November 14th--Paris: Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champ Elysee, Louvre at night

   I woke up at 8:40am (in Paris!) to get ready for a awesome day! Sadly, it was raining outside when we woke up. For breakfast, I had a chocolate muffin and a banana that I bought the night before. We left the hotel at 10am, now with the sun shining and blue skies, and went to the metro, which was literally right outside the hotel exit. We bought 4 metro tickets for 6.40 Euro total. We took the metro to a stop near the Eiffel Tower and walked the rest of the way to the tower.

   When we got there, we walked to the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower to take photos and just randomly saw a riot beginning. We were taking pictures when all of a sudden, we see a large amount of people running to the building at the other side of the lawn. As we later saw on the news, a company was supposed to give away 60,000 Euros, but they cancelled if for fears of riots occurring. Well, a riot happened anyways. Haha. We then bought our tickets to walk up the steps of the Eiffel Tower. Only 3.50 Euro, and no queue! We could have gone to the very top of the Eiffel Tower for a high cost and a long queue. We reached the first platform (after 357 steps) and took some pictures. Jess doesn’t like heights, so Jenny and her stayed on the first platform, while Margot and I went to the second platform. I don’t know how many steps it was, but it was extremely windy. I took some more pictures and then we walked down all the steps that we climbed to the bottom of the Eiffel Tower.

   We then walked on a bridge over the Seine River on our way to the Arc de Triomphe. We saw a crepe stand and had to get one. I ordered the crepe with nutella for 3 Euro. Can you say YUM?!?! We eventually found the Arc de Triomphe and had to walk in an under ground walkway that went under the road to get to the monument. After that, we walked down the Champ des Elysse and found an indoor shopping centre where we went for about an hour. We found a really cool shop that sold painting, old posters, maps, advertisements and photographs. I bought something for 15 Euro, but I can’t write what it was because it is a present. When we went to go leave indoor shopping area, it was pouring rain outside. I just threw up my hood on my rain jacket and we continued walking down the Champ des Elysse. We quickly stopped inside an Addidas store to look at the map and during that time, the rain stopped. Brilliant! We went to a Barclay’s ATM and then to Paul, a French bread and pastry store (that are all over London). None of us had ever been in one, so we found it fitting to go in and try the food in Paris. I got a hot chocolate, which was very small, but extremely rich, and a poppy seed baguette sandwich with prosciutto, cheese, tomato, and lettuce.

   After relaxing a little, we continued walking down the Champ. We got to the Louvre and took some pictures as the sun was setting. Little did we know, we were wasting time, because the Louvre closes at 5:30pm. So when we went inside the Louvre and tried to buy tickets at 5:45pm, it didn’t work. Haha. Oh well. We walked back through the park in front of the Louvre and stood up on a hill and took some pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. It was 6:30pm at this point and the Eiffel Tower light show didn’t happen until around 7:30pm, so we decided to just skip the light show. Plus, it was starting to rain. We found a metro station about 5 minutes away and took it back to our hotel stop. We found a bread store around our hotel where I bought a baguette for under a Euro. We then went back to our hotel, got ready for bed and went to bed at 10pm, so that we could get up early to fit everything in that we still wanted to do.