Madame Tussauds and...Paris!!!!

Last Thursday, Anna and I took a trip to Madame Tussaud's in London.  Even on a Thursday it was packed with tourists and student groups so it was difficult to take pictures of the beautiful wax stars, such as Robert Pattinson, that you wanted.  But it was also really cool as well.  Some of the wax sculptures looked so real, which could also be really creepy because they were so lifelike!

We saw such wax figures as Robert Pattinson, 

George Clooney, and...

Hitler!

There was a 'scary' part of the exhibit, which is really similar to haunted houses around Halloween.  There were actors that would jump out at you and obviously try to scare the crap out of you.  And this would have been frightening if there hadn't been a giant group of French tweens in front of us who screamed bloody murder before I even noticed someone had popped out.  Not fun.  Something else that wasn't fun was when one of the girls jumped backwards to get away from one of the actors, thereby causing me to bite her head.  Ow.

Once we got away from the tweens it was pretty cool again.  There was a part of the exhibit which featured murderers or people who had been beheaded in the 1800s, when Madame Tussaud first began making her wax creations.  There was also a really cute ride, where you went around in a London 'taxi' and got to see a history of London through wax figures.  So other than the French teens and the rampant B.O. stench, I would have to say that the day was pretty much a success.

So when we had to leave later that night to get on our coach to Paris I was still in a pretty decent mood.  We took a coach because the trains to Paris, while freakishly fast, are ridiculously expensive.  And we kind of planned the trip at the very last minute, like seriously the day before.  But it turned out really well.  We left Thursday night and got there about 8:00 am on Friday morning.

I was a little nervous about going to France.  A lot of people from our program had been there and had told us that the city was dirty and the people were unfriendly.  But we didn't have a bad experience.  In fact, we had a great time.  I was worried that we would have a difficult time getting around the city, especially since Anna was the only one of us who knew some French.  However, using the Metro (which is similar to the London Tube) turned out to be really easy.  We used it all weekend to get around the city, and it also took us to and from the coach station, so basically it was really handy and I'm pretty sure it was only easy because we  use the Tube so much back in London.

But anyway, right when we got to Paris we found our hotel (which was located just steps from a Metro stop) and dumped our bags near reception, since we couldn't check in until later in the afternoon, and we went straight to the Eiffel Tower.  It was so weird seeing it for the first time.  Everyone has seen pictures or video of the tower, and they know what it looks like, but it is really different seeing it with your own eyes.  First of all, there is a garden underneath it.  Did you know that? Because I didn't.  It is also crazy big, not to mention how ridiculously tall it is.

The Eiffel Tower

and the garden underneath!

We decided to take the stairs to the first and second floor (because we are poor college students), and boy did we get a work out.  There are 360 stairs to each floor, for a total of 720 steps that we climbed!!!  I could totally feel my calves on the way up...but once we reached the first and second floors we just walked around the perimeter taking in the views.  From up there we could see the River Seine, the Arc de Triomphe, among other spectacular sights.

The weather this weekend was also really nice.  It could be really warm with the sun beating down on you, but if you stepped into the shade you could easily cool off.  It was perfect.  Unfortunately, you cannot climb up to the highest levels, so we had to pay to take the elevator there, but it was worth it.  Although from the very top you can't really recognize much of the cityscape that you are seeing, it is still really neat looking out at the city.  It expands really far in all directions.  It is amazing just how large these European cities are that we are visiting.

Well once we bought our tickets and gave some random Italian girl some gum, we made our way onto the elevator to the very top of the tower.  It was crazy high up.  You could seriously see for miles in all directions.  It was pretty awesome.  And they also had champagne for sale up there, not that I got any of it, but it was an option.  But since this level is understandable much smaller than the others we had visited we didn't spend as long on this on, and we made the (long) journey back down.

Views from the Eiffel Tower

The whole Eiffel Tower visit took about 3 hours, so when we were done it was time to check into our hotel room! And notice how I said hotel, not hostel.  Yeah!  Sooo nice not to have to share a bathroom with a complete stranger.  And our hotel was pretty nice.  Small rooms, but nice nonetheless, and we didn't have to worry about some random person stealing our passports (which happened to another girl in the program!).  After a short break, which included a nap, we were on our way again.  This time we headed for the Lourve.

Outside the Lourve

However, we brought the Rick Steve's book about Paris, and he told us that we should wait until after 6:00 pm to visit the museum because then it would be discounted.  So after taking pictures of the outside, we had to wait in the glorious sun until it was late enough to go in.  What a hard life.  Although Anna did get roped into (literally) getting a lame friendship bracelet from a guy from Kenya.  And it got even harder when we actually got in the museum and found out that that day it was free to everyone under the age of 26.  Awesome.  So basically our time in the Lourve consisted of seeing the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the inverted pyramid before leaving. Just enough art for me.

