Travel Week: Bonjour Paris & Versailles

     So I know that the several posts coming are very much overdue... by a month to be exact. (NAILED IT.) But I am determined to completely document the most fantastic adventure of my life. So get excited for four more weeks of posts. I’m also still writing these as if they just happened. So don’t be confused; I am in fact not still in Europe, much to my chagrin. Anyway, to the post! 

     This week I lived some more dreams. I traveled to Paris! Rome! Florence! AND Pisa! Technically you can count Beauvais, France as well, but that wasn’t exactly a tourist stop. But goodness me, I feel as if I lived five lifetimes these past five days. So here’s a rundown of what happened.

BONJOUR, PARIS!

        My first stop was Paris, France. I must say that since first discovering one of my most beloved movies, Midnight in Paris, I have become much more interested in visiting. The city has most certainly enchanted me.

This is your soundtrack for this portion of the post: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox8bPmgcQUQ&list=PL4384C518BE33455C

-          In traveling to Paris, I had my very first train ride. WAHOO! I was so excited. I was having flashbacks to all my favorite old movies like White Christmas as I stepped on. It wasn’t very appropriate to sing “Snow” though. 

- The hostel we stayed at was in a little suburb outside of the main city, a place called Villejuif. The hostel  was literally just a house in a nice neighborhood. When we would go out for the day we would pass playgrounds with kids running around before school, and lots of people out walking their little dogs. ;) But the hostel was a really fun experience - once I got a grasp of what to expect. I had never been to a hostel before. Breakfast was really great; we had baguettes with jam and butter, with  eggs, bananas, and oranges. Not the nicest breakfast in the world but there was plenty of it and it certainly served its purpose well. What I really loved about it though was that everyone had to sit at the same table. So you got to brush shoulders with a lot of people. It was great to hear people's stories; I think my favorite was this younger, sweet as can be latino guy who had just came to Paris from Cannes. He was just taking a break from school and just backpacking through Europe, going wherever he felt like at the time. He had been out for about 2 months at this point. There were a lot of guys like that, and a few girls too. Most were just backpacking for fun though some were doing some extra travelling while studying abroad for school, etc.

- We only had 1 day in the city of Paris itself (which was like most of our schedule) so we saw a LOT and did a LOT. Here's a very quick picture tour:

Stop 1: Notre Dame. One of the highlights of my trip. I was singing "The Bells of Notre Dame" so hard in my head. Once inside though I audibly sang "God Help The Outcasts." Multiple times. Not ashamed. I also looked for Quasi - no sign of him. Next time.

We just happened upon Lover's Bridge on our walk around town. (Couples will come, write their names on the locks, lock the lock on the bridge and toss the key off into the Seine to symbolize their eternal love.)

Stop 2: The Louvre Museum. It was really raining at this point (which I was thrilled about; "Paris is most beautiful in the rain.") We couldn't go in because something was filming there - go figure. So we went to...

Stop 3: The Musee d'Orsay instead. Which was honestly where I preffered to be. We waited outside for two hours in the freezing rain, we were completely soaked, but it was so worth it. I got to see my beloved Van Gogh among every other painter I've ever admired or loved. (No, really.) And I got to see my all-time favorite piece of artwork, Van Gogh's Starry Night Over The Rhone. Saying I was in heaven would be a bit of an understatement. 

Stop 4: Got to see the fountains from An American in Paris. Don't worry, I hummed Gershwin and walked through the monuments/fountains like Gene Kelly.

Stop 5: Walked up the Champs - Elysees eating a tart and a baguette and stopped at the Arc di Triomphe. There was some military service going on underneath the Arc so we couldn't walk through it, but we walked around and gazed for a while. It was beautiful; the gorgeous weather was certainly helping as well. It was a beautiful sight. 

As was this. 

Stop 6: The Eiffel Tower. I took a lot of pictures of this so here are a small selection of my faves.

     -

After taking lots of pictures around it, we went up into the tower.

     -  That night and watched the sun set and fall behind the city of Paris from the top. Truly an unforgettable and quite magical experience.

Me at the top :)

The lights of the Tower from the top. You could tell when the lights came on because of all of the flashing cameras from below.

 The city by night, from the lower decks. That party barge looked like it was on fire it was so bright.

 - After the sun went down we descended from the Tower and proceeded to eat another crepe before heading home for the night. (I believe this was our fourth of the day. We didn't eat much other than desserts.) 

It's a beautiful way to say goodnight, don't you think?

- Our second day was a quick day trip to Versailles before travelling to our next international destination. 

This portion's track:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE

- This morning we said goodbye to our little hostel and adorable little man who took care of us the past two nights. We made our way out a bit later than we wanted, we missed seeing the fountains in the gardens, but nevertheless we made it to Versailles. Now Versailles was never on my "must - see" list; I would've been fine had I not gone but I figured it would be fun so being forced to go with the rest of the group wasn't much of a hardship. Oh my goodness. I had no idea what was in store for me.

Our first view - You can't even see all of the main building. It was unbelievably gargantuan. 

Everything was garnished with gold. It was quite ornate and undoubtedly very expensive.

 - We didn't ave a lot of time to spend, just a few hours to go through the main portion of the palace and the gardens (we didn't even consider going out by Marie Antoinette's place, etc), but I was determined to appreciate everything that was around me. So I did a lot of running, literally running, to keep up with my group. After about 5 rooms of attempts to keep up, I gave up the venture. I still ran, or speed walked from room to room, but I stopped to look and take a picture or two in each room. It was incredible. 

All of this is painted directly on the walls 

This is the palace chapel. Look at the people on the bottom right for a size reference. 

I absolutely adore all of the painted ceilings. 

The famed Hall of Mirrors! 

The view from the palace into the gardens.

- And into the Gardens we went! 

There was some construction work being done. 

Triwizard Tournament, anyone?

I really liked the fountains, if you couldn't tell.

- But it really was an incredible day. Just astounding. I definitely want to go back someday - I could easily spend a full day there. But after our quick excursion we grabbed a bite to eat and journeyed on towards Beauvais, the little town our flight was from. We took a train through the French countryside to get to Beauvais and I thought it was one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever seen. I ADORE all of the yellow flowered fields that carpet Europe! It was beautiful with the sun casting incredible light over the hills. I listened to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack and it was kind of perfect. Plus - I made a friend while on the train! Her name was Bonnie and she was going to school in Paris for the year. She was from Australia, so it was really fun to talk to her. We chatted for a good 45 minutes before she had to go. It was lovely. But that about sums up my French experiences! 

Onwards to Italia!