Paris! Day 1 Thursday

Bonjour!!!!

I am currently sitting in my hotel room after just packing my suitcase up so I can leave Paris tomorrow morning. (NOTE: I was when i orginally began this blog) I am sad, but at the same time so excited to return home (to Firenze). I have loved Paris, but at the same time, there is just something about the Italian culture that I am completely in love with. However, I wish I could bring the Persian men back with me because they are so well dressed!

On Thursday morning, I woke up 30 minutes late to get ready. I thought I would be okay, but I was super pushed for time seeing as I hadn't packed my suitcase. Fortunately, I had already picked out my clothes, so I only needed to roll them. I was successful in geting packed and ready to go, but unfortunately my roommate is a heavy sleeper and doesn't wake up no matter what you do to get them up. I was too nice when trying to wake her up and finally at 8 till 5 (our cab was scheduled to pick us up at 5) I finally got her up. I thought everything was okay until we arrived at the airport and I made sure everyone had their passport. Well she had forgotten hers. However, my roommate in Florence got up and took a taxi to bring her the passport. Needless to say, we made our flight, but what a crazy start to our trip!



Upon arriving in Florence, we struggled to find our shuttle, but after 20 or so minutes of making our driver wait, we finally found him. He seemed a little irritated with us, but after a 2 hour ride, I think he loved our excitement for Paris. We finally got to our hotel: The Best Western Bergere Opera and it was actually very nice. The entry room was done in browns and brights greens and was very contemporary and modern. It kinda felt like something I would see at home. The three of us (Brian, Lauren, and myself) found our room and got settled in and finally met up with the other two people who had come with us (Emilie and Laura). They had a bit of a hair crisis that morning, so they hadn't made it out to the city to explore. We ate lunch at a subway down the street. it was so nice to have a taste of home.

After lunch, the four of us girls went to explore the city and to find exactly where our tour meeting spot would be located. It was actually quite simple to find and very easy to use the metro simply, which was much more complex than Rome's two lines. I wish Raleigh would build a metro. Right outside of our tour meeting spot, were some gorgeous gardens that we decided to explore before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the evening and to get Brian up from his nap. As we walked around, the we kept thinking that the place looked so important, but couldn't figure out exactly where we were until we finally stumbled up the glass pyramids outside of the Louve. It was so cool to actually be standing outside a place that was such a central part of the Da Vinci Code (one of my favorite books of all time). Funny moment: We were taking pictures of ourselves and as we were getting organized we saw this man taking a picture of himself and he was bent over a stone with his butt poking so far out. It was quite hiliarious.

After heading back to the hotel, we all got ready to go for a night out in Paris. It started with a trip to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner where I enjoyed a wonderful cheeseburger, french fries, and of course some RANCH. it is definately one of the things that i miss most from America. I also had a strawberry daquari and all five of us split a pitcher of white sangria. I have to say that unlike most of my peers I am definately a red wine kind of girl. Having American food was great again, but our waiter was unbearable. He didnt greet our table until we went and asked and then it took him forever to get things accomplished. I have no idea what his deal was, except that I think he was definately doing some kind of drugs in the back.

After dinner, we decided we wanted to go see the Effiel Tower all lit up so we made our way down to central Paris. It was really windy outside (seeing as it barely reached around 65 degrees the whole time we were there) which made the trip at night a little unbearable. However, we had a great time and at this point we were still so amazed with being there that we didn't care. After an Effiel Tower photo shoot, we went back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep since we were having our all day tour starting bright and early the next morning.