By 11:30am we were in bum-f***-nowhere. The Reus airport caters to one airline...RyanAir, and let me tell you about this little experience. Ryan, who were are convinced, is a college drop-out who spends his days smoking weed in his parent's basement. One day, this Ryan character, thought to himself, "I know I'm cool. And I am so cool, I'm gonna name an .... AIRLINE after me." So after much thought and brainstorming, the most creative name that Ryan came up with was, you guessed it!, RyanAir. Nice work, Ryan. And then Ryan picked up a map of Europe and pointed random spots on the map where he wanted to make some some new airports. Touché, Ryan, now you've really got it. We made our way to the gate and waited until the plane started to board. And like the normal world-travelers that we are, we waited until the line had shrunk and we made our way to the gate to board the airplane. Little did we know that the number on our boarding pass was not our seat number, but rather just a random number, free seating! Excellent, we had watched all these crazy Europeans rush to the gate, thinking to ourselves, "What crazy people. They just don't know." Yet, we were the one's foiled. Luckily, there were just enough open seats in the first rows, and granted we were all separated, but it didn´t matter. This was the closest I have ever and will sit to the cockpit. Before we took off, my girl Tracey, sees the head flight attendant make the sign of the cross...we were f****d. We were never going to make it to Paris. You know it's bad-news-bears when not even the flight attendant is sure we're gonna make it.
(While on RyanAir´s website recently, I found this link...please read it. http://www.ryanair.com/en/news/winner-of-10000-euro-ryanair-scratch-card-eats-winning-ticket)
For the entire one hour and thirty minute duration of the flight, our religious flight attendant, proceeded to sell us a numerous amount of things...such as smokeless cigarettes, cheeseburgers (on discount which made them even more appetizing), lottery cards and perfume. When we finally landed and were safely in France, music came over the loud speaker, "Congratualtions, you have just completed another successful RyanAir flight!" Tracey and I look at each other, both confused and shocked. A) Were we not supposed to land? Was this not included in the airfare? B) What is this music? C) Is it typical for "successful landing" thing to happen? We were overall confused. However, we did agree that British Airways should introduce this music to their airlines.
We made it off the airplane safe and sound...enough to realize that RyanAir had flown us to bum-f***-nowhere. Tracey was convinced that the pilots just flew around in circles. 14€ later we were on a bus on our way to Paris. We hopped off the bus and headed straight to the metro to make our way to the hotel. We had tickets for the Eiffel Tower at 7:30pm and it was already 5pm. We purchased our metro passes and were at the hotel by 6:30pm.
Our hotel was...worth the price. Tracey and I had a little love shack all to ourselves and it was great! We had extra pillows and a balcony.
We then headed straight for the Eiffel Tower. We had plans of wandering through the streets of Paris and making our way to the Eiffel Tower, but due to the little amount of time we had, we hoped on the metro.
Tracey rendezvoused with one of her sorority sisters, LC, at the Eiffel Tower and we all rode the lift to the top. LC was great! Tracey has such great friends and they're all around Europe this semester.
So up to the first level we went. The view was ridiculous. It's so hard to believe that I finally made it there. The city was so pretty at night and we were all so happy that we decided to go at night, rather than during the day. I highly recommend it. Not to mention there was no line!
(For mom and dad)
(welcome to the 21st century)
(the Arc d' Triomph)
After we took our photos we headed up to the very top of the tower. It was only 3€ more and we figured if we're going to the Eiffel Tower, we better do it right!
The lift was a little rickety and on account of how much I love heights, this was not my favorite part of the night. Granted it was pretty sweet up there...but NEVER again. It was SO windy up there and you could feel the tower wiggling, it felt like I was on the Golden Gate Bridge.
(it was a little high up, i couldn't even look down)
(yeah, my camera is kinda great)
The inside of the top of the tower had flags from all around the world and how far you were from them...so of course I took a million pictures!
(whooo, Ecuador!!!)
We all decided that we were going to die from hunger if we didn't find food quick. LC lead us to a street with a bunch of cafés and we picked the one with the cheapest prices, obviously. And so we began checking off our list of French things to do in France. #1 Eat French fries. Check.After enough sweating and gripping onto people we made our descent back down, thank God. Every hour, the tower lights up with blinking white lights and it was so sweet. At first we weren't quite sure what was going on, but being the smart young ladies we were, we realized that it happens every hour, on the hour.
We were all tired from the flight and decided to call it a night because we were waking up early the next morning to start our day at the Louvre.
Saturday came too quickly. We started our hunt for breakfast and made our way over to the Louvre. After searching for what seemed like forever, or ten minutes, we found a McDonald's. On account that I am traveling the world I do not have money for food or fine dining establishments. And thus, my new found love for the Euro menu. I'm lovin' it.
Next stop, the LOUVRE! It was insane. We were finally there with the pyramid and all of it´s...smallness. If I have learned one thing about Paree, it is that everything is smaller than you would have thought. The Eiffel Tower and the pyramid at the Louvre are so widely know that you would think the French would have made it a ginormous structure...wrong!
