May 10, Réunis avec Paris

We left our hotel by 3:30am in order to catch our 5:40am train to Gare de Nord. The journey had us exhausted from carrying our (even heavier) luggage onto two buses, and running through the rain. All that mattered though was that we made our train. We took Eurostar to go underwater (badass), a 3 hour journey - most of which I slept through. We finally got to Paris! But Paris welcomed us with misery. We were initially supposed to be picked up from a family friend of Madusha's, P, but he unfortunately could not make it last minute. So we had to figure out how to get to our hotel on our own, something we didn't plan prior to the trip. Long story short, we struggled with buying metropasses because all the ticket booths were closed (which I will never understand why) and a man who only spoke french in an information booth was reluctant to help. But two hours later of asking people, who didn't know how to speak english, questions; carrying luggages up and down stairs (the Paris metro needs more escalators); and being confused about which station to get off at because the trains would randomly skip stops, we figured it out and finally arrived at our hotel!

Once we got there, we left our baggages at the hotel and grabbed some lunch. Food was the number one priority after an agonizing morning, having very few hours of sleep, and having no breakfast. We ate at an Italian restaurant located inside a shopping centre right beside the hotel. When we got back to the hotel, we were relieved to not have to pay an extra fee for an extra person, to know that there was free wifi, and to see that our room was bigger and nicer than the last. We spent some time to just relax and to get ready to go out.

Our first stop was to see Madusha's friend V, who showed us around for a bit. We walked through Jardin des Tuileries and Place Vendôme where we saw views of the Palais Garnier, the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, very rich shops, and the Ritz Hotel that Princess Di last stayed in before her death. After we took a fair amount of photos and said our good byes, we went to Trocadéro station to take even more photos, but by the Eiffel Tower. We also met up with P there. He drove us around Paris and showed us, more or less, all the important monuments. He showed us l'Arc de Triomphe, the Panthéon, les Invalides, Cleopatra's Needle, Pont Alexandre, Champs Elysées, Saint Michele, Notre Dame, and much much more. We walked around the Latin Quarter, then had dinner at a restaurant called Hippopotamus along Champs Elysées. After generously treating us to dinner, P was nice enough to also drive us back to our hotel. We're very thankful to have had him show us around, especially in our exhausted state! We got back before midnight and were really excited to get some sleep!...after we wanted to shower. Oh and then after we would write in our journals. Oh and then after we would check our messages and emails. We basically ended up sleeping by 3am. YOLO?

Ps. Don't ever complain about a dirty metro system until you've seen Paris'.