Paris!

My mom and Dan traveled to Europe a 2 weeks ago! The stayed from December 5-14. First off Eric and I met up and went to Frankfurt to pick them up. Once we finally got there it took forever trying to find them, there was the same car rental place like a 5 different locations throughout the airport. We finally found them and headed off to Paris! Little did we know, European driving is much different, and really scary. There was no way I wanted to drive. So Eric drove us most of the way to Paris and once we got there, the driving was even worse. Getting through Paris was a nightmare, I don't know what we would have done with out the navigational system in the car already. We finally got to our hotel, the Holiday Inn, and got our rooms and settled in for a while. Eric and I weren't very tired, but Mom and Dan were because they had been straight traveling for like 1 day and a half. So Eric and I headed out and next to our hotel we found what claimed to be a "Tex-Mex" restaurant, I was pretty excited because I had not had Mexican food in months, it was pretty tasty. Then we went out for a few drinks, it was a good time.

The next day we woke up around 9 to get ready and leave on our tour, but once we got outside to look around for the bus stop for our bus to pick us up, it was a nightmare. I was the one leading us around trying to find it, and of course I am not that great at directions so I think we walked in a circle about 4 times. I was asking French people in my broken French where this bus stop was, and everyone was pointing us to the same place, but every time we would go back we couldn't find it. About a half hour-hour later, we found it!! So me, Eric and Mom went on the tour, and Dan went back to the Hotel. We were only on the bus for about 15 minutes and then got off at La Madeleine, which was a Cathedral built by Napoleon, I snapped two pictures in the church even though the sign said "NO PICTURES," haha I am so rebellious. It was beautiful inside, and the outside looked very similar to the Parthenon. After that we decided just to keep walking because we could see a really cool square in the distance, so we walked all the way there. By this time my mom had mentioned she needed to go to the bathroom. As we were walking we tried looking for a restaurant or any place that might have a bathroom, (side note: in Europe you have to pay to go to the bathroom almost everywhere). So we kept walking and finally made it to the pretty square, there were some monuments, and a ferris wheel, and a park, it was really beautiful, and we could even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We were so busy taking a ton of pictures and gawking at all the amazing architecture, we had forgotten mom had to go to the bathroom still, we had been walking around for about a half hour at this point. We were in the middle of nowhere that looked like it would inhabit a bathroom, but come to find out there was one hidden behind the ferris wheel. After all that we headed out on our trek to the Eiffel Tower. We walked really far to get there, but it was definitely worth it! The Eiffel Tower was amazing. We really wanted to go up on top, but the line was really long so we took a ton of pictures. One thing about the Eiffel Tower was that there were SOO many pigeons hanging around it, they were flying all around our heads, and one guy in front of me even got pooped on. We were out at the Eiffel Tower long enough to even see it get lit up! I think the color changes often, but when we were there, it was blue and there were all the yellow stars of the European Union on it (which I have come to find out the European Union stars are displayed on the Eiffel Tower because now there is a French presidency in the EU).

The Eiffel Tower is the most visited monument since its construction in 1889, it only took 6 months to build. The tower was orginally supposed to be built in Barcelona, Spain but the Spaniards thought that the project didn't fit well with the city architecture and that it was a strange monument (were they wrong!). It was built for a Universal Exposition (World's Fair), and it is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world. It is also the highest building in Paris. During the construction of the tower, only one man died. Once it was revealed, many many people greatly disliked it, writing angry letters to the paper, and claiming it was an eyesore. It was even supposed to be torn down in 1909 as a part of the contest rules, but the city used the tower during the First Battle of Marne to dispatch taxis to the front lines, after the battle it was seen as a victory symbol, so the city of Paris kept the monument in place.

After the Eiffel Tower we went to see the Arc de Triomphe, Arc of Triumph, it is right down the street from the Eiffel Tower, it is the sight of so many famous Parisian pictures. It was constructed for the soldiers that fought for France during the Napoleonic Wars. It is the 2nd largest triumphal arch in existence. A weird fact about the Arc is that every couple decades they have to bleach the arc because the color of it changes from all of the soot and exhaust from cars! People can also go to the top of the Arc and take pictures...we saw so many people at the top. It was a really beautiful monument, especially at night with the French flag hanging between the arch and it was all lit up. There is a huge roundabout around the arch, which was really cool, but packed full of cars. After seeing the Arc we decided to head back to the hotel and get some rest. The next day Eric and I woke up early because we were going to go and see Notre Dame.

