We hoped to go to the French Open, but tickets filled up :( We got to see the outside of the place, though. Definitely not as impressive as the U.S. Open, if you ask me!
That day we found our hostel!Okay, it's not really this one. We'd like to pretend we stayed in a place with a red carpet entrance in the middle of the city...
This is what our Saturday night hostel looked like. (I'm only showing this one because our Friday night one sorta looked like a hotel, and I don't want you all thinking I'm living in luxury). This was a Korean hostel that houses about 20 people max, I believe. We got a free Korean breakfast (rice, tofu, etc.) and had the option of a free dinner, but spend Saturday night in a creperie meeting Australian people instead. The owners were incredibly nice and I'd definitely stay there again!
Andy and I split the cost of this really nice car. When I come back and say that I went bankrupt from European travel, you can assume it is because of the expensive vehicles I collected along the way. There are sooo many pretty cars in Europe! (This has been my favorite so far. Dad, perhaps you should consider upgrading!)
We had a lot of appreciation for the various art museums we got to tour. You can see from this picture that we were very focused on the hidden emotions and the message in each work.Perhaps Tech should invest more time in forcing us to take social sciences/humanities courses rather than our overload of math/science courses...
Woohoo! We went to the Louvre and got to see the famous Mona Lisa. You can't see in this picture, but the rest of the room has massive paintings (the size of giant walls), and then they threw this one on its own wall. I don't think that helped her look very important, but the huge crowds of people around it did, as well as the four security guards and two panes of bulletproof glass.
On our first day in Paris, we visited Versailles. We saw the palace and got to tour Marie Antoinette's gardens. Not sure if you've seen the fourth Harry Potter movie, but if you have, this scene should look a little familiar...
Don't be fooled by the smile on his face. Senthuran was viciously attacked by the hedges. They came alive right as we walked past them. Luckily, we saved him just in time. Right after I took this picture, of course.
The Gorillapod I got for Christmas was the most useful Christmas present I've ever gotten. We took pictures from basically anything. Railings were the most useful. It was a lot better than asking random people to take group pictures for us all the time.
We were surprised when we got our first view of the Eiffel tower. Once again, you can see our strong respect for the architecture and beauty of the tower in this picture.
On Saturday evening, we visited the Notre Dame cathedral. Andy, one of my travel buddies, is Catholic as well so we went to mass. We also convinced our three other friends to attend the mass as well. It was a pretty cool experience. They have the most efficient communion I've ever seen. I think it was 1/10th of the time that St. Joe's takes...
We finished off our trip by visiting the Pantheon. Like last trip, we ended by seeing dead people... there's a crypt in the basement with some pretty famous people in it. We also saw the pendulum that proved that the Earth rotates. It shows the exact time by rotating around that circular sundial-like-clock as it swings. I helped it by giving it a solid push while we were there.
By far the greatest part of the weekend was this. We were all ready to buy a Paris Museum Pass for 35 euros until the lady in Versailles asked us if we were EU students (everyone here thinks you're British if you speak English. Apparently they can't tell the difference in the accent). We showed them our ISIC cards, which are basically things that say we're studying at Georgia Tech and on the back they had some little address line that has Metz, France. The lady told us we wouldn't have to pay for entrance to the Versailles palace. It was awesome. So we decided to try it out other places too...It worked EVERYWHERE. No one at GTL apparently knows this, and I'm amazed. All you have to do is point out 'Metz, France' on the back of the card and they're happy to let you in for free. So the only major expenses I had were food, the 3-day metro pass (should've asked for a discount on that too -- bet they would've given us one!) and hostels. Deal.
I summed up how much we saved by being 'EU students:
Versailles: 13.50
Arc de Triumph: -- (They were on strike, believe it or not).
Napoleon's Tomb/Musee' de le Arme'e: 9.00
Rodin Museum: 12.00
Eiffel Tower: Saved 5ish euro? (had to actually pay for about half of this one).
Louvre: 10.00
Pantheon: 8.00
At the end of the weekend, we were exhausted. It was an amazing trip, though, and I really enjoyed the group I traveled with. I look forward to being with them and many more this weekend in Interlaken!
