Les Tours Eiffel

5/26/09 ***9am*** Bonjour! Good morning from Paris! I woke up this morning with fear that it was all a dream; then I looked out the window and saw the Eiffel Tower and realized that everything that I have been planning for for months has finally become my dream-like reality. Yesterday, we flew from LAX to London Heathrow airport. Julia Jensen and I met up in the airport to spend a little bit of time getting to know one another before the long flight set before us. Turns out we get along splendidly! She’s a very sweet girl and we have many similar interests and personality traits. We grabbed some food before boarding our 11 hour flight, which began with a sleeping pill to assist us with avoiding jetlag. After we woke up, the last few hours of the flight seemed to whirl by. We met three boys from Germany in the row behind us, Sven, Yessen, and Felix. So sweet and excited to advize us in our travels. Julia and I gave them our emails so they could find us on facebook. Maybe we’ll be able to meet up with them in germany when we get there with the rest of our group. We had to figure out a slight glitch with Julia’s luggage, but British Airlines was so accomodating, and then we enjoyed the English culture in the airport before boarding the short 45 minute flight to Paris. Arriving in Paris could not have gone any more smoothly. Julia and I got off of the plane and followed everyone to the baggage claim where our luggage came out simultaneously, and then we walked out to find Tiffany waiting for us. The three of us then awaited our van that would take us and 2 other couples to our destination. This is where we met Michael (our driver). He was so excited to tell us about all of the places we passed on our drive (e.g. The Louve, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, The Opera House, Le Compule, Alexander Free Bridge…just to name a few =D). ***11pm*** Ok, to continue from earlier, after arriving at Celine’s flat that she shares with her Grandma, we spent a few hours getting cleaned up and acquainted. Her grandma is pretty hard of hearing but very sweet…and quite fashionable as well. We enjoyed fish and rice with De Jon Mayo, bagettes, salad, and strawberries with crème and sugar; it was very delicious, but very filling! =D From there we went out for a night tour around Paris. I couldn’t even tell you all of the places we saw!!! The boys are just as everyone said they would be-pushy and forward. They made animal noises at the four of us girls as we walked around tried to get our attention by speaking loudly. We didn’t go in anywhere, but saw all of the fun places to go dancing and meet tons of people. She continuously told us that Monday nights are not going out nights but luckily, since it was a holiday, there were still many people running around. However, at about midnight, the thunderstorm began. We were in the Louve, and watchted the lightening surround us. We toughed out the rain and sprinted with some boys that loudly joined us all the way back to the Metro. Pretty exhausted, we got back to the flat and got ready for bed. At exactly 1am, We watched as the Eiffel Tower sparkled against the black sky for about ten minutes. Every ten minutes, the sparkle would be accompanied by the lightening striking behind the Tower and the thunder that shook the flat. I slept very soundly all night long, and awoke to the beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower behind the red flowers on the balcony. Not the best weather I’ve seen, but it wasn’t terrible-cloudy and cold. Celine bought us crossoints for breakfast and she made us coffee with milk and sugar. What a way to begin our first full day in Paris!! Then we became “musculated” (Celine) by carrying our luggage around the Metro to get to our hotel. It began to rain as we walked out into the street, but a 2 minute sprint later and we arrived at Le Meridien Montparnasse, our beautiful French hotel! We began our tour on the bus and enjoyed our one hour bus tour around Paris; I am pretty sure I took over 200 pictures in that hour alone! We got off at the Eiffel Tower, or Les Tours de Eiffel and took the elevator to the second floor. This was the absolute most beautiful view I have ever seen! We could see all of Paris, including New Paris. It is called this because Paris only has one high rise and after it was built, it was ruled that no more would be built. New Paris is completely comprised of high rise buildings; it reminded me of the New York skyline. It began to get very windy and very cold, so we took the stairs down to take some more pictures before our cruise on The Seine. The cruise allowed us to see many beautiful bridges and monuments and other places along the river, as well as giving us extensive history details about everything we saw. Somehow, I heard wrong and thought we were supposed to meet where we were dropped off and so did about 9 other people, unfortunately, this was not the case. We booked it back to the river where were actually supposed to meet the bus just in time to hop on and be embarassed =/. Oh well…I was embarassed…IN PARIS!!!! After riding the bus back to the hotel, 6 of us found a hole in the wall French restaurant. We all got differen things and shared amongst us. Tré bon!! (Very good!) Three course meal for only €8.50, that’s better than the States! I am now sitting in the lobby of my hotel, and just got to talk to my parents on Skype…oh and they are in Seoul, Korea! Ha Ha! Well, now I need to get some sleep because tomorrow morning begins classes sharply at 9am, and I have to get breakfast before. Au revoir!