We began the walk of the Champs-Elysees and the first thing I had to do was for my dad, buy a Croissant on the Champs-Elysees!!! It was the best croissant and oh so meaningful haha, go daddy! We then continued along the way, passing the most expensive and fancy stores you've ever seen. We did, however, find a Disney Store, which was a little too crowded but still awesome! Walked the whole way and finally came to the Arc de Triomphe, which was amazing and had the EU flag and the French Flag waving in the arc and it was really awesome. We went and took some pictures then had to quickly make our way to the Eiffel tower to make sure we had enough time to see it in the light. We got off the metro stop, walked up looked around and saw the tower, it was so incredible being right next to the Eiffel Tower it's hard to explain, it is one of the most recognizable structures in the world and I was right next to it! One of the coolest things was that it had an EU theme to it, it had all the stars which were arranged like the flag, and every hour there would be a flashing light show and the tower lit up all blue. It was beautiful. Kristen and I decided to go to the top, while Antonio and Jordan went to do their own things, and we would meet up later. We waited in the freezing cold for around an hour and a half but once you get up there you forget about the cold, and the numbness of all your fingers, and you just stand and appreciate the beauty of this city. When you get to the top and see the city of Paris all in front of you, lit up for night time, you become speechless. It was so beautiful and made the trip to Paris so incredible. After the Eiffel tower we went down and met everyone and had a nice dinner together and then walked around the city and headed back to our hostel for bed. The next morning we woke up early and headed over to Versailles. I would like to thank Antonio real quick, because of his somewhat knowledge of the French language (haha) we got great deals on metro tickets and he really helped us make sure we knew where we were going. We did, however get a little lost on the way to Versailles, someone told us to go one way, but we needed to go the other way and we got a little confused but eventually found our way. We got to Versailles and walked up to the Palace and wow, what a Palace it was. It was huge, and the courtyard was very fitting for how incredible of a building it was. We didn't have so much time, so we just decided to go see Marie Antoinette's house, and leave the actual palace for another trip, which is ok because it gives me another excuse to come back to Paris!! So we started walking through the palace and went to the backyard and then my jaw continued to drop. The back area of the palace was the most incredible and biggest garden I have ever seen, and as beautiful as it was, in summer it must be completely breathtaking. We began walking the half-hour walk to Marie's house, and about half-way through it started snowing!!! It was the first snow I had seen since I have been here and I was so excited! I missed the snow and it was such a beautiful place to see my first European snow! We walked the whole way, then came up to her house and went inside and took a tour. It was a surprisingly small house and she had pretty much the smallest bed I have ever seen haha, but I’m still glad we got to see it, and it was cool imagining all that took place here in the past. Then we walked back, and that was a brutal walk back let me tell you. It was not snowing all happily now, it started sleeting and freezing rain and it was pretty terrible haha. Antonio had it the worst, because he is from Portugal and is not the biggest fan of this cold stuff =). We got back to the main entrance and we separated and Antonio and I began our whirlwind tour of the rest of Paris. We began at Notre Dame, and went inside and that was one of the coolest cathedrals I have been in, we were looking for the hunchback but Quasimodo was not in at the moment =). After Notre Dame we went to go see the Pompidou, which Antonio was dying to see. The Pompidou is the modern art museum and it has some crazy architecture. He was telling me that it will be my favorite thing in Paris and that it is so incredible, so on the way I just began calling everything that looked awesome Pompidouey and it caught on pretty well. For example, we saw the Hotel de Ville, which was beautiful, and I thought it might be the Pompidou because it was for sure Pompidouey, but it wasn't haha. So we finally got to the Pompidou, and while I’ll give it to Antonio it was pretty awesome, it wasn't my favorite =). After Antonio and I went to the Musee d'Orsay. This museum was probably the second most famous museum in Paris, and held work from such greats as Monet and it was an amazing museum, unfortunately we did not have that much time because they were closing, but we did get to see some incredible pieces of artwork. After we were to meet everyone at Montmartre. Montmartre was a really cool place; it holds the Moulin Rouge, Van Gogh's House, and Picasso’s Studio, among others. It was just a lot of fun to walk around. We had dinner in Montemartre and I had my last French Onion Soup of the trip =(, it was really sad. After dinner we separated one more time and Antonio and I made one last stop at Basilica Sacre Coeur, which is a beautiful church that is above Paris and has an amazing view of the City. We went inside and sat down because Antonio wanted to listen to part of the service, and it was a really beautiful service. We then walked around the area, enjoyed the views then took a funicular down and found the metro station and went back to the main train station where we would catch a train to the airport. We missed the last train to the airport, so we had to take a train to a stop by the airport and catch a bus. We got so lucky, because we were separated, and pretty much magically right before the train left we all reunited, it was pretty funny. We then got to the airport, had to stay overnight, so found a little area we could call home for the night, waited a few hours, then finally got on our plane and headed back to Milan. With that, my last trip had been completed. What a way to end, I loved everything and every moment of Paris, and can't wait to get back.
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