J'aime Paris

Ok, so I know this is a much awaited blog because I've put pictures all over FaceBook but I haven't told anyone much about my trip to Paris, besides that it was completely AMAZING, so here it goes. Well first of all, when they say this place is the city of love, they are not kidding, whatsoever! There's even a love bridge that couples will come and lock locks to and then throw the key into the Seine river together, signifying their eternal love. It was so beautiful and really made me see the meaning of true love, I wish I had been there with my significant other; actual, Jenna, Rory, and I all wished we were there with our significant others, since we're all in relationships. (At least we could all suffer together)

Me at the Love Bridge <3

But the first day that we were there we were exhausted from traveling so much so we took a nap at our hostel then went to explore the city. While we were walking around the city we saw La Louvre, which is where the royal family stays when they come to town. It is a huge building and SO beautiful, and has 3 "invisible" pyramids recently put in and a there's even a museum inside of the biggest pyramid where the Mona Lisa is kept. Of course I went and saw it!

Side view of La Louvre

Being Asian Tourists at the Pyramid

All the artwork inside the museum was completely incredible! There were even Egyptian mummies and ruins, I was floored! And because we're students in the European Union, under the age of 26 we got in free, instead of paying like 15 euros. So after walking around La Louvre we kept walking around Paris trying to get to the Eiffel Tower by sundown so that we could see it lit up. One of my favorite memories of our first day from walking around was when we crossed one of the bridges, Rory started slapping my arm and pointing and saying "There it is!" in a squeaky voice, to my surprise we could see the Eiffel Tower in the sunset and it all became real that we were actually in Paris after that, plus I got to make fun of Rory for acting like a kid in a candy store, it was quite cute. Haha. But our efforts paid off, we made it to the Eiffel Tower right at sundown. To our surprise, people camped out and had blankets and food and some drinks just waiting for the sun to go down because right as it gets dark the tower lights up and sparkles with a sort of light show. It was beautiful! And right as we saw that we decided we HAD to climb it! It wasn't too hard to convince Jenna and I to go to the very top but Rory was another story because he is a liiiitle afraid of heights. But we convinced him to go and he was a real trooper, he climbed up with us and even looked over some of the edges, I was beaming like a proud parent, I was SO proud! The view from the top was amazing! Paris is pretty flat city so everything is the same height so we could see pretty much everything from there, since the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in the city. It was awesome, definitely a dream come true and one moment in my life that I will NEVER forget. We climbed half the way up the stairs because the line was wayyyy too long so we climbed up, and because we're young and not lazy. Haha. So we climbed up half way and then took the elevator to the very top because there weren't more stairs to the very top. They were the most beautiful views I've ever seen. I loved it and was in complete and total awe of it all, Jenna nor I wanted to leave once we were at the top. 

View from the top

Before climbing up.

Jenna and I being lovey-dovey at the top.

Rory was very happy at the top :)

So Saturday was a very full day in Paris. We got up really early and took a walking tour around the whole city. It was SO awesome, our tour guide was hilarious and I got a lot more out of the city with her explaining everything. She showed us everything and told us all of the history of the city because she was a huge history buff. Haha. Overall it was a great tour, and we walked about 9 kilometers, needless to say, my feet were a liiiitle tired. But we didn't have much time after our tour to be tired and whine about our feet because we had a cruise dinner down the Seine River to get for. Jenna's aunt and uncle wanted to do something very nice for her so they gifted this to us and we were more than grateful for it, the dinner was amazing. We had a three course meal, I got crab for an appetizer, then decided to try veal for my actual meal, and then some sort of chocolate deliciousness for dessert. And we also had white and red wine to go with the meal, it was a more than amazing dinner. We had a special little thank you gift for them because it was so awesome and we definitely never would have done it for ourselves since we're broke college kids. Besides the awesome food, and live music we had, the view of the city from the boat was more than amazing. I never knew that the French had a mini statue of liberty, I mean I knew they gave ours to us but I never knew they had a smaller one of their own. Seeing that was pretty cool as well. 

All dressed up at dinner. 

View from the boat

CHEEEEEERS!

So Sunday we were all really sad that we had to leave Paris. Rory nor I could believe that a French city was one of our new favorites, especially because we might have made fun of French people and their accents all our lives. But Paris definitely floored me with everything it had to offer and I know I will be going back on my next trip to Europe. We didn't have time to see Moulin Rouge nor Versailles so I HAVE to go back to see those incredible places. We walked around and went inside Notre Dame on Sunday and Rory got to attend his first mass since being in Spain. Notre Dame was BEAUTIFUL and we got to hear the bells ring when we were outside. I was once again, floored by the beauty of Paris. I can't believe everything I saw and was a part of, it was really too much to write in one blog but everyone will get to see all my pictures when I get home. So long story short, J'aime Paris or I love Paris! 

Last day, outside of Notre Dame