Andreina chose our last day in Strasbourg to wake up early. Normally, she's been sleeping until at least 10 or so and we'd both planned on sleeping in until as late as possible to eat up the large amount of time we had before our train left for Paris at 4:15pm. Instead, I wake up at about 8:30 to find her already moving about the room restlessly; we both packed up slowly and very aimlessly shifted from one spot to the other until she declared she was too hungry to wait and we ended up checking out of the hotel a little before 10am.
For the next few hours, we wandered around Strasbourg one last time. It was chilly and cloudy and seemed only moments away from raining again. We trudged along towards the train station, got lost, spent a bit of time retracing our steps until I caught our bearings again, and landed in the train station at just about 1pm with still tons and tons of time to kill.
I can hardly remember what we did, specifically. We talked a lot, we walked from one end of the station to the other. I suggested we go back into town for food but one look outside made that seem like one of the worst ideas ever and we grabbed some noodles at the cafe instead. And then, all of a sudden, it was time to board our train and we were off, finally.
The train ride was about 2:20 to Paris. I napped a little on Andreina's shoulder, we talked about student loans and what she wants to do with her jobs, and then we had rounded the last corner and we were pulling into our station. When we grabbed our tickets to the metro, some lady tried to sell us "tickets" on the side for cash and we had to almost push her away from us to make her leave.
When we made it to our hotel, it was half past seven. We walked back to a little market next to our metro stop and grabbed sandwich stuff then called it a day, kicking back in our neat little room, showering and washing our clothes and catching some super-dramatic French cooking competition on our little TV. Andreina passed out at about 11 and I turned in an hour later, or at least tried to. It was hard to fall asleep with all the ridiculously loud scooters zooming through the streets below, especially since we'd left the windows open to keep the heat down. At some point, Andreina got up and very angrily slammed the windows shut.
I woke up at about 8:30 again and twiddled my thumbs a bit, checking out the prices for the train ride to London on Saturday and getting a terrible surprise when the online prices had skyrocketed to over $150 per person! The train ride from Paris to London is less than 3 hours; when I'd taken the train from London to Brussels, the tickets had only cost me 60€ and I'd bought them that same morning. While Andreina slept, I searched online for some sort of cheaper alternative for our trip, feeling more than a little crazed at the thought of having to buy such an expensive ticket. I'd just decided that we'd have to take the bus (it's some 8-9 hrs long, though) when Andreina finally woke up at about 11:15. And she (in a terribly irritated voice) let me now how terribly loud I snored all night, how terribly loud the scooters and traffic on the street had been all night, how she'd lain awake from 1am until 5am, unable to fall asleep at all. It explained why she slept in so late, that's for sure!
We got dressed and then first headed to the international bus terminal to buy our tickets for the ride on Saturday. It's going to take up most of the day. We leave at 11am and we don't arrive in London until 6pm. We're definitely going to have to find something to keep us occupied for all that. With those tickets bought, we headed out to the city to finally see this enormous city.
I got us off the metro at the Republic stop, where there is a ridiculously large monument dedicated to the ideas of a republic. We started heading down a street called Temple something which, according to my map, would dump us to the Bastille monument. Unfortunately, the street we wanted was the Boulevard of Temple something and the street we actually went down as the Ave of Temple something. We went down that street heading through a worn-down and cheap Chinese neighborhood that felt uncomfortably hoody. When the street name suddenly changed to something else altogether, I knew we'd gone the wrong way. Andreina asked if we were just going to go back the way we came and, as much as I hated backtracking, that's what we had to do.
We got back to our original stop and headed down the right street, making it to the Bastille monument, the site of the Bastille prison that had been broken into and sparked the start of the French Revolution. Afterwards, we walked along the river Seine that flows directly through the center of the city. Paris has imported sand and made an artificial beach along the riverbed, even having Disneyland make a huge Disney castle at one point. It's pretty incredible to see so many people out in their bathing suits, sunning themselves on beach towels in the sand, and then to remember that you're in the middle of Paris -- the things those Frenchmen think of!
