Paris!

We arrived at our hotel very late that night in Paris. Around 12:30 (or military time, 0030) we were leaving the metro, crossing a very empty parking lot, and finally made it to the "Cheap Beds Hotel". It was actually a really nice, not what you would have expected with that name!

Paris is an incredible city! The thing that amazed me the most was when I would be walking down a street, and I would look up to the horizon and see the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame. I just never imagined that I would be there someday.

We did some excellent planning the night that we got in, and the credit really goes to the other 3 girls, because I was too tired to really care what we did and what order we did it in! We did make one major mistake - when we were planning out how long we would spend in the Louvre, we said 2.5, maybe 3 hours at the most. I mean, how many things could there be to see there? We discovered just that the next day.

On our first full day, we spent 5 and 1/2 hours in the Louvre! And we didn't manage to get through it all! We made it to almost all the exhibits, but the last section we were almost running through it. But it's the Louvre and you don't want to look too stupid. It was so incredible! You could spend an entire day there! I would love to go back and do just that. Or maybe a couple of days... We also ate lunch in the courtyard, which was pretty cool. We added it to our list of "interesting places we've eaten". I even stuck my feet in the water, though I'm not sure if you're supposed to do that.

After doing that, we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries and the Peace de la Concorde. We also walked over to Notre Dame, only to find it closed for the day :( But we did learn an important fact - if we went the next day at 2PM, we could get a free tour! So we continued walking around Paris, then headed back to make our plans for the next day.

Day two was even more packed than the first day! We first went to the Bastille, which is just a monument, and greatly disappointing. After that we headed to Notre Dame, and we got an almost 2 hours free tour! And it was still going on after we left the group! Our guide was excellent, and gave us so much detailed material. We even got to go up closer to the main altar than the public can go because we were part of a tour! I'll be honest, I really liked it, but it wasn't my favorite cathedral. Afterwards, we went and ate crepes right across the street! It was incredible! And they were quite yummy!

We also visited the house of Victor Hugo. It was filled with a bunch of artwork about his books, and some old copies of them as well. It did have some originally furnished rooms as well. It was really tucked away, so it was extremely cool that we found it.

We visited the Arc de Triomphe, and while we were there they were holding a ceremony in honor of the victims of WWII. The roundabout is crazy!

We walked to the Eiffel Tower, and then walked up it! Yes, those are a LOT of stairs! But it was so neat to be able to say that you walked up it! You can't go all the way up walking, but you can go most of it and then take an elevator. The view was stunning. We had just spent the day walking, and we were able to see just how far we walked. We couldn't believe it!

We went to the Statue of Liberty, and it is a lot smaller than the one in New York. We ate our dinner there, and then headed back towards the Eiffel Tower so we could see it at night. It looks much more pretty then.

All in all, we walked almost 14mi that day!

The next day we gathered up our stuff and met up with Erika and her dad and grandfather to go to Normandy!