Paris

December 30^th 2011

We arrived in Paris on the overnight train from Barcelona around 8:30 am and began trying to figure out the metro system and how to get to our hotel. Paris is huge and its system is too. It was a little overwhelming at first but we got to the hotel alright and left our stuff there as we went out to explore. We went to Notre Dame which was cool then we got back on the metro and headed to the Louver. The line was very long so we decided to go back later. We walked from there to the Champs Elissies which is a famous road where they end the tour de France. From there we walked to the Eiffel tower and enjoyed that for a bit. As we were walking under it I heard someone calling my name and turned around to see Sasha Thompson! We made plans with her and her friend to meet up the next night for New Years Eve and Jeremy and I left to find food and check into the hotel. We had a delicious dinner and went to the grocery store and liquor store to get things for NYE. We went back to the hotel from there (we had a private room here) and did laundry until midnight and went to sleep!

New Years Eve Paris

Woke up late and got ready. We planned to go to the catacombs but the line was too long. We spend 2-3 hours looking for tiffany + co to get will cuff links. When we finally found it they had closed 15 minutes before we arrived. We went back to the hotel to change and get ready for NYE. We had made plans to meet Sasha and Tara at a metro stop at 9. We got there early and waited and waited. At 9:45 we decided to leave. When we were walking into the metro we saw Sasha. They had gotten lost. We made our way from there to the Eiffel tower. Some friends of Sasha and Tara met up with us and we had fun under the tower popping bottles and talking. We could tell from our watches it was getting close to midnight but didn’t know exactly what time it was. But Sasha’s friend Bob yelled to our whole group (which had gotten bigger and bigger) “hey I don’t see an official count down… do you guys want to start our own?” so we did. We counted down from 10 and exactly when we got to 1 the Eiffel tower began sparkling. It was amazing. Jeremy got a video. It was perfect. It was my favorite moment of the trip. Quite a while after midnight we went to get food and the plan was to catch a cab to a club. But we could not find a cab. So we decided to take the metro. Which was a terrible idea. It was free for NYE and it was insane. We got in a physical altercation with a terrible French man and left the metro. We tried for over 30 minutes to find a cab with no luck. Finally we found a really shady dude who tried to take us. But had no idea what he was doing. We made it back to our hotel after over an hour. Sasha and tara called a cab from there. Even with the terrible ending it was a wonderful night.

January 1^st 2012

I set my alarm for 7 because we had to check out at 9. Apparently I turned it off in my sleep. But Jeremy had a alarm set for 8:40 and that woke us up. After we checked out we headed to the louver in hopes of doing that before our 5:10 flight to Zurich but they were closed. We ate breakfast at a wonderful café and had the best omlets ever. From there we went to some shops and finished our Paris souvenir shopping and headed for hotel Deville. It was cool. Then we went back to the hotel and gathered our things to go to the airport for our flight to Zurich.