Très cool... Allons-y!

Paris was the only city we went to that was not easily walkable. Luckily though, the metro was very easy to use. There were stops on every corner. The only thing that was not easy to use were the turnstiles to get into the metro. In order to reach the platforms, you had to feed your ticket into a machine, go through a turnstile, retrieve your ticket, and push your way past a heavy swinging half door. Getting through these contraptions required an advanced level of coordination and timing that I had not quite perfected. One time while going through the turnstile, my purse got stuck, so I forgot to put my hand up to push the door. As I pulled free, I stumbled forward as the door swung back and high fived my face. I cried out, “Oeuf!” in pain, which coincidentally means ‘egg’ in French. Because of the commotion I made, the French ticket checkers thought I had jumped the turnstile and pulled the three of us aside to check the validity of our tickets. Keisha and Nick were laughing quite hard, and I’m sure it is funny to watch someone faceplant through a turnstile, as long as is not your face. I was made fun of for this for the rest of the trip.

We checked into our hotel, The Three Ducks, picked exclusively on its fantastic reviews. It was a very nice hostel, recently renovated, and very clean.

By the recommendation of the friendly hostel attendant, we set out for a creperie that she claimed was only a ten minute walk by the Eiffel Tower. Hungry and tired, the ten minute walk felt like forever. We were relieved when we eventually found the tiny creperie until the waiter shooed us out, “All reserved, sorry, maybe next time!”

“Just pick a café, pick any café!” I exclaimed desperately once we got out to the street. We picked the second café we saw (because it looked cleaner). With no English translated menu, I picked my food by clinging onto single words I recognized and hoping for the best. I was craving protein and vegetables having had a lot of carbs and cheese in Italy so found something that had “Poulet” in it and picked that. I got a whole chicken leg with a side salad and a little shot of espresso. I’ve never really eaten chicken straight off the leg, but I did my best, eating most of what was on my plate.

We then walked down the Champs-Élysées. The boulevard was very pretty and framed by fat trees with the leaves changing colors. We walked down it until we reached the Arch de Triomphe. Even though Keisha and I had both been to Paris before, neither of us had been to the top of the Arch de Triomphe. We climbed the many stairs to the top and took in the sights of Paris in the day. I really enjoyed the views form the Arch de Triomphe.









We tried to make the attitude for the trip very "Allons-y!". "Allons-y" is a French expression popularized by the Tenth Doctor on Doctor Who that means "Let's go!" Kind of like "¡vámonos!" "Should we climb the Arch de Triomphe?" "Allons-y!"

 

We then walked along the Seine toward the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to see the Eiffel Tower at night, so we found a café on a side street to eat dinner and have a glass of wine until it got dark.




 Keisha's artsy iPhone pictures

Over stairs, we took the elevator to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower and enjoyed the city lit up at night. We rushed down the elevator to see the Eiffel Tower sparkling. We then stopped for crepes underneath the Eiffel Tower. I got banana and Nutella again. I have to say I did enjoy the banana Nutella waffle in Belgium more than the French crepe, but they were both good.

Second floor of the Eiffel Tower!

The Eiffel Tower is very pretty at night. Like the Colosseum, I feel like it is a very iconic landmark. I always get excited when I’m just walking around Paris and I see it casually poking over a building. I’d always make sure to point it out, “Look there’s the Eiffel Tower again!” just in case we forgot where we were.

We started off the second day with a free hostel breakfast and a metro bus combination to the Palace of Versailles. I’ve never been to Versailles before and I had heard good things. The palace was grandiose and gold plated and shone against the grey morning. The inside had a bit about the history of the palace including what happened during the French Revolution. The walls were covered in pretty tapestries that Keisha and I kept trying to touch surreptitiously to see what sort of fabric they were. We thought they were velvet, but were disappointed to find out it was just thin embroidered fabric. The best part was the massive gardens behind the palace. They were huge and green. We were all on another cycle of sickness, so we didn’t have the energy to explore them. Instead we headed back to the city center with the intent of going to the Louvre.

Nick lost his voice on the way back, so we all came up with our own set of hand signals. We kept saying everything was "Très cool!" so we would hold up three fingers for "très" and then put two fingers by the side of our mouths for "cool". The symbol for "yes" was gesturing to the three of us, or "oui". The sign language came in handy the rest of the trip.

Had we researched dining options, we would have learned that most places strongly recommend against eating near the Louvre as the food is known to be subpar. We did not however, and ended up eating at a café right by the Louvre. It was indeed subpar. However I desperately needed the energy the crunchy tagliatelli and watery cappuccino gave me.