And then we saw it...our first clue to the Mona Lisa. We all decided that it was the most important thing that we saw, so we got it out of the way before all the tourists realized there was literally no line to get into the Louvre.
We started walking down this long hallway, filled with important statues, but we were on a mission for Mona and couldn´t waste any time. We traveled up and down stairs through hallways passing by hundreds of important pieces of art...and then we saw a sign...Mona Lisa this way!
We found her! It was so surreal to be standing so close to Mona. A painting that is so infamous.
We took our pictures and continued our journey through the Louvre in search of some pretty suh-weet stuff.
It was kind of intersting to see that not only was there art haning on the walls, but also that the Louvre was it´s own masterpiece in itself; I have so many pictures of ceilings and doors. Our next stop were the crown jewels, or so we thought. We tracked down a crown of some king and queen, only because I had never seen one. I thought that since I will be wearing a crown later on in life, as queen on the United States, I should get an idea of what my crown will look like. 
We found the crown and were again, dissappointed byt the size of the crown. We should have seen it coming. One of the girls I was traveling with mentioned that she wanted to see the Napoleon Apartment exhibit, so we started on our mission. We walked through countless exhibits of Egyptian artifacts. I can only imagine what a night at this museum would be like.
And then we found it! The apartment to Napoleon. This man loved the color red and any type of over the top chandelier. It was kind of interesting to see the things that one of the most well-known French men sat, ate and slept on.
We then decided we had seen enough of the Louvre and headed back towards the Eiffel Tower while the sun was shining.
But not before I took a cliché jumping Louvre picture. This one is for the Christmas Card!
And so we arrived, back at the Eiffel Tower and took some more touristy pictures. I also took a jumping picture, but you´ll have to wait until this year´s Christmas card for this one.
Next stop, Notre Dame. And yet, another let down at the size of it. With all of the churches I have seen in Europe, I expected this one to be the grand-daddy of them all.
The inside was pretty cool with all of the staied glass and was definitely better than the other 40 million churches I have seen.
Our next stop was the Bastille, but one thing led to another and we were in the French emergency room for the next three hours. Everyone is a-okay now.
As for the Bastille...we decided to can the Bastille and head to the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. But, after looking at the metro map, we were literally going right by the stop for the Bastille, so we hopped off for five minutes, took some picutres and hopped back on the metro.
And finally we had arrived! The Champs Elysees had everything and I wished that I weren´t a poor traveling student that had to eat dinner, I would have gone CRAZY!!! So, at the end of the Champs Elysees we found the Arc de Triomphe. It was big, but I thought it was going to be...just about the same size as the Eiffel Tower. Wrong, again!
So we called it a day and headed in search of some cheap French food.
And we found it. Not to mention they had free water and escargot. Whoo!
(Andrea and LC and their escargot)
There was a small candle at our table and Tracey did the final French thing on our list...French toast!
To top off dinner, Andre and Tracey shared a Creme Brulee, an item on Andrea´s list of French things to do in France.
We called it a night and headed back to our hotel for some sleep because we had an early day on Sunday.
Tracey claimed she needed a jumping on the bed picture for a friend...
The next morning started out excellent. We packed up all of our belongings, checked-out of the hotel and started the hunt for a bakery in search of crossaints.
The crossaints and chocalate anything-else-bakery was delicious and so cheap! I wanted to stay there for lunch.
Our next stop was the Catacombs...and little did we know what the Catacombs had in store for us.
We then figured out that the Catacombs were an underground burial site back in the day for the French. After walking down tunnels and in dark places we realized that we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
(Tracey decided she needed a little nap)
(And then we decided that we had walked far enough and started taking silly pictures)
And then, all of a sudden, Andrea translated a sign for us in French that said something about dead people.
And did we find dead people...
The walls were covered in bones and skulls. They were everywhere. It was ridiculous to think about how many people had died in order to create this place. And the bones went on for forever and ever...
After spending enough time with the dead people...or so we thought...we headed towards another cemetary so Andrea could take a picture with Oscar Wild´s grave.
(Genius)
But not before we stopped at the most famous macaroon place in all of Paris.
And then we took a stroll along the river passing by important buildings which we still have no idea what they were.
And then we passed by the Museu d´Orsay and decided that we needed to find a metro if we were ever going to make it to the cemetary. But our first stop was Basilique du Sacre Coeur which apparently was in some movie that neither Tracey nor I had seen.
We walked all the way to the top and could see all of Paree.
We did make it inside the church, but pictures aren´t allowed. The inside was incredible and hands down the best church I have ever seen.
Our next stop was the grave of Oscar Wild. We found the grave stone, but not before running into a friend from high school while we were wandering. It really does show how small of a world it is. So, Andrea got her picture and we made our way towards the bus stop to catch the bus back to the airport.
And as you guessed it, we had another succesfull RyanAir flight back to Barcelona. I will post the video as soon as I get my hands on it.
To see all of my pictures, check out the Flickr album: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chasecarrie/sets/72157623753685090/
UH OH! I just booked four flights with Rynair for Paris!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'll need to pick your brain further on this topic...
ps: YOUR PICS ARE RAD!
I think i´d like to be friends with this Ryan kid
ReplyDelete