FIFTEEN.

Sorry for the delay and for neglecting my blog! Here's my long awaited entry ( # 15 Big Baloo!) about my trip to Paris!

13-15 November 2009 Paris, France- Oh, the city of love! C'est magnifique! Paris is such a wonderful and beautiful city. You can't help but feel that anything can happen while you're there and you can just be swept away! I loved how well the culture and language is preserved considering its such a large tourist city. It was pretty nice actually practicing some of the french I spent all of those years studying!

Friday morning a big group from my school departed from Kings Cross/ St Pancras Station (yes like from Harry Potter) and rode the Eurostar for 2 1/2 hours. The hostel we stayed at was called St. Christopher Inn which, although the location was a bit on the outskirts, ended up being a really nice hostel. The rooms were nice & clean so no complaints there. There was also a bar and a club in the hostel so if you didn't want to go out into the city you don't have to sit in your room all night. Once we settled in we ventured to Montmartre and ate lunch consisting of baguettes crepes and REAL french fries. After lunch my girlfriends and I rode a carousel at the bottom of Sacre Coeur, carrying on the tradition of going on every carousel I see. We then, well equipped with a bottle of wine, walked up the many many steps to Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart) a huge cathedral ontop of a hill that overlooks all of Paris. The sight was absolutely majestic. We sat on the steps with our wine and enjoyed backround music of a French man singing Bob Marley. As sunset approached, we wandered down the road to see if we could catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower hidden behind a tree. Sure enough we found it and it was an incredible sight. I know the French despise la Tour Eiffel but I have to say it is really amazing on the skyline.

We then continued wandering and found our way to Moulin Rouge, which we took pictures outside of and quickly moved on. By this time it was about dinner so we miraculously found our way to this restaurant my friends Alex and Nicole recommended to me called le Refuge des Fondues which is this hilarious hole in the wall where you drink wine out of baby bottles and eat a bottomless pit of fromage and bread and potatoes and lots of other little things. Dinner was so much fun, especially all of the French people just getting an absolute kick out of the Americans who could not use the fondue pot for our lives. The one waiter said to the table next to us in french: "where did they learn to cook? le courdon blue?" Needless to say after dinner we were all full and exhausted so we made our way back towards our hostel and just strolled along the canal and took in more of Paris.

Saturday morning we were up earlier than anyone wanted to be so we could catch the free walking tour. We trekked our way through Paris with our Australian tour guide Jacqueline and saw sites such as le Louvre, the burning site of the Knights Templar, Notre Dame, the alleged place where the revolution REALLY began, la champs d'elysees, jardin des tuileries, and most importantly sites from Sex & the City and the Devil Wears Prada. After the tour we headed to the Eiffel Tower and rode up to the second level because it was too windy to go all the way to the top. It was so windy and cold but worth the trip and I got to indulge in a cup of mulled wine on the Eiffel Tower so thats pretty sweet! After all the excitement we ate dinner at a delicious french restaurant and headed back to the hostel to get ourselves ready to go out on our pub crawl! The pub crawl ended up being a bit of a rip off because half of the pubs wouldn't allow us to come because the big Ireland v France football game was on. We ended up watching the game in a small bar but it would have watched it in a crazy pub! The crawl ended at a club on the champs d'elysees but we were exhausted and didn't stay long.

Sunday morning my friend Caroline and I ventured out for a shopping trip only to realize that all the shops are closed on Sundays!! We just ended up wandering some beautiful neighborhoods and exploring a lot. Our train back to London was in the afternoon so we grabbed lunch and headed to La Gare du Nord.

The trip went so fast but I loved Paris so much and was bummed out enough about my lack of shopping the Caroline and I booked a trip back to Paris for a day and a night! So my ideal Paris experience will be fulfilled after next week!

I promise I will update very soon on everything that's been going on since my trip including my family's visit and my trip to Venice which I leave for TOMORROW!