Amanda and Megan Do Europe Part 5: First Full Day in Paris!

On Sunday morning July 30th, 2017 my sister Megan and I woke up in Paris, France. We had a restful night at the Hotel Dauphine- St. Germain. Our hotel was recommended to us by one of Megan's friends and it did not disappoint. The rooms were small and simple, but clean and had everything we needed. We had a window this time, unlike our London hotel, but there was just a view of a small courtyard. The breakfast in the hotel was great. There was fruit, eggs, pastries,cereal, coffee, and things we wouldn't usually have for breakfast like deli meat and cheese that are a staple in the typical Parisian breakfast. Everything was served in a gorgeous dining room. The staff in our hotel were super friendly as well. We had heard through the grapevine that French people dislike Americans, and if they did they all did a lovely job hiding it. Every person we interacted with in France was pleasant and most of them spoke English which made everything easier. After a delicious breakfast we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral where we were meeting for a bike tour of Paris.

Our Aunt Sue had told us that her nephew led bike tours in Paris. So we booked a tour with our cousin's cousin Jay who we think we might have met once when we were little kids. I hadn't rode a bike in awhile so I was a little nervous about the tour, but it was literally like riding a bike. We picked up our bikes and leisurely peddled around the streets of Paris. The tour lasted about 3 hours and we saw Hotel de Ville, The Marais, Place Des Vosges, The Bastille, The river Seine Notre Dame, Ile St. Louis/Ile de la Cite, Sainte Chapelle, The Latin Quarter/St. Germain, Pont Neuf, The Louvre Museum, Museé D’orsay, Tuileries Gardens, Les Halles, The Pompidou Centre, and a view of the Eiffel Tower on the horizon. Some highlights for me were stopping for ice cream along the way and riding our bikes underneath the Louvre in a "secret" tunnel. I highly recommend bikeabouttours.com if you're ever in Paris. You can cover so much more ground on a bike than on foot, and you get a chance to see the city the way the Parisians do. The tour was appropriate for all fitness levels and ages.

After the tour we went and had lunch with our "cousin". He's been living in Paris for a few years so he knew a bunch of good restaurants and had some good tips for us. We walked by a falafel place that had a line about 45 minutes long and he showed us where the same exact food was served right near there with no wait. I'd never had falafel before and it was so delicious. I know you don't really think of Mediterranean food when you think of Paris but while Megan and I were there we had some type of international cuisine for pretty much every lunch and dinner. I didn't take any pictures at lunch but our cousin has a vlog that we made a cameo in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldoIj6tEB9M check us out at 8:42. After lunch our cousin gave us directions to the Eiffel tower! We had been in Paris for a whole half a day and had only seen it in the distance. After a metro ride and short walk we were there! It was so cool to finally see it up close. It was a beautiful day and we lied in the grass just relaxing for a little while. There were a bunch of street vendors walking around saying "beer beer beer!" So I bought a heineken to enjoy in the grass. There were also guys walking around selling Eiffel tower key-chains for a dollar and I though that was a pretty good deal so I bought a couple. Later we saw those same exact key-chains for 4 for a dollar everywhere we went. After a little while we walked closer to the tower and walked through a street market that had lots of art, food, and souvenirs for sale. We thought about paying to go up in the tower but the line was so long and it wasn't really something that was on my to-do list. I plan on going back to Paris when Maddie graduates high school and I want to save something new to do with her.

After we had our fill of basking in the sun underneath Eiffy we took a walk to Av. des Champs-Élysées, a street with some of the best shopping in the world. Champs-Élysées is pronounced 'shahn zey-lee-zey'. I was navigating us there with my phone but Megan had typed in the destination. When we were close I was like "we should be here but that street sign says 'Champs Elyse', I'm confused", but I was just being an ignorant American. None the less, we were there and we walked up the street towards the Arc De Triomphe and looked at all the fancy stores. We only stopped at one place, good old McDonald's. We both had to go to the bathroom and needed a little snack. The line to the bathroom was super long and wasn't moving. There were multiple languages being spoken but eventually we figured out that they were out of toilet paper in the stalls so we were grabbing napkins from the restaurant and were passing them up the line. It was a beautiful scene of women from different nations coming together for a common goal. After we took care of our business at McDonald's we hopped on the metro back towards our hotel.

