Americans in Paris

My friend Natalie and I signed up for a group tour with Weekend Student Adventures (www.wsaeurope.com) to the beautiful city of Paris, France! It was nice to have a weekend fully planned for us, especially since we left for Paris just four days after returning from Italy.

In efforts to take the cheapest flights possible, we took a train from Alicante to nearby Valencia, and then flew from Valencia to Paris. We arrived at our hostel at about 10pm, where we met our "roommates," all who were doing the same WSA tour. Two were studying in London, one in Barcelona, and another in Rome.

Thus far, I had had PERFECT weather in every city I visited.....then came Paris. It consistently rained for almost all of our trip, but, the show must go on! We started our tour at 10am Friday morning, with our first stop being the Sacre Coeur. We then went on to Moulin Rouge, followed by what we had all been waiting for...the Eiffel Tower.

Once we turned the corner, Kevi yelled, "There she is!!" Standing 1,063 feet tall, "she" is quite the sight. The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance for the 1889 World Fair, and absolutely none of the Parisians approved of it. Fast forward 120 years and it is now one of the most iconic pieces of architecture in Paris, if not the whole world. They are currently doing a lot of construction on the Eiffel Tower in efforts to insert a glass floor....therefore, one of the elevators was out of service, and it was at least an hour wait for the second. We opted to walk up the stairs to the lookout point. It seemed like a great idea in the beginning, but about halfway up, we were all starting to change our minds. We got some really cool pictures, despite the weather.

After the Eiffel Tower, we grabbed lunch and headed over to the Latin Quarter. From there we went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was beautiful both inside and out. There were also many Disney references made. Next we hit another tourist trap...the Pont du Amoreux, also known as the "lock bridge." Despite being touristy and a tad bit cliche, I still thought it was a really cool place.

We walked, and walked, and walked some more before we arrived at dinner. As part of our tour, some of the group opted to try traditional French cuisine at an authentic French restaurant. We ate a delicious salad with baked goat cheese (first time eating goat cheese!) as our appetizer, followed by beef bourguignon as our main course. We also tried escargot, and finished our meal off with a delicious half-baked chocolate cake. **We continued to eat our body weight over the next two days in Paris.**

Too chicken to eat the snails plain...we added bread. 

One of Natalie's friends lives in Paris, and another friend was visiting. We hung out with them on Friday night and then got up bright and early for our second day of touring. We started at the Musee du Louvre, where we saw the coveted Mona Lisa and other incredible works of art. We had some free time that afternoon, so we went macaroon shopping and ate a really great restaurant before heading back to the hotel for our bike tour. 

Our moonlight bike tour through Paris was much more difficult than anybody anticipated, but it was still one of the most fun parts of our trip. After the bike tour, we went on a cruise down the Seine River. I think we can all agree that one of our favorite parts of Paris is when the Eiffel Tower twinkles at the top of every hour. As if it weren't beautiful enough! I guess that's why they call it the city of light...