Vive la France

Being the planner that I am, I bought my first Rick Steves book in December and spent my entire Christmas break planning our trip to Paris and nearby areas. While very few of my plans actually came true this weekend, this incredible city did not disappoint.

We left for Paris bright and early Friday morning. The Thalys makes it possible to get from Maastricht to Paris in about 3 hours so we arrived at 9:30 with the entire day ahead of us. We checked into our hostel, mapped out the sites we wanted to see via metro, and set out into the city. 

We started our tour at the Tour de Eiffel. Taylor and I both embarrassingly realized we don't actually know the significance of this monument, so I looked it up: Named after its architect, it was built in 1889 for the World Fair and is the most visited paid site in the world. At 1,063 ft. it stands as the tallest building in Paris, and was the tallest in the world until NYC's Chrysler Building was completed.

The first guy we asked to take our picture produced this. Terrible of us and also where's the tower...Don't quit your day job, sir. 

Next up, the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Élysées. By this point we were quite literally drenched in sweat. If asked my favorite feature of the Paris metro, I would have to say the literal wave of heat combined with the ever-so-prevalent scent of BO that comes sweeping across your face as soon as the doors open to let off 400 of your closest Parisian friends. Unlike most of our metro buddies, however, we had prepared with deodorant. I wish I could say the same for the natives, but alas. We stopped at McDonald's for a free bathroom and to change into some cooler clothes that had been left at the bottom of my bag. I can't say I bought a Louis Vuitton bag on the Champs Élysées, but I've peed at the McDonald's. Equally glamorous.

Our next stop was the metro stop "Madeleine". We went inside this beautiful church and I got the picture my mother would've made me take.

We walked to the Opera Garniér, just one metro stop away. Given that most of my knowledge of Paris comes from musicals (Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserablés, Hunchback of Notre Dame, and of course Phantom of the Opera-I could probably name more if asked), this is what I was most excited for. It was the only museum we paid for all day, but it was most certainly worth it. My musical theatre side was in complete heaven, and my sweet roommate (whose pictures, by the way, are loads prettier than mine and can be found on her blog: taylorbrockphotography.wordpress.com) let me geek out all the way through.

The chandelier weights 16,000lbs. So that would be fun to come crashing down...

We arrived at Notre Dame while mass was going on, which made it all the more beautiful. I will never see stained glass like this again in my life- it was truly amazing.

Edited by the lovely Taylor Brock

We started our walk to the Louvre via the famous lock bridge, then backtracked when we realized we had missed Shakespeare & Co. bookstore. I bought a Madeline book because yes, our family owns at least 3 copies, but how many of them came from Paris?

We picked up some of the best gelato I've had in Europe before getting back on the metro to get to the Louvre. It was somewhere in this roughly 1,000,000 ft.² museum that I thought my feet were going to fall off and I was going to have to live on one of the precious air vents on the floor of the building forever. But we hit the highlights and made it out with all limbs.

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa

Aphrodite

Hamurabi's Code

No, I don't know this child, but seriously how precious is he?! I couldn't resist. 

We walked out of the museum and into a carnival in the park across the street. Ferris wheel ride above Paris: €10 well spent.

Then Taylor made me ride the swings. So here's how that went:

We made our way back to our hotel exhausted and disgusting and even though we only got 5 hours of sleep I've never been so happy to see a bed. People will probably tell you not to try to do Paris in 12 hours. They would be right. 

Saturday's plan went to crap by 6:30am. Literally. 

We had planned to meet our friend Nick at Mont St Michel at 11:30. We got up at the butt crack of dawn and made it to the train station by 6:15 to catch a 7:05 train, only to find out that said train would cost us €64 each, one-way. No thank you. The very helpful ticket salesman spent the next 30 minutes trying to find every option for us to get there but finally deemed it impossible for less than €70 round trip. 

Enter Rick Steves. We pulled out our map and quickly decided on Normandy, the same distance away but on free trains. 10 minutes later we were on a train to Caen. We arrived at 11:15 and found out how to get to the nearest beach. 

If a plan has to go wrong, make sure the flawed plan includes a beach. We took a 40-minute bus ride (standing up) to Ouistiéamos, picked up a baguette and some fromage at the grocery store, and spent an hour and a half picking up sea shells and enjoying the beautiful weather.

The long trek home started at 2:00 with another bus ride back and many trains to follow. We made it back to our hostel by 9:15, ate some delicious quesadillas, and Nick finally arrived at 11 after a day as exiting as (if not more eventful than) ours.

After swapping stories and getting him checked in we all set out for the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle. Normally it lights up with plain yellow lights, but since it was Tour de France weekend we got to see it in all its glory.

We had some delicious Nutella crépes, watched the 5 minutes of sparkles, and caught the Metro back to the hostel. So all in all, a day completely different from what we had planned, but better than I could've expected. 

On Sunday we had Versailles on the agenda. We woke up a little later and took advantage of the free, semi-American breakfast (as in cocoa crispies) at our hostel before setting out a little later than planned for Versailles. Bad mistake. All the books tell you the lines are bad. Understatement. I'd liken it to the Dumbo ride at Disney World. You wait 45 minutes in line for a 45 second ride. This felt wildly similar, but with about an hour and a half in line for tickets and entrance and half the time spent in the palace itself. Also, did you know your kneecaps can sweat? Me neither. Learned something new.

The palace was amazing, however, and slightly more exciting than a flying elephant. It's unbelievable to picture anyone living here, the rooms are ridiculous. The hall of mirrors was enormous, definitely the highlight of the palace.

By the time we finished walking through all of the rooms in this enormous place we were exhausted and drenched in sweat. Oh, then there was the part where the Tour de France was starting in Versailles 3 hours later. That made for some crowded streets, to say the least. It was cool to see where it would begin, though. We grabbed some lunch at a cafe and left to catch the metro back to Paris to come home.

The start line for the Tour de France in Versailles

Anyone I've travelled with in the last 3 months would tell you that I am obsessively worrisome when it comes to train schedules. Today I was extremely unsure of our schedule because it required us taking a lot of "last trains" from one place to another. The odds of us missing one and being stranded in a random city in Belgium were unreasonably high. But, as cheesy as it may sound, I really felt God telling me to let it go. I committed to surrendering control and letting Him handle the parts I had no control over. So here's how He showed up tonight. 

We made it to the rando Paris train station from whence our €25 train was departing. It started out only 5 minutes delayed, meaning we would make our 16 minute layover in Brussels. It ended up 27 minutes delayed which meant we missed our 16 minute layover in Brussels. 

God's still good, here's why. Our next train was then delayed 23 minutes, which meant it was still waiting for us when we arrived from Paris. This also meant we would be late for our 17 minute layover in Liege, which would cause us to miss the last train back to Maastricht until 6am the next morning. 

But God's still good, here's why. I found a conductor as soon as we got on the train to explain our predicament. She couldn't hold the train in Liege, but she arranged to have a taxi meet us at the station, paid for by the station, to drive us to Maastricht. Sic em, Belgian train system. Then from the window of the train we could see this:

GUYS God is so cool. Here's why. 

We didn't even need the taxi because when we got to Liége at 10:28, the last train to Maastricht (supposed to have left at 10:17) was STILL THERE. We got back to Maastricht a little after 11, even with enough time to catch the bus home instead of having to walk.  

Through all of this, I never felt a second of panic or worry. Nothing and I do mean NOTHING can explain that except that peace we sing about in 2nd grade Sunday school that passes understanding down in my heart. Literally, y'all. Ask anyone. No one would describe me as "at ease" during traveling, especially on Sundays, so it was most definitely not my doing, and thank goodness. If I was in charge we'd probably have spent the night on the floor of a Belgian train station. Not exactly at the top of my bucket list.

Recap: hurried weekend, lots of sites, good bread. What more could you ask for, really?