Paris in a day? Challenge accepted...

I've been home from Paris for over a week now and thanks to University, the weekend abroad seems like a far away dream. I've just handed in an essay and for the first time ever, I struggled to bring my word count down to the word limit, instead of being desperate to reach it. My brain feels slightly sluggish so instead of diving straight in to the 3,000 word report I have due in next Wednesday, I thought I'd allow myself a little blogging break. And what better way to rid the deadline-day-blues than by reminiscing about being in Paris?!

Other than being tricked in to eating disgusting pesto biscuits (seriously, who would invent that? And why did Soph keep a packet in her bag for the rest of the trip?) the flight from Bristol was very uneventful. In true Soph and I style we managed to questioned our entire existence during the hour long flight and I think we were really glad to be distracted by the landing (I was at least).

We had the sweetest man serve us our tickets, he was so helpful and a little cheeky! He asked us what hotel number we were in and in true dorky style, I was under the impression it was because he needed it to give us directions rather than as a playful bit of flirting. I like to think I'm a totally cool and classy woman but in reality, I think calling me a female Michael Cera would be more accurate...

It took us about 45 minutes to get from the airport to our metro station and then a 10 minute walk to our hostel. We were so tired that we could only bring ourselves to venture down to the common area of the hostel and enjoy being in the company of other travellers. We poured over maps of the area and Paris, planning out how best to spend the next day and a half. When we just couldn't keep our eyes open, we went to bed, arms set for early the next morning.

Sunday was almost too tiring to put in to words. My alarm demanded our attention at 7am and it was painful to get up that early. We had breakfast in the hostel, bought ourselves some croissants from the local patisserie and got on the metro.

We made it to the Arc de Triomphe at 9am, only to discover the ticket booth doesn't actually open until 10am. There's early and then there's just ridiculous! It gave us time to wander through the surrounding streets and we even found a sweet little grocery store with fresh fruit outside. There was barely room to breathe inside, the walls were absolutely packed with all sorts of food and packets and bags and drinks.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that tickets to the top of the Arc de Triomphe were free for us, since we're 18-24 European citizens and once we had them, we found our way back in to the sunlight to find where to go. I'll just say this now, if you do ever decide to go to the top of the Arc, be ready for stairs. It felt like we were climbing an endless staircase and I had to have a bit of a sit down on the (conveniently located) sofa seats at the top. (Note: I've just read on this website that there are only 40 stairs to the top. It honestly felt closer to 100+ and now I feel silly and incredibly unfit.)

No matter how difficult you find the stairs, the view at the top if definitely worth it. You can see across Paris and the view also includes the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately restoration works meant you couldn't get the full panoramic view the day we went but it was still impressive! We did try and take a seflie with the Eiffel Tower but you can't really see it in the photo, something I find more funny than annoying. Bless us!

(p.s. this website says there are 284 stairs and since that felt more accurate and makes me feel better, I'm going with that number.)

We walked down the Champs Elysées and I popped in to H&M to buy myself a pair of sunglasses. We were so lucky with the weather! Blue skies and sunshine all day long. How perfect!

We walked until we found people sat around a small expanse of water, some reading, others sleeping and all of them looking relaxed. We found 2 lounging chairs, pulled them up to the side of the water and settled down for a rest. We ate the rest of our croissants, watched the birds and just enjoyed the surreal sensation of being in Paris.

I'll finish this post on that relaxing note. I'm off to Cardiff with Anthony tonight and my empty bag/total lack of preparedness is calling me away from my laptop. Until next time!