calling from some city...

            Today started very early in the morning: with a 5:30 am alarm. I was happy that I woke up though, since I was using Sara’s phone and was paranoid I would sleep through it or I wouldn’t set the alarm properly. But I did, and was quickly dressed and out of the    hostel. It was too early for the hostel shuttle bus to be running, so I had a 15 minute walk to the tram stop. Luckily, the tram arrived right away and I was on my way to the train station.

There I ran into problems. I found the train I was planning on taking on the self-help machines. I saw the train was sold out in second class. My choices were thus pay more for that train in first class, or to wait for a later train. While I didn’t want to spend the extra money, I needed to get to Paris as early as possible, and other trains required several changes as well. It was just easier to suck it up and pay the extra $40 for first class. In the grand scheme of the trip, it’s not a huge deal. But the machine would not accept my credit card. So I quickly got into the ticket line. Only 2 ticket windows were open, and the line was moving very slowly. That’s because people were using the ticket window to ask question about travel in other countries, or to ask what track their train was leaving from, even though clearly that’s not what the ticket window is for, or that info is available elsewhere. It got closer and closer to 6:35, and I was getting nervous I wasn’t going to make the train. I finally get to the front of the line, but my debit card would not work. I don’t have another card, and I didn’t have enough cash on me. Starting to freak out, I asked if there was an ATM nearby. Luckily, there was one right outside the train station. I sprint there, and get enough euros to pay for the train. I sprint back, and the ticket window attendant had very nicely already printed my ticket so I just had to give him the money and then I sprinted to the track.

            I got on the train and managed to find my cabin and seat. The train was so clean and new and so much nicer than the cheap trains we’ve been using. Obviously that was because I was in first class- too bad I can’t afford to travel like this all the time! The seats were large and really comfortable, and there was a clean bathroom nearby. So, it was a really easy and pleasant traveling experience. I wish I didn’t have to spend the extra money, but I got to Paris in style at least.

            I arrived at 12:15 and found the RER train I needed to take to another Paris train station. Once arriving at that station 10 minutes later, I got a call from Scott who was at the hostel with Sara and gave me directions to the hostel- luckily, only a 10 minute walk. We couldn’t check into our room, so Scott and Sara filled me in on the information they learned in the morning about maximizing our time in Paris. We bought Paris Museum Passes that we are going to use on Monday and Tuesday because we can see as many sites as we want covered on the pass, and skip the lines. Originally, we were planning to see many museums on Sunday because they are free because it’s the first Sunday of the month. However, after talking to a woman at the Pompidou Center, Scott and Sara learned that having the pass would not allow us to skip any lines on Sunday, and that the lines would be so long it wouldn’t be a fun experience and we likely would not have gotten to see as many sites as we wanted. Thus, we mapped out a plan for the next 4 days that using the pass, allows us to get our money’s worth for the pass and skip lines.

            After grabbing sandwich stuff from the supermarket, we went to the Eiffel Tower. We were going to walk but once we realized it was an hour walk from the hostel we got there quickly using the metro. As we were walking up, the tower just larger and larger and larger. It’s absolutely massive and really impressive once you get up close- you can’t really appreciate it’s size until you’re standing right under it. It’s not really beautiful, per se, but so impressive architecturally. After taking many pictures from all angles at the bottom, we got in land to walk up the tower. There are 3 platforms to the tower: at 200 feet, 400 ft, and 900 ft (the top). You can walk up to the first 2 platforms, or take the elevator up to the top. Since it was significantly cheaper and involved barely any waiting time, we walked and skipped going to the top. It’s said that the views are better from the 2^nd platform anyways because at the top it’s a more sweeping view of Paris and more difficult to pick landmarks out. Thus, I don’t really think we missed out by skipping the top platform. We walked up to both platforms and explored them both from every angle. It’s just a really amazing thing to see in person; far cooler than I expected. Of course, it was quite painful walking up because I am incredibly sore from canyoning yesterday.

            After lounging around the gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower and taking more pictures, we headed to Les Invalides, which used to be a hospital for those wounded in war. Now, it’s a hotel and an army museum, and also contains Napoleon’s Tomb. We just wandered around the outside today, and it looks really amazing. I’m definitely going back into the museums on Tuesday when I have my pass. We then walked to Luxembourg Gardens, where we strolled through the park a bit and rested by a fountain. The park is really pretty and I’m hoping to have another chance to walk around. We were pretty tired by this point, so we decided to go back to the hostel. We had walked pretty far from the hostel, so we hopped on the metro.

            Once getting back, we checked in. We got our stuff out of the luggage storage and paid for the room. There, Scott learned that 300 euros were missing from his wallet. We all went through all of his stuff, and Sara and I went through our stuff as well. After rehashing the past few days, it was pretty much apparent that Scott had the money in the morning, and now it’s gone. Obviously someone stole the money from his bag, which sucks. Understandingly, he was not hungry so Sara and I went to dinner. We found a place really close to the hostel because we just wanted food. We each got fairly cheap pasta, but we’ve already found that drinks in Paris are astronomically expensive.

            We headed back to the hostel, where we found Scott still awake. He’s still pissed off, understandably, but I was nice and gave him a back massage and now he’s feeling a bit better. We’re off to bed early as we are all exhausted and are getting up early in the morning to go to Versailles!