Paris: The City of Louvre

Ok, so this past weekend, we went to Paris. No big deal.

After another week of class that wasn't different enough from any of the first couple to warrant a full description, we had our third Thursday group trip. We all got up and on the bus around 8:00am and slept for most of the 2 hour ride to Lleida, an old town to the south-southwest of Barcelona.

We woke up as we arrived at the San Miguel brewery just outside of the town. We took a tour of the brewery, the mixing rooms, the boilers, the filters, the fermentation tanks, more filters, the bottling/packaging warehouse, and a boat-shaped theater where we watched a video about the history of San Miguel. After the tour, we were led into a bar area which I decided is the best possible environment to enjoy a beer. There was a table laid out with chips, nuts, little sandwiches, and other snacks. There were artifacts from the history of San Miguel, and a view of the rest of the brewhouse. There was a bar with 4 San Miguel (and family) beers on tap, and about a dozen more in bottles. Most importantly, there was a Spanish man behind the bar who was a master of his craft. I tried a couple of the beers that they brew at San Miguel, and then tried sips of a bunch of the other ones that my friends were drinking. They were all ice cold, fresh, well poured, delicious, and most importantly: completely free. We spent about an hour or so hanging out there before it was time to go. On the way out we all got gift bags that included 2 beer glasses like the ones in the bar at the brewhouse. Overall, San Miguel was a good time, but we still had a lot of day ahead of us.

We got back on the bus and headed into Lleida where we had some free time to eat lunch and hang out before our next tour. The next part of our afternoon was spent at a communications office, where regional TV, Radio, and Newspaper media were developed. That was pretty cool, but not cool enough to write any more about. It was pretty much what you would imagine.

We then got back on the bus and headed up to a hilltop where an old Cathedral/military fort/castle stood. I use all three words to identify it because it has been used as all three during its history. It's now back to the Cathedral state as it was originally intended to be. We took a tour of it, which was cool, then headed up the cramped spiral staircase (280-something steps) to the top of the bell tower, on the top of the Cathedral, on the top of the hill. It was I pretty high vantage point to say the least... Pretty sweet. We hurried back down to be out of the tower by 7 when the bells would ring, boarded the bus, and headed back to the hotel at UAB.

About half of our 30+ person group went to sleep after we got back, but for the other half, there was no time for sleep, yet. We had a 7:00am plane to catch in Girona (about an hour from Barcelona). It is way cheaper in Europe to fly out of and in to small airports and then take buses into the big cities, so that's how we booked our flight to Paris, but it meant that our travels would be much more complicated than one might think.

Since our train into town stops running at midnight, we caught the 11:30pm train into Barcelona. Once there, we walked around a little bit, some people ate, and we ultimately headed to the bus station on foot. Our bus didn't leave til 3:00am, so some of us (including myself) caught a couple hours of sleep on the steps at the bus station. At 3:00, we got up and rushed to beat the line at the ticket counter (there are a limited number of tickets for each bus-run, and the tickets go on sale right before departure.. it's kind of sick. So, we got on the bus and headed to Girona (sleeping for most of the ride). We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to get checked and catch another little bit of sleep before boarding, take-off and more sleep. We touched down in another little town outside of Paris about an hour and a half later, and boarded yet another bus for a 2-hour ride into Paris and another 2 hours of sleep. Once we reached the bus station in Paris, we hopped on the subway to get closer to our hostel, Blue Planet. We arrived there around 9:00 or 9:30 maybe and checked in and put our backpacks down for the first time since 11:30 the night before.

I guess I'll take this opportunity to run down who I was with in Paris:

Scott (the roommate at UAB, fellow Business Honors guy, former peer-leader in HFBI with me, and a good friend)

Tara (Peer-leading partner in HFBI, Whoop!)

Christina (Another HFBI peer-leader, and another good friend)

Bailey (met her in HFBI as a freshman, gotten to know her better on the trip)

Kyle (good guy that I met on the trip, carries a video camera, impossibly handsome)

Kyle 2.0 (likes to wander, but a good dude)

Josh (funny guy that writes a funny blog)

Tyler (5th-year PPA guy, been to Europe before, hilarious)

Mallory (a PPA girl, vegetarian, says funny things like "Donde Barcelona")

Katie (in my project group for class, takes lots of pictures)

There was another group from our trip that stayed in a different place, but those ten and myself were together for the weekend in Paris.

Anyway, after we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, we grabbed some breakfast at a bakery around the corner, which was delicious, and kept walking, just kind of exploring the part of the city we were in. We were right near the memorial of the Bastille (the famous prison from the French Revolution), and we saw some other things too, before heading up the river to some of the more famous sights. We spent a few hours in the Louvre, which was enough time to see the main things and a few other interesting parts (they say that if you wanted to see every single thing there, it would take about two weeks open-to-close). I saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, Napoleons apartments, some treasures of the monarchy, countless Roman and Greek sculptures, some Egyptian artifacts, and a ton of Italian, French, and Spanish paintings from all eras. It was pretty cool, but we had to leave so that we could eat and get on with our evening.