Famous art in the Lourve

After a lovely nights sleep in our hotel, we got up bright and early (really, only like 9) and started our day.  This consisted of buying pastries in a shop near the hotel (and Anna dropping hers 2 minutes later) and then we saw a pigeon sitting in the spikes that they put on top of things to keep birds off.  Bahaha...that was an awesome start to the day, and also set the tone for the rest of the day as well.

First we tried to take the #69 bus on a little tour that Rick Steves recommended, but unfortunately for us that morning the Paris Marathon was taking place and the bus didn't stop there that morning.  So we scrapped that idea and moved onto visiting Notre Dame.  We found our way there pretty easily, and took pictures of the extremely ornate church.  It was really beautiful, but it was also really crowded on a Saturday so we didn't actually end up touring the building, but we sat outside for awhile looking at building and planning our next move for the day.

Notre Dame!

And finally we decided upon vising Sacre Coeur for our next move.  We took the Metro to get there, but to actually get to the church we had to climb a ton of stairs (apparently everywhere you guy in Paris requires you to climb stairs), so by the time we reached the top we were really tired and ended up spending about an hour in the area.  First of all we watched a ton of other people getting scammed into buying the same bracelet Anna did, which was hilarious when it wasn't happening to us.  There was also some really good musicians playing the area, so we decided to eat lunch there.  I had a humongous hotdog covered with cheese, a cookie and a coke.  Suuuuper nutritious!!!

Sacre Coeur

Once we had finished up, we left to go visit Moulin Rouge.  And by visiting, I mean we went to the outside of the building and took pictures, then immediately left.  After this we decided that we should probably wash our hands (Anna put hers in bird poop, she struggled a lot through the trip if you couldn't tell), so we went into a Starbucks.  I know what you're thinking...Emily probably bought a frappiccino.  Well let me tell you.  I did not.  I totally have self control (when I'm poor), but we did meet some fellow Americans.  One woman was from Michigan and she gave us some hand sanitizer, which was lovely since the line for the bathroom was ridiculously long.

So after this we thought that maybe the marathon runners might be done, so we made our way back to the bus stop to try taking the bus tour again.  And this time it actually worked!  We were picked up by an actual bus, and when I say bus tour, I pretty much mean we just rode the bus and looked out the windows.  After awhile of this, we got off at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary, and we were going to go inside.  It has a lot of famous people buried there, such as Oscar Wilde.  However, we apparently cannot tell time and we got there just as the cemetery was closing.

Luckily we had a backup plan.  This plan involved us getting food (french bread, of course) and going to eat it in front of the Eiffel Tower, so that we could see it lit up at night.  You might think this plan would have been easy to execute, but no.  Apparently, you can 'reserve' bread, so even though it might look like its for sale, its not.  Tricky.  So we had to travel all over looking for French bread in France.  Ironic, huh?  But we did eventually find some, along with strawberries and cheese and we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower.

We sat down in a grassy area, with a bunch of young people, whom I'm assuming were French since I couldn't understand what they were saying.  And we waited for dark, so we could see the lights on the Tower.  Well while we were waiting some kid around our age came up and asked for a corkscrew.  At least thats what I think he said since I can't understand French and he had an unopened bottle of wine in his hand...well we couldn't really help him out with the corkscrew situation, but that didn't stop him from (trying) to talk to us.  And I say trying because he didn't know any French, so he had to (try) and communicate through Anna.  It was pretty hilarious.  But it ended with him asking us to Salsa Dance near the Lourve, and Renae freaking out trying to get away from him.  I thought it was funny, but she snuck out the back while he was going to the bathroom so that he couldn't see her leave...oh Renae.

The Eiffel Tower at night!

This was our last full day in Paris, because we had to leave around noon on Sunday to catch our coach home.  So on Sunday morning all we did was visit the Arc de Triomphe and buy souvenirs before leaving.  The Arc was pretty amazing.  It is obviously huge, and the carvings are really intricate.  It was interesting to see, but we were so not up to climbing the stairs to the top.  My calves were about done...but that sums up our time in Paris.  I could go on about how gross and uncomfortable the ride home on the coach was (soooooo much B.O.) but I will spare you the details.

And finally....The Arc de Triomphe!

Paris was great, but I can't wait for Spring Break and then being back home!!!!