Paris

Okay, I'm going to be honest, I didn't think I would be a fan of Paris. People had filled my head with rumors of all the crime and the grittiness of the city. So I went in with my rose colored glasses off, and I left with them on.

My first night in Paris is when I had the most amazing meal of my life. Just thinking about it makes me drool. After waiting in line for what felt like forever we took the elevator up to the first floor of the Eiffel Tower and had dinner at the 58 Tour restaurant. We had a three course meal of foie gras, mascarpone risotto, and a chocolate plate served with espresso. I wanted to lick my bowl of risotto clean. It was that good.

Then we took a cruise on the seine river. It was cool to see all the buildings and float through the city. As we drifted along the river I noticed so many people sitting down by the river. What I became jealous of is all the bottles of wine everyone had. It looked like they had robbed a winery, then I remembered they don't have open container laws.  The Eiffel Tower then started to shimmer, and I understood why Paris is called the most romantic city in the world. Who wouldn't fall in love sitting by the river with a bottle wine and catching the Eiffel Tower light up the night for a brief moment.

The next day we did another bus tour, my favorite part of tours is hearing about all the history. It truly is fascinating, well to me at least. We saw the Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, L'Orangerie, Champs-Elysees,  D'orsay, Ile Saint- Louis, and Place de La Concorde. Now the one complaint I have about this is that I wasn't able to go inside the musuems. I particularly wanted to to go in the the L'Orangerie and see Monte's paintings. I love art museums. Another place I really wanted to go was the Notre Dame Cathedral. Next time for sure.

After our bus tour a small group of us journeyed out to the Palace of Versailles. I won't go into too much detail about my journey there and back, and I had a great group of travel companions, but I felt like I was in the movie, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. So after the adventure of getting there, I walked into the most beautiful building I've ever stood in. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to spend a lot of time in the building but I did get to see the Hall of Mirrors. Holy cow. Mind blown. All the detail in every inch of the room, the view out to the garden, and the smaller rooms that were off it was incredible. This is a place you must experience. If I ever make it back to France, I will definitely be going back to the Palace of Versailles.

My last day was spent walking around, with my grandmother, in the neighborhood our hotel was located. We had onion soup at a little cafe and poked around to all the little shops and boulangeries. If you ever find yourself standing in a boulangerie BUY A CROISSANT. You will not regret it. I daydream about that croissant sometimes, I kid you not. Another observation I made was, when I made an effort to speak french the Parisian people were very friendly to me, and they all spoke perfect english. I left Paris feeling the need to learn french. I was heavily relying on my three sentences knowledge I retained from high school.

That evening our tour group went to a Cabaret in the Latin district. So much fun. They served a three course meal, plus they had bottles of wine on the table. I'm a big fan of wine. I recommend going, if you're looking for a night out. I don't recommend bringing children, a few routines had some mature themes.

Since a few of us weren't ready to say good-bye to Paris, we went to check out Earnest Hemmingway's old stomping ground, Les Deux Margot's. We all sat down lined down the sidewalk, drinking more wine and enjoying our last night in Paris. An artist started to draw us and captured us in one of the happiest moments of my life.

Hopefully a return trip to Paris is in the near future.