Well we had two quick days in Paris where we were busy from sun up to sun down. The first day we got there we dropped our luggage off at the hotel and set off to find the Arc de Triumphe. After a decent lenght walk we found the big ole structure. It was pretty neat--they had a flame that is always lit underneathe it (to honor the body of an unknown soldier) and the three of us contemplated whether the US had "borrowed" this idea. Regardless, it was pretty cool. However, even more interesting then the Arc itself was the circle of traffic that surrounds the Arc. There are no lane lines and it is a roundabout. The traffic entering the roundabout actually has the right of way--which makes for a very interesting sight. Apparently there is an accident there every 20 minutes and your car insurance is not valid in that circle of town. When I (Mollie) learned this I wondered why anyone would even attempt to drive there. Anyways, the three of us spent about 10 minutes just watching the traffic and the close call accidents. The pedestrians actually have a tunnel underneathe the ground to the get the Arc so they don't have to mess with the circle. haha...i just pictured all the crazy tourists trying to navigate their way through that traffic...it'd be pretty funny.
Then we moved on to the great Eiffel Tower. It really doesn't seem all that big until you get underneath it and it takes you a while to walk the lenght of it. It's (cliche) really quite amazing and beautiful. We walked around for a while on the front lawn. ALl of the area around the Eiffel Tower is surrounded with tons, and I mean TONS of men that are trying to sell you little models of the Eiffel Tower for 1 euro. They are SOO annoying. One comes up to you literally like every three minutes. My patience wore out rather quickly and I spent much of my time thinking about about what I would say to them if I was the polite and refined lady that I am :). Speaking of annoying people. There were also many Bosnian ladies that would come up to you and say "Do you speak English?' If you said yes they would hand you this little notecard with some scam for $$ on it. I also had many responses for them, but instead decided to behave and just say no.
After walking around we decided to pay and go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Again, amazing, beautiful, and also slightly scary trip to the top. You go up in this little elevator and you feel like nothing is around you. I had the most problem with this as it kinda just got to my stomach a little. Amanda and Eric were just fine. I kinda felt like I was on Wonka's crazy elevator that moves in all directions. But when we finally got to the top it was such a great view of the city of Paris. We followed the typical tourist role and took our pictures and stared in awed. Definitely worth the ticket price!
Later that night we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up. Again very beautiful.
Oh we also mastered the metro (or tube as Eric preferred to call it) system while we were there. It was busy no matter what time we took it at. Whether it be 3:00 in the afternoon or 11:45 on a Wednesday night.
The next day we again took advantage of the free tour and saw the city of Paris. Oh we also saw Notre Dame while we were there. When we walked in they had this loud super intimidating organ music playing, but it was really beautiful. We walked around that and I was quite impressed. It was by far the largest church that we have been in yet. --Amanda is questioning me saying she thinks Westminster Abbey might have been the largest, but I'm the author, therefore I'm right. :) Who knows...they were both big and quite beautiful. How they were able to build something like that waaay back then is quite impressive.
Then we spent some time enjoying the city of Paris, aka taking a nap on the grass in front of the Capital building. We were actually waiting for it to be six because we had heard that students got in for free at the Louvre. Imagine our disappointment after waiting all that time and when we finally went to get our free tickets we found out that it was actually Friday night, not Wednesday night. Oh well. WE saw the Mona Lisa as well as the Venus de Milo (i could have spelled this wrong). WE also saw a lifesize castle moat. That was pretty cool.
Then we walked home. By this time my feet had literally fallen off. We actually figured out how many miles we walked this day and it was at least 15 miles. AT LEAST!! It's a lot-trust me.
The next day we started off for Amsterdam. We had our first near disaster by deciding to put the alarm clock with me (mollie) in the top bunk. Let me play this scene out for you. Mollie squirms around in the night, the alarm clock falls and crashes onto the hard floor. The batteries fly in every direction, and, there is no acting alarm clock anymore. So, when 5:15 rolls around, the time we are supposed to get up to make the jaunt to the train station, the alarm clock fails us. We wake up at 6:15, and in a chaotic rush quick get a cab and pack in lightning flash style. But--we did make it. Oh we rock!
So we got everything figured out and even got on the right train. WE arrived in Amsterdam and it was a super nice amazing sunny day. WE haven't had many of those. WE have actually worn our sweaters (we each only brought 1) EVERYDAY. ick....we are ready for some nicer weather. WE have had a few nice days throughout hte trip so i won't complain too much i suppose.
Anyways...amsterdam--we loved it. the canals made everythign soo pretty.
But I'm almost out of minutes so we will continue the adventures of Amsterdam in our next blog. Our train for Germany leaves in about 2 hours so the next post will be from there.
Mollie
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