The Da Vinchi Code

‘We’ll always have Paris.’ – Howard Koch, Casablanca

This past weekend I finally was able to break my streak of stagnation and headed off to Paris for a few days! On Thursday night I left with two girls, Abbie and Meg, also from the States for a quick weekend getaway. We did not have any class on Friday, so we caught an early flight out and then headed back late on Sunday. Since neither Abbie or Meg have traveled very often they were relying on me to show them the ropes, so I felt a little more pressure this trip for things to go right and thankfully, it was my first trip where nothing major happened! Well, at least for me (Abbie almost lost her passport and wallet at a souvenir shop and Meg printed out the wrong boarding pass for her flight so was charged an extra 550 NOK). But for me, it was my first completely successful trip!

Thursday night we caught the late train into Rygge and arrived at midnight. Normally they provide a free shuttle bus from the train station to the airport, but unfortunately it had stopped running by the time we got there. I had planned ahead and had printed off some walking directions from Google Maps. It was about a 2 mile walk to the airport, not too cold out, and we only got lost once or twice, so it was not all that bad. We made it to the airport around 1/1.30 and then set up camp to sleep for at least a few hours. 5 a.m. came all too quickly though and it was time to check in and head through security. It was a 2 hour flight in and then a 1 ½ bus ride into the center of Paris- all used for sleeping.

Once we hopped off of the bus, we headed to the metro and navigated our way to the hostel. While riding the metro at one of the stops a guy got on and started playing a beautiful piece of French music on the accordion. At that moment in the window behind me, I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time. I seriously felt like I was in a movie.

We dropped our things off at the hostel and then headed towards the Eiffel Tower. It was raining on and off all day, but it was pretty warm outside, so it didn’t bother us too much. That was until we got to the top of the tower. For only 12 EUR we were able to go all the way to the top of the tower and see all around. It really was an incredible experience. I was surprised because to me the Eiffel Tower always seemed bigger, not saying it was small, but I always thought it was huge.

After the Tower we wandered over to a café and had a very nice lunch/dinner. I even tried some escargot, which is a lot better than I thought it’d be. It has the texture of clams, but tastes so buttery and garlicky. Dinner was followed by meandering through the streets towards the Arc de Triumph and the Champs Eylsees. We wandered into Luis Viton and that was absolutely ridiculous...I saw a keychain for 275 EUR! I simply cannot believe some people have that amount of money to spend on a keychain!

We stopped back at the hostel for about an hour or so and then met up with one of Abbie’s friends, Jon, who was couch surfing in Paris for the weekend.  Couch surfing is an organization in which people can open up their houses for different tourists to stay in. So if they have extra room in their home and invite people, different travelers can get into contact with them and ask to stay for free. Jon and the person’s house he was staying at, Sam, and another girl from South Korea who was also staying with Sam, June, all met us at a café for a late night drink. Soon though it was late and we were exhausted so we headed back to the hostel.

Saturday morning we were up and headed to the Louvre. Fortunately our hostel was located pretty close to everything so we could walk, it often took a while, but it still saved on transportation costs! Plus, we could then really enjoy all of the flower shops, bakeries and pet shops! It was quite wonderful because we are students we got into the Louvre for free. We spent a couple hours wandering around that. Surprisingly the Mona Lisa was bigger than I expected. Everyone had always warned me it was a lot smaller, but I think that caused me to greatly lower my expectations. I was thinking it’d be a little bigger than a normal sheet of paper, but it was actually a lot bigger. My favorite though was Venus de Milo. I hadn’t realized that statue was at the Louvre so it was a pleasant surprise to see it.

Afterwards we walked over the lock bridge to the Latin Square. We walked the streets a bit, enjoyed the brief periods of sunshine and then stopped to have a nice lunch. We then headed to the Notre Dame. We waited outside to climb the towers to the top, unfortunately the inside of the cathedral was closed.  The view from the top was worth the hour wait in the rain and cold. By the time we got to the top the sky was blue and it was my favorite view of Paris of all.

Next we headed to the Opera house, but it too was closed. We then checked out the Lafayette shopping center which was completely overwhelming. It was filled with so many people and stores and overpriced things- I felt like I could barely move. We got out of there very quickly and found a nice café for some hot chocolate and snacks. Shortly afterwards we braved the cold again to head back to the Latin Square for a really nice dinner of crepes, cheese fondue, and frog legs! All of which were delicious.

On our walk back we headed past the Eiffel Tower to see it all lite up at night. We were lucky to be there right as the clock stroke 11 o’clock and got to see the tower sparkle. At the top of every hour, there are lights that go off and make the tower dance.

We headed back to the hostel and crashed. Slept like a little baby, well… until the fire alarm went off at 5 a.m. Soundly asleep, I awoke to the noise of what I thought was an alarm clock, but then once Abbie sat up and said ‘ I think that’s the fire alarm’ all I could do was roll over and put the pillow over my head. When she check out the door and said people were running was the moment when I finally realized that I was not in my old dorm or in my old house where the fire alarm went off every other night so we just ignored it, and that this fire alarm was real. So I shot up in my bed, grabbed my shoes, yelled at Meg and Abbie to grab their passports and then flew down the stairs with the rest of the hostel. Once arriving at the front door, and saw everyone gathered in the front entrance, I realized that it was not real. We heard mumblings that someone had either pulled it or that someone was smoking in the bathrooms and set it off. For the five minutes we were stuck down there, it was quite a sight to look around and see what everyone else was wearing or what they had grabbed. Various articles of clothing were on, blankets wrapped around, backpacks and suitcases with things falling out. Soon enough the alarm stopped and we slowly headed back up to bed. I crawled in, glad for another couple of hours of sleep. I was just beginning to dream when I was rudely awoken again by the fire alarm! This time I really did just put the pillow over my head and ignored it. Abbie checked out of the door again and other guests told her it was nothing, so we all just forgot about it and fell asleep.

Sunday morning came too early after that eventful night, but soon we had eaten breakfast, checked out and headed out for our last day in Paris. Our first stop was back at the Opera house for a tour of the inside. It was really quite ornate and the ceiling of the main room was beautiful. After the tour we headed towards the Artists’ Square, which was by far my favorite spot in all of Paris. Up on a hill, a little outside of the city, there is a little square filled with various artists painting various scenes of Paris. It was so quaint and the paintings were so stunning. I bought myself a little one, unfortunately they were pretty expensive (especially for a poor college student) so I couldn't buy all of my favorites.

We then headed to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur- a beautiful cathedral on a hill overlooking all of Paris. So beautiful, but also full of people trying to sell you all different things, so that kind of took away from the scene, but incredible nonetheless.

Shortly afterwards we wandered back down past the Moulin Rouge, got some crepes and chocolate éclairs (those were so good- I got two!), past the Arc de Triumph and made our way slowly towards the buses back to the airport. In the evening caught our flight back, spent one last night in the airport and got back into Bø early Monday morning.

Overall, the trip was very successful. Exhausting, but wonderful. The view from Notre Dame, the Artists’ Square the chocolate éclairs were my favorites. Now I’ve got to study up for a midterm in Norwegian on Thursday and then it’s off to Italy on Monday for a few days!

Lots of love back to you all! It’s hard to believe it’s already February- only 4 short months till I’m back home- Ahh!