And I have officially fallen in love. With this beautiful city. But first, a short story on getting there from London. We went to the train station at 7, perfect timing for our 730pm bus...If the ticket were pm. Unfortunately,we were a tad stupid and somehow got that mixed up. Lucky Canadian girls we are, we begged and apologized at the ticket office and guess what? They switched our ticket to a 8pm bus they had! Otherwise, a new ticket would have cost 190eur. Finally in Paris, after running around an extremely sketchy subway stop and getting a bit of help from the Paris police (who flirt with you even after we are a tired mess), we finally found Nitesh - our first couchsurfing host! We spent our evenings with Our very kind, accomodating host, in his residence place, a bit outside central Paris. Paris is similar to London in grandness and old architecture, squares, and easy to navigate streets. It's gardens though, they are what we were most in awe of. Huge pristine gardens and parks, with statues, lakes, and immaculate flowers; we could have spent an entire day sitting in them. Then there was the famous glass pyramid, the entrance to the Louvre. Even with half a day in the museum, we still couldnt see all of the over 35,000 pieces out of pure mental and physical exhaustion! I will tell you that this must be, by far, the most magnificent collection of art works I have ever seen. We saw the Mona Lisa there too. Notre Dame we heard the famous bells ringing and witnessed its ornate architecture, and saw Saint Chapel's beautiful stain glass windows and gothic style. Ate lots of baguettes and macaroons (not such a fan).
And half day trip to the Palace of Versailles is well worth the trek. King Louis XlV and Marie Antoinette both lives in palaces and houses we visited there. The Hall of Mirrors wth its numerous diamond chandeliers above it, and 75m ballroom wall of mirrors was breathtaking. That, and the perfectly created gardens and statues that look better than anything I've ever seen in movies. After that we climbed the Eiffel Tower by day and the champs design mars park below it, then to the nightlife and saw Moulin Rouge by night. It's legal to drink the cheapest 1.6eur bottle of wine in the park there, and get buzzed with your new couchsurfing buddy, with lots of drunken solo French men around doing the same. One skinny man in glasses kept coming over to tell us not to leave our couchsurfing friend, we need a guy, it can be dangerous. We brushed it off politely until we tried to leave and this huge drunk lug stumbles over demanding my number. After numerous attempts of "no cell", and "really just NO", and a vice like arm grip; I got a giant hug and slobber kisses all over my face before our pushes worked. City of not-so-much-returned love. At night, the Eiffel Tower glitters in gold and twinkling crystal lights and the city came alive for Fete de la Musique - a Paris-wide celebration of live music and concerts for free. The Paris club we went to had a crazy vibe! Fluorescent lighting and loud electro beats, mixed with brightly painted and dressed bartenders that get up and dance wildly on the counters. As morning came round they even sprayed liquor onto the dancing crowd, having us collapse home at 5am sticky, tired, and very satisfied.
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