Paris Part 1: The Louvre, The Tour and More!

Bonjour! Paris was incredible, one of my top three cities I have visited in the last few months for sure. Paris just has such an amazing atmosphere about it, there is so much history and such a feel of something special as you walk through this amazing city. Our story starts when we get to Paris airport, Charles De Gaulle. Antonio, Erica, Kristen, Alyssa, and Jordan came on this trip and when we got to Paris and walked forever through this giant airport we finally got to the metro that would take us to our hostel. Paris was cold, haha, it was freezing for most of the time. Jordan, Antonio, and me were staying at one hostel while the girls were at another. We found our hostel, couldn't check in so hung out for a little while and then headed out to meet the girls by the Louvre. Once we got to the Louvre and I stepped out and saw this building it was such an awesome feeling. It looks just as amazing as in all the pictures and the musueum behind the pyramids was just incredible. Right in front of the Louvre was a "mini arc de triomphe" and beyond that were the Tuileries Gardens which were giant and must be gorgeous during the summer, but now it was just kind of a giant park, which was still pretty nice. We walked around the gardens and then went into the city a little and found a nice little sandwich place for lunch and had an amazing ham and cheese sandwich, with pretty much the best bread I have ever had. After that Antonio and me went to explore a little, we were all meeting back up at around 5:45 to go to Louvre because it was free on Fridays! So Antonio and I found the Lafayette, which was incredible! It is just a giant shopping mall and it was all decorated for Christmas and was amazing. We just ran through like excited children haha, we had a lot of fun. After the Lafayette we walked and saw the opera house kept going and just kept exploring. The highlight of this walk was for sure our first nutella crepe in Paris (Sooo goood) and some starbucks. Antonio and I just sat and talked and had a great time. We walked a little more, and found a place that had two things that were my goal to have in Paris, French Onion Soup and Ratatouille! We didn't have time then but said we would come back...but didn't. =( it was really sad. What was not sad though was the Louvre, wow, wow, wow and wow. This museum is massive and incredible. It was also my dream museum because it had one of the most incredible exhibits of Egyptian, Greek and Roman History, not to mention the Mona Lisa or any of the other incredible works. We bought the audio/visual guides and each took our own tours around the Louvre. I took the Antiquities tour that took you through Egypt, Greece and Rome, and was about an hour and a half and I loved every second. I walked around some more after; saw the Mona Lisa which is really cool, but really small. If I didn't already know it was small I would have been very disappointed I think haha, it's such a famous painting and you would expect it to be huge, but it really isn't at all. So we all walked around more, then met up at around 10 when the museum closed and then we went to find somewhere for dinner. This place was where I accomplished my first goal and had my first authentic French Onion Soup!! It was amazing, best soup of my life. I wanted to order like a million of them, but realized I didn't have that much money haha. We walked around a little more after that then headed back to our hostel for the night. The next morning we joined a free walking tour of Paris that had at least 50 people. It was the biggest tour I have seen. It was pretty good though, and we had a really good tour guide. We started by St. Michel, and continued along and saw the main sights of this incredible city. The Pont Neuf Bridge, Notre Dame, We went back to the Louvre and saw the gardens again, saw the Eifel Tower from a distance and ended on the Champs-Elysees, which is my favorite street ever. It was a good tour and we got to learn a lot of history and see all the sights and know where we would want to go back to. After the tour we began the long walk down the Champs-Elysees which would lead us to the Arc De Triomphe and shortly thereafter, the Eiffel Tower!!!