Paris

NUI Galway, who beieve it or not is a real academic institution, has a month off during the Spring semster. A MONTH off. Yes. I have done a bit of travelling thus far but was saving a lot of it for the back end of the semester, Spring Break. After about a month of browsing Ryanair and Hostelworld.com and Tripadvisor my trip was planned out to the detail and I was ready to take Europe by storm.



The first stop on the trip was Paris, France.

My Spring Break journey begins with me running through the streeets of Galway to (barely) catch my bus to the airport. After 3 hours of watching Maurice Sutton high school highlights on the bus, I arrived at the Dublin airport. Luckily I managed to squeeze 13 days of clothing into a Ryanair approved suitcase, ate a weird airport meatball sub, drank a pint, and boarded a plane to France. The plane ride flew by because I watched Midnight in Paris on Erin's iphone, and I was now officially ready to tackle Paris.

After taking another bus from the airport to center city, the 8 of us grabbed two cabs to Smart Place Paris, our hostel for the next two nights. Without divulging too much detail, all 8 of us ended up sleeping in the same 4 person hostel room, which was no bigger than my bathroom on West this year. Our booking was messed up and we convinced the receptionist to turn a blind eye and let us shack up together for the two nights. #STUDYABROAD. While the room was extremely small, it cut everyone's hostel expence in half so that actually worked out. After a long day of travel, we went right to sleep with big plans for the next day.

On Thursday morning me, Erin, and Megan woke up bright and early and started our Paris tour. Erin was just in Paris the weekend before so it was great to have somebody to navigate the city and show us all of the best places. Our first stop was the Sacre Coeur Bascilica, which was conveniently right behind our hostel.

After marveling at the Basilica and the great views of Paris from the top of the steps, we started walking more towards the center of the city. Along our journey, we stopped for some French pastires. We arrived at the Louvre Museum just as the sun started to come out. The Louvre is the famous art museum in Paris that is home to the Mona Lisa. The entrance to this museum in really neat and the line wasn't too long to get in. Plus it is free for EU students, a common theme throughout my Spring Break travels.

The Lourve was home to some great art, don't get me wrong. However, the main star of this show was the overwhelming number of Asian tourists who were taking pictures of EVERYTHING. Excessive photography was to be expected, but nothing prepared me for the absolute mob scene that surrounded the Mona Lisa. These people were cut throat, ruthless savages who would do anything to wiggle their way through the crowds to get that treasured Mona Lisa selfie shot. Pure comedy. The Mona Lisa, but the way, was very cool to see in person but honestly so small that you're better off googling an image of the painting. Nothing too special there, I liked some of the other paintings a lot more.



After we left the Lourve, we walked in the sunshine trough the Tuileries Gardens to the Monet museum, which was also free. The Monet museum is most famous for its white circular rooms with the paintings of water lilies.

After the Monet museum, Megan, Erin and I walked down the Champs Elysees, which is the main shopping street in Paris, towards the Arc de Triomphe. I honestly have no idea what this arc symbolizes or stands for, but it is an iconic image in Paris and surprisingly massive when you see it in person. After being slightly more wowed by this Arc than the Mona Lisa, the three of us grabbed lunch at a small cafe in Paris. I ate a croque monsieur, which is a ham and cheese sandwich with melted cheese on top of the bread. Very solid sandwich.

By this point of the day it was literally only like 2pm, and we were on pace to set the land speed record for fastest 1 day Paris tour. We stopped into a convenience store and picked up a few bottles of 2 euro "champagne," actually just sparkling wine. We walked along the Seine river to the Eiffel Tower. The next few hours of my life were spent hanging out with Megan, Erin, Matt, and Brendan in the gardens surrounding the Eiffel tower, sipping on some gross champagne and listening to the Lumineers CD on my phone. Definitely a highlight. I more or less peaked for my trip that afternoon, at least for the time being.

Vod does Paris

Popping bottles, a legal activity in Paris mind you

This is a picture of the Eiffel tower

After marveling at the tower, we walked to a food cart where I ate the single greatest hot dog of my entire life. You can find these dirty dogs all over Paris, and for literally the first time I  found something that Europe does better than the United States, hot dogs. They take a crusty french baguette, put TWO hot dogs into it, and then melt cheese over the entire thing. Unreal. Definitely the best I ate while in Paris.

After devouring some hot dogs, Erin and I left the Eiffel Tower and took the Metro to Notre Dame. This church was insanely impressive, and so masssive. The inside of the Notre Dame was the prettiest church I have ever seen, by far. And yes, I saw the Gargoyles.

Immediately behind the Notre Dame there is a small park, which was definitely my favorite spot in Paris. Through the park you can see the the Love Lock Bridge, which is a bridge covered by locks. A couple will put a lock on the bridge and throw away the key into the river, "locking" their love in Paris forever. It is another iconic sight in Paris and was awesome to see.

Lock Bridge

Surprisingly, it was still light out at this point of the day. We came out of the gates FIRING. We checked out the Shakespeare Book Company, which is a really interesting and famous book store right by the lock bridge. After looking around for a while, Erin and I settled on a nice place for dinner. The service was painfully slow, but the food was decent. I ate DUCK! When we left dinner it was around 10pm. We took the metro back to the Eiffel tower to see it at night and climb it before it closed at 11. The line was pretty short and we took the tram ALL the way up to the very top. It was blistering cold but the views of the city were absolutely amazing. Not to mention that there was a clear full moon that night and there were literally fireworks playing in the distance. OK, now I have peaked. 

We met up with the whole Nova gang at the base of the tower and took the metro back to our hostel for some much needed sleep after a jam packed day. 

Friday was our last day in Paris. We checked out of the hostel and carried our luggage with us throughout the whole next day. We went back to Notre Dame with everybody because most people hadn't seen it the previous day. They have bleachers in front of the church and I sat there for a while, enjoying some sun and admiring the building and yes, the tourists. Then we all went out to lunch together, in a similar area where we had eaten the night before.

Meat Sock, a story for another day

After a huge lunch we all went to the Luxembourg Gardens, which is a beautiful and huge park. We essentially spend the whole rest of the day in this park, because it was so warm and we had done everything the day before. More Lumineers was played. At one point, we watched these French men play bocce ball in what appeared to be some sort of league or tournament. This one punk kid was schooling old guys and was probably the biggest boss I've ever witnessed. These frenchies had some game, but they simply cannot rival the bocce prowess that is displayed in the Outer Banks on a summerly basis. Another league. I ate my first macaroons in the gardens and they were insanely good. Much different than American macaroons. Some flavors included Rose petal, caramel, creme brulee, passionfruit, and praline. 

We left the gardens around 4pm and headed towards the Gare de Lyon train station on the complete other side of the city. We all grabbed some last minute 1 euro baguettes for dinner and waited for our train to arrive. After asking every worker in the station if we needed to do anything special before boarding, we were assured that we could simply jump on the train. So we did.

I shared a small "coachette" with Erin, Brendan, a french mother-son combo, and a French spy. Literally this girl was the definition of a stealthy secret agent. Our room was stifling hot, but once we all fell asleep it wasn't an issue. The train was supposed to take about 15 hours, but it ran a few hours overboard. I slept much better in my little bed than the hostel the past two nights, and I woke up refreshed and ready to roll. At around 11am the next morning, I was in Rome.

Paris was a great trip and the perfect place to start our Spring Break.