Tyler and I were given restaurant duty, and we succeeded greatly. We headed straight for backstreets away from the touristy streets and sights and found a little place on a corner between the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. We all sat down and eat to our stomachs' content and our tongues' delight. Bailey and I pulled a great move and got two things and shared them both (so we basically each got to try 2 meals). We all shared some tomato and mozzarella salad (an Italian dish traditionally, but still good in Paris). Bailey and I had ravioli filled with herb goat cheese in a light olive oil sauce and then lamb chops with green beans and pepper sauce. I sampled everyone else's plates too and had some turkey, some roasted duck, and some salmon pasta. We all shared a crepe with chocolate sauce and the best vanilla ice cream I've ever had for dessert.

With our stomachs full, we headed to the south leg of the Eiffel Tower, the meeting place for the Fat Tire Bike Tour. If you've been reading, you know that we did the one in Barcelona and that it was awesome. We were running a little late, most of us sprinted about 3/4 of a mile while Bailey, Mallory, and Josh got lazy and took a taxi. Either way, we all made it on time and got started on the "night bike" tour. On the bike tour it was us eleven Aggies, a couple from Australia, two girls from Canada, and a few English-speaking Europeans, maybe a South African or two. Our tour guide was Ned. He's a really cheesy guy from Durham, North Carolina, and ended up being a really good tour guide.

Anyway, we got on our bikes and started through the city, through the Latin Quarter, along the river, through parks, with stops at Notre Dame, an ice cream place, the prison where Mary Antoinette was held, another Cathedral, the Louvre, some famous bridges, etc. We then parked our bikes and got on a boat that went up and down the river where we saw even more sights and where Ned started pulling bottles of wine out of his packs. After about an hour on the boat, our 20 people had drained a solid number of bottles of wine together (I won't say how many). So, we got back to the dock and got back on the bikes (a bit tougher riding them at this point for some reason). Anyway, we stopped at the Eiffel Tower again just in time to see it "sparkle". (This is where 20,000 or so white lights turn off and on randomly... they did it for the first time at on New Years as the century turned in 2000, and the people loved it so much -legend has it that the roar of the people registered on the Richter scale- that they kept doing it. Every night, on the hour at ten, eleven, and midnight.) Anyway, we hopped back on the bikes and rode around the corner to the bike shop, thanked Ned, and headed back to the Eiffel Tower to spend the rest of the night enjoying some champagne in one of the most famous places in the world. Around 1:00 or so, we caught cabs back to our hostel. Luckily, Scott, Christina, and I found a language in common with our cab driver... it was Spanish. Anyway, he found our hostel and we basically went straight to sleep in a bed, for a change, after a night of sleeping on steps, a bus, an airport chair, a plane, and another bus.

We woke up the next morning and headed out for another full day. We went back to the Eiffel Tower (this time to go up to the top). As we waited in line, we saw something very interesting. There were a bunch of guys walking around under and around the tower selling little souvenir Eiffel Tower keychains. There were also cops on bikes trying to sneak up on them to arrest them. As soon as one Eiffel Tower salesman spotted the cop, they would all sprint away, only to return no more than a minute later to sell their mini-Eiffels. This was enough to keep us entertained while we waited. Kyle even got a nice video of things getting way out of hand between law enforcement and the Eiffel pushers while we were on the first level (about 20 stories up). So anyway.. we took the stairs up (680-something of them I think) until there were no stairs. Then we took the elevator up to the very top. I'm not a fan of heights, but the view was quite spectacular. It also just felt really cool to be at the top of the Eiffel Tower, such a famous place.

After a while we made our way down and met back up with the whole group. We decided to split up for the afternoon, and it started to rain.. so my group found a place inside to eat. I had a steak and it was good... Not quite as good as dinner the night before, though. Anyway once the rain let up, we headed to Notre Dame. Once again, it felt really cool to be inside such a famous place. The history of Notre Dame is really cool too, you should all read about it... or go there.

After Notre Dame, we headed up to Montmarc, a hill on the northern edge of Paris (where Moulin Rouge is). We spent the evening up there, walking through another amazing church, sitting on the steps listening to musicians play, and just hanging out. We ate dinner at a place around there called La Maison Rose (The Pink House). We had another amazing meal there (shared Escargot, French Onion Soup, Chicken with rice and an herb-cream sauce for me; duck, steak, salads, etc for others). We headed back to the steps of the church again to hang out for another hour or two before journeying back to our hostel. Most of our group took the subway, but Christina and I decided to walk back across Paris to our hostel. Since it was our last night there, we didn't want to be traveling in a tunnel. We got back in time to sleep for about 3 hours before getting up at 5 to travel back to UAB (train to the bus station, bus to the airport, plane to Girona, bus to Barcelona, 2 trains back to the university, a walk back to the hotel).

We got back around 1:00pm on Sunday to the hotel, where I just took a much-needed shower, closed the curtains (creating the "Bat Cave" as I like to call it) and went to sleep for about 5 hours. I woke up to Eat dinner with Scott and Karen, played a little guitar, and then went back to sleep for the night.. another 7 hours or so to be ready for class on Monday.

Anyway.. it was a great weekend to say the least. I'll post pictures soon.

This week we have class Monday and Tuesday (today). Later today, Barcelona celebrates the longest day of the year but staying up all through the shortest night of the year hanging out by bonfires on the beach, shooting off fireworks, and just having a good time. The entire city has the day off on Wednesday, including us. Thursday we have another day-trip, and then Friday morning we leave for our group weekend in Madrid, so there should be plenty more to come!

I hope this post finds you all doing well and enjoying the summer. Oh by the way, the temperature in Paris never got above 69 Fahrenheit. How's Texas? Haha