We set off in the morning and took the subway to where Notre Dame was, side note...the Paris subway system is really dirty, so beware. I had heard that Paris was dirty in general, but I never really thought so until we went down into their subway system. Notre Dame is on a little island on the Seine River in Paris. When we got to where the cathedral was supposed to be, we could not find it! We were looking at the map and went in a circle a few times. We thought we saw it but we didn't know how to get into it because it was in a courtyard, turns out the church we saw was Saint Chappelle, and NOT Notre Dame. I had wanted to see St. Chappelle anyway, but the funny thing was me and Eric were taking pictures in front of it not knowing it wasn't Notre Dame. We finally asked directions and someone pointed us to Notre Dame, once we got there it was an amazing Cathedral, unfortunately we didn't have enough time to wait in line and go in. Notre Dame means 'Our Lady' in French and its construction spanned through the whole Gothic period, many say its the best representation of French Gothic architecture, and it really is. While we were there I learned what flying buttresses are, they are used in Gothic architecture, they are basically used for bearing large walls, and enormous amounts of weight to make the structure stay put. They are usually found on cathedrals and mostly Gothic style architecture, they are meant to look as if they are 'flying' instead of just bearing weight from the ground...hence the name flying buttress. Anyway the cathedral was truly and amazing site, and it inspired a Disney movie (well book rather) remember "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," it was a book written to raise awareness of the historical value of the cathedral in the 19th century because the church was being ready to be torn down because it was so vandalized and in a poor state.

After Notre Dame my mom and Dan were not done with their tour so we decided to go see Basilique du Sacré Cœur which means in English Sacred Heart of Basilica. It is the highest point in Paris. It is a cathedral that, to me, sticks out like a sore thumb, the architecture looks like it is something that belongs in the middle east or something, the architecture is far from European, even the color too. On the way walking up to the cathedral Eric and I were bombarded by some African/maybe Nigerian people that were trying to really aggressively heckle us. Eric got stopped but I ran so I could get away from them, they really scared me. I legitimately thought we were going to get mugged or something, but one of them followed me up the stairs and was trying to sell me this stupid piece of string that apparently did something cool, but I really wanted him away from me, but he wasn't taking no as an answer. I could see Eric was also getting extremely annoyed with them too, so I took a picture wanting to keep the moment, because it was so strange. One of them saw me take the picture and rushed over to me demanding that I delete it off my camera, so I did, and then they finally backed off and tried annoying other tourists. We finally made it up to the top to the cathedral. It was amazing, and a really long walk to the top. I have never seen so many beggars in my life, but nonetheless we were at the highest point in Paris in the Montmatre region of the city.

After that cathedral we went back to the hotel to meet my mom and Dan. They got to see the Louvre, I really wish Eric and I could have made it there. Paris was a gorgeous city, and one of my favorites that I have ever seen, the architechture was phenomenal. I wish I could speak French though because it seemed not too many people spoke English, or maybe just didn't want to. I wish we could have seen more, like Versailles and the Catacombs underneath the city, but that could be for another time if I return to Paris at some point in my life. Overall it was an amazing trip. We headed back to Mannheim and I left there for Freiburg, my mom and Dan spent a day in Mannheim and Heidelberg seeing the sites, and Eric showed them around. On my way back to Freiburg I realized I was not going to get there by regional trains. I would have had to wait until about 5 am to make it back to Freiburg, and I really did not want to do that, so in Karlsruhe I hopped on an ICE (inter city express) train, illegally I might add, because I didn't have the right ticket. I was so lucky the ticket guy didn't ask for my ticket because I was pretending to sleep...so I got to Freiburg safe and sound!

I will be writing about their trip to Freiburg, Nuernberg, and Weihnachtsmarkt soon!

Eric and I are in Duesseldorf for Christmas right now with Flo's family, I'll be writing about it soon too. And for New Years I am planning to go to Chamonix, France with my friends, and we will be skiing in the Alps!

Auf Wiedersehen