J' Heart Paris (Part One)

This past weekend I took the train from Zurich to Paris to meet up with one of my best friends from college, Erin, and her sister Alyssa who was studying in Paris. After waking up at 5 am and spending 4 and a half hours on the direct train, I finally made it to Paris, the one European city I normally wouldn’t have visited.

After a warm greeting from Erin and Alyssa at the train station, we decided to ditch my bag and head directly to the Eifel Tower to meet up with their aunt, uncle and two cousins. We soon discovered that the Gare-Est train station doesn’t have lockers. After we took three trams to get to the next train station (three blocks away –we took one tram the wrong way) I realized that apparently the Montgomery sisters have a terrible sense of direction.

We made it to the Eifel Tower safely though and were able to hike up the 700+ stairs to the second platform for terrific views of the city. It is a MASSIVE city. I clearly had no idea what I was in store for. After the tower, Alyssa and I headed back to grab my bag, her bag (she was moving out of the dorms that day) and were to meet up with Erin at the Hotel. So, from the Eifel Tower we hopped on the 8 tram, to the 8 to the 12 to the 2 to the 4 to get my stuff then the B to the 6 to get Alyssa’s bag and finally get a cab back to the hotel. You might be wondering if there was a typo in that we took the 8 twice. Oh no, like I mentioned, the Montgomery girls are AWFUL with directions. After consulting a map and riding the 8 for a few stops Alyssa all of sudden shouted “GET OFF THE TRAIN! WE ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY” So of course we hop off and re-consult the map to which Alyssa commented “oh never mind, we were right” so back on the 8 we went. At which point I became in charge of navigating the city.

After grabbing Erin from the hotel we went up to Montmartre, one of my favorite areas of the city to have dinner (Mussels and Fries and beef stew) and check out some really old church. (As a disclaimer, I did absolutely no research before heading to Paris and still can’t really tell you what we saw, why or where we went. I was actually okay if we didn’t make it to the Eifel Tower.
We followed dinner up with a Jazz club in San Michel, which from the ground floor seemed like absolutely nothing, but downstairs was a live band and swing dancers. (Again, not a big fan of Jazz, but the band was quite good and the dancers were fun to watch). Upon arrival, Alyssa’s friends from school whom we met there announced that there was a “live camel” in the bar. Of course to which I got REALLY excited. I mean who wouldn’t get excited about a live camel in the middle of Paris. After looking for about 2 minutes to locate this alleged animal, and to my disappointment, I realized that what I had heard as “live camel” was in fact “Neve Campbell”. Yup, I was actually disappointed that a celebrity was in our presence, not a camel.

The evening was rounded off with a fast paced swing dance with an old French man leaving me completely dizzy and slightly nauseous and crepes. This city could actually grow on me.