Paris Sightseeing 7/25/08

Wallet: Day 19
2 days of Shorts & T-shirts in a row!

The sun poured in through the living room french doors. It was going to be a great day, I could tell. Our plan was to head to the TGV (The French Train Company) office down the street from Bree's and book our tickets to Lisbon and then go walk around Paris. Once we got ourselves together, we headed to the office. The line was nearly non-existent so we felt that were in luck. The customer service we received lived up to every bit of the stereotypical Parisian rudeness. The ticketing agent seemed impatience from the moment we sat down. When we told him where we wanted to go he casually started searching. 10 minutes later he still had not looked back at us and had not said a word. Finally, he threw his hands up and said the system was down and he couldn't help us. I asked him when we should come back and he said the he didn't know, 10 minutes maybe 2 hours. Ugh.

We headed back to the apartment to eat a quick lunch and figure out what the hell we were going to do next. The street where Bree lives is lined with shops and bakeries, making it a cool place to walk around. The food we picked up was so delicious it lifted our spirits, seriously. We put another load of laundry in the washing machine and readied ourselves for round 2 at the ticketing office. The moment we walked in we got a bad look from the guy who we talked to before but we casually grabbed a new number and sat down. About 10 minutes later he got up and decided it was time for his break, leaving his desk empty. Eventually, the one lady left working got to our number. She seemed ready and happy to help it was actually a pleasant experience working with her...mostly. What we found out was there were no trains available on our Eurail pass and we would have to pay full price to get to Lisbon, an astounding 158 Euros. Ridic. Not happening.

Suddenly, I had a though - why don't we go to Switzerland instead? We would at least be working ourselves somewhat south and could probably find a train from there to Lisbon. The ticketing agent quickly found us two tickets for two days from now and we were set. Off to Bern and then Zurich. Total cost 10 Euros, much better.

We walked out of the office and towards the Eiffel tower feeling good about ourselves. We headed straight for the base of the Tower, it is so impressive. It seems to loom over practically everything in its' vicinity. You feel absolutely minuscule when you stand beneath it. We then headed up to the lookout point and took a few of our jumping pictures. They came out absolutely amazing. As we walked away, a man stopped us and showed us his camera, he had taken a shot of us jumping from another angle. We were tempted to ask for his email info so he could send it to us but his English was pretty hard to understand so we moved on. I'm still somewhat kicking myself for not getting that picture.

We took a short metro ride to Champs Elyses and walked to the Arc de Triumph. The whole street is lined with shops like Louis Vitton and Versace. We walked under the roundabout and to the base of the the Arc. Snapping a few pictures and seeing the view all the way down Champs Elyses was a good time. I took a look at our map and saw that if we headed straight down from where we were standing we would run into the Louve. As always, we decided to go with it, so off we went.

We made it to the Louve about 45 minutes later, feeling somewhat overheated from the incredibly hot day. I remembered reading that Louve closed at 6 and it was 5:30 so sat near the fountain and dipped our feet to cool off. After 20 minutes I saw there was still a line forming so I looked through our Paris book and was shocked to see that on Fridays it is open until 9. Sweet deal! We grabbed our things and got right in line.

As we made our way down to the lower floor where tickets are purchased a guy in an orange shirt stopped us. I figured he was trying to sell us something so we brushed him off. He switched from French to English and said, as students, if we waited until 6 PM you two will get in for free. RIGHT ON! We grabbed a cup of coffee at the cafe and went into the first part of the museum. The caffeine provided a serious boost to both of us.

We spent the most time in the Egyptian Mummy Exhibit, something I found absolutely amazing. We toured the multiple floors of the museum and later made our way to the Mona Lisa, also known as the massive disappointment. I was expecting some massive painting but its more the size of two postcards put together. I found the crowd gawking at the painting more interesting than the painting itself. I manged to get myself to the front of the crowd to get a good picture of the painting but more importantly a picture of the hundreds of cameras snapping away pictures.

Two and a half hours at that museum absolutely flew by and we made our way back to Bree's to shower up and get ready for another night out in Paris. Bree texted us directions on where to meet up and we made our way to a cool area of the city known for bars packed with students. We spent the rest of the night making up shots and chanting NU songs. Good times.

So again, from Pariiii, Au Revior!