Free Travel 1: Paris

6:50 came quickly and I rolled off my bed, put on my hat, and my jeans, and my shoes. Then I brushed my teeth, packed my backpack back up, documented with a couple pictures, and then headed to the lobby to meet everyone and check out. We were out of there before the sun was fully up! We walked a few blocks away and got out our maps to try to figure out where the Etap hotel was, and how to get there from where we were. Maggie called and found out that they had five rooms left, so we booked four of them. We still weren't sure how to get there though, and due to the lack of sleep, lack of food, and abundance of stress, tempers were short and tears were abundant - at least with some of the people in my group. We decided we were going to take the metro, so a couple people found maps of the metro - but they couldn't find the corresponding street with the right metro stop. It may be that I'm a third born child, it may be that I was with William, or it may be that I was in a  group of ten people.. but whatever the reason, I was probably one of three or four people not freaking out. Luckily, God is GOOD! He decided to send us an angel and out of nowhere (literally) came a sweet lady who spoke English, had a map of the metro and the streets above, and was able to tell us exactly how to get to where we needed to go. She walked right up and offered her assistance, and then was gone as soon as we were oriented. To celebrate God's goodness, we went to Starbucks. :) I got a donut and a vanilla frappuccino. We all relaxed a bit while we ate, and then we headed out to give the metro a try. We bought 2day passes and then took our first ride. We all had our packs with us, and since it was "rush-hour" the first two trains we passed up because they were stuffed full. The third train came just as full, but we manned up and shoved our way on. These crowds were unbelievable - they literally just packed in right up against each other. They didn't smell good whatsoever, and personal space did NOT exist. If you've ever been caught in a crowd in Vegas outside oh, say, the Pirate show at Treasure Island... multiple that by four or five and you've got the metro in Paris. Multiple times I had to press my face in against Will's arm to get a breath that didn't reek and remind myself I was OK. After that lovely ride, we got out and walked about a half mile or so to our new hotel. When we got there most of us hadn't showered for a couple days, we were still wearing our clothes from the day before, and honestly we would have liked to have freshen up a bit before hitting the city. The lady at the desk gave us an option - pay twenty euro to check in early, or pay twenty euro to store our bags. Tough choice.. right? Well, in the commotion and stress we somehow ended up paying the 20 euro to store our bags. HA. Life went on, and we headed back down to the subway. We took a couple trams and finally got into the middle of Paris! We walked to the Opera house and took some pictures. Half of the group wanted to pay to go in and look around, and the other half was ready for lunch. So we split into two groups and went our separate ways. I was ready for lunch, and so was William, Kelsey, Jordan, and Britt. We decided to meet back up with the group at 2, and went and found a little Chinese restaurant to eat at. After we met back up we headed to Musee D'Orsay which is famous for it's impressionism collection. On the way there we stopped so that William and Jordan could get crepes. Once we got to the museum and got in through security, (an adventure since Britt liked to store all his food he traveled with in the many pockets of his red jacket and his cargo pants... lol) we split off into little groups to look at whatever we wanted. William and I set off in search of Monet since this museum housed many of his original works and I love Monet... but he was very elusive. We saw a lot of the galleries, but couldn't find his. Until thirty minutes before we were supposed to meet up, of course. If you ever go he is on the fifth floor ;) It was really cool seeing his art work in person. When we left Musee D'Orsay it had started raining. We headed to the Notre Dame but by the time we got there it was pouring rain. We spent over an hour inside, and I took a TON of pictures. It was incredible, I loved sitting down during a service and just taking it all in. Great experience. The rain was still dumping when we left, so we ran across the street to a restaurant for dinner. Will's order got messed up - actually they just forgot to put it in, so he didn't get to eat. After dinner we split up into three groups. Some of the girls went to see the Moulin Rouge; Jordan, Britt, Brandi, and Kelsey headed back to the hotel to try and check in (but weren't able to because the reservation was under Maggie's name), and William and I went to get him some dinner. We went to a pizzeria that took FOREVER to make him some pizza. It was still raining when we were done, and the wind was blowing hard and was bitter cold.. so we ended up heading to the hotel to wait with the others for the girls to get there to check us in. They had decided to go to the Arc di Triumph and the Eiffel Tower so we waited for a while, but had fun just hanging out in the lobby. It was an exciting and exhausting first day in Paris. I made some incredible memories, and that night I got to sleep in a double bed and I didn't even have to share it with anyone. (p.s. that shower felt SO good after a couple days no showering and walking around Pari!!) Up next... Paris day two!