, but I got a 3-day transit pass and figured out where the hostel was. I haven't been in a large city and been so helpless in a really long time. That's one part of my type A personality- I need to be in control of where I am and where I need to go, and how to get there as well. So that became my goal until Noah showed up- learn Paris.
I started by dropping my bags off at the hostel and walking the street outside towards the main station. There was a good half-mile long open-air market that I went through after making sure my wallet and money were safe. I bought some fresh apples and thought about some gifts, but until I get to London, I don't have any spare room!
I saw a flyer for this free walking tour of Paris (same tour group that did the one I did [and loved!!!] in Berlin) so I went to listen to “the bells, Bells, BELLS..... of Notre Dam” (Disney reference, lol) as they chimed at noon, and then joined in on the tour. I met a couple of girls visiting Paris as well- Nikkola from Perth and Delphine from Quèbec. Our tourguide, Allison, from Sydney was a hoot. She's been in Paris for 11 months and her Visa runs out at the end of August. I learned so much about the city during our tour, in part because it was a 3.5 hour tour!
I went to pick Noah up from the train station, and saw that his train would be 30 minutes late. All of a sudden, I crashed. I was so tired and exhausted from going and going. I decided to step out of the busy train station and I found a massive cathedral just down the road (gotta love Europe!) where I could sit in silence and rest my eyes and not worry so much about pick-pockets.
Noah and I went and checked in the the Hostel, and our room is amazing. We have 3 bunk beds (so us and 4 roommates) and a really nice bathroom. Our roommates are from Toronto and Copenhagen, so it's really cool to talk with them and get their point of view on a Eurotrip as well :)
We decided to go out and try to see a bit of the Louvre that night, but it was only open for another hour and we decided to push that back a little bit. We tried to Louvre Ferris Wheel, but that was too expensive. In the end, we ended up climbing up the Arc de Triomph to watch the sunset and see the lights in the city turn on. It was a beautiful evening with a powerful storm that passed through. I got some amazing pictures, and we got to get a great angle of the Eiffel Tour.
By the time we got home, I was shaking I was so exhausted. We got online so we could buy tickets for Les Mis in London and plan our next 2 days in Paris, and then I crawled in to bed and collapsed. I'm about at that point again, so I'll have to fill you all in about today on my next post.
PS, go check out my picasa page. I may be spotty at uploading posts, but I do pretty good about posting pictures each night.
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