Paris: Grand Finale

It's a French lady walking her five toy-sized poodles. How awesome is that?

Hello Everyone!

My final, full day in Paris was a whirlwind. I was at the Louvre, Tour Eiffel and Arc de Triomphe. I also saw the Paris Marathon. Well, without further ado, let's get this going!

Fun with Parisian graffiti.

We went to a cafe for a cappuccino fix. What was cute was that we fixed the welcome mat, so that it read "Bon Jour/Au Revoir" facing the correct way. We hopped on the train at Gare L'est station and  arrived at the Louvre. Along the way, we were accosted by a "charity". I ended up giving them thirty euro. Stupid, stupid me. Well, I do need to be more charitable.

The weather could not have been more perfect. Sunny, warming up, clear skies. We ate our brunch by the Louvre fountains.

The queue to get in was super-massive. Katie and I couldn't justify it to ourselves to spend all day inside when this was the first incidence of decent weather. Besides, today was the day of the Paris Marathon! 

The fit-looking men quotient was met, handily. I got really excited at one point because there was a runner who had the Prince of Wales feathers on his shirt. Welshman abroad!

We hoofed it all the way to the Eiffel Tower.

See, cutesy little couples in Paris, we can do cutesy little selfies too!                                     

This picture feels so Parisian 

8-bit graffiti! Someone must've made this from tiles. 

We saw a war memorial for fallen French soldiers in North Africa.

They had a function where you could enter in a name and see if your relatives are logged there. Katie tried a name from her family and tons of results came up (It must have been the French equivalent of the Welsh "Jones"). We also acted as photographers for a young Israeli couple. Just across the street was the Eiffel Tower!

The Eiffel Tower is strikingly steampunk 

Wouldn't you know it, the queues there were massive too. We opted to sunbathe in the park and soak up the ambiance.

I don't know why, but while we were in Paris, we got a fair number of Franco-Africans walking up to us and starting conversations. The Eiffel Tower was no exception. This guy talked to us for a long time then finally got to the point. He wanted a cigarette. When we answered no, he went on his way. The thing about these guys was that they seemed friendly and harmless. It struck me as strange that they wanted our email addresses after a very basic conversation. It was difficult for me because I can understand very basic spoken French, but I can't form sentences. This left Katie to be the sole voice of the group. Nothing weirds me out more than being asked for contact info after a rather superficial conversation.

We crossed the road and got some ice-cream. Katie tried the Speculoos one and I had the Bleu-flavoured one. 

Fun fact # 24: If you want a really nice picture of the Eiffel Tower in a place that isn't too crowded, I suggest hanging out at the fountain across the street. Ice cream optional.

Katie had a massive growth-spurt after her ice cream

It was so blue!

We went to see the Arc de Triomphe afterwards. It was super busy there too. Lots of marathoners were hanging around the Champs-Élysées (you could tell by their radioactive-lime green participant shirts).

If you say so, French sign. The Shire is that way...

We were peckish, so we went into that most bizarre of places, a French McDonald's. It was packed, wall to wall. We got in the queue and ordered some coffee with three little cookies (brownie-esque thing, macaroon and an almond cookie). It was not that bad. Shocking! The Champs-Élysées was so crowded. Katie and I were on a mission, getting to Notre Dame in time for the 6:30 mass.

The pigeons in Paris were fearless creatures. They flew so close to people. One ever slapped the top of my head as it was coming to land! We also found seemingly the only public toilets for miles around, for the hefty admission fee of €2. Needless to say, if I'm paying €2, I'm expecting the height of luxury and class. This, sadly, did not live up to my expectations. Way to go, Paris.

Happily, we arrived at Notre Dame in time. I don't think I'd ever seen so many people gathered together to celebrate mass. It was really moving. All the chairs were occupied, so Katie and I sat on the floor in an aisle. I felt like a child, but not in a bad way. There was lots of incense and the walls rang with French hymns. Lucky for me, they passed out a guide with all the prayers on it. It was multi-lingual (French, Spanish, English, Italian). It all was a very beautiful experience. I was able to admire the ceiling of Notre Dame and remember the time that I got to go for a ceiling crawl in a 12th century French abbey. Good times.

