Paris for a day!

Hi,

It's pretty chilly in Takaoka today, so I thought I'd write about a day where it was the complete opposite. 30+ degrees Celcius in Paris on July 16th. :-D

16 July

Today I went across the English Channel (actually under it) to continental Europe for the first time ever. I went to Paris for the day. :-D

My sister wrote me an itinerary so that I got all of the important bits in.

I left the house in London just before 6am and took a train from St Pancras International train station bright and early arriving in Paris 3 hours later at 11amish. I think hot footed it to the Notre Dame which I dared not enter due to a) time constraints and b) crowds! Nortre Dame was spectacular and Paris felt just like a painting.

The next stop was the Louvre where I spent 9 Euros to see 2 things, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, and get annoyed with crowds. Sadly, I am just like my mother and cannot stand hordes of people. I don't know what it is. But anyway needless to say the Louvre, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo were all spectacular as one would imagine. The experience was one of pure amazement.

After the Louvre I wandered through Jardine de Tuileries, a bunch of gardens, where I stopped for a crepe made in France by an English, French and Hindi speaking Indian. You can imagine my surprise right?? The chocolate, banana crepe was one of the best crepes I've ever eaten made all the better by the fact that I was sitting on the grass doing what I do best, people watching. People watching and eating, love it!

I then proceeded to walk up the Champs Elysses to Le Arc du Triomphe via Sephora, a cosmetics shop and I didn't not buy something but I didn't want to spend all my money either so I only spent 5 Euros. :-D That's pretty good for me in shopping heaven. So then I did the been there done that took the photo of the big arch and proceeded off to the most magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower that Paris has to offer from Le Trocadero. I got someone to take a photo for me.

I then wandered down to the Eiffel Tower and waited in line for over an hour to get my Youth Ticket up, I was still 24 for 2 more weeks so I was lucky there. Rushed up to halfway, bought some souvenirs took a few photos and got the heck outta here because I was on a time budget and needed to catch my train which ended up being nearly an hour late!

The sore feet and mild heat stroke that came from power walking around Paris was totally worth it. I'm so glad I decided to take a day out of my London holiday to go to Paris.

It occurred to me on the train on the way back that I've eaten on 6 continents. I think that's pretty cool. Only Africa to go. I even beat my sister who has been to a crazy number of countries. That made me feel good at the time but it's kind of made me just a tiny bit determined to go to Africa at some stage... 'tis only a matter of when I've paid off my student loan and save enough money I guess.

And with that I'm going to go and find a nice warm spot in Starbucks at the mall to study some more Japanese. Such is the life of the girl who has realized how tight she needs to be over the next few weeks if she wishes to enjoy her trip home and treat some of her friends in 4 weeks' time, darn you money!