In our exhausted state, we made it to the Louvre. There were a lot of cement cubes around the perimeter of the Louvre. They were all occupied by tourists standing on them to take a picture touching the point of the pyramid or leaning against the pyramid (like people taking a picture pushing over the Tower of Pisa, for example). We all managed to get up on a cement block together to take a picture. Later, it occurred to us that if we weren’t trying to take a fun perspective picture there was no reason for the three of us to stand on the cube together and we just look kind of silly squished on the cube together. But I like the picture.

There was an Arch by the Louvre. Nick and I were discussing what it was and we couldn’t figure it out. We decided that it wasn’t as impressive as the Arch de Triomphe, but also wasn’t a Loser’s Arch, so we nicknamed it the Arch de Draw.

Later, we were discussing where we needed to walk, and without thinking I said, “I think we need to walk toward the Arch de Draw.”

“What?” Keisha asked, having missed our previous conversation.

“The Arch de Draw,” I repeated.

“What are you talking about?”

“The Arch of … Ties,” I said sheepishly.

I wish I could have taken a picture of her reaction. Nick and I laughed at ourselves for a while after that.

We didn’t make it in time to go inside the Louvre, so we decided to walk to the Notre Dame. The Notre Dame is a very pretty, very impressive Gothic church along the Seine.

We had a lovely dinner at a café near our hostel with pizza and wine. We knew the French are known for good cuisine, but we couldn’t really figure out what counted as French cuisine past escargot and frogs legs (both of which we passed on this trip). It may just be a style of cooking, but generally it is quite good.

We finished the night with a beer at our hostel bar, which was hopping with a young international crowd.

Our third day began with the free hostel breakfast again, and then a determined trip to actually go to the Louvre. I heard someone throw out the statistic that it would take four months to see everything in the Louvre. I’m not sure If that’s true, but we only spent an hour in there, so I don’t think we put a dent in it. We turned the trip into an unofficial scavenger hunt including things like: display that could be damaged most with one swing of the arm, celebrity look alike portraits, and more. We took a selfie with the Mona Lisa, lamented the fact that we hadn’t bought a selfie stick, and headed back out into the city.

We had another laid back lunch at a Parisian café and discussed our plans for that evening.

Keisha was on Tripadvisor looking for things for us to do. We had been struggling with Tripadvisor because the reviews would be like, “The staff is rude, the food sucked, but the chair was comfortable. Five stars.” Or “I have no negative feedback. One star.” So we weren’t really sure what to make of the reviews.

“This Night Bike Tour got good reviews!” Keisha announced. So she booked the bike tour on her phone. It was something so random and unplanned for us to do, but it ended up being my favorite night of the trip.

Born and raised in San Diego, Nick was worried that we might melt if we got touched by the rain. Luckily it only lightly sprinkled and we were fine. We met up with the Fat Tire Bike Crew and they passed out Fat Tired red bikes and really cool neon reflector vests. We then followed our Aussie bike leader Paul to various sights. We stopped for ice cream by the Notre Dame and learned about the history of the catacombs, language institute, and more. We were having a blast biking through the drizzly city night.

Keisha came up with a song for our bike ride. “Bike Gang! Down the Rue de Paris! Bike Gang! By the Eiffel Tower!”

The masse of neon clad tourists eventually made it to the Louvre. “Take a lap around the courtyard!” Paul encouraged.

Keisha and I took lap after lap around the Louvre courtyard while she was singing, “Bike Gang! Round the Louvre!” Until we realized that everyone had moved on so we pedaled fast to catch up.

The second half of the tour consisted of a Seine wine cruise. We biked to the boat and boarded. Paul passed out Dixie cups full of red wine and we boated up the Seine sipping on our wine and it was very lovely. We boated around the Notre Dame and back.

I heard a French Cat joke, so I shared it with Nick and Keisha while we were boating, since I figured it was appropriate. "There are two cats. One is an American cat named One Two Three and the other is a French cat named Un Deux Trois. The two cats try to swim across the Seine. One Two Three makes it across but Un Duex Trois Quatre Cinq."

I really had a lot of fun biking around, seeing the city at night, cruising up the river, and drinking wine with fun friends. I like all of those activities individually, but collectively and in a city as cool as Paris made the whole experience très cool.

 We like to pretend this didn't happen

Once we disembarked we all biked back past the Eiffel Tower. We took the train back to our hostel. By this time we were starving so we searched all around for food. All the café's kitchens were closed. We were about to settle for chips from a dingy fluorescent light lit market when we heard that McDonald’s was open until one. So, shamefully, we all bought McDonald’s reassuring ourselves that it was the only thing open. I got a chicken sandwich that was slathered in mayonnaise. I did not feel too well after eating McDonald’s, but at least I wasn’t hungry. I generally try to eschew American franchises while abroad. I ate more McDonald’s this trip than I have in the last ten years with that one meal. Thus McDonald’s completed our trip to Paris, a city known for its exquisite culinary capabilities.