After dealing with some asshole on the bus and waiting to get headphones (the place was so crowded t

Since this was our last day in London and our train didn't leave until 11:30 am, we had time to sleep in a bit. Everyday during the trip, we constantly had to be waking up at 6:30am or so, and now for the first time, we could wake up a bit later. We got up, got ready, and began hauling our big ol' suitcases across the streets of London. We made it to Victoria tube station, got on, and rode to Kings Cross. From there we walked online hotel reservation bologna a very short distance to St. Pancras train station. We waited in line to get on the Eurostar and, since we arrive early, we waited for our train for quite some time.
We hopped on the Eurostar, and enjoyed a pleasant ride under the English Channel and across the French countryside. This was probably the nicest train I had ever been on. We arrived in Paris at about 2:30 pm. I was pretty surprised at how dirty the area outside the train station looked. online hotel reservation bologna There was a lot of graffiti and it looked quite trashy.
We make our way out of the Gare du Nord train station and headed towards the metro, instantly, I could see the vast difference between the people who ride the tube in London and people who ride the metro in Paris. People online hotel reservation bologna in London seem more fashionable and a bit reserved, whereas French people were a lot more casual in their clothing, and there was a lot more diversity in the metro. In London it seemed like almost everyone is white, but Paris seem be more multi-cultured (based on my own observations, obviously, I don't know the actual statistics). Anyway, it was quite embarrassing carrying our big suitcases on the metro and then on the streets of Paris, but we knew we certainly weren't the first nor would we be the last to do that. We arrived at our hotel quite quickly after getting off the metro, our hotel was only about a block away. We stayed at the Hotel Voltaire Republique. It was the cheapest hotel I could find when I was making reservations back in March. It was 100 times better than the shoebox we stayed at in London. The room was pretty large for a cheap hotel. It had two twin beds and a queen size bed, mini fridge, nice bathroom, online hotel reservation bologna and best of all, it had windows! Our hotel in London didn't have any windows at all!
We dropped off our luggage and headed out to do the one and only thing planned for the day, which was a city tour . I knew trying to do too much in one day would be horrible and overwhelming. We were already pretty tired and wanted to take our first day easy. I had purchased a Paris Pass for all of us to use, and one of the perks was getting a tour of the city on a hop on/hop off big red double-decker bus called Les Cars Rouge . Our closest pick up spot was at the Louvre Museum. We took the metro and then walked a few blocks to the museum, it was awesome seeing it in real life. Even though we didn't go in that day, it was still surreal to see it, even if it was just from the outside. We were a bit lost, we didn't know exactly were the bus was supposed to pick us up, but we eventually figured it out. We hopped on the extremely crowded online hotel reservation bologna bus, and after a few stops, enough people got off and we were finally able to get some good seats at the top.
After dealing with some asshole on the bus and waiting to get headphones (the place was so crowded that some people couldn't get the equipment needed to listen to the tour), we finally online hotel reservation bologna started enjoying online hotel reservation bologna the tour. The bus drove us all over the city, hitting major tourist points.
Whenever I travel to a different, unfamiliar place, I try to do a city tour first so I can get a feel of the town and an idea of the layout. It was a great idea for us to do the city tour, Paris isn't very large and it gave me a bit of an idea of where everything was. The tour was like most city tours, online hotel reservation bologna however, seeing the monstrous Arc de Triomphe come up in front of us as we drove closer and closer to it really took my breath away.
I hate corny and overly-emotional explanations, but to be 100% honest, seeing this huge monument was incredible. It was much larger and grandiose than expected. As impressed as I am with seeing historical places, I'm hardly ever left speechless, online hotel reservation bologna but this time I was. I stood up and took as many photos as possible. It was a bit hard because the bus was moving, but that didn't stop me. It got me even more excited about being able to go inside it and climb it the following day.
The bus then made its way to the most famous tower in the world, the Eiffel Tower! It was beautiful and surprisingly large. I've always heard that the Eiffel Tower is "smaller than what it seems," but it's not. It's huge and somewhat robust. Almost has a masculine feel. It's gorgeous online hotel reservation bologna nonetheless, although less "delicate" than expected.
We visited lots of other major sites, not as famous as the two aforementioned, but impressive in their own right. We saw Place de Concorde, Les Invalides and the Army museum (the final resting online hotel reservation bologna place of Napoleon I), Seine River, Champs Elysee, and many more places.
After the tour was over, we got off at the Notre Dame, caught online hotel reservation bologna the metro and made our way to our hotel once again. We got dinner at a little restaurant a few doors down from our hotel. It was the first time I didn't tip (we were told not to) and it felt so...wrong. To my surprise, almost everyone we came across spoke English, even before I had a chance to impress them with my horrible French accent ;-)
I knew English was commonly spoken over there, but I would figure they would let me make a fool of myself before they would begin speaking online hotel reservation bologna to me in English. Usually they would just start speaking in English, which was fine, it saved me the embarrassment of stuttering myself online hotel reservation bologna through an incoherent conversation. Anyway, we went back to the hotel, unpacked a bit, checked our itinerary , showered, used the internet for a while, and then went to bed to prepare for the following day.
Did you know? During the summer, the sun is still out at 10:30pm! I knew this was normal in Northernmost and Southernmost parts of the world, online hotel reservation bologna but I didn't know this happened in Paris. I couldn't believe it! It was great in the sense that we could do more because the day was so long, but it also meant we would be more exhausted because we tried to do so much in one day.
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