Bright and super duper early we mad our way to the airport to catch our flight to Paris! We battled the morning tiredness and managed to catch a little sleep on the flight since and woke just in time to see the Eiffel Tower from the plane as it began to descend. We managed to find our way to our hostel where I was able to reunite with Vin! I. Any believe it has been over a year since we had seen each other. Vin came all the way from Lyon to spend a few days in Paris with Andrea and I! Her train got in before our flight so when we met up she had our afternoon and lunch all planned out for us :) isn’t she the best, and she will also be our native French speaking guru too! What more could I ask for? After we all checked in Vin lead the way to her secret destination.
We made a pit stop to grab a freshly made baguette and ended walking up to Sacre Coeur. As I walked further up the hill the view of central Paris got better and better! I could basically see all of Paris, aside from the Eiffel Tower which was apparently covered by a tree… Still it was a sneak peak as to what was come next. We sat down in the grass and enjoyed a true French lunch. Vin went ahead and got blue, goats and comte cheese. These included some of her favourites and typical cheese. So we all had an impromptu picnic, enjoying the food, one another company and the view. Afterwards we then went inside the Sacre Coeur were we all learned about the symbolism in the animals statues that were all throughout the church. They were very small, so if you didn’t know that they existed you would have never been able to spot them. Even though I knew that they were in the church I wasn’t able to actually see any of the statues. In this church you literally followed a circuit, so I couldn’t stray from the path or else I would hold up the entire line.
We then decide to head out to see Moulin Rouge. We may have gotten a little lost which resulted in having to hike up and downs the hills. At least it was a little extra way to burn off all the cheese that we had eaten! On the way we passed through may streets with thrift shops on them. Now these weren’t typical thrift shops, there were literally baskets with clothes, shoes and anything else in them and you had to roam around in the bins to acquire anything. It looked super unorganized and clothes were all over the dirty ground, Vin apparently said that this is the only place in France where you find shops like these. We eventually found our way to Moulin Rouge, and even though Vin had given me a warning, the sight was still disappointing…Not quite how I imagined it would be after seeing the movie. I think the real specular is inside, but tickets cost at least 90 euros for a show, so not this time. After walking around for a while I got to practise the most useful French phrase I know, and ordered myself a chocolate croissant. I have a feeling that it will defiantly not be the last time I’ll get to say this phrase! We then decided to make our way to our hostel to plan out the rest of our day and time together.
Once we rested up for a bit we all headed out again. On the way we passed one of the most uniquely yet disturbing thing I have seen on the trip yet. Public street urinals! Yes that’s right, guys could line up in the middle of the street to use a urial, and there were people using it crazily enough! This even took Vin off guard who said that she had never seen anything like it either! We all came to the conclusion that it must be some sort of method to deter the sewage like smell, that is so distinct around Paris.
After recovering from that encounter we made out way to the Eiffel Tower. It is so such shorter in real life than I thought it was actually! It still is an impressive height though. I think that the fact that everything in France is restricted to a height code makes the tower look like it literally towers over everything else! We considered going up to the to, but the lines were too big so we will try to go up another day. We then walked towards The Wall for Peace, and the idea of the moment is wonderful. Each of the columns was the word peace written on it in 52 different languages. The only thing is that the monument is not well maintained which is rather disappointing.
By this time we were getting hungry for dinner so we went to venture for true authentic French crepes. Sadly the place that Vin wanted to take us to was closed so we opted for Indian instead! It was super good :) Once we were full we made out way back to the hostel to rest up for a busy day tomorrow!