Jairam (co-worker) and I decided to stop in Paris for one day on our way to the Tomax India office. This turned out to be great and exhausting!
We were able to fly business class from SLC to Paris (the direct flight is awesome!) and so were able to sleep about 4-5 hours. When we landed, we checked into a hotel at the airport and then immediately got on a train and headed into Paris.
Our first stop was the Louvre. We ran around there as quickly as we could. We saw all the major exhibits in about an hour and half. I did see the Mona Lisa!
Then, we walked through these amazing gardens. They are so huge and I am sure they are absolutely beautiful in the spring and summer! It had a very similar feeling to the "mall" at Washington D.C. That is my only complaint - it was winter and the trees and plants were bare.
We literally walked for miles and walked all the way down Champs d' Elysees and to the Arc of Triumph. At this point, we had been walking for about 5 hours and I had been doing all of this in boots with 3 inch heels! Fortunately, I did have some tennis shoes in my backpack. I had been opposed to the tennis shoes originally because this is Paris! One is supposed to be fashionable! But alas, after 5 hours, I had to succumb.
So I put on the tennis shoes and found new life. Jairam and I climbed 284 steps to the top of the Arch and were able to look out over all of Paris.
We walked another mile or so back down Champs d' Elysees where we purchased some really expensive macaroons at a famous pastry shop called Paul. In fact, this crazy bakery was classic. Of course they will not speak English to me so I am just pointing at things like an idiot. Except I am asking questions, not asking for things. But again, no English. So they are just loading macaroons, a mille fuille, some bread, and other stuff into a bag and I can't stop them. And mass confusion. And tons of people lined up all around me. And still no English. 20 euros later (which is about $30), I have the macaroon I came for. They were seriously the most incredible cookie I have ever had and since I paid so much for it, it better be dang good.
We took a series of subways to the tower. Speaking of the subways - these are always an adventure no matter where you are. We had to switch trains often everywhere we went (which is why we just started walking places). Sometimes, I would try and ask people which way to go and most people did not speak English or if I tried to pronounce in French, they couldn't understand me. But we made it OK and I figured out the system pretty quickly.
The Eiffel Tower is HUGE. I was totally shocked at the size. Unfortunately, I think I really underappreciated it. I was so exhausted and it was cold and we had to wait in a long line to ride to the top. By the time we got there, I just wanted to sleep. But we snapped a few pictures and came back down. And turned down the bunches of people trying to sell me junk along the way. Thank goodness I was tired and kind of cranky. I was just putting my hand up and saying "no", "no", "no".
That's when the real adventure began. It was 10:30 PM at night and the last shuttle bus back to our hotel was at 11:20 pm. We thought we would be fine getting on the train at that time (it only took us 25 mins in the morning). But alas, this was the SLOW TRAIN FROM HELL. We were so tired, I fell asleep in between each station. But it stopped at EVERY station and for a long time too. We didn't arrive back to the airport where the hotel shuttle would pick us up until 11:25. We were so panicked. We ran out of the train, up several flights of stairs and were just praying that our driver was late! Luckily, we were able to get back to the hotel. I totally collapsed. Next up - 6 hours from this time - the trip to India!
No comments:
Post a Comment