From Belgium to Paris... in 7 days! Well, it's been a pretty packed 3 weekends. Scotland, Belgium AND Paris. But, we made it. We lasted through all of it and definitely want to go back! Let's start from where I left off...
Belgium:
Brugge, to be exact. This was the quaintest little village/town we have been to yet. It was great... except for, the rain. Ugh. it was rainy the whole time. but, that didn't stop us from making the best of it! we enjoyed Belgium Chocolates and waffles... one word: AMAZING. The chocolate was just the beginning, because then we moved on to the WAFFLES! oh, my gosh. I had strawberry and whip cream and it tasted like heaven in my mouth! We saw a really great cathedral (Church of the Lady) in Brugge that houses the Madonna and Child statue created by Michelangelo. it's one of the only places outside of Italy that has any work by him. Seeing that statue was absolutely incredible! And other than that, we just enjoyed the little side streets and shope... Really, we were only there for about 9 hours haha because we left at 2 IN THE MORNING on saturday and drove a couple hours to a ferry... then we drove another hour and a half-ish to Belgium! Short and sweet... literally. and totally worth it!
Now, PARIS:
First off- we rode the Eurostar. Which is the coolest train in Europe! It's one of, if not the, fastest trains in Europe... and another perk- it goes UNDER the chunnel from England to Paris!! It took about 2 and a half hours... and we didn't get into Paris until 1130ish Friday night. So, getting to the hotel that late... was an experience. haha we went to THREE different taxis and TWO different hotels to figure out if they could help us. Well the third taxi finally told us he could find it... so we got in, and man, this guy could give NYC cab drivers a run for their money. haha i think we made it there and record time... Emily was checking for this guy's "credentials" the whole way! But we made it... only to be greeted by a large sign "HOTEL BERTHA" doesn't that just scream hospitality?? another hitch in our evening plans... there were 3 of us, and we booked a TWO person room. so yes, we attempted to 'sneak in' the third. Success. The guy wasn't really paying attention... So we slept short ways on a double bed and made it work! The room itself was one of the more entertaining things i've experienced. Let's see, the shower curtain actually would clog our shower drain if we did not monitor it haha and we barricaded our door with a chair and dresser... just in case. No big deal, haha we were totally fine!
The next morning we were up early and on the move! We braved the Metro Station and took on Paris. Our first stop: Champs-Elysees! Emily was in heaven... she is an avid Tour de France watcher, so she was drooling, and i was in awe. it was gorgeous! especially at 830 in the morning with little traffic and the sun shining! We started walking down the Champs toward the Louvre... We were on a mission to see Mona Lisa. All 8x10 of her. haha it was a tad smaller than we had imagined, but we had kind of been warned! We saw various statues/paintings on our way- my fav was probably the Winged Victory! After the Louvre we traveled to Notre Dame checking out the street vendors/paintings on our way... When we got inside, we got to watch the last 10/15 minutes of Mass! It was so cool to see an actual service... we didn't understand a thing, but Merideth was able to fill in the blanks! After Notre Dame, we went on our search of the Paris Opera House that Phantom of the Opera was filmed at! Well... sadly, we failed. epically. we had NO idea where it was. but we enjoyed seeing a lot of Paris on our adventure... Next stop on our list was the Arch de Triomphe! We made it there with no problem, but when we came up from the Met, we realized the Arch was surrounded by a round-about with CRAZY traffic. haha so, we contemplated running across (like a couple other people...) but immediately decided against it when those couple people were almost road kill! Haha there was lots of honking and yelling, but they made it to the other side. We kept seeing signs for going under the road and coming up under the arch, but every route we took, we ended up just about 20 yards to the left of where we started! hahaha it got rather humorous to say the least, so we decided to carry on our journey... to the Eiffel Tower!
Oh, the Tower... that is when i felt like i was REALLY in Paris. However, i thought the tower was black, so you can imagine my surprise when i showed up and it was in fact a rusty brown... haha and in the words of Gwen "i thought it would be bigger..." but it was incredible, nonetheless! We enjoyed a lovely picnic on the lawn right in front of the Tower. While watching a group of 15 orange "root suits" these are those head to toe spandex suits... there are a couple at the bball/fball games for OSU! they come in all different colors. So anyways, these 15 orange people were making human designs on the lawn and then would randomly jump up and start hugging people in the crowd! They also at one point lined up and took off SPRINTING across the lawn! haha it was soooo random, and awesome. don't worry... i took video. The next sequence of events kind of run together- first, we wanted to take LOTS of pictures, then we were freezing because it dropped about 10/15 degrees, then we were in desperate need for a CREPE! haha all of these events lasted about 3 hours and took place ALL over Paris... we got to walk all around the little streets around the Tower and loved taking in the atmosphere. When we ran into Callie and Sarah we got Crepes under the Tower! This was by far one of the greatest treats i've ever eaten... Banana and Nutella, yum! We ate this on our way to a coffee shop down the street from the Tower until Merideth and Emily went to Mass and me, Callie, and Sarah traveled back to their hotel to meet up with Nikki... We next found ourselves at an incredible place for dinner with Nikki and her parents! I shared a plate with Sarah... mushrooms and chicken. and a LARGE portion, so definitely a good thing we split it! And then the greatest event of the trip (in my opinion)...
The Eiffel Tower at NIGHT! oh wow... we went around 1030 and saw the most beautiful scene ever. We took a lot of pictures and just stared. And as we were walking away... it lit up and started SPARKLING!! I can't believe we almost missed it, i would have been SO sad... but we ran back to get as many pictures as we could =) That was the point we all decided we were NOT ready to go back to Feltwell. Haha but it was the perfect ending to a great day!
We got up in the morning and walked around our little block that our hotel sat on and got yet another Crepe... i dare say, this one was better than the first! We got to take it easy until we headed back to the station for our Eurostar train. Sadly to leave Paris... but singing "Paris holds the key to our heart..."
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