Paris!!!!! And Chaos.....

We had invited our buddy, Kyle, to come stay with us at our timeshare because he was traveling around also but on his own.  He was in Munich and took a night train to Paris. We told him to meet us in front of Notre Dame. We rode into the city and then took the underground to Notre Dame. That was the first attraction we saw in Paris! 

Inside, it had the usual nave and statues, but what really got me was the amount of stained glass windows. Not only did it had two massive circular windows, but every window was a picture by stained glass. 

This picture is just a tiny one and the lighting was so dim inside the cathedral that it was hard to take a picture that justifies the beauty of the stained glass windows. Another cool thing about Notre Dame is the Gargoyles. I remember watching the cartoon as a kid and getting happy meal toys of Gargoyles and it was funny to be reminded of those as we looked up and saw them. There were hundreds it seemed like! After Notre Dame we didn't have any plans beside us wanting to see the Eiffel Tower and Arch de Triomphe. Notre Dame is right on the river and we were able to walk along the river all the way toward the Eiffel Tower. The scene was so beautiful!

The cool thing about Paris is that everywhere you look, you see something that looks historical and important. Not knowing what we were going to find on the way to the Eiffel Tower, but the first thing we ran into was the Love Lock Bridge. It is amazing to see the amount of locks on the fences on either side of the bridge. It is just a wooden walking bridge, but the guard rails are made of chain-link fence so people can hook on their locks. Sarah and I went to a souvenir store nearby, bought a lock, signed it and then headed toward the bridge. Because there are so many locks, it was hard to find a spot that was open for us to attach our lock. We found a spot, locked our lock and then threw the keys into river!

From there, we continued our walk along the river until we were distracted again by another monument. This time, it was Cleopatra's Needle (I think that is the name). In the middle of a big square was a tower like the Washington Monument but it had Egyptian hieroglyphics all over it. Very cool to know that it came from Egypt! 

I definitely felt like a tourist while walking through Paris. Everywhere I looked I kept saying "What is that? That has to be important!" The Eiffel Tower is so big that you can see it from forever away it seems, but just like London and Big Ben, you can't see it when you get closer because of all the packed buildings and tree-cover. But wow is all I have to say about when you finally get in the clear of it. The Eiffel Tower is something that you know of as a child and is something that is on many people's bucketlist. When I first found out that I would be traveling around Europe, Paris was the first place that I knew I had to visit and the Eiffel Tower immediately came to mind. I knew it was big, but I can't really explain the immensity of it. 

It doesn't even fit in the picture. 

We had to walk down the park a ways just to get the whole thing in the picture. 

We thought about going up to the very top, but the line was so long and we were on a time schedule. Maybe next time! Before we had to get back to the train station, we walked to the Arch de Triomphe! We saw it from Cleopatra's Needle but it was from a distance. What really struck me about the Arch de Triomphe was the detail with the figures shaved into the stone. Very incredible, but as it is on the middle of the busiest street in Paris, the amount of traffic around it was gross. Luckily, I was solely in awe of the monument. 

And now began the chaos!!! We made our way down to the metro station and saw Jennifer Love-Hewitt! Just a side note haha. Now the chaos! We made it back to Paris St. Lazare about an hour before our train was scheduled to leave. Only after wasting 45 minutes, the entire train station shuts down and cancelled all departing trains. We had planned the train back to give us time to catch the last train to Andé, and then walk the rest of the way. With the trains being cancelled, we began to worry about making that bus! The train station became too crowded for comfort and not knowing a lick of French, made all three of us want to get out of there. 

Then something happened that I thought I would only see in an 'end-of-the-world' type movie. The departure screen went blank for ten minutes, then only one train was said to be leaving, and luckily stopping at where we needed to go. I have never seen a crazier scene. As soon as that train was noted, everyone started running to the platform to make sure they got a seat. I grabbed Sarah and we began to run because we had to be on that train in order to even get back. If not then we would've had to stay the night in Paris. So we got on the train and sat down, but Kyle wasn't as lucky, but with the amount of people trying to get on the train, he was able to stand in the aisle. The further we traveled from Paris, the more people got off, and Kyle was able to come sit by us. We had planned to try and take a taxi from the train station to the timeshare. Of course, when we arrived in Val de Reuil, there were no taxis and the ticket woman did not let us use her phone. We were left with the safest option of taking the bus about a mile and then walking the 7 miles remaining. Lets just say it wasn't the happiest walk. It took us just over two hours to get back to the timeshare. We had planned on waking up early the next day and go back into Paris, but with us getting back so late and worn out from the day, we decided that it would be more beneficial for us to sleep in and relax for the day.