The day before I'd arrived, Katie had spent some time on her own exploring the area. She found this restaurant that we both wanted to try. We searched high and low. We even asked a random guy at a hotel desk if he could give us directions. The restaurant eluded us. We settled on a place that sold crepes. This proved to be a great choice on our part.

The Classique- cheese, egg and ham. Mine had caramelised onion, Katie's had tomato

After perusing the menu, we came to the conclusion that the alcohol was cheaper than the other drinks, by far. You win this round, France...

Fun Fact #25: My drink of choice in Cardiff (Cider and Black Currant) is called a Kir Breton in French. Now I can order it and feel like a snob. We noticed that a lot of people walking by were creeping on us eating our dinner (we had a window seat). Katie decided to do a bit of subtle flirting with some cute French boys as they walked by. I think it made their evening.

We finished the meal with a coffee each. And I had a passionfruit sorbet.

Fun Fact #26: Passionfruit sorbet was one half of the best Ben and Jerry's sorbet ever, Purple Passion. Bring it back!

Katie and I returned to a new roommate. I didn't quite catch his name, but he was from Turkey. He seemed pretty cool.

Our plans had to change, sadly. We were planning on meeting a third friend from SMC, but she was laid low with a stomach bug. I had to book a last-minute flight out to London. Not fun. Katie and I went to Sacré-Cœur to celebrate our last afternoon together. It was quite the up-hill climb, but the views were well-worth it!

Story time! There were these men hanging around the base of the stairs to Sacré-Cœur. They made friendship bracelets for people. Katie and I were having none of it and tried to get by. They were just so persistant. Eventually, I gave in, asking if it would cost me anything. I got a friendship bracelet for free. I am not really sure why. All the while, the man was joking around in English, asking if I liked Obama, and saying that he'd love to get me an African boyfriend. When he asked for my name, I gave him a fake one (I'd make a convincing Christie, don't you think?).

Katie and I packed a picnic for ourselves of off-brand nutella, baguette and a little bottle of Alsace wine. Paris had all these signs up that prohibited alcohol, so we were kinda sneaky about it. In retrospect, that probably just made it more obvious. We picnicked and reminisced about our Uni back at home. I think this was my favourite part about Paris. We had a lovely, at time philosophical, chat about life abroad, the fact that we'll be seniors and the looming date of graduation. We also found out that we will be living an hour away from each-other this summer!

There was a crazy cat lady walking her cats in the grounds of Sacré-Cœur. There must've been around six cats or so.

We returned to the hostel, packed our bags and parted ways at Gare L'est. I had to go to Gare Nord and catch the train to the airport that way. It was a fast ride. I also struggled to navigate through the airport. Seriously, why can't any airport just clearly label things? I got into London Luton at around 9:20 pm. The customs and immigration queue was unbelievable. Bookending my trip, I was right behind a Russian lady (although she might've been Ukrainian. Cyrillic is completely alien to me). I made friends with the customs/immigration lady. We talked about science. It was awesome. I caught the bus to the train station, hoping that the driver would know how I could get back home to Cardiff. A young couple overheard me and asked if I wanted to travel with them. They were both Welsh, from a small town in the Valleys. They currently lived in Reading and they offered me the opportunity to stay the night. I agreed, being just so out-of-sorts. They were unbelievably nice. The woman even gave me all her contact info and let me call home so that I could let my parents know.

Public Service Announcement: I know this sounds like a mother's worst nightmare, and if given the chance again I'm not sure I'd have made the same decision, but everything was just fine. Don't take my experience as an endorsement of swanning off with strangers though.

I caught the first train out of Reading at 5:50am or so. It was a commuter train, so I got to see some nice-looking guys in business suits. I must've looked like death warmed over to them though.

Unexpected perk of catching the commuter train: Doctor Who Episodes!

I arrived safe and sound in Cardiff, eager to rest up after all this travel.

Update with Bonus Trivia! I found out about Margaret Thatcher's passing from the news feed feature on the touchscreen TV.

Cheers!