Je suis allé à Paris

Austin and I decided to be really spontaneous and trek down to Paris for the day. (Why yes it was almost a month ago, and yes I'm only now getting around to blogging about it) I never really bought into the whole "Paris city of love" thing, but I guess its something you don't really know until you actually experience it. The place breathed romance with every streetlight and every building. The people could have been a little bit nicer but then again, we were warned beforehand that they wern't going to be jumping up and down to help us. And after hearing stories of how the city was notorious for its pick-pocketers, my bag was practically engraved into the side of my body. When we first arrived I was surprised at how easy it was to get around in the city, we used the metro to get to the touristy areas and also the bus to get to the big one- the Eiffel Tower. It was the main thing we wanted to see and with no maps and hardly any preparation for the trip it was going to be fun searching for it! When we came up from the underground we walked past gorgeous buildings that probably had an important historic meaning but we would never know. Then I looked up and around and bingo- the tower. So there it was, and being the three girls we are, we decided well, that's where we want to be so lets just walk towards it. I mean, as long as we can see it in the skyline somewhere, we should be able to find it right? And as it turns out, following a monument in the sky is like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's just not going to work out..

After asking many people how to get to the Eiffel Tower I got many looks from them like I was crazy! I thought, this is your city, how can you not know where the main attraction is? craziness.

Me: "Excuse me, do you know how we can get to the Eiffel (pronounced "I-full") Tower?
Them: Blank expression and mild confusion
Me: "Eiffel Tower", shaking head in amazement
Them: <....something in French....>
Me: Frantically making my best Eiffel Tower Model with my hands
Them: ah! Thee Eiffel!! (pronounced "I-fell")
Me: yeah that one :)

Lesson Learned, I'm not going back until I am completly fluent in French! As part of our whole reason of going, we had a 100% french meal (I had a dish that sounded really good in French although I can't remember the name, basically it was veal,rice&mushroom.) and my two travel buddies managed to down a bottle of wine. (and before 1pm at that) But hey, when in Paris!...

Overall it was a good trip, yet especially good because it was so unplanned and under our terms.