Bonjour!
Sorry I haven't gotten to post in awhile - wifi's been spotty and/or expensive, so I've had to update when I can. I'm ditching day numbers in the title because it's too confusing for me to keep track while I'm busy doing all this tourist-y stuff. France was a blast, although I think I liked London better when it comes to the actual city.
On the first day, we got up early to take the EuroStar (high-speed rail) to Paris from London via the Chunnel. It was actually really fun. When we got to Paris, we had an interesting voyage from Gare du Nord to our hotel - apparently, very few ticket machines in Paris actually take paper money. Once we got there, grumbling the whole time about how there were no elevators in the Metro stations, we put our stuff down and immediately set out again to find lunch. We ended up at a nice little bistro down the street, and I got to practice my French for the first time in about a year.
At this point, I'm going to dispel a rumor about Parisians. Contrary to popular belief, they don't all frown upon Americans speaking French (or trying to) - in fact, all but two of the people I spoke French with seemed happy that I was making the effort. It was really encouraging when they'd speak back to me, and I'm happy I took those three years of French class in school.
Anyway. After lunch, we went to meet a family friend who was spending time in France, and the five of us went to Notre Dame. It was beautiful, and we appreciated the free admission after having to pay to get into Westminster Abbey. Once we got through there, we proceeded to walk ALL THE WAY down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. (That walk is several miles, by the way. If you're going to make the trip, be prepared or take the subway.) We went to a little restaurant on Ile Saint-Louis for dinner, which was probably the best food I've had in a long time. After that, we called it a night.
The next day my dad and I went to the top of the Tour Eiffel while my mom and brother went to the Army Museum. If you want to hit the Eiffel Tower on a visit to Paris, go on a cloudy day - the lines are exponentially shorter (from two or more hours to ten or fifteen minutes) and you can still see Paris spread out below you from the top. It rained a little while we were up there, but it was awesome. We joined the rest of our family at the Army Museum for about half an hour, then spent the afternoon at the Louvre. We split up since I really wanted to see the Egyptian stuff (surprise surprise) and the rest of the family didn't. I did see the Mona Lisa, which was pretty cool. I love the Louvre and I definitely want to come back sometime when I have more than three hours to spend there!
Our last day in Paris was spent at Versailles. I had really been looking forward to this part, but I wasn't as happy with it as I'd thought I would be. The house was nice, but there was too much gold on everything for my taste (not that it really matters). Everything was really spread out, which I know is part of the point of having a palace, but we couldn't go see the Trianons and Marie Antoinette's estate without buying more tickets. The gardens are pretty, but you really have to look for the statuary hidden within. It's hard to walk through them, too, since they're so doggone big. Don't get me wrong, everything was really beautiful and there were certain parts I really enjoyed, but overall I was a little bummed.
We got up at an ungodly hour yesterday to catch our train to Karlsruhe, Germany. I'll start with that in my next update.
Love you all,
Megan
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