Paris, Je t'aime

My Paris weekend has come and gone. It was absolutely amazing and even better, nothing went wrong! It always seems that whenever I go anywhere, nothing seems to go as planned. This time--to my surprise--it did!

Katie and I took a train to Paris Friday night and checked into the Villa Modigliani. We went to bed immediately, as our plans for Saturday required as much rest as possible. Saturday itself was very tiring. We got up extra early so that we could get in line as soon as possible for our first attraction: the Eiffel Tower.

Wow. That is all I can say about that the tower. Words cannot fully describe it. We paid to take an elevator all the way up to the top, and the view was magnificant. We could see the entire city all around.

Next on our agenda was the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysee. We spent about two hours walking on the street and ate outside under a canopy. We also bought French ice cream cones--strawberry. Delicious!

The Louvre was next. As the museum is huge, we decided to try to make our visit as short as we could and yet still see the most important pieces: the Mona Lisa, Aphrodite de Milo, etc. By that time, we were both getting rather tired, as we hadn't had the chance to sit down since 7 in the morning.

As an end to the day, we decided to visit the Eiffel Tower again when it was all lit up for the night. It was the perfect end to an awesome day. We rode the carousel across the street, bought popcorn, and just as we were turning to leave, the tower lights started blinking off and on, like little stars. It was absolutely beautiful.

In the beginning, we didn't have any plans for Sunday beyond checking out of our hotel and catching our return train at 2. Saturday night, however, we made a snap decision to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral after check-out. After all, neither of us had much baggage to carry, which turned out to be a very good thing. The weather on Sunday was rather cold and windy and we had to wait outside in line for at least a half hour.

The cathedral was worth the wait. We had to climb all the way to the top of an endless winding staircase. Imagine walking in a tight circle for ten minutes straight and lifting your leg up to your chest with every step. When we finally got to the top, we were on the level with the famous gargoyles of the Notre Dame. I tried to take a picture of each separate one, as they were all so different from each other. All around were posted quotes from Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame and we were even able to see the big bell mentioned so often in the book.

Basically, I am torn about my favorite part of the weekend. It is either between seeing the nighttime Eiffel Tower or touring the Notre Dame. I can't wait to go back during spring break!