La Ciudad de la Luz

cheap inter-european travel + a free weekend = trip to Paris :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

On a thursday after Spanish class Rebecca, Emily, Sara, Alyssa, Erin, Carly, and I boarded the metro toward the airport and embarked on a grand adventure. Our destination: the city of the lights. The weekend turned out to be a whirlwind of excitement, but we learned a few things along the way. Here are a few of the do's and don'ts of traveling in Paris:

DO book your flight through easyjet...less than $100 round trip!

DON'T attempt to fit 6 girls into a 2 person hotel room. 1. the rooms aren't big enough. 2. the front desk takes your key every time you enter and exit the hotel, thus checking how many people are actually staying in the room. We ended up searching the streets late thursday night for another hotel with vacancy. Only two of us were able to stay in the original pint-sized room, while the other four bunked down the street in what we deemed as a little more than slightly sketchy hotel.

DO replace every meal with a nutella and banana crepe. self explanatory.

DON'T try to walk everywhere. Although it is an excellent strategy for burning off some of those crepes, you can definitely save some time if you invest in a book of metro tickets. The first day we pretty much just pinpointed the big sites (which are hard to miss) and walked in those general directions. Although this was a fun way to explore the city, we could have saved some time by figuring out the metros a little earlier.

DO see all the major sites :)

The Louvre

 Shout out to Nike

 Lady Madonna- Leonardo Da Vinci

 Mona Lisa Smile

 Venus De Milo 

 Sphinx

Eiffel Tower

 Arch De Triumph

 Notre Dame

 Moulin Rouge

DON'T skip the ferris wheel or carousel. These may seem juvenile, but you are never too old for a little magic :) The view from the top of the ferris wheel was truly spectacular; we discovered why Paris earned the title "city of lights".

DON'T get to the dance clubs until 1 am, DO stay until they close at 5 am, DON'T make the bouncers angry (they are large and scary and we watched them throw a guy against the wall and beat him to a pulp), DO make new friends from the Paris business school, DON'T sleep in too late and miss your check out time the next day!

Rebecca. Sara, and I made the front page of "Le Players" club ad :) 

DO encourage the performers in the metro. They can be quite entertaining. Ejemplo: Here is Emily holding a board for a circus performer who pretended to break it with his head. Maybe you had to be there, but we got quite the laugh from it.

DON'T stand too close to the doors on the metro. They randomly swing open while the train is moving at very high speeds. Never have I been so thankful for the cleanliness and safety of Spain's public transportation.

DO make friends with the captains of Scotland's rugby team. There were thousands of Scots in Paris for the weekend's rugby match and we happened to run in to the captains of the team who happened to want a picture in front of the Eiffel tower with the cute American girls :)

DON'T follow all the latest fashion trends...

man on a pink vespa with a plaid kilt and thigh highs anyone?

DON'T respond to French people in Spanish. After only speaking Spanish to people outside our group for over a month, it just comes naturally to respond to other people in Spanish. French people, however, could not seem to get over the fact that 6 very American looking girls were speaking Spanish...we got many a confused and bewildered look.

DO savor every moment of a magical weekend in Paris with some of the most amazing girls i know!

Te Amo,

Brooke