Paris! Day 1

This past weekend, I was able to visit the city of light, Paris. It was an amazing experience. I journeyed to Paris by bus with seven others (my roommates and four other friends). We made it to our hostel at around midnight after a confusing debacle with the euroline attendant and the metro ticket machine. I was feeling a little under the weather, but relieved to have been able to make it to Paris. The eight of us were the only users of our room, which was nice because of our unusual sleeping pattern, our sicknesses, and our American ways. The hostel itself was awesome. It was called St. Christopher's Paris Hostel. St. Christopher's was my first hostel experience, and I feel like it set the bar pretty high. The people there were very nice. I met three Brazilians as well as one Argentinian.

The next morning, I woke up early in excitement. I got everyone else up, and we all enjoyed a free breakfast at our hostel. We had made plans to go on a walking tour through the hostel, but did not make it to the meeting spot in time. We decided to go to L'Arc de Triumphe, which is on the west side of the north bank of the Seine. I climbed to the top only to be met with the best views of the city I had the entire trip. After that the group walked down aux Champs Elysees, sampling the local fare (crepes), as well as stopping at a couple shops. We found ourselves meandering towards the Louvre. After a stop in one of Paris's famous gardens, we decided to venture the great expanses of the Louvre. We marched strong through the first few exhibits, but grew increasingly tired as we progressed through more. My favorite exhibits were the Egyptian relics, as well as the Greek sculptures. I got a chance to see the Mona Lisa, as well as many other insane paintings.

We left the Louvre right around six o'clock feeling drained and hungry. We walked across the Seine onto the south bank of the river. We zigzagged our way towards the Eiffel Tower. We took many photos from the base, but didn't venture to the top. The craziest thing about the monument wasn't the size, or the lights, but rather how irritating the African merchants trying to sell cheap figurines of the Eiffel Tower. We brushed through the crowds and found an empty cafe not far from the tower to enjoy pasta and pizza. I had made it the entire day without complaint, until we got to dinner. I had been taking an extremely large amount of medicine the entire day, and I started to feel it at dinner. We ate and enjoyed people watching from our warm seats for awhile before heading back to our hostel. I decided I needed to go to bed because I was sick, while the rest of the crew went out to enjoy the nightlife.

Pictures From Day 1