Paris Blog: 4 Weeks in the City of Lights: Day 3: More Sightseeing & Picnic at Night in front of the Eiffel Tower

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Bon Anniversaire Julie!!

The weather was absolutely beautiful today! Sunny and warm! We had class and lunch at St. John's University and then headed to La Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was held before she met her fate at the guillotine. After a slight mishap with getting the tickets, (waiting for our poor TA, Aly, who had to run a few metro stops down to the French version of a Stub Hub), we were finally allowed inside. The inside of the prison was beautiful, you'd never know it was a prison, honestly.

Katy & I in front of La Conciergerie

La Conciergerie

Eye spy Kevin and Leah at a little café

A little flower show we found on the street.. so precious!

Inside La Conciergerie... pretty nice for a prison, right? It actually used to be the French Royal palace, but was converted into a prison in 1391.

Some sights we saw on the way.

Group photo near Notre Dame
(Maddie, Morgan, Danielle, Leah, Iesha, Alicia, Katy, Me, Angela... just missing Kevin who was kind enough to take this photo for us, and Aly).

La Conciergerie

A homeless man and his dog with puppies. Heartbreaking.

Napoleon's request for a pedicure at La Conciergerie.

The court yard of La Conciergerie

Oh you know, just the French city hall... one of the most fabulously ornate buildings I've seen so far. Just doesn't quite compare to Cleveland's city hall, haha.

While in L'ile de la cité, we walked by so many cute little shops. Katy and Danielle called me over as they started walking into what they told me was a wine shop. However, when we got in there we quickly realized it was not a wine shop. The young Parisian girl working there, said "Bonjour! So sorry if I look tired, it is because I am very tired!" We told her oh don't worry, we're very tired as well. "Do you know where you are?," she asked, surprised to see us 3 American girls in a spice and oils shop. We tried to play it off like we had meant to come in here interested by all the spices and oils, but clearly that wasn't working for us. But she was very nice and asked us where we were from and we said "Ohio.. in the States." "Yes I know where O-I-O is," (they don't pronounce the H in French) she said joking with us. Then she said, "You wouldn't believe, so many Americans come her from Caleefornia and they even say 'we're from California, in the United States'... yes I know of California, I'm not stupid. It's quite popular." So far all the French people we've met have been so incredibly nice!

Just thought this was a beautiful sight of the vine-covered building and a bright little café.

After La Conciergerie, we went to Berthillion to have some la glace. It's the best ice cream I've ever had! You'll never have more creamier ice cream then this. I tried the salted carmel ice cream and mocha ice cream.. yum! I wish I could box it up and keep it frozen long enough to send to everyone at home!

Best ice cream ever!

After walking around some more, we stopped at The Great Canadian and had a beer. Katy and I got Stella Artois :)

Later that night some of us from the group decided to have a picnic by the Eiffel Tower and watch the lights turn on. So we went to the market and bought a bottle of champagne and some wine, a baguette for only 45 centimes, and a bag of the French version of sour patch gummies in the shape of cacti (Katy's pick of course, haha). We navigated our way through the metro stops very well for our first time alone! When we got on one of the metro trains, we noticed some French guys talking about us... or more specifically, Kevin, the only boy in our group, but I won't repeat what I was able to translate, haha. We arrived at the Eiffel Tower after the lights had already gone on, (we took a little too long deciding on which wine we wanted), but the view of the Eiffel Tower all lit up was stunning! We poured our bottle of champagne and toasted to new friends and the memories we will make on this trip! At 11:00pm white twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower came on... we were all surprised, it was absolutely beautiful! We had to leave the Eiffel Tower before 11:30 because the metro stops running during the week at 12; it was hard to leave so soon. Laughing the entire way home, we had to compose ourselves outside the door to St. John's, so we didn't disturb the retired priests who live there as we walked in. Not feeling too tired, everyone came into our room and watched funny youtube videos for another hour or so.. [Tony, I introduced them to Impractical Jokers.. I think they're hooked]. It was a wonderful day.