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Paris + Disneyland 2014 Throwback (Part 1 - Paris)
10:25:00 pmHello dear Internet People!
While I was going through some old pictures, I came across the photos from my trip to Paris so I thought I would do a little throwback and maybe gather some courage to face the upcoming months of school.
(Spoiler alert: this is going to be a long post.)
On the summer of 2014 I managed to find a part-time job in the village where I live and I gathered some money so my mom and I decided to visit our relatives in France and maybe go to Disneyland.
We bought the plane tickets and on September 26th we flew to France.
The plane ride was actually pretty good (we had no crying babies on our flight!) and we entertained ourselves by watching the Divergent movie (wich I loooved, despite having already seen it a couple times... ).
When we got to the airport in France I was really overwhelmed because of the huge amount of people and their different cultures, the huge size of the actual airport and OMG the free Wi-Fi! The fact that I had been deprived of Internet access for almost three hours made me appreciate this gift from heaven even more!
(In case you're wondering why I didn't use the Internet in the Portuguese airport here's why: IT'S ONLY FREE FOR HALF AN HOUR! AND I SPENT MOST OF THE TIME TRYING TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT TO BE ABLE TO FREAKIN' USE IT! THIS IS NOT OK! I MEAN WE HAVE FREE INTERNET ON THE BUSES BUT NOT IN THE AIRPORTS?! *inhales* *exhales* Ok I'm good...)
After leaving the airport we got in a bus and went to Paris, since our relatives were coming to pick us up at the end of the day, we could enjoy the rest of it and visit some popular monuments.
The bus stopped right by the Arc de Triomphe so we decided to take some pictures, however, we didn't cross the road to see it up close because a) it was full of armed men guarding the monument because of the recent terrorist acts and my mom was afraid to go and b) we couldn't find the underground stairs to get to it... I have no excuse for this...
After we took all the pictures we felt like, we kept our journey and to where you ask? No idea. We were just strolling trough Paris walking in some secondary streets thinking that we would eventually end up at Champs-Élysées, I mean it was just down the road right? Oh hell no!
(In case you don't know, the Champs-Élysées avenue is a huge boulevard: 1.9 kilometers long and 70 meters wide, to be precise. If you want to know more about Champs-Élysées click here.)
(not my picture)
Has you can see by the picture above we have Arc de Triumph and RIGHT BEHIND IT we have the Champs-Élysées. Being the overwhelmed and obnoxious tourists that we are, instead of looking back and realising we were about 10 meters away from it, we decided to head right and look for it, because I mean it should be close. *facepalm* I have no excuse for this either...
We ended up on a busy street and sat on a bus stop and my mom called one of my relatives to get directions. Guess what? She had no clue where we were... People who deal with my person on a daily basis know that my biggest flaw is probably my lack of patience. So, while my mom was on the phone reading street plaques to my godmother I told her I would be right back and I crossed the street to ask for directions from a man on a news stand. There was just one tiny problem... I don't speak French. Have you ever seen the Mr. Bean movie where he goes on vacation to Cannes and the only two words he knows are "Oui" and "Non"? Yeah, that's me.
I mean I took French classes for two years on elementary school but unless the poor man wanted to hear me count to 20 or naming some fruits, my knowledge of the French language would not be that useful...
So I walk up to him holding my backpack, sunglasses on, all touristy looking and simple ask "Bonjour, do you speak English?" and he says he does. I just sighed in relief and hoped he wasn't a Mr. Bean English language version. He wasn't! So he gave me the correct directions, I thanked him, walked back to my mom who was now proceeding to describe the street we were on to my godmother, I just start walking and told her to come. She says to the phone "Oh! Nevermind, Eva just got some directions. Bye!", she was all cheered up but let me tell you I wasn't, I was HUNGRY.
Long story short we found a McDonald's, had lunch and decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. We just needed to find it. And you just read how that works with us...
We saw its tip between the building and we started walking on that direction, however... It disappears! Yes, you read that right! We couldn't see it anymore, I was about to go up to someone and ask where the hell the Eiffel Tower was!
After a few minutes, we found it and we quickly forgot about all the inconvenience we had been through. It was breathtaking!
However, if you're thinking of ever going to the top of the Eiffel Tower bear in mind that you'll have to face various hours of lines. In our case, we spent three hours in total between the several levels until we got to the top. It's a very exhausting wait particularly on the higher floors because the lines get tighter due to the lack of space and people get grumpy (and you are not allowed to slap anyone because they are being stupid or because their kids are screaming, you'll want to, but you can't).
In my modest opinion the huuuuge wait is totally worth it because you will be able to see Paris a completely different way which normally isn't possible (unless you're a millionaire who owns a helicopter) and it's so amazing!
Here are some pics!
As we came back down (wich was waaaaaaay faster) I was hungry again (stop judging me, I'm not used to exercising, I needed food) and I bought a slice of something I can't describe but it was something between a pizza and a sandwich and I loved it (surprise, surprise). After that, we bought some souvenirs and we were waiting for my relatives to pick us up and the tower lit up! Now, I knew the tower had lights but I thought it only did so on special occasions but turns out me going to France is a quite special occasion! (Just kidding, it lights up every day...)
*inserts amateur video I recorded*
I know the video is pretty bad, not to say short, but I have a couple pictures to compensate.
So this is everything, about an hour later we went home and I spent some family time with my relatives and we got ready for another day in France!
Thank you so so so much if you read the whole post and made it this far!
Part two, my day in Disneyland is coming soon and I hope you get to read it!
Thanks again and see you next time?
Byeeeeee!
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