An American in Paris

So I took the train to Paris last Saturday with Elinore, and we found out that first class is not only roomy, but they give us a meal as well. It was pretty awesome, lol.

Our meal

Paris EST train station

After we got into the train station we took a bus to the Eiffel Tower. The weather was a bit schizophrenic that day...at first it was beautiful and sunny, but then while we were standing in line to go up the tower it started hailing....ewww.

The area surrounding the Eiffel Tower was actually quite beautiful. There are horse statutes everywhere, as well as lots of hawkers trying to sell key rings of the Eiffel Tower...regardless of whether you are by the Eiffel Tower of not.

The National Theater in Paris is right by the Eiffel Tower. (It's a lot better looking than Mannheim's!)

It was a nice courtyard where you could see the Eiffel Tower. Later on there were some dancers doing a show...hip hop dancers, who didn't seem all that great. The only good one they said came from the United States, lol.

And the water feature was actually running! Most all the fountains are dry because it's winter and all...so it was nice to see this one :)

It looked beautiful in the sunshine! And then five minutes later it was all stormy and icky...but I had fun (waiting in lines!) with Elinore, and Tam and Leah who we met up with.

Once we finally got tickets (kind of expensive 12.50e for students) we had to go through the most ineffective security checks ever. I had borrowed a lock from Elinore for my backpack (no pickpockets for us!) that I couldn't figure out to open for the first check...but they waived me through anyways.

The second security check they also looked in your bag (glass bottles seemed the only thing they were looking for) and made you go through the metal detector...for some reason I kept on setting it off...once we got up I realized I had the tactical flashlight in my pocket. Oops.

There were a couple different levels to the tower, and there were lines for each part. We actually went all the way up to the third and highest part, and it was super cold and windy! We didn't stay up at that level very long. :)

But we definitely got some cool views of the city. Paris is set up in rings, and the zipcodes are assigned in a snail shell pattern. The first four zipcodes (75001-75004) are the city center/Bastille, and they go out from there.

Luckily when we got up here the weather got nicer...wouldn't have wanted to be up here 10 minutes earlier in the rain/hail!

If you wanted, you could even buy some really expensive Champagne!

Overall, the views were great. I definitely wouldn't recommend Mom go up--it was super crowded, and this was only the beginning of February! (And apparently Paris also really smells, but I still had a bit of a stuffy nose so I was thankfully spared...but lots of people would smell even worse in the summer time!)