We were tired from the long day but we had made plans to meet our cousin on Pont Neuf for a drink. He had informed us that like Vegas people could drink in public outside in Paris and it was no big deal. After freshening up really quick we found a small grocery store near our hotel and each bought a bottle of wine. We also wanted to get a sandwich. I had picked one out and Megan was looking at the display deciding what one to get. A store worker said something in French to Megan and she nodded, not having any idea what the lady said. Megan reached her hand out to grab a sandwich right as the store employee shut the curtain on the sandwich display putting them out of reach. She must have told us they were closing soon. Fortunately my sandwich was big enough to share. We walked to Pont Neuf (the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine) and met our cousin. He showed us a little island where there were dozens of Parisians relaxing and drinking wine in the light of the slowly setting sun. We chatted about Paris and he gave us some more tips and told us where the Pier was where we could take a cruise that was included with our bike tour. After chatting with him for a little while we went our separate ways and Megan and I headed to the Pier to take a sunset cruise along the Seine.

The cruise was so beautiful. The sun was setting as we slowly approached the Eiffel tower. I was hoping the light display on the tower would come on as it was just starting to get dark. The light show started exactly when we passed it and we got to watch for awhile as our boat turned around. We kept exclaiming "I can't believe we're here!" This trip had literally been 25 years in the making and sometimes I still can't believe that we finally got to do it. We cruised back up the Seine taking more pictures and sipping our wine. When it docked it was pretty dark and we should have been safe and went straight back to our hotel but we found a bench to relax on for a few more minutes while we continued to take in the beauty of Paris. Our serene moment came to an end when we saw rats the size of cats run by our feet and we started walking back towards our hotel.

Since Megan didn't get a sandwich earlier and I probably wasn't as good of a sharer as I should have been she was hungry. Before we called it a night we stopped at a sushi place right by our hotel and I watched Megan eat sushi in Paris (OK i stole a few bites). We ate fast and then went back to our hotel. It was past 11 o'clock and we were exhausted. We crawled into bed to get some sleep for another day of exploring Paris that lay ahead.

Amanda and Megan Do Europe Part 4: Travel Day from London to Paris

On our fourth day in London Megan and I slept in after our fun night out. Our train was scheduled to leave at 4pm and we didn't have any more sight seeing in London on our agenda. We took our time getting ready, eating breakfast, and packing up our backpacks. We checked out of our hotel right before noon to make our way towards the train station.

Since we had plenty of time we decided to go to Westminster Abbey right by our hotel. We had walked by it before but hadn't gone in. We sauntered through the gift shop and took a look at the chapel but as Megan and I joked, "You've seen one Abbey, you've seen them all". Since we had only had a light breakfast, we were ready for lunch. We wanted to eat something extra British-y and we found a pub with a good menu. I had some sausage, potatoes, and peas all topped with gravy and Megan had some split pea soup. When we were finished we hopped on the tube towards St. Pancras train station which is right across from King's cross station. As a Harry Potter nerd, I was really excited to go to King's cross station and try to make it through platform 9 and three quarters. I had no idea that about a billion other people had that same idea and it was now a tourist destination complete with a gift shop. They had a sign with a replica of Harry's luggage that you could take a picture with but it was like 10£ and the line was really long. Instead Megan took a picture of me by the gift shop and I took a picture of a random kid who was posing by the sign.

We found where our train would leave from, but we still had two hours until it left. They wouldn't even let us go through security until an hour before it departed so we just relaxed in the train station. There was a lot of stores and I walked around and window shopped. I got some snacks from the grocery store. I don't know what it is, but I always love grocery stores in other countries. They had a lot of healthy convenient food so I bought some snacks for the train ride with the few English pounds I had left. We finally went through security, then waited some more. We shared one last pint in London. Finally they announced the train to Paris was boarding! We excitedly got on and found our assigned seats and began our 2.5 hour ride to Paris. The eurostar trains travel at 186 miles per hour, except in the tunnel under the English Chanel where they go about 100 miles per hour. We enjoyed some french wine from the dining car and tried to look at the scenery out our window but everything was a blur. It was fun going into the tunnel under the English Chanel and coming out and seeing the french countryside. The ride went by fast and before we new it we were in Paris!

Our first task was figuring out the Paris metro system. In London we got refillable cards that you'd slide and they'd charge you for each ride (and the cost varied depending on how long of a trip it was). In Paris they just had paper tickets that were a flat price that you'd use one for every ride. We figured out what train to take to get us to our hotel and headed in that direction. Everything was in French obviously, but a lot of people speak English and thankfully my phone worked to help navigate us in the right direction. After a short Metro Ride we got off and walked the rest of the way to our hotel. Everything everywhere was so beautiful. We joked "Are we in a Paris movie right now?" There were so many people eating outside in gorgeous cafes, cobblestone roads, and beautiful buildings. Paris was breathtaking. We found the Hotel Dauphine Saint-Germain and checked in. Once again we had a great "hote loc" (hotel location). We were walking distance from Notre Dame, the Seine river, the Louvre museum, and a metro station to take us everywhere else. It was about 9pm and we were tired from the day of traveling but we freshened up and walked to the Seine to catch the Parisian sunset and get a glimpse of la tour Eiffel (or Eiffy for short). After basking in the glow of the sunset and taking dozens of pictures on a bridge we found a cute restaurant where we grabbed a late dinner. We ate outside like the Parisians love to do. I had a small pizza and Megan had some French onion soup. That girl loves soup. We went back to our hotel so we could rest up for the day of exploring Paris that lay ahead.

