Show Me The Way to go Home --Paris Day 3

Day 3 in Paris began with the highest level of frustration yet. Up until this point, we had had our moments of hating Paris, although---to be fair, it was not necessarily Paris's fault. Much of the frustration was simply due to the fact that we were traveling with a large group of people. Even 6 made too big of a group at times. Someone would want to stop and buy something or have to go to the bathroom or want to take a picture, and with six people doing these things at different times... uhh it just started to drive me nuts. But if we lost each other, then we'd have to wait some where or use expensive cell phone calls to find the strays. Plus, like always, you learn a lot about people when you travel and hostel with them... things like who you DON'T want to travel with in the future.

At this point in the trip, most of us had decided we were glad we came to Paris, but we were even more glad we were returning to Valencia. I was especially feeling this was. It's no secret that I'm not exactly a big city girl. So, for me, missing Valencia happened almost the second I set foot in Paris. I also missed hearing Spanish. Valencia is the perfect size if you ask me. But back to Paris. Let's just say we were ok with this being our last day. We were exhausted....and getting on each others' nerves, like ya do. Then this happened:

We had to check out of the hostel at 9 a.m. Some hostels will let you keep your luggage there for the day while you tour. When we checked out, the man at the desk told us we could leave our bags there until one. Well, this was a small problem if we wanted to do some site seeing and still have plenty of time to get to the airport. It could take an hour just to get back to our hostel. I piped up and asked the man what happens to our luggage at one. I asked,
Do you throw it out on the street?" If he had spoken better English and if I had had a second more, I would've explained to him that I didn't want to take advantage of him and ignore the 1:00 rule...I just wanted to know what would happen if we were late BY ACCIDENT. But I didn't have a chance to get any of that out. So he got really upset with me and said, "Why do you say this? Why are you asking these questions like that. I tell you that you can stay til one but now you ask these questions and you can take them now." He was not the same man we'd been dealing with and he was not as nice. I immediately apologized because some of the girls in our group had heavier luggage in duffle bags and I didn't want them to have to carry it around all day. If it hadn't been for that fact, I would've started yelling back at this man...he made me so mad. But he let us put the luggage away. So I let it go and the other girls left their luggage in the luggage room. I wasn't about to leave my stuff there after the way he spoke to me.

Next, we pop on over to a place next door to grab breakfast and to wait for our friends.

This is when we realize "Friends Hostel" was reeeeaaallly not our friend. Brittany decides to run back over to the hostel to get something out of her bag. When she enters the luggage room, she sees the rude man digging in the front pocket of her backpack. "What the @#$%! What were you looking for?" she says to him. He backed away saying, "I don't know, I don't know. Nothing nothing." She grabs her bag, comes to tell the other girls, and they all run over and take their bags from the hostel. On her way out, Lillie (who had also found her luggage unzipped) shouted out to new people entering the hostel, "Don't leave your stuff here. He'll steal it."

Sad faces after near-theft experience


In this moment, I just wanted to NOT be in Paris.


Lillie wore her duffle bag as a backpack. Thumbs down Friends Hostel.


We also found out that another girl from FSU staying at the same hostel had stuff (money and such) stolen from her bag by strangers staying in her same hostel room. She was even sleeping with her bag next to her head.

Booooooooooooooooooooo

But enough sulking, time to try and enjoy our last day in Paris.
We walked to the Moulin Rouge...which, until this day, I hadn't put it together that Moulin Rouge means red windmill...or maybe I had..but I forgot.



It wasn't the most incredible thing to see. But it was cool to say we went there. Shows were too expensive to try and go see.

Next, we walked up to Montmartre Hill
This was one of my favorite parts of Paris. Cute little streets, not crowded, great view of Paris, and a few windmills like this along the way.

and this...



soooo french



Cute little square of artists






Hot wine brewing machine. . . it reminded me of a contraption in like
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or something.



I swear that in real life, I didn't look like such a Sesame Street character in this hat-glove-scarf ensemble. But in every picture, I just look like Grover or the cookie monster.


Sacre-Coeur Basilica

Besides the tower, this was my favorite. . . even more than Notre Dame

But we couldn't take pictures inside...so you'll just have to visit yourself.


Video on top of Montmartre


Ok so at least twice in Paris we saw some Asian people all dressed up and getting photographed. But like...for real photographed...with a crew of people around them so that at first, you thought it was a model having a photo shoot. But nope. Not a model. Apparently they just get dressed up, go to a pretty place and get their picture taken. This girl was the most dressed up Asian we saw doing this.


See her camera crew? It kinda made me laugh...but maybe it is for some form of publication?


Statue street people



We left the hill and then last stop in Paris was the Catacombs. Here's the gist of the Catacombs... or at least what I took away from it.

Under neath the streets of Paris, there are these tunnels...once used as a quarry for mining limestone and such.


the dark line on the ceiling was there for the people to find their way out if they got discombobulated in the tunnels.

Then one day, after the mine had quit being used as a mine, a bunch of people died in Paris from an epidemic. They were buried in a cemetery. But then the alive people who lived around the cemetery started catching the epidemic disease from the dead people.


SO...they had to move all the bones in the cemetery into this old quarry. They had a big procession and ceremony, I think, to try and be respectful to all the dead folks.
Now, in the halls of this old quarry, there are just piles and piles of bones.

They are neatly stacked piles. Which makes me wonder who were the unlucky people in charge of neatly stacking diseased bones? And how many of those people just killed over from that?

It was just about the eerie-est thing I've ever encountered.

R.I.P. diseased people. I'm sure you had no idea that one day you'd be a tourist attraction.

After you climb 83 steps to get out of the catacombs, they check your bags to make sure you didn't take any bones. And the thing is, they actually have a collection of bones that they've confiscated off people trying to steal bones. Who wants a real person bone in their house?


After a quick snack, it was time to head to the airport. I was tired, my body was aching, and my hair was greasy...it was time to go home. I would definitely suggest that the best way to feel at home in the new city you're living abroad in is to visit another city... one that you will feel even more foreign in. This is what Paris did for me. It made me call Valencia "home."
I wish I could say I left Paris with a whole bunch of knew knowledge, but everything in the Louvre was in french, and it's just hard to spend a significant amount of time at one location when you're trying to do Paris in 3 days.
After seeing these amazing things, especially the Eiffel Tower, it made me want to see everything in the world worth seeing...the pyramids, the Great Wall of China, etc. It was such a rush to have these experiences and to ACTUALLY be in a place so breathtaking. I could seriously get addicted to that.
But for now, it's back to "real life" in Valencia...my new European home.