Today had a very early start—up at 5:45 to get ready to leave and make sure we had all our things together. A bus came and picked us up and took us all to St. Pancras Station where we would catch the Eurostar and travel through the Chunnel all the way to Paris. We grabbed some breakfast (since I was out of pounds and there way a five pound minimum to use a charge card, I ate quite a bit—some great crepes). A few people went off to King’s Cross (which is adjoined to St. Pancras), to take a picture at platform 9 and ¾ from Harry Potter. The Eurostar takes 2 hours and 15 minutes from London to Paris—during which I attempted to sleep for the majority of the time since I didn’t get too much sleep the night before. It was cool to wake up and see French signs outside. Everyone thought traveling through the Chunnel was a pretty cool experience and we were all excited to be in France.
We arrived at Guard Du Nord train station and walked about half a mile (with all our luggage—that’s 27 peoples’ luggage all in a row) to our hotel; Hotel Est (which is in the North East region of Paris near the Guard du Est station). We had about an hour to settle into our rooms and freshen up. It nice to only have to share the bathroom with one other girl, as opposed to 5 like we did in London. The hotel is pretty nice and our room is cute with a good view of Parisian rooftops (see picture above). We all met up again and proceeded to get metro tickets for the three days we are here. Now that was a hassle—only a few of us speak French so the rest of the group relies on us for certain things. It took over an hour to get everyone their three day passes. Then we grabbed some dinner (Matt, Meghan, Amy Corby and I went to a cute French café—I had a crock monsieur) and off we went to explore Paris in the evening.
We took the metro directly to the Eiffel Tower—everyone was very anxious to see what they had only seen pictures of before (I have seen it once before when visiting Paris with my family as a kid). We turned a corner and there it was, all lit up in the night sky. There was an eerie haze towards the top third of the tower, which allowed for some amazing photographs as well as limited visibility. It was an awesome sight to see, especially when it was all lit up. We walked through the park and watched the tower get closer and closer. Finally we stood directly beneath the monument and all of a sudden the whole thing began twinkling with bright flashing lights! It was so beautiful. I’m really glad we were all able to witness it sparkling at night.
After everybody took masses of pictures we got back on the metro to see the Champs Elises and L’Arc de Triumph. The Champs Elises is still decorated with tons of lights for the winter season, so it was really pretty to walk up and down it (as well as eating pain au chocolate). We spent about an hour there, walking around, before everyone was exhausted and wanted to go home. Tonight’s agenda is to rest up for the long day of sightseeing dans Paris demain!
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