2/12/16-2/15/16
Beautiful Paris! Before I get to the good stuff, let me get my mini rant out of the way! When we arrived to the ORLY Airport we had to wait an hour for our shuttle to get us when they told us 15 minutes so we were standing in the rain, our hotel room was close to the Eiffel tower so that was great yayay but the room was tiny and right next to the check-in desk on the first floor which was weird and there was no refrigerator so my Chipotle (don't judge me) had to be thrown out because I can't eat all my food ever and I suck, breakfast was not included which we didn't know and my yogurt was moldy and they were less than accommodating about it and we had to pay 12 euro each for breakfast which was way overpriced for a baguette and moldy dairy, the window didn't have a screen on it and since my boyfriend runs at about a million degrees all the time we had to have the window open and being on the first floor I thought I was going to get murdered the whole time. And that's what you missed on Glee! On to the fun stuff :)
DAY ONE: TORINO to MILAN MALPENSAThis Friday started out like any other Friday a study abroad student endures. I woke up slightly hungover, searched for food which we had none of, waved goodbye as my boyfriend went off to the gym like the healthy person he is, and napped while I waited for him to arrive back with our pizza (which we totally shared and I totally did NOT eat my own pizza... yes I did). Moving on.
When we finally got our butts out of the apartment and off to the train station, it was about 14:00 (or 2pm for my American homies). We got to Porta Nuova to buy our tickets to Milan only to discover that every train to Milan was cancelled (we found this out after buying our tickets because we didn't look at the screen to see it was cancelled). At first, I went into a minor panic because we had to get to Milan and our hostel in Malpensa so we could catch our early flight the next morning. However, after finding out that the reason the trains were cancelled was because someone had jumped on to the tracks and commited suicide, all my panic and frustration left. All I could feel at this point was a mixture of sadness for the person, and gratitude towards my parents and myself for allowing me to have this amazing study abroad opportunity. Here I was, traveling the world with my best friend, meeting so many amazing people and seeing so many incredible things, and someone else was going through a world of hurt and deciding that it wasn't worth the pain anymore. How can you even be upset at this point?
So, after petting the cutest dog I have ever seen (not relevant to the story, I just wanted to give a shout out to that dog for making my day better), and talking to the very helpful employee who was reimbursing me, we got directions to another train station so we could catch a bus that was leaving for the Malpensa airport that night. Long story short, we got on the bus, made our way to the airport, got picked up by owners of the hostel we were staying at (shout out to Malpensa House for being awesome), stayed the night, and got driven to the airport at 07:00 to catch our 08:50 plane to Paris, France. Phew, made it.
DAY TWO: PARISParis is amazing. That just about sums up my feelings towards this city. It is incredible. I've got two words for you: French Baguettes. For those of you who know me well, bread is my favorite food. If restaurants don't give you bread before the meal, forget about it I aint comin back (luckily not a problem in France or Italy). First meal in Paris was in a little restaurant by our hotel, where I got salmon pasta and bread of course. After this we wandered around and made our way to the main reason I was here, the Eiffel Tower.
With umbrella in hand, we took a lot of touristy pictures, met a group of Americans who were shotgunning beers and taking pictures of themselves holding up signs as a Valentine's Day shout out to their girlfriends. These people were cool and it was refreshing to see fellow American's doing fratty things like shotgunning beers in front of the Eiffel Tower, shout out to my PC 13 Gamma Phi Betas- Xi chapter (not that this reminded me of my girls at home or anything, we are ladies after all).
After our first trip to the Eiffel Tower (oh yes, there were several), we went to the Louvre. The Louvre is a museum like any museum you've seen before, except oh yeah, it contains the Mona Lisa and The Mummy. We paid 15 euro to get into the Louvre, which is kind of spendy for a museum, but obviously we had to do it.