Amanda and Megan do Europe part 3- day 3 in London

Megan and I woke up and got ready for our 3rd day exploring London. We ate a delicious breakfast (pastries, fruit, porridge, juice and coffee) at our hotel (Hub by Premier Inn, near St. James Park) and set out to explore.

We walked to Big Ben and took some obligatory pictures, then crossed the bridge towards the London Eye. When asking around for advice about our trip pretty much everyone we talked to said "Don't bother doing the London Eye. It's boring, expensive, has long lines, and is not worth it." We decided to ignore everyone's advice and do it anyway. It was definitely overpriced at about 25 pounds each person, but I think if we hadn't done it "eye" would regret it my whole life. The lines to get tickets and then get on were pretty short. We only waited for about 30 minutes total. The ride was fun and had great views of the whole city for miles and miles. We took about a billion pictures and made a million "eye" jokes, such as "Eye love this view" and "Eye am so glad we did this" and "Who helped Grandma set up the Christmas village?" "eye!". (maybe not the last one...inside joke, you had to be there :-)

After Megan and "eye" got off the London Eye we walked towards The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We stopped at a cute restaurant for a bowl of soup and more coffee. Our Europe trip will always be remembered as "that one time we ate a lot of soup". We got to the gallery (no entrance fee, yay!) and began viewing hundreds of beautiful works of art. There were so many classic works of art that I remember studying in school from artists that we all know and love such as Monet, Picasso, van Gogh, da Vinci, Raphael, and more. There was also tons of pictures depicting breastfeeding and I took a picture of every single one since I'm a big breastfeeding advocate and I loved seeing it depicted in so many beautiful paintings. It was so awesome to see so many of those masterpieces in person. When planning our trip we weren't even planning on going to the National Gallery but we saw it the day before on our bus ride and decided to check it out. I'm so glad we did! We spent about 2 hours there, but a person could really spend an entire day or more there.

After awhile we were walking from room to room saying "more beautiful art... Picasso, cool whatever... Monet, wow great..." There's only so many iconic paintings a person can take in in a day. We decompressed in Trafalgar Square and took pictures with some giant lions before heading to our next destination: The Natural History Museum. After a couple walks, a bus ride, and a wait in line we were in! We were greeted by lifesize replicas of blue whales, elephants, and tyrannosaurus rexes. The place was huge and once again there was so much to see. They had detailed animal exhibits as well as a detailed exhibit about the human life-cycle. This was another place where one could spend an entire day or more, but we were beginning to feel a little museumed-out. I walked through and looked at as much as I could but we were ready for a drink and/or nap.

We were only a short tube ride from the iconic Hard Rock Cafe so we made our way there to get a drink and a souvenir hurricane glass. We walked through Hyde Park and saw the Wellington Arch. We decided to walk back to our hotel through Green Park and stopped at Buckingham Palace (or Bucky as we fondly called it now) and took some more pictures. Once we were back at our hotel we were tired from a long day, but decided to power through and keep having fun as it was our last night in London. We had a happy hour drink and snack in our hotel lounge and decided to take an Uber to a bar a few miles away that looked cool. We wanted to see what it was like riding in a car where the driver was on the opposite side that we're used to. It was crazy and new for about a minute and then it was like 'cool, we're just riding in a car in crazy London traffic'. It would have been faster to get to our destination taking the tube, and possibly even walking, but we waited patiently and eventually got to the bar. The place was a really fancy nightclub but as it was only 7pm it was pretty dead. When we walked in and the hostess looked us up and down in our jeans and T-shirts and looked disgusted. The few other people there were wearing business suits and dresses. We had one drink and left to find another place more our style. We found a casino where I quickly lost $20 playing "War" against a card dealer in 4 fast hands. The night was shaping out to be kind of a dud and we were a little bummed that we hadn't had any real conversations with any Londoners. We walked back towards our hotel and were about to call it a night but decided to get one more pint in the pub right by our hotel. We met a group of gentleman who were having a Bachelor Party and finally had some fun conversations with some locals. They loved our "accents", told us they liked Donald Trump (barf), and we talked about the royal family. After talking with them for a little while Megan and I were so ready to call it a night. We made our way back to our hotel and got some sleep for the travel day to Paris that lay ahead.