Last day in Paris

Didn't rain...but it was cloudy. We had reserved this day to see the Catacombs before we left in the evening, but of course as soon as we walk up..."Catacombs closed 17 June - 19 June." Of course they open the day after we leave! Not cool. So that was sad. We sat there for a while trying to figure out what to do for three hours. I finally remembered the Military museum near a station, that had Napoleon's tomb.  (We usually had to plan things out before leaving our room, and wifi, since we didn't have a city map to look up places/attractions in particular.)

Took the Metro over there and walked a ways, and this place is huge! Cannons line the entrance and there is a great view  in all directions.

After wandering around for about an hour, we headed back to pack up for our train. But I did take a couple pictures on my iPhone, so here they are:

Hehe. In the Metro. Minions!!

Ha. Crooked and dark. Sorry. Impressive courtyard of the museum.

His tomb is on the other side, behind the glass.

No hats.

This seat in the Metro was missing, but I only noticed it when a guy came to sat down, then promptly yelled as he fell right through. 

I love how these just go on and on and on....

Jumper

Sunny day! Through pure willpower.

We made it all the way to the lifts after waiting in line to get tickets for an hour, when they shut the Eiffel Tower down. Literally the doors closed in front of us as we were waiting on the little platform to go up. An announcement was made, and they said something was wrong on the second floor (main viewing deck) and everybody had to leave.

I'm standing there, already writing a much nastier post than this one, in my head....

There's a bunch of commotion, as expected, so everyone kind of shuffles down and out, because they said we can get a refund or come back again in the afternoon when they could open again. But since Tessa and I pretty much dedicated this whole day to see the Eiffel Tower, we just sat down and started to read. They'd open eventually.

For an hour and a half we read and ate rations from our backpacks, sitting on the platform for the lift. During the first twenty minutes or so, everyone but two people eventually left the building. The two who stayed with us the whole time were an American couple, so I talked with them a bit, and we tried to figure out what was going on. The lift kept coming, but only bringing people down.

So after this hour and a half, they make the four of us go downstairs to the porch of the building, still shady, but no more A/C. See, it was sunny and hot out all day. Not that I was complaining about the heat of 85 degrees and no clouds...

And, well, we finally find out what happened. Some guy on the second floor was trying to jump. My animosity toward the whole situation immediately evaporated. 

The staff of the tower really were kind in the whole situation, and about 90% of the people did end up refunding. I don't know why the poor guy picked the one sunny day of the month to jump off the Eiffel Tower, but it wasn't really considerate of him. Anyway, as they were roping off sections of the square under the tower, we started wondering where you actually can jump off of...I mean, we did have a long time to contemplate all this. And I think they got him down because no police came or anything, it all ended quietly.

Eventually...we made it up to the top! And let me tell you, I was SO freaking out on the way up. Every 30 seconds or so i heard Tessa say, "Leah, unlock your knees."

The nice thing about having the Eiffel Tower emptied right before you go up...you're the first ones back and there's like no one up there! Which really reduces the chance of pickpockets and for sure makes it less crowded. We walked straight to the lift that goes to the very top, since the initial one only goes to the Jumping Guy floor.

Besides the complete terror and hyperventilating thing, it's really quite nice up there!! The day's heat turned to a nice breeze that high up, and I took lots of pictures once my sweaty hands managed to get the camera out of my bag. 

After about 15 minutes up there we descended back to Jumping Guy floor, which has shops, a restaurant, bathrooms, touristy things. More pictures, and I started to get a little used to the height. Fewer freaking out moments.

From this floor you can take the stairs down, so we did just that. It's 42 stories so it took a long time, but after all that waiting and standing and sitting, we figured we needed the exercise.

Today turned out a lot more interesting than we expected, so I'm sort of glad this post isn't just "Yay we went to the Eiffel Tower!" ;)

Tomorrow we are going on a tour of the Catacombs in the morning, and our flight leaves in the evening, to Estonia.

I remembered to take a lot of phone pictures this time:

"I'm going up that thing?"

I think this is from the top...?

From Jumping Guy floor:

Selfie with Tessa's fingers photo-bombing, which made me laugh:

This ice cream is three times more expensive as Cold Stone; the flavor was "biscuit" and it literally tasted like a tasty biscuit.

Wetness

I'm going to tally up how many posts are about rain. They're sadly adding up.

So today was interesting. (Didn't end up going to Brussels yesterday, sorry.)

In the afternoon, Elizabeth dropped us off at the Mons main station. According to confusing website details, the busses stop at the same place the trains to, since it's a relatively small town. 