After the Louvre we went to the Arc de Triomphe, but just the outside because at this point we had spent so much money and did not want to buy tickets to get over to it (it was across a very busy street with cars coming from all directions). Plus we did not really know what it was, which now I know it is a monument dedicated and built for those who fought for the French in the major wars. So instead of going to the arc, we went to the most extravagant French restaurant known as Chipotle, and got our American on. Trust me, European food is delicious and incredible, but pasta and pizza gets kind of old if you eat it for every meal. So naturally, after hearing those shotgunning boys at the Eiffel Tower complain about how they couldn't shotgun fast enough because their stomachs were full of Chipotle (yeah, okay boys), we made the executive decision that this had to be a thing we did. And we did it alright. Because this was Cam's first time at Chipotle, we went all out and splurged on guacamole and chips, which I would have done anyways but used this as an excuse to justify my poor money decisions. I would insert a picture of Cam taking his first bites but naturally, doing as guys do, he got down to just his underwear to properly enjoy this fine meal (sorry Cam had to be said). And it was delicious. I forgot how good burritos were (no I didn't, but I tried to).
Once we finished our meal, we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower to witness it in all of it's glory at night. Let me just say that if you find yourself in Paris and you only have one day, save the Eiffel Tower for the night time. It. Is. Breathtaking. Every hour on the hour, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes, creating an incredibly beautiful sight.
Like seriously. It's amazing. This was the perfect end to a perfect day in Paris.
DAY THREE: VALENTINE'S DAYAfter breakfast Cameron and I jumped on the metro and made our long journey to the Catacombs. For those of you who don't know what the Catacombs are (Mom I'm looking at you), they are underground burial sites (ossuaries) in the ancient mines that are home to about 6 million skeletons from the 1700s. And they are crazy cool. This is something that you MUST SEE if you are in Paris. The line was over an hour, and the tickets were 12 euro, but it was very worth it. If you can, do research ahead of time so you know exactly what you are looking at.
And if you go, don't be those assholes that take flash photography and create standstill traffic in the tiny tunnels because you feel the need to take pictures of yourself every 20 feet. You're disrespectful and I hate you. Anyways, this experience was humbling and awe-inspiring, and everything else you could think of being that close to 6 million skeletons of people who were living breathing people with their own lives and stories. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around.
Once we left the Catacombs, we went to a small Cafe called Paul, where we got a delicious ham and cheese sandwich on a french baguette, a drink (I got coke and Cam got water, again because he's the healhty one), and a dessert (I got a chocolate croissant looking thing and Cam got a brownie/cake thing). All for 8 euro. I love Europe.
We went back to the hotel after this, then back to the Eiffel Tower. This time at the Eiffel tower, we paid 14 euro to go to the top. Considering it was Valentine's Day around sunset, it was crowded, filled with couples, which was fine with me. The view from the top was insane. *Fun fact: there's a restaurant and ice rink on the Eiffel Tower, who knew! You could see all of Paris, and all of the famous monuments and churches were lit up. At this point it was dark and the city was fabulously lit up. The second we got off the lift the tower was sparkling. Everyone was smiling and taking pictures. The view was breathtaking. I can't put into words exactly my feeling at this moment.
After this, we went to dinner at a sushi restaurant close to the Eiffel Tower (again, so French, I know). This was Cam's first time really eating sushi, like real non-California Roll sushi, and he fell in love with it. Just kidding, he hated it and ended up not eating his whole meal for what I assume to be the first time in his entire life. Looks like I will have to swap out romantic sushi dates with my s/o for gal pal dates with my friends. Relationships are about sacrifice, but sushi is not something I plan to give up. Actually, any food in general for that matter #loveyoubabe.
When we were done we went back to our hotel room, popped some champagne, ate some sour candy and spent a good amount of time taking in the fact that we were in Paris, on Valentine's Day.
Cam keeps joking about how it will be hard to top this for next year, but for me, any day spent with him is as good as Paris on Valentine's Day. As long as there's bread. There always has to be bread.
Beautiful Paris! Before I get to the good stuff, let me get my mini rant out of the way! When we arrived to the ORLY Airport we had to wait an hour for our shuttle to get us when they told us 15 minutes so we were standing in the rain, our hotel room was close to the Eiffel tower so that was great yayay but the room was tiny and right next to the check-in desk on the first floor which was weird and there was no refrigerator so my Chipotle (don't judge me) had to be thrown out because I can't eat all my food ever and I suck, breakfast was not included which we didn't know and my yogurt was moldy and they were less than accommodating about it and we had to pay 12 euro each for breakfast which was way overpriced for a baguette and moldy dairy, the window didn't have a screen on it and since my boyfriend runs at about a million degrees all the time we had to have the window open and being on the first floor I thought I was going to get murdered the whole time. And that's what you missed on Glee! On to the fun stuff :)
DAY ONE: TORINO to MILAN MALPENSAThis Friday started out like any other Friday a study abroad student endures. I woke up slightly hungover, searched for food which we had none of, waved goodbye as my boyfriend went off to the gym like the healthy person he is, and napped while I waited for him to arrive back with our pizza (which we totally shared and I totally did NOT eat my own pizza... yes I did). Moving on.
When we finally got our butts out of the apartment and off to the train station, it was about 14:00 (or 2pm for my American homies). We got to Porta Nuova to buy our tickets to Milan only to discover that every train to Milan was cancelled (we found this out after buying our tickets because we didn't look at the screen to see it was cancelled). At first, I went into a minor panic because we had to get to Milan and our hostel in Malpensa so we could catch our early flight the next morning. However, after finding out that the reason the trains were cancelled was because someone had jumped on to the tracks and commited suicide, all my panic and frustration left. All I could feel at this point was a mixture of sadness for the person, and gratitude towards my parents and myself for allowing me to have this amazing study abroad opportunity. Here I was, traveling the world with my best friend, meeting so many amazing people and seeing so many incredible things, and someone else was going through a world of hurt and deciding that it wasn't worth the pain anymore. How can you even be upset at this point?
So, after petting the cutest dog I have ever seen (not relevant to the story, I just wanted to give a shout out to that dog for making my day better), and talking to the very helpful employee who was reimbursing me, we got directions to another train station so we could catch a bus that was leaving for the Malpensa airport that night. Long story short, we got on the bus, made our way to the airport, got picked up by owners of the hostel we were staying at (shout out to Malpensa House for being awesome), stayed the night, and got driven to the airport at 07:00 to catch our 08:50 plane to Paris, France. Phew, made it.
DAY TWO: PARISParis is amazing. That just about sums up my feelings towards this city. It is incredible. I've got two words for you: French Baguettes. For those of you who know me well, bread is my favorite food. If restaurants don't give you bread before the meal, forget about it I aint comin back (luckily not a problem in France or Italy). First meal in Paris was in a little restaurant by our hotel, where I got salmon pasta and bread of course. After this we wandered around and made our way to the main reason I was here, the Eiffel Tower.
With umbrella in hand, we took a lot of touristy pictures, met a group of Americans who were shotgunning beers and taking pictures of themselves holding up signs as a Valentine's Day shout out to their girlfriends. These people were cool and it was refreshing to see fellow American's doing fratty things like shotgunning beers in front of the Eiffel Tower, shout out to my PC 13 Gamma Phi Betas- Xi chapter (not that this reminded me of my girls at home or anything, we are ladies after all).
After our first trip to the Eiffel Tower (oh yes, there were several), we went to the Louvre. The Louvre is a museum like any museum you've seen before, except oh yeah, it contains the Mona Lisa and The Mummy. We paid 15 euro to get into the Louvre, which is kind of spendy for a museum, but obviously we had to do it.
