Paris - January 11th-13th

(We were not obligated to write about Paris in our blogs but because I am such a diligent student, I will anyway.)

We got in to our hotel around 4pm on Friday the 11th and quickly unpacked before heading out into the city. Our hotel was situated at the end of the Gold Metro line, about 25 minutes away from the city center. As this was my first time in Paris, I was blown away with how beautiful the city was. In fact, it was so pretty that they didn't feel the need to keep it clean because the ornate buildings and monuments made up for it.

Here are some of the pictures I took from the trip:

We went to the Louvre on Saturday just to see the highlights. None of the guys are real art buffs but I'm glad I went and saw the unimpressive Mona Lisa.

We went into Notre Dame on Friday night and it was really cool to see mass going on while tourists filed in and out. They were burning incense and playing the organ. I did not expect them to let us in but I'm sure glad they did.

Obviously, we went to the Eiffel Tower and took all sorts of pictures like the one below.

The language barrier in France was much greater than in Holland. After seeing the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, we got lunch at a nearby cafe. A few people in our group ordered a single order of escargot but the waitress misunderstood and brought three orders which would have been 36 euros. After a ton of awkward laughing, we finally got one of the orders knocked off the bill, but still, the situation showed the language barrier at its finest. It was okay because the croque madame sandwich at this cafe was out of this world good. 

The French people were definitely not as patient with us as the Dutch have been. Not even two minutes after we arrived at the hotel we were told to quiet down. Granted, we are very loud as a group in general, but this time I did not think we were too boisterous. 

The nightlife in Paris was excellent. There are a ton of bars and pubs to choose from and we found one we liked so we went back a second time although everywhere in Paris was expensive. Then again, Europe has been expensive in general. 

Although the trip was short, I am very satisfied with the amount of Paris that we saw. I cannot wait to go back sometime in the future.