Paris Palooza - Day 1

1 November 2012

JOYEUX PARIS PALOOZA! Oh what a fantastic morning I am so excited! When my alarm went off, I threw myself out of bed, quickly jumped in the shower, threw myself together, and ran (seriously, I am not kidding, I ran) to the Victor Hugo tram stop to meet up with Katie, Paris Palooza Voyager #2. We hopped on the B tram with our bags and our smiles and met up with Paige, Jimmy, and Natasha, Paris Palooza Voyagers #3, #4, and #5, at the Grenoble Gare - our entire Paris Palooza Team has successfully assembled, voilà! After a brief moment of screaming and yelling at each other in excitement, we jumped on the TGV and awaited our grand departure for Paris. I sat next to Paige, and we had a pleasant little bright-and-early morning conversation, mostly about how excited we were for Paris. The train left the station within a few minutes, and we were off! A three hour train ride might seem like a long time, but it's a wonderful three hours when everything outside the train windows is fields, rolling plains, and small French farms and cottages dotting the countryside. Every now and then there would be a small patch of cows or sheep, roaming around, grazing in the fields. It was just so beautiful. Calming, even. This is the type of thing I only dream about when I imagine a countryside, and here it all is right in front of my eyes. I was so tempted to stop the train and get off and just wander, just soak up all of the beauty that is the French countryside. However, doing that would require missing Paris, so…I stayed on the train. =) We eventually arrived in Grand Ol' Paris three hours later, and then we began our difficult and scary adventure to find our hotel. After getting completely turned around and lost in the Gare de Lyon, we finally made it to the metro station and pulled out our map and looked for Rue de Magenta, where our hotel was supposedly located. We eventually found Rue de Magenta (quite a ways on the outskirts of Paris), and we hopped on three connecting metros and eventually made it to Rue de Magenta. After hiding under an overpass for a few minutes due to a  freak and impromptu hailstorm, we wandered around a bit, looking for the hotel, and we were a little…frightened. The metro seemed to have dropped us off in one of the more "ghetto" regions of Paris, but we were on Rue de Magenta, getting looks and glares from all over the place. After finding the address of the hotel and discovering that it was a store that sold weaves, we decided to pull out the map again - quickly - and also pull out the reservation sheet for the hotel. That's when we came to the terrible realization. Our hotel was on Boulevard de Magenta, next to Gare du Nord, inside the city of Paris. And with that, we ran back to the metro station, jumped on another three connecting metros, and we arrived at Gare du Nord, feeling a little bit happier, and a whole lot safer. We explored the boulevard a little bit, searching high and low for our hotel, and we finally found it! We ran inside, so excited and full of life, only to discover that there was a problem with Jimmy and Katie's reservation. In other words, they didn't have a room. We tried to discuss an option with the manager where Katie and Jimmy could just stay with me, Paige, and Natasha, and we would pay extra money, but he was having none of that. So we entered Super Panic Round #2, and really just had no idea what to do. However, we decided that given all of the travel and excitement of the morning, it would be best for us to just put all of our stuff in the one hotel room, and go out to find a quick bite to eat, and have a few minutes to just sit back and relax. So we threw all of our bags in our room, and we went down the street and had lunch at Subway! You heard that right, Subway. I know, I know, not very cultured, but every other restaurant was so expensive, and why not enjoy Subway while in Paris? So, we sat down to enjoy some sandwiches, which were even better than the Subway sandwiches I've eaten back home in the States, and tried to figure out, calmly, how to get Jimmy and Katie a place to stay for at least the night. After lunch, we pounded the streets looking for any hotel that wouldn't empty their wallets for just a night's stay. Fortunately, we found a quaint little bar and restaurant that rented out rooms upstairs for visitors and guests, and Jimmy and Katie got a room for the weekend for a pretty decent price! All was finally good in the world, and we were ready to officially start our weekend adventure in Paris! Our first visit was to Sacré Coeur, which actually wasn't that far from our hotel! What a gorgeous sight! It was such a pretty cathedral, and it was really impressive having to climb so many steps just to get up to the cathedral itself, walking past fountains and statues and tourists of all nationalities, shapes, and sizes. We also went inside of the cathedral, and what an amazing sight I was about to behold: The church was packed from wall to wall with people attending the All Saints mass. It's always one thing to visit an empty cathedral where nothing is happening, and then there's visiting one "in action". It made the place seem so much more alive and so much more significant. I realized that these aren't just tourist attractions and nice photo op locations, but these are real places that serve a real purpose to so many people. While inside I put my camera away - it felt almost wrong to be a tourist in such a precious moment. After observing the mass for a few minutes and exploring the inside of the cathedral, we went back outside to explore a little market right next door to Sacré Coeur. We walked down the street, sifting through scarves and postcards, until we reached a gate that overlooked the city of Paris, and there it was - the Eiffel Tower, all the way in the distance, standing tall against the sunset. We all stopped and stared in awe. We would be there soon! In the meantime, though, we still had other things to visit and see, so we jumped on another metro and made our way closer to the center of Paris to see the Arc de Triomph. What an amazing structure! And after having learned so much about it in History Class, it was really nice to finally see it in person! It was really amazing and impressive to stand under it, so close to it, and take it all in. And we were there as the sun was setting, so we got to be there up close and personal when they turned on the lights to illuminate it in the night. Just another moment that reminded me how lucky I am to be here! =) After getting our fill of the Arc, we went right across the street to the Champs-Elysées and started our hike down the grand street under the bright and shining lights of all the stores that were too expensive for us to even be able to step inside. Empty wallet or not, it was still so wonderful walking down this famous street. Walking down this street has always been something I've dreamed about, and here I am, under the moon and the stars, strolling down the Champs-Elysées. =) As we kept walking, we eventually hit a turn in the street that would take us straight to the Eiffel Tower, and, of course, we turned. We walked alongside the Seine River, getting closer and closer to the heart and soul of Paris, when suddenly stopped to stare in awe and wonder as the lights on the Eiffel Tower started to glow and twinkle against the night sky. How wonderful, how gorgeous, and how amazing! Getting only more excited now to see the tower up close and person, we trotted across a bridge to the other side of the river, bustled our way through the night shift of tourists, and finally found ourselves under the grand Dame de Fer. I sat down on a bench and started up at the Eiffel Tower and got lost for a moment, drowning out the world around me, and realizing…here I am. In Paris. Under the Eiffel Tower. It isn't just a dream anymore - I am living it, I am here, and I am in love. A smile stretched so far across my face and my heart felt so warm and cozy, and everything felt so right and wonderful. Even as the rain started to fall down on us, I didn't care. I was too happy to care! However, I couldn't stay there all night, unfortunately, so we head back across the bridge and walked our way through Place du Trocadéro, looking back and sneaking another glance of the Eiffel Tower every now and then, and made our way to the closest metro station. Before heading back towards the hotel, though, we all stopped at a little vendor to all buy and share some nutella crêpes together. Eating nutella crêpes in the rain across from the Eiffel Tower…how tourist were we? Very, and proud of it. =) We hopped on a metro and made our way back to Gare du Nord, stopped in at a McDonalds to grab a quick dinner (we had very little money and we wanted to experience McDonalds in France, we had our reasons, I swear!), sat around for a little bit to chit chat together, and then we made our way back to our hotels to sit back, relax, dry off everything (ourselves, our clothes, our shoes…stupid rain), and cuddle up in our beds to sneak our ways in the Paris dreamland and await the next day's adventures.