After the Louvre we went to the Arc de Triomphe, but just the outside because at this point we had spent so much money and did not want to buy tickets to get over to it (it was across a very busy street with cars coming from all directions). Plus we did not really know what it was, which now I know it is a monument dedicated and built for those who fought for the French in the major wars. So instead of going to the arc, we went to the most extravagant French restaurant known as Chipotle, and got our American on. Trust me, European food is delicious and incredible, but pasta and pizza gets kind of old if you eat it for every meal. So naturally, after hearing those shotgunning boys at the Eiffel Tower complain about how they couldn't shotgun fast enough because their stomachs were full of Chipotle (yeah, okay boys), we made the executive decision that this had to be a thing we did. And we did it alright. Because this was Cam's first time at Chipotle, we went all out and splurged on guacamole and chips, which I would have done anyways but used this as an excuse to justify my poor money decisions. I would insert a picture of Cam taking his first bites but naturally, doing as guys do, he got down to just his underwear to properly enjoy this fine meal (sorry Cam had to be said). And it was delicious. I forgot how good burritos were (no I didn't, but I tried to).
Once we finished our meal, we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower to witness it in all of it's glory at night. Let me just say that if you find yourself in Paris and you only have one day, save the Eiffel Tower for the night time. It. Is. Breathtaking. Every hour on the hour, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes, creating an incredibly beautiful sight.
Like seriously. It's amazing. This was the perfect end to a perfect day in Paris.
DAY THREE: VALENTINE'S DAYAfter breakfast Cameron and I jumped on the metro and made our long journey to the Catacombs. For those of you who don't know what the Catacombs are (Mom I'm looking at you), they are underground burial sites (ossuaries) in the ancient mines that are home to about 6 million skeletons from the 1700s. And they are crazy cool. This is something that you MUST SEE if you are in Paris. The line was over an hour, and the tickets were 12 euro, but it was very worth it. If you can, do research ahead of time so you know exactly what you are looking at.
And if you go, don't be those assholes that take flash photography and create standstill traffic in the tiny tunnels because you feel the need to take pictures of yourself every 20 feet. You're disrespectful and I hate you. Anyways, this experience was humbling and awe-inspiring, and everything else you could think of being that close to 6 million skeletons of people who were living breathing people with their own lives and stories. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around.
Once we left the Catacombs, we went to a small Cafe called Paul, where we got a delicious ham and cheese sandwich on a french baguette, a drink (I got coke and Cam got water, again because he's the healhty one), and a dessert (I got a chocolate croissant looking thing and Cam got a brownie/cake thing). All for 8 euro. I love Europe.
We went back to the hotel after this, then back to the Eiffel Tower. This time at the Eiffel tower, we paid 14 euro to go to the top. Considering it was Valentine's Day around sunset, it was crowded, filled with couples, which was fine with me. The view from the top was insane. *Fun fact: there's a restaurant and ice rink on the Eiffel Tower, who knew! You could see all of Paris, and all of the famous monuments and churches were lit up. At this point it was dark and the city was fabulously lit up. The second we got off the lift the tower was sparkling. Everyone was smiling and taking pictures. The view was breathtaking. I can't put into words exactly my feeling at this moment.
After this, we went to dinner at a sushi restaurant close to the Eiffel Tower (again, so French, I know). This was Cam's first time really eating sushi, like real non-California Roll sushi, and he fell in love with it. Just kidding, he hated it and ended up not eating his whole meal for what I assume to be the first time in his entire life. Looks like I will have to swap out romantic sushi dates with my s/o for gal pal dates with my friends. Relationships are about sacrifice, but sushi is not something I plan to give up. Actually, any food in general for that matter #loveyoubabe.
When we were done we went back to our hotel room, popped some champagne, ate some sour candy and spent a good amount of time taking in the fact that we were in Paris, on Valentine's Day.
Cam keeps joking about how it will be hard to top this for next year, but for me, any day spent with him is as good as Paris on Valentine's Day. As long as there's bread. There always has to be bread.