Paris, France

France. The one place I’ve wanted to go since I was a freshman. I wanted to hear the sounds of Paris – the accents, the cars, nature; smell the scent of Paris and the food. Most of all, I wanted to see places like the Eiffel Tower and the Sacré Coeur atop the tallest hill in Paris. I wanted to discover the alleys and see the life of Paris in the spring.

The trip was made possible on March 30^th, 2008 by my grandparents. We were staying for one week on my Spring break from school. The flight to Paris was long, but well worth it. The sights of Iceland, London, and Paris were breathtaking. It was a 7 hour plan ride my grandparents and I enjoyed. When we landed, we took the metro to our hotel. Locating our hotel was an experience all on its own. We went around the block in search of our hotel until we finally found it right down the street from where we started. By the end of the week, we had the whole metro station memorized and walked around like we lived there.

Some places we went to were the Notre Dame, le Tour Eiffel, l’Arc de Triomphe, Musee de Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, and le Sacre Coeur. Each place had its own unique quality that caught my eye. Two stand out the most and probably always will. The Eiffel Tower is a fantastic sight to see, especially at night. It is very old, but still the best part of Paris. I saw the Mona Lisa in the Louvre as well. I was expecting the painting to be big, but it was an average size portrait. Nonetheless, it was gorgeous. We saw paintings from many famous artists while in the Louvre. What I found interesting was the Louvre used to be a palace. A very well crafted one at that.

When I asked my grandparents what they enjoyed most about the trip, they both replied watching me enjoy Paris for the first time. Besides that, they each had unique likes about Paris. My grandma liked how even though the weather was cool and misty, it didn’t stop us from going sight-seeing. She also enjoyed our very thorough search for a purse I wanted. We searched almost every store for it and ended up having to go back to the Louvre to get it. My grandpa told me that his experiences on the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe stand out the most to him. He also found interesting my enthusiasm for the history in Napoleon’s Tomb and the war museum attached to it.

Overall, the trip brought us memories, both fun and disappointing, that will last forever. The only disappointment in our trip was going so far away from our hotel to see the Catacombs, but they were closed. All three of us agree that the funniest part was when I stumped the waiter when ordering a dessert in French. The plane ride home was just as much fun as it was leaving. We all were excited to come home from our busy but fun trip.