Paris, Day I

Today, after a very fun and successful overnight train from Florence, Sara and I arrived in Paris. Of course, our first step was to get to our hostel, which we would need to take a metro ride to. This was around 9 am, and after finally figuring out where in the train station we needed to go, we headed underground to the metro station, where I learned the terrible lesson that metros in Paris aren't like normal metros – the kind with safety precautions for any object stuck in the doorway. Anyway, we waited for the next metro and took that to the end, where our hostel was located. It was easy enough to find afterward and we dropped our luggage off and met up with Yiting. Rosie was staying with her friend in Paris and would meet us later that day at the Luxembourg Garden. Yiting told Sara and me that we were lucky that the scenic train had been booked because it turns out the Eurorail pass wasn't valid for it so Yiting and Rosie had to pay an extra one hundred euro to cover it. I was quite happy with the extra day in Florence.

We ended up deciding to walk to the Luxembourg Garden from the hostel, which turned out to be the wrong decision, because maps make distances look much smaller than they really are. We eventually succeeded in reaching the garden though, which is massive, with a beautiful fountain in the middle. There we met Rosie and her friend, who told us she would take us to get crepes at a nearby crepe place. These crepes turned out to be the most amazing I've ever had. Ham and cheese and bacon and melted deliciousness. After crepes, we walked to Notre Dame, which wasn't as impressive as I was hoping, though it was still a gorgeous cathedral. Outside, we had to dodge the unfortunate beggars who plagued the area, and we quickly went inside. Inside was more impressive than outside, but it was still similar to other cathedrals I have seen.

After the cathedral, we headed north a bit and got felafel. We split up at this point, with Yiting going to see Sacré Cœur while Rosie, Sara and I would walk down the boulevard shopping while heading toward the Louvre. This took most of the rest of the day, and we got to the Louvre around 6:30, where we would get a discounted entrance rate. The Louvre is hard to put into words. It is a palace, an art museum, and a million other kinds of museums. We saw so many different paintings and objects; it was incredible. We saw the Mona Lisa, the Coronation of Napoleon (this painting was... huge. An entire wall...) the coronation crown of Ludwig XV, a recreation of the apartments of Napoleon III, and even the original stone fragment of Hammurabi's Code. I only wish we had more time in the Louvre. There's just too much to see there in one trip. After the Louvre, we headed back to the hostel and called it a night. On another interesting note, Sara and I found out that we may not be able to leave Paris, as the French train workers have decided to go on strike. Convenient of them.