Monday, July 25, 2011

Ah, Paris

Today we woke up at a more decent time and started our day around 11. We headed straight to the Eiffel Tower. We had to make a detour through different subway lines since they're working on some, so it took a little longer than we thought it would.

But we made it! Seeing it in person is unreal! We took lots of pictures :)




Yes, we are those kind of tourists haha







We got tired of all the guys trying to sell cheap souvenirs, which was illegal for them to sell. And there were people asking for money everywhere.

We stood in line to go to the top for about an hour and forty five minutes. We weren't going to be deterred from going there though!

The stairs that you could walk up. Or you could take an elevator. We took the elevator cause we've climbed enough stairs





At one point a woman tried to cut in line in front of the guys in front of us. Doug tried to say something to her, but she played dumb. There was a man behind us that spoke French and told her where the end of the line was. She left, but only to about 15 people behind us and did the same thing. I say she played dumb because the guy behind us didn't speak any English either, but from Doug's gesturing, he understood what was going on.

We rode up one elevator to get to the middle level. We didn't even bother taking pictures there because we knew that the pictures from the top would be better.

We took another elevator to the top and the view was spectacular!!












We got food at a cafe inside of the eiffel tower. Doug got a waffle with Nutella on it, and I got a croque monsieur. Yep, I tried something new! It's pretty much a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, but there's cheese on top of the sandwich. It was really good. I didn't take a picture cause I was too hungry to stop and take one, but this is what it looked like:


On an elevator ride down we saw the church where we had been yesterday. We had seen it from the top, but it was so hard to make out because it didn't look like it was on a hill from that height!


On the middle level, you could all the people lined up like ants to get in


Once we were on a lower level we were able to walk down the steps in the legs.


View from the other side. We were going "We were up there!"


After that we walked towards their statue of liberty.

We saw this on the way, but didn't go in. But the fountain was pretty! (and we'd seen it from the top) It's the Palais de Charlot




Walkway that we took to get to the Statue of Liberty


It's much smaller than ours, and has a gold crown


Then we started our trek to the Arc de Triomphe. It was quite a walk for us. As we passed a bakery I told Doug that I wanted to get another dessert. I waited to eat it till we got to the Arc, and then we sat on a bench and rested, and I enjoyed my treat! It was raspberries, whipped cream, chocolate mousse, and chocolate cake parfait. Yum!


Made me happy :)


Arc de Triomphe!








Memorial for the unknown soldier




When we were done with pictures, it was 4:30. It was too early for us to go back to our room, yet almost too late to see anything else. We decided to walk to the Opera house that Phantom of the Opera is based on (Opera Garnier). That was also a long walk. But we made it! It's currently being renovated and was just closing as we got there. Oh well. I got some pictures of the outside at least! I have the book to read (by Gaston Leroux), but haven't gotten to it yet. (In fact, I believe I have it both on my kindle and in paperback at home!) Plus, I love the movie :)




View of it after we had walked down the street a ways


We were done for the day, so we took a metro back to our room. We soaked our feet and are watching BBC news until something better comes on. We sure are tired though! My legs are achey! We should sleep well tonight!

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