Vive La France!!!

Thursday Oct 22/Friday Oct 23

We ran around London at 330am for our city buses and arrived at Victoria in plenty of time for our shuttle to Stanstead airport. It was about a 1 1/2 hour ride. We saw some other people at the airport and hung out with them after we checked in and went through security. Then our gate opened and Steph and I went to the bathroom before going down...big mistake: when we came out the sign said boarding and as we were running another girl said it had changed to last call. We ran and ran and ran! And then when we got there...there was a big line and they weren't even checking tickets yet. We still had about a 5 minute wait... Oh well! Better safe than sorry! :D

It was foggy so we had to wait an extra 1/2 hour and finally took off. It was only about a 2-2 1/2 hour flight to Marseilles, France, on the southern coast of France off the Mediterranean! We got shuttle tickets into town and luckily it was only a 20 minute bus ride. It took us straight to the train station where we validated our Eurail passes and got our first tickets to Paris for the same night. Unfortunately the overnight tickets we'd planned on (and checked online) wasn't available.

It was a beautiful view down this huge staircase just outside the station all the way down this long long road. We started walking and headed to the port. It was a pretty grey day, but we wouldn't let that get us down!! We walked around a little bit and got tickets for the boat to the Isle Frioul since the Chateau d'If was closed for the day. We were kinda sad we wouldn't get to pretend to be in the Count of Monte Cristo, but enjoyed the other island anyway. Since the weather wasn't the best there was hardly anyone else there and we hiked around and checked out the beaches, the view of Chateau d'If, and these 19th century ruins of what we think were army buildings or something. It was still really lovely!The Chateau d'If from our island!


Then it was back down to wait in the rain for our boat back to the mainland. We are true hobos: we brought our bread from home and had bread and water as a snack... :D

Awesome giraffe in the middle of the sidewalk made of books!!
We walked around a little more and decided to book it up to see the Palais Longchamp before going back to the station to catch our train. It was an incredibly long walk in the rain with our big backpacks but we finally made it! It was really beautiful, too! Very worth it! So then we scurried back over to the train station and waited for our late train. It was sooo nice to take off our wet socks!

It was pretty empty and once we found our real seats we settled in and spread out. There was no sleeping though, unfortunately! :(

We got to Paris later than scheduled, 12:30, but it was no big deal. Then we wandered exhausted around the station wondering where to sleep. To mom and dad's relief we nixed sleeping in the creepy train station and asked some nice police officers where the nearest hostel was. They heard "hotel" though, which was fine, but it just meant we were going to pay more. After checking out a few places we ended up at the Viator Hotel not far from the station. Since it was after 1am he graciously knocked 10 Euro off (my unintentional pout helped too!) so it was only .... *groan* 90 Euro...but safer and much nicer than a train station. After our long, stressful night it was really nice to have our own, quiet room with uber-comfy beds!

We slept in as much as possible and checked out right at 12 to make the most of our money and then set out to explore PARIS!!!! Luckily Steph eyed a map in the hotel lobby and snatched a few before we left...otherwise we would've been TOTALLY lost!!

First we went to the Bastille area and saw the Colonne de Juillet.

We tried to find Victor Hugo's house, but somehow couldn't despite the signs. We grabbed lunch though and had our first French baguettes--heaven!! ...but also probably so delicious since it was our first real food after a day of granola bars and bread! :D We took them to this beautiful courtyard to eat and then went toward the Ile de la Cite.

We walked around the Notre Dame. Luckily it was FREE!! It was really dark and beautiful inside--we loved the statues, paintings, rose windows, and gothic architecture. And the whole time they had their choir music playing, so that really set the mood!! We also saw a trap door in one corner of the ceiling that we like to think Quasimodo might use! :D Speaking of him, there was a guy outside dressed as the Hunchback taking pictures with people!

From the Cathedral we went over the the Palais de Justice and walked around to inside--really nothing to see--and then over to the Conciergerie. Then it was back over the river and around the Louvre courtyard. It is soooo massive, we couldn't believe it! And there was an INCREDIBLE view from the Louvre's arch leading to the gardens where you could see ALL THE WAY to the Arc du Triomphe--and that is a LONG way!! Wow!! Then we walked west down the gardens that had a lot of statues set up. In two of the fountains there were cymbols set up all over and people would throw stones at them to make them clang--very creative! We kept walking to the Place de la Concorde.

Then we went north to slowly make our way to our hostel. We hit the Place de la Madeleine and the Opera Garnier (the setting of the Phantom of the Opera!).

We stopped at a grocery store and then went up to see the Moulin Rouge. So cool and there were a ton of people around--crazy mixed with all the neon of the sex stores that surround the area! It was a lot smaller than I'd imagined but still really cool. On the same corner we also found the cheapest crepe stand we'd seen so far: 2 Euro compared to 4-6!! We had to stop!! I got banana and it was soooo delicious and really hard not to stop at every crepe stand we walked past from that moment on! Sooo good!!!

Then we headed toward our hostel, a little bit of a walk but we finally found it: the Peace and Love Hostel... It was decent and we had some really nice (and talkative) girls in our room. The bar right beneath us had really loud music, but I think it actually lulled me to sleep with how tired I was--slept like a ROCK.