The river turned and we passed Notre Dame, as in The Notre Dame of hunchback fame. It's on an island between the two banks of the river. We didn't stop, saving that for our guided tour tomorrow, but the spires and towers we could see from the opposite side of the waters were very, very impressive! Andreina mumbled some of the songs from the Disney film as we walked by.
We left the riverside and got back on to the high street in time to reach the far end of the Louvre. I knew it was once a palace, but even so I wasn't ready for just how huge a museum it is! It's larger than some airports I've been in. I want to look up how long it is from one far end to the other because the building seemed to stretch on forever.
We wandered about the grounds for a bit, marveled at the glade pyramid at the entrance and at how long the lines are to get in, and then went over to a nearby Starbucks for some late lunch, the time being almost 4pm at that time. With sandwiches and drinks, we went back to the Champs-Elysées, the front lawn of the palace, sat down on the freshly manicured lawns, and ate while watching little kids play with their mechanical birds and thousands of people milling about being just as touristy as we were.
From there, we walked further through the gardens, getting about halfway to the Arc de Triumph before turning and taking the Alexander bridge to the other side of the river and making our way towards the Eiffel Tower. We passed the Office of Foreign Affairs, which is only notable because it was an obscenely huge building with a front lawn that stretch into a mile of lush green grass that people were using for things from playing frisbee to taking sun-naps. We kept our trek on towards the tower, losing sight of it amidst the other tall buildings along the streets we were walking through, getting a glimpse of it now and again -- and then, suddenly, like a giant jumping out of nowhere, we arrived at it's base!
The Eiffel Tower is awesomely huge!
It stand regally, an iron contraption with rust colors starkly contrasting against the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass, the whiteness of the clouds. It's almost elegant, how those four spidery metallic legs curve up to a single point that stretches up against the heavens. The building is very solid and very real, almost more real than all the other buildings around it just by it's largeness and greatness.
We got there a little after 6pm and there was still a crowd gathered at it's base, a huge gathering of ant-sized beings next to this rust-red giant. We got in line to walk up the stairs and waited for about a half hour before we were let through their airport-type security (we had to take off our money belts to get through the metal detectors) and allowed to start walking up the 700 or so steps to the 2nd floor.
The Cinque Terre hiking seems like training in preparation for this climb. As we ascended, we passed pairs or groups of people who had to stop for breaks, huffing painfully, sweating profusely. Andreina, as if in defiance of their weariness, started taking the steps two at a time and I was hurrying to keep up. We got to the first story, which was the equivalent of going up 21 flights of stairs according to a posted sign; then we got to the second story, which was about 44 or so.
The view from that height is incredible. Everything looks like little models, like we're surrounded by miniatures of the city. People turned into little specks; all the lines from the grass mowing lines stand out as if they'd been highlighted in different shades of green; the tallest monuments look inch-tall and the biggest buildings could all be gathered in the palms of my hands.
We stayed up there for a bit and then headed back down, slowly making our way back to our hotel, stopping to grab some noodles for dinner on the way. My legs felt like stiff logs by the time I took my sandals off for the last time today. I get the feeling they're not too pleased with the hours anchors of walking accompanied by the hundreds and hundreds of stairs. It was after 8pm when we got on the metro to start heading back home, and we weren't in our hotel until a little after nine, making today another one of those 8+ hours of nearly nonstop walking days.
Tomorrow we're going to catch a 3.5 hr free walking tour, and then I want to see the Statue of Liberty here if it's not covered in the tour and Andreina has a friend she wants to buy a tie for, if there's any worth getting. We covered a good amount of city today and, depending on what the tour goes through tomorrow, we'll pick a few last spots to cover. Friday, I hope to get out to Versailles for the day and wander through Marie Antoinette's estates. Then Saturday is bus day, Sunday is "quick London" day, and Monday is............
Look at that! Your 3-month vacation is going to be over in a little over 5 days (under 144 hours). Crazy! Going to Versailles would be really fun, just to say that you've been there. It even sounds more French than Paris, so I think that you should do it!! That'll be great to have you both home again, and then you both will have to hit the books hard for school. :)
ReplyDelete