Eiffel in Louvre with Paris

I have been to a number of amazing places since being abroad, but I have to say, I was upset thinking I wouldn’t be able to make it to Paris. I thought I missed my opportunity to go but then came the perfect time to go to the city of love. Or lights? Or macaroons? All I know is I was super excited to finally speak french considering I took three years of the language in high school and had yet to find a use for it.

Tickets purchased for our plane and for the Paris soccer match that weekend, we were super excited. Unfortunately, the Thursday night before we left, there was a shooting on the famous street, the Champs Elysees. The shooter, a known terror suspect, attacked a police vehicle and one officer died while three bystanders were injured. The street was evacuated and flooded with officers. I got the notification from the CNN News app on my phone at 9:30 the night before I was to head on a plane and see that very street. The weekend we were going was of their elections as well, so tensions were already high. We monitored the situation, debated what to do, and finally decided that we would still go knowing that we would need to be extremely cautious and might have to change our plans a little.

At 7am on Friday morning, we boarded our flight and touched down in Paris. Driving through the streets we passed the very spot where the shooting happened and saw a ton of reporters and interviews happening at the scene. It was pretty scary to think about, but we distracted ourselves by getting a head start on sightseeing.

We started by having a delicious lunch at a cafe right by our Air BnB and wondered over to the Notre Dame to work off our lunch and see what the city had to offer. We were shocked at how beautiful and clean the city was, even the people were beautiful (I’ll get more into that later).

Notre Dame was beautiful. The gothic style cathedral was an amazing first site in Paris. We marveled from the outside and saw all the large men with their rifles monitoring the area. Though comforted by the amount of officers prepared for an attack, it made me a little uneasy that they even had to be there in the first place.

We headed over to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. A crepe along the way filled with Nutella was just perfect. It was interesting to see the little courtyard I always see in pictures and movies. It looked out onto a park with a beautiful arch and I was so pleasantly surprised.

We walked around some of the millions of art pieces the Louvre had to offer. We had these little Nintendo 3Ds things to map our way around. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me but messed with it about the entire time.

We saw the Venus Di Milo and even Artemis with her Doe. I am weirdly into Greek Mythology after I took the class for a literature and the arts credit at CU this past semester (shoutout to Tyler Lansford for being the best professor I have had at CU), so this was fun for me to see some of the sculptures.

Finally, it was time for the Mona Lisa. I was prepared for her to be a small portrait as I was warned of this before, and she sure was. We made our way through the huge crowds of people to get up close. It’s true that her gaze follows you around the room, and she was just as beautiful as I imagined.

We took our selfie and even laughed as a guy came up to us afterwards and showed us the picture he got of us taking our selfie and how it was on his Instagram. We checked out the picture later and he had quite a few followers. I guess we really made quite the impression with our selfie, can’t blame him, it was a pretty good one!

We finished our exploring and headed through a beautiful park to get some ice cream. We enjoyed the beautiful lavender on the trees and the fantastic weather we were experiencing. We walked by the huge ferris wheel and headed back before dinner.

The initial restaurant we were going to go to was closed, so we found a Brasserie to stop in. Great call. We all ordered ceviche and Alec and I treated ourselves to amazing steaks cooked perfectly at a medium rare. It was my half birthday, so I felt like my splurging was justified. It was absolutely phenomenal. I wish I got a picture of that meal, but the memory will have to do. We topped it off with some wine and I was a happy, happy little Megs. Maybe a big Megs after all this eating abroad, oops!

We grabbed some more wine and hung out for a bit making funny remixes and auto tunes to songs before heading to the Eiffel Tower at night. It was absolutely beautiful. We sat for about an hour drinking wine and getting asked by every other person if we wanted to buy champagne or a keychain. We saw the twinkling lights, played the song Piano Man, and enjoyed ourselves.

The next morning, we headed to the Eiffel tower to see it during the day. The line was outrageous to go to the top, so we settled with going to the park for a little photoshoot and to get a great view of the tower.

It amazed me that I was actually there, in France, standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. We were among other tourists taking pictures. After about 20 failed attempts at getting a jumping picture, we laughed over a few jokes, took some more pictures, and took it all in.  Alec and I made sure to take our legendary picture that we have done in three countries now. The collage will come at the end of the semester, don’t you worry.

We stopped by a little marketplace by the river and got some treats. I ordered a cotton candy and was pleasantly surprised when it was three times the size of my head. The beautiful pink treat was absolutely amazing and photographed so nicely.

The pink treat held me over until our next stop, Laduree, to get macaroons. I picked out the prettiest pink box with a ton of flavors. I was in heaven. But let me warn you, I left the box in the refrigerator at our Air BnB. I’m highly upset, but at least I was able to try one and took a fabulous picture of them. I suppose our Air BnB hosts are in for a treat, quite literally.

We made our way down the Champs Elysees, seeing the famous roundabout that holds the Arc De Triomphe, and even found a Paris Saint Germain fan store to buy our jerseys for the game that night. Let me pause here and tell you that the man who worked at that Nike store was hands down the most attractive male I have seen abroad. He put the names of the players on jerseys and I was in awe. I wish I had a picture of him but again, the memory will have to be enough for now. If it’s meant to be it will be I suppose. It was here I realized I really love Paris.

We made our way back to get ready for the game, but not before a stop at Chipotle. I missed my favorite little place so much, and thankfully everyone else did too. We scarfed down burrito bowls and ate some macaroons before the game.

The game was extremely rowdy. The fans were extremely loud and the guy who I had on my jersey even scored. The game was short lived but I was super stoked to have gone to a sporting game abroad, even if our team was bound to win form the beginning. Our interesting Uber ride home topped off the eventful evening.

I think this trip was one I got the most sleep on and I can’t say I’m upset. Most trips are so packed with different things but I have to say, I loved how relaxed my time in Paris was. I saw everything I wanted to, ate fabulous meals, and took in all the sites. It was everything I wanted in my Paris trip and more.

We finished off our trip with a nice cafe where I finally had my croissant and coffee. Our flight left earlier than I remembered so we made our way to the airport to travel back to Prague.

My little weekend getaway was one for the books. I sure hope to make my way back to Paris one day, but until then, Au Revoir to my favorite city I visited abroad.

Onto the next adventure. See you tomorrow, Poland!