All of today it was absolutely pouring out, and we hadn't walked around in the rain with our packs on yet; that was a super duper fun new experience.

Our bus was a half hour late, and for that hour before, we weren't even sure it was the right place since nobody inside the station knew where EuroLines buses stop. (EuroLines is like Greyhound at home.) And once our bus finally arrived at 3pm, we walked up to it and Tessa suddenly couldn't place her passport. Much searching ensued in the two minutes the driver allowed us, while I stalled by putting my baggage on, etc...and then she found it! That was extremely stressful.

Rain, busses in traffic, rain, border control check, rain. 

Three hours later we arrive back in Paris! It's starting to feel a lot like home base now. But this station we are at, we immediately realize, is somewhere in the city, and we aren't sure where. Thankfully there was a Metro connected to it so we hopped on. But it wasn't so easy because the ticket machine thingy, that lets you through? Wasn't working. None of them were. So we, and the people around us, kind of slipped through the "out" doors in a very complicated manner that took a good five minutes. This station was so ghetto and scary we hopped on that train real fastlike.

Then our connecting line/stop was down for maintenance for the week. Of course.

Off the next stop, we look at a dozen maps and pick a direction. Hopefully to the Metro line that will take us back home.

At this point we weren't even sure what the difference between the rain and our sweat was, so that was miserable. 

We walked for a good 25 minutes, through the red light district, down some cool looking alleys, and across puddled streets, and finally made it.

Finally 30 minutes later, back on Didot street where Micheline lives, we buzz in, knock on her door, and she answers...in French, and goes on for a whole minute, in French, looking at us like, why are you staring at me silently? Tessa and I look at each other, because she knows we don't speak French. We just keep staring at her for a whole minute, dripping on her doormat, and then finally:

Pause. "Oh! You are someone else! You are backpacker girls! Come in! I completely forgot you were coming back..."

Us: ..........

"Let me think, I don't have your room anymore but we will put you downstairs and you no pay! I'm so sorry!"

We were wondering the whole way over, if she had forgotten we were coming; yes she had. But we got the downstairs mysterious rooms. This place is endless, and has about a million passageways.

So yeah, that was our crazy day. If you didn't skip to the end here, thanks for reading. ;)

Right now we finished eating and are now talking to Micheline's newest houseguest who's French, and taking our room, and he is telling us about his favorite US rappers. ....

Now I get to sleep, and hope it's sunny tomorrow so we can go up in the Eiffel Tower! *crosses all my fingers*

Musée d'Orsay

Another rainy day...totally not cool for Eiffel Ascending. So hopefully next week when we're back, it's sunny!

Today we rode the bus instead of the Metro for the first time, and made it to Orsay pretty quickly. Then waited in line for 40 minutes. I actually liked this place WAY more than the Louvre. The paintings are more interesting, and it's smaller, not as overwhelming. I would go back.

Sorry, the rest of my pictures are on my camera...

I did find out I'm a big fan of Van Gogh, and Georges Seurat. And a few others but I can't remember offhand. Monet had a couple I like too.

Right now Tessa is packing up her bag, as our train to Belgium leaves in two and a half hours. At least they still speak French and use Euro there. 

Rainy day

Not much to say, just wanted to upload some pictures of today.

It was very dreary and rainy, which usually I love, but it's also Sunday...and everything is closed on Sunday, or closes at like 4pm. Even the supermarkets!!! We did get a fresh baguette on our way back from the Louvre. But we ate it all before we actually got back to our room. So yummy and crackly and warm!!

--------

Hey look there is an Apple store in the Louvre! Haha. Kind of sad.

It's blurry because I didn't want him to wake up and get kicked out. We were tired too but he is sleeping on the job!

So. Much. Walking.

You can see the tip of the Eiffel Tower if you look closely.... Right below here. Very grey and cloudy but it's there.

Okay and here I am, one day later. Realizing I never posted this, and we had another rainy day so here are more pictures.

This is inside Shakespeare & Co. I wrote my name on the wall, as you do, and just enjoyed the bookstore a whole bunch. Everything was too expensive to buy so I just got a postcard to send to my bookstore at home!

Ewewewew. Worse than Skittle Shake.

Well ending on that lovely note...

We are going to Mons, Belgium tomorrow! A family friend lives there, so we are going to stay with her for a few days. It's just too expensive to stay in Paris any longer. We will train back before our flight though, since that leaves from the Paris airport.

An Unexpected Party

Today we slept in until noon, then by evening we were awake enough to go shopping at the grocery store nearby for the week. So when 8 o'clock rolled around (after another hour nap.) we wandered into Micheline's kitchen and expected to make some pasta we bought and some veggies to stir fry.

The next thing we know, Micheline appears and she is getting some white asparagus out of the fridge and saying a lot of things we only half understood. Next a man comes through the door with a plate of fish and then a woman with some more food, and there is a lot of French everywhere everywhere. Micheline hands us some silverware and plates and we set up on the back patio next to the garden, still completely unsure of what's going on. (Are we supposed to help? Eat with them? Cook something too?)

These people live down the hall and are Micheline's daughter, Carole, and her husband. They had just made food so joined us for the evening.

Tessa and I decided to just go with the flow, and soon enough we had a very interesting meal in front of us:

Small cantaloupes which we all agreed were overripe.

A blended aubergine with garlic. It's like a paste, but the sponginess goes away since its blended (with a blender), and the garlic helps, but I found it slightly bitter still. 

Small organic radishes. Carole's way of eating them were to slice the end like an X, stick some butter in it, and dip it in sea salt. Really, it's way better than it sounds!

White asparagus (previously cooked soft) dipped in truffle vinaigrette. We got a whole lesson on what exactly white asparagus was, because neither of us had actually seen it before. Look it up, it's about four times as thick as green asparagus, and it's white because when it grows, they keep putting dirt on it so the sun never touches it. I think.

And some lettuce. With vinaigrette.

After everything was back inside, Carole's husband got a ladder and picked a bag full of cherries from the tree because the birds kept taking them. They were tasty but not too sweet.

Now it's about 10 o'clock, sun setting, and in probably an hour or two, the kitchen will be busy with activity again like last night. Who knows.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

------

A wall of chocolate!! We will have to get some. This is actually only one of three walls around the supermarket. And a whole other wall of biscuits as well.

View on the Eurostar: (out of order, this came first.)

This was in the street when we left the store with our groceries, and so I took a picture of it.

Eurostar

The morning of our London departure: We visited Kew Gardens over near Richmond (affluent area) and walked around some beautiful garden grounds. We took lots of plant pictures, and finally found some freshly made ice cream.

Then we met my German pen-friend Katharina for a short while to explore the Science Museum together. She just flew in from Spain to volunteer at her cousin's elementary school in London for a couple weeks.  It had been two years since I'd seen her last so it was very nice to say hello!

Our Eurostar train left at 4:22pm so by then it was just past three. We ran back to grab our backpacks at the crappy hotel, and then raced for one last ride on the Tube to St Pancras station, side by side King's Cross.

When we boarded our coach (after customs, passport stamping, and bag screening) we were immediately followed by....no fewer than thirty loud, French, thirteen-year-old boys. They immediately started blasting the Thrift Shop song on someone's phone, and made a game of throwing a package of sweets back and forth across the aisles. (It was a four hour ride.)

As I'm writing this: They've figured out we are English speakers, and now we are helping them with their British-English homework, since it's a school field trip.

Anyway, after we arrived in Gare du Norde I realized quite suddenly that I did not remember much French at all. Thinking back, I've been saying "Je parle un peu Français." for, oh, six years now. I'm really, really sorry for unintentionally deceiving you, Tessa.

After about 40 minutes of trying to figure out what ATM is in French (for we had no Euros) and where an info booth was, we made it on the correct Metro lines with a small handwritten map in hand!! By then we were both already exhausted. Packs=heavy no matter how well you pack.

Finally we got off on the nearest station and had to ask a fruit stand guy to tell us where Didot street is, and we got yet another handwritten map. THEN once we got to the street, some lady walks past us and says "oh, backpackers, right?" (No, we are just carrying around a few tons of crap on our back at 9 o'clock at night.) She has a complete American accent to my delight, and she's from California. ("Oh, I don't speak French but I live here. Where are you going? Great, I live in that building!")

We buzzed in and knocked on Micheline's door, dearly hoping our directions and contact was all right. Well, once we said who we were: "You're the two backpack girls! Mon Dieu, I completely forgot about you! Leave your stuff here and go get some food. Come back in an hour and your room will be made!" She lives above an Indian food restaurant, so we went there ("Oh you don't have money yet? Don't go get cash at night! Go down there and order and say my name, and I'll be down to pay for you in a  few minutes.") so we ordered Indian food in French.

We are staying with a friend of a friend, Micheline, who is an 85 year old woman who lived in the States for a decade in the past, so her English is fair. Her hearing on the other hand, is not so fair. She also has un petit chien, Maxsu.

Now, this place is costing us $32 each, a night, so our budgeting is for four days in Paris. But we would absolutely love to stay longer, we just haven't figured out how yet....something will come up, it always does.

Our room: