One Night in Paris

We arrived bright and early in Paris off the night train from Munich. Stocking up on medicine and chocolate croissants we hit the metro to our hotel. Unfortunately we couldn't check in (or shower) so we dropped our bags, changed and went off to see the city.


Our first order of business was the Eiffel Tower. You can't go to Paris and not go up it right?

Eiffel Tower

We walked a million stairs up to the second level to avoid waiting in the ridiculous lineup for the elevator. After some confusion on the second level, we finally got into the right lineup and got on the elevator for the top. There were some signs warning us of 'possible congestion at top' but getting off the elevator at the top was ridiculous. There was no room to stand inside and everyone is trying to get outside, but that is full too and its just an insane amount of people in a tiny area. Not to mention my newfound dislike for heights.

We looked around the city, got our typical tourist photo at the top and then waited in another line for a half hour or so until we could get back down.

Our lame self portrait at the top.

While in line they had the distances from the Eiffel Tower to most major cities. Although they did not have Calgary, they did have Tirana! This is for you Linda!

Distance from the Eiffel Tower

Back at the bottom we decided to sit on the grass for awhile and just chill out before heading to Notre Dame.

Another typical tourist photo!

Pleasantly surprised that entrance the the Notre Dame Cathedral was free, we wandered with the masses through the beautiful cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral

From the cathedral we wandered over to The Louvre. We didn't have nearly enough time to go in, and I wouldn't call myself a huge art fan, so we just sat in the courtyard.

Pyramids at The Louvre

We wandered around the nearby gardens for a bit before going back to the hotel. We were happy that we ended up in a two person room with private bath after booking a 10 person shared dorm.


Dinner was entertaining... being from Canada people expect us to know French, but we definitely don't. But what we do know is most foods, having the french words written all over the packaging. So we ordered a pizza assuming what we knew was on it, but there was one that I didn't know, and one that I read wrong (fever must have got to my head) but we ended up with a pizza that had baby pickles and slices of potatoes on it. Really bizzare if you ask me. And I don't like pickles.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was feeling sick so didn't have much of an appetite anyway. We chatted with a nice American guy for awhile, bought the most expensive lemon ever, and then headed back to the hotel to pack. We payed for an extra bag since we were pretty sure we were each carrying around more than 10kilos and so we spent the evening trying to guess how much each bag weighed.

After the worst night's sleep possible we got up at 5 to begin the journey to the airport. Now I have no idea why this airport is even called a Paris airport, because it took us 40 minutes by metro to get to this bus station, where we boarded this Ryanair bus to take us to the airport. An hour and a half later, we are at the airport. That's like flying out of friggen Red Deer and calling it a Calgary airport! But when our flights cost us next to nothing (Gillian got her flight for £1.99, and I got mine for £11.99!) you can't really complain. We got our bags weighed, and both bags were pretty much exactly, but not over, what they were required to be. Our flight was then delayed due to the fog, but eventually we made it back to Edinburgh where I immediately crashed and